Reclaiming Abundance

Wednesday night I did 30 minutes of yoga, which is nothing short of miraculous. I had to modify poses like crazy. (Have I mentioned that I apparently have arthritis in my knees? Forcryingoutloud, is there no respite from the indignities???) And the aforementioned voices in my head would NOT shut up, and no it doesn't help to know the committee meeting in there is all me. In spite of all the racket, though, it was a remarkably yoga-like experience.

My life coach, God love her patient heart, challenged me to think about why I want to have yoga in my life. Am I just saying that to please her or someone else? Is it what I really want? Certainly, there are things about yoga I know I don't want.



Yeah... not so much with that.

But I don't really want this either:


I don't know much about Gurmuhk (Exhibit A) and her yoga, truth be told. But I know that if I start appearing in public dressed like that, I will deserve what I get. As for Ana Forrest (Exhibit B), I would love to be that strong, but only if it happened by accident. She brings a steely ferocity to her yoga that I can admire -from afar- but I don't really want to emulate.

So what does Andrea-yoga look like and why do I want it? Father Joe Pereira is onto something when he says that yoga is loving yourself back into life. As I did yoga, I encountered all sorts of "dead zones" in my body. I don't mean metaphoric chakra-stuff here. There were places along my back that I told to move in such-and-such a way. These places didn't taunt with me disdain or pain. They just plain didn't hear the suggestion that I wanted them to move. There was no response at all.

There have always been places where I struggled to find activity and where my yoga has been challenged. My upper back and shoulders are no yogini's dream come true, and never have been. But some of these dead zones are new, and that's just frustrating. It's daunting how quickly flexibility and strength disappear from the body. It's also true that my body is not pain free. Things hurt that didn't use to hurt. My doctor encourages me not to be sanguine about that. It's not old age creeping up on me, along with my impending 50th birthday. It's disuse. Get to work, he says.

But I'm still being negative, saying what I don't want. I realized the other day that the almost-constant refrain in my head for the past 25 years has been "I just want someone to love me". I thought the person I wanted was Dave and that I had to do whatever it took to make that happen. I apparently didn't HAVE whatever it took, because we all know how that story is ending. But I now know that there are people who do love me, and they turn out to be way more important and good and true than he ever could be.

They are loving me back to life, true. But they can't do all the work. It's time for me to do some of the loving. Part of that process has been for me to revisit and reclaim the girl I was in college -the last time I remember feeling powerful and competent. Along with her mindset, can I have her body? (Oh please, she said to the nice man with the red horns and the tail!) OK, there will be some wrinkles and stretch marks and gray hair that weren't there then. I get that. But why can't my body have the range of motion it had then? Why can't I have the certainty that I am attractive and desirable that I had then? Why can't I have the confidence that my body will do what I ask of it? My doctor tells me that there is no reason at all. Get to work. (Well, he didn't actually weigh in on the attractive and desirable question. I'm extrapolating.)

So, I don't particularly care if my chakras are balanced or my thymus is thumped (don't ask... it's the weirdest damn thing). I don't care if the sutras are studied or I EVER really finish the Pradipika. But I want more than stretching and strength, too. I want literal and metaphoric balance. I want a body that celebrates what the human form can attain. I want the experience of doing amazing things and the certainty that there are enough amazing experiences still to come to last a lifetime.

Yoga is a daily practice of doing only what you can do today. And the learning isn't linear (when is it ever???). Just because I could do a pose this way today doesn't mean I will be able to do it that way tomorrow. I might improve. I might not. I might get worse. And I get to learn to be okay with that. Challenge without denigration, that's my task. Don't be comfortable with too little from yourself, but nor should I frame modification of a posture as failure. Doing the think I can do right now is important for its own sake and it makes way for the next thing. If the dead zones in my body can resurrect (and they have before), then perhaps the dead zones in my psyche can do the same. It's about reclaiming abundance, that's what it is.

Choosing the Baseline Carefully

There are days -most days- when I feel nutty as a fruitcake. My glasses have been lost -in the house!- for over a week. And I don't have piles of junk to lose them in. This means that I did something ridiculous like put them in the freezer. (No. I checked.) Today I received a notice from the State Department of Revenue that I didn't sign my tax return. I spend hours and hours trying to figure out what I could have done differently to actually have the husband I thought I had.

Yup... nutty as a fruitcake.

But that's if you choose someone like you as the baseline to indicate sanity. We need to rethink this. There is this person in town who's right on the friend/acquaintance cusp. I am reliably informed that she has gone off the deep end. She has, I am told, paid $50 to a company that promises to remove alien probes from your body. By phone. You hold the phone up to the part of your body that has the alien probes. They play a sound that sounds remarkably like a fax machine. And then you go on to the next infected body part. Alas, they weren't able to remove all the probes on the first try, and there will need to be another appointment.

Now, aren't you rethinking my sanity? I certainly am.

The Voices in my Head

Not those voices! Happily, I am spared delusions of voices telling me to...oh, I don't know... take off all my clothes and walk down Michigan Avenue. (And if that's what the voices would say, you should be profoundly thankful that I am spared. My comparative sanity allows for yours, in this circumstance!) No, it's the disparaging voice of Dave Rusin that lives in my head, and I definitely need to evict him!

Yesterday, the girl-child and I were cavorting in the waves (see below) and I learned that Dave arrived safely in Hong Kong, (Oh?? What for? With whom?) after having spent a week in London (Oh???? What for? With whom?) I realized almost at once that asking those questions (and I didn't ask out loud) was reflexive. I really don't care about the answers. I did care that he's off gallivanting on other continents and I was in... Indiana. I felt for a tragic moment like my perfect day was less-than and didn't measure up. If only I had been ...smart enough, shrewd enough, a person who planned ahead.... I too could be in Hong Kong.

But I was with Victoria, on the beach which restores me, far enough away from my troubles.... I knew enough -just barely- to avoid giving him the power to ruin my one and only vacation day. I told that voice in no uncertain terms to shut the #($& up. And it did.

The interesting thing was this (and don't say..."FINALLY, she catches on". I know. I know.) Victoria told me that he never asks how I'm doing. She told me that he understands that he's hurt the kids, but apparently doesn't believe that he's hurt or wronged me in any way. Until he left for London, he checked my blog almost daily -I assume for information he could use about my travels and resources. But he doesn't care how I'm doing; he probably doesn't spare me a second thought.

Which means...drum roll please... that the voice in my head isn't his. He doesn't give a flying flip. That voice is mine, projected onto him. Well, hell. To avoid seeming totally pathetic, I need to remind myself that I have decades of him belittling (very subtly, but very effectively) my efforts at almost everything. I think he needed to do that to make up for his own poor performance in some areas of his life. It made him feel bigger. But if I let him continue to do that, that's my responsibility.

The bad news is that I think this will be a very hard habit to break. When will I stop having conversations with him in my head? When will I stop wondering what he's doing now? When will I realize that it's been days since I even thought about him? There is no question in my mind that I am healthier than I was in October. I'm even healthier than I was a year ago, before I ever knew this was going to happen. But true health? Self-actualization? Thriving, at no one else's expense? That's going to be a long time coming. I wish there were medicine to quiet these voices that make me feel like a failure, equivalent to the medicines that work for the voices telling other people to do risky and risque things. Alas, I have to do the work of stilling them, like everybody else who's tried to reclaim a life :(

Forget Engagement; Let's Go With Retreat!

There are three things in life -at least three- that nourish my soul, that make my troubles fall away: spending time with my children doing anything at all, big bodies of water, and holding a newborn baby for as absolutely long as I can get away with doing it. There was no baby involved today, but other than that it was an absolutely perfect day. Early this morning, Victoria and I set off on a "mommy and me" adventure to the Indiana Dunes.

The weather was perfect. We remembered everything we needed -no small feat since I worked until 1:00 this morning. We only got a tidge lost, and that was because the exit we needed was actually closed and the detours were not marked in ways we understood.

It was an exhausting day ;) We watched the sailboats.


We built sand castles.


We watched the waves.


When that became too exhausting, we read beach books and fell asleep. We ate baba ganoush and pita I had left over from something else. It's possible that we were a teensy bit late with the sunscreen application, but other than that the day was perfect. I feel restored.

And there are babies to hold at work ;)

Engagement and Retreat

A week from today my life bumps up yet another notch in the busy-ness department. I'm excited about this new project (a class) and I think it might take me in a good direction. Or, at least, it's worth the investment of time to see if this is a direction I want to go. Nonetheless, for 8 weeks, I'm going to be basically crazy-deranged-busy. I'm going to go from only one day off a week to none.

And I'm having a bunch of company later this summer -about which I am insanely excited. But a truly hospitable person would, say, evict the dust bunnies that have taken up residence in the guest room and create a welcoming space or two. And the fact of the company means that I need to save my paltry few vacation days for that!

So...no vacation time and even more claims on the 168 hours a week that I get -just like every other human, in spite of my clear need for more ;) A few weeks ago I realized that I have to (not ought to... we're talking MUST here!) find a way to sneak away to a restoring place and take some time for myself. I mean something more restorative than- something fundamentally different from- coming home, grabbing a glass of wine and a piece of pita bread and watching Buffy DVDs and knitting on Sam's blanket. That's fun and plenty good enough for the occasional week night. But I'm talking 12-24 hours of restorative goodness.

This train of thought is where the camping idea came from. That's still a go, by the way. So there's one sneak-away-vacation on the books. Tomorrow -assuming the weather improves- the girl child and I are going to the Indiana Dunes. It's a big beach, there's a big old lake (Lake Michigan -we're talking BIG lake!), and there are places for riding bikes. So, think good thoughts for the weather.

Got any other mini-vacation ideas? Any suggestions for themes? I'm thinking Lake Geneva in Wisconsin... kayaking on the Sugar River... a spa day in Chicago... The Cubs haven't started embarrassing us yet, so maybe I'll get tickets and go to a game.

I await enlightenment, oh wise ones.

An Afghan for Sam

Or... we could call this post Accountability for Aunt Andrea. Whatever. Here's proof that I'm working on it, dear one.

Plan B

A while back I talked about two plans that required courage. One worked out, and as it turns out, the second one didn't. I applied for a job I didn't get. This happens. It stinks, but it happens.

In the "door closing/window opening" department we now have another interesting possibility. Remember Thomas and Rachel, the prematurely born children of my brother and his wife? Thomas is hale and hearty and two years old. The anniversary of Rachel's birth and death is almost upon us. I knit quite a few things for them; it's what I do. And besides, knitting for premature babies takes about two seconds. They are so VERY tiny.

When Thomas was born, I talked with one of the social workers at the hospital (Harvard, as it happens -and which turns out to be relevant) where he was born and asked if they wanted copies of the patterns I had developed. They could sell the booklet, give it out to frantic relatives who need something to do, use it for charity knitting.... I didn't really ccare.

One thing led to another, and it seems that this could actually be a book. I've hemmed and hawed. Are my patterns different enough from other patterns out there to be sure -really, really sure- that they aren't essentially someone else's design? I don't think of myself as a designer. MAYBE I'm a writer. Certainly I'm a teacher. It's not entirely a failure of self-esteem that's happening here. I don't want to write something -to go to all that trouble in an already crowded life- if I don't feel like I'm making a meaningful contribution.

But what about this? Say 10 patterns designed for preemies. 10 accompanying essays about knitting -that I somehow finesse to go with the patterns. (That part requires more than a little hand-waving.) And 10 accompanying pictures or drawings -maybe of Thomas? And the title could reference Thomas and Rachel. Life, death, knitting, saving the world... all in one little book. Now, THAT is a contribution that would be uniquely mine and possibly useful as well.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts?

Feathering My Nest

I always wanted sweet porch furniture. Dave never did. Guess how that played out.

But, I had just resigned myself to not being able to afford porch furniture this year. It's kind of expensive. And I really do have to keep reminding myself that not everything has to be done at once. The difference between thinking you can't have porch furniture and knowing that you will is everything -and it's plenty for now. Getting the actual furniture can wait.

But... my friend Elizabeth and her mother came for a girls' day a few weeks ago, and there was a fabulous sale on this porch rocker. And Elizabeth drives a truck, so we were able to shove it in her car. And in the spirit of amazing friendship, she and her mother were willing to do that. I had the side table somewhere else in the house. I had the pillow. The hurricane lamp was a gift from a special friend from an internet group. So, it's my morning coffee sanctuary.

Clearly, the area needs some sprucing up and some more furniture. But it will happen. I'm sure of that now! And I realize that every time I make something that's only mine (as opposed to using something that I shared with Dave) a little bit of healing happens.

Crisis Averted

OK.... there's divorce, infidelity, betrayal, and life trauma. And then there's the bad stuff ;) I went to Panera this morning for coffee (and to do some homework for my life coach... that's another story!) and my iPod wouldn't work. At all. It's several years old and I'm not particularly gentle with it. And it's sort of been a little wonky lately anyway; I've been having trouble syncing it with my computer. It could be dead.

My heart just sank. iPods can be replaced, with...ummm.... the money I spent on tents and sleeping bags ;) But they can be replaced. Yes, I know iTunes tells you to back up your music. Do you really suppose I did that???? Please. The thought of replacing all that music -even of knowing what all of it is- sent me into a sinking spell!

But I got home and popped the podling into the player I use for household music, and it's playing away. I still can't get it to sync, but at least I have music!

Whew.

Another Camping Question

I've never understood this. Enormous (light, but big) sleeping bags come with these teeny weeny stuff sacks that you're supposed to be able to actually get the bag in. It's a stupid thing, but not being able to wrangle my equipment has been part of my dislike (that's too strong a word, really) of camping. Who needs to sign up for feeling stupid? I get plenty of that, thank you very much.

So, this morning I was trying to get my new sleeping bag into its sack. Do you suppose it's an accident that it didn't come in the sack? I'm thinking the manufacturer couldn't get it in there, either. That's what I'm thinking! It probably would have been pretty hilarious to watch me in this doomed endeavor.

Is there a reason I can't just make a pretty drawstring bag that is big enough to be useful?

Hikers and bikers need things to be small. I get that. But I am not that girl. I'm not going camping using only my bicycle. I'm driving to a campsite and sleeping there. The sleeping bag only has to fit in my car, and I'm thinking that even I can make that happen. The stuff sack also helps keep the bag clean, I suppose. But for the love of Mike, I'll be sleeping on the ground. How much sense does it make to be worried about dust??

Of course, if I camp with a non-standard stuff sack I will label myself as terminally un-cool. But I think that ship sailed a while back. Am I missing something else here?

Sam's Afghan

My grandmother -like all self-respecting grandmothers of a certain generation- crocheted afghans. She made me (and both of my sisters, I think) afghans when we went away to college. Mine is green and I still have it. I still use it, for that matter. The week before Victoria was born, that grandmother died. Of course that was a sad thing for so many important reasons. However, a small thing that no longer happened was that there was no one around to make afghans for the brothers who still had to launch themselves.

Now, of course, two of her great-grandchildren are already finished with college -armed with afghans, never fear. And Sam (Baby-Sam. I'm QUITE sure he was a baby just yesterday.) has graduated from high school and is launching himself off to college.

It takes no great mind to have predicted this date. I know when he was born. I know how long it takes to get through school. I can do the math. And yet.....

When I agreed to knit him a blanket to take away to school, it all seemed safely far away. And then the invitation to his graduation party arrived. Last Wednesday.

Ahem.

That day I ...ummmm.... bought the yarn. Hey... it's not nothing. I had to choose five colors! That go together. For an artistic boy-child. That is WAY not nothing. And now I've started.

Sam dear, it's going to get bigger. I'm just going to have to keep you posted. There are two blues and two greens and white. It's made of yarn you don't have to baby. It can keep you warm. Or it can be a picnic blanket at the beach. Whatever. Auntie Andrea is now hard at work on Afghan: The Second Generation. Hang in there!

The Search is On

Last night on the way home from work, I started to feel sick. Just a little, but definite. By 9:00, I figured, what the heck, and went to bed.

Now... flash back to college and that one time (ahem...) that you drank way too much. WAY too much. Remember how when lying down, it seemed like the room was spinning, and passing out would have felt like a blessed mercy? That's what happened, although I hadn't had anything to drink at all. I'll spare you the details, but I spent the night in the bathroom, wrapped up in the sheets from my bed. I must have had a fever, because the sheets were all clammy and gross this morning.

So, I called in sick. Unfortunately, no one who needed to know got the message. Apparently, the shelter residents were worried about me and went to one of the directors who was around.

Where's Andrea?

She's ALWAYS here at 10 minutes to 8. (It was probably 9 or 9:30 at this point.)

So, the director in question called my house. I was, it need hardly be said, in the bathroom and didn't answer the phone. Now, she's worried too.

One of the residents has a friend who works for the state police. When I didn't answer the phone at home, he immediately called his officer-buddy to see if there were any accidents between my house and work. (No, was the answer.)

Soon, I saw that work had called -and unaware of course that now the police were looking for me!- returned the call. I was brought up to speed about the residents' concerns and immediately went to get showered and dressed for work. Seriously, that kind of concern merits my showing up, even if I feel somewhat the worse for wear.

I tell myself that it doesn't matter whether or not the homeless guests like me. They shouldn't have to bother; I don't go to work to be liked. Of course it does matter, but as an ideological position it's still right. No one there owes me connection or gratitude. Of course the days when I feel actively disliked are hard, and those days happen, unfortunately.

And just when you think, #(*! it! I can be hated and earn more money. I'm going to leave and be a ....... something else. I'll change my name and go sell margaritas on the beach in Cancun, that's what I'll do. The plan is somewhat fluid, as you can see. It's possible that it needs a little tightening up before it's useful ;) But trust me, there are the days when you want to turn in your keys. And then... someone cares enough to call the state police to watch for your car, because they don't want you to be dead in the ditch. It's a profoundly touching gift to be cared for like that.

But I'll be driving the speed limit tomorrow morning, just in case the police are still watching for me :)

You Have to Do It To Do It

In the "stop dithering and get it done" department, we have this:




and this:


and reservations here:


The tent is different from the one I showed you before. I decided it was worthwhile to get a tent that I can stand up in. It makes getting dressed so much less annoying. It's actually two "rooms", but the room divider comes down. I'm a little nervous about being able to be warm in a big tent like that, all by myself. The obvious strategy is not to be by myself, but...alas... alone it is. (And really, that is as it should be. I just like to make ribald suggestions. Heaven knows why.) Hence, the mummy sleeping bag. I did some shopping around and poking around in camping discussion groups and opted for a child's bag. My size pays off here, since I get a good bag for not much money. I considered -I really considered- the kid's bag that had glow in the dark constellations on the lining. But I decided that would get old sort of fast.

And the campsite is Starved Rock State Park, which is sort of a cliche if you live around here. I considered Kettle Moraine in Wisconsin, which isn't far. But this is a sneak-away-before-anyone-notices overnight trip. Starved Rock is closer, so it won. And it's gorgeous, it really is.

And the thing that made me decide I really should do this? Thallia. Remember her? The lovely green bike? We're going camping. There's a little voice in my head, that really belongs to snarky Dave in "let's find fault with Andrea" mode, saying that a good person, a worthy cyclist, would ride to Starved Rock. He's done it lots of times. Well, you know what? He didn't do it after working an 8-hour day, with tragically, relentlessly-needy, mostly mentally ill people. I'm trying to shut that voice up -in so many ways, I'm trying. I'm going to ride my bike around Starved Rock, sleep in my new tent, see the waterfalls (not on the bike), drink coffee at the Lodge, and then go to work late the next day. And I'm going to remember the smile that came spontaneously to me as I thought of those activities and not dwell on my certainty that, even in recreation, I don't live up to Dave's standards.

Really. I'm trying to let that go. As I said, I hate days off. Too much time to brood.

I Hate Days Off

I don't really. I need them and sink into them like a nice cozy pillow. But there is one thing I hate. There's way too much time to think.

I have to think about the legal stuff, the financial stuff, the division of the property, the name change issues, the job applications I haven't heard about, the scheduling frustrations for my life, my fears and worries and frustrations -and my need that's just not going away to be a particular person's partner. There's too much NOT to do and too much time not to do it in. So I end up doing nothing, which is wrong all the way around.

I haven't accomplished anything I ought to or even anything I want to today. I've nothing to show for myself. At least when I'm working I can say with some honesty that some good came from my efforts. And I justifiably avoided the hard stuff. A win-win ;)

In a few weeks, my life is going to ramp up to another level of crazy-busy. I think that might have been a good decision, but it might also have been a way to even more efficiently avoid looking at difficult issues. So... I'm committed to the craziness and to the place that the crazy-busy-ness takes me (with any luck and a certain amount of stamina). But I need this to be more than an expensive and time-consuming and energy-demanding strategy for avoidance. (Seriously, Andrea.... a nice trip to the beach could be avoidance, too!)

In that spirit, what is the next right thing to do? Tomorrow, it's back to work. How have I moved myself forward today. Will I go to bed safer or stronger than I was this morning?

OK. After I finish breathing into this paper bag, I'm going to look at the papers on my desk and deal with them. I'm going to make sure I have clean clothes to wear to work for the rest of the week. I'm going to figure out an e-mail to a potential employer. I'm going to knit a bit on my nephew's afghan. And I'm going to exercise. That'll take me through to bed time, that's for sure. And then I can go back to avoiding my hard stuff because I'm at work saving savaged humanity. I mean... please... surely that's a good enough excuse. (Don't look too closely to see if I'm actually saving ANYONE except myself. You'll blow my cover.)

My Mother's Hands

I remember, as a teenager, when my mother looked at her hands one day and said with some dismay, "I have my mother's hands". I was young enough that I was not astonished that my mother's hands looked old. I mean, seriously, wasn't she born old? (She was probably all of 40 when this story happened. I was an insensitive teenager, it need hardly be said.)

Well, karma's a bitch. I don't have my mother's hands. I have my GRANDMOTHER'S hands. My mom has always had beautiful manicures and rock-hard nails. How she managed this, with all the kids and dishes and work, I have no idea. But my rock climber-manicure-free-snaggly-cuticle hands probably figure in her nightmares. I can't quite remember what my grandmother's fingernails looked like, but I'm not getting a long-fingernail vibe from my memories.

And this morning, I noticed that my hands have FREAKING SPOTS on the backs. Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph, this getting old thing has no attendant dignity. I should probably be honored to be taking my place among the women with interesting, hard working hands. Ummmm...... not so much with that. I want to take my place with those women, right enough, but I want to LOOK young when I do it. Alas....

Is there a way to make this work?

Camping, I mean.

I can already read my sisters' posts. Why sleep on the ground when there's a perfectly lovely bed at the Ramada Inn? A point not without merit, I have to say.

Should Dave read this blog, I can hear his comments. You never liked camping. Why would you do it now? True enough, I never did much care for camping the way we did it as a family. I stopped going on those trips as soon as I could get away with it.

But I have this thought that won't quite go away. I want to sleep outside on the solstice. I think I might want to figure out a way to camp alone-ish -like maybe go with my friends or the kids or something. Or maybe alone. But there must be a way that I can do this. (Think Bridget Jones Goes Camping.)

I am categorically ruling out sleeping on the hard ground without a pad. I am categorically ruling out a tent that takes an advanced degree in tent-making to set up. I categorically rule out hikes that resemble the Bataan death march. I categorically rule out gross coffee made over a campfire or any food wrapped in foil and tossed in the ashes to cook. What a vile idea.

But I could rule IN things like sleeping outside and feeling the breeze, a gentle stroll through the prairies, sitting in the woods somewhere and getting some writing done, yoga under the trees. I could wrap my brain around paddling around somewhere in a canoe. And when I get hot and uncomfortable, I'll either go swimming or go find some air conditioning. I could pack food and wine in my new (garage-sale find) picnic basket. I could drive somewhere for Starbucks in the morning. How hard can this be?

The thing is... I have to buy a tent and a sleeping bag and all that stuff. Dave took the stuff we had on his last jaunt to Argentina. Does it make sense to buy it (anew) if I'm not sure I'll use it again? Am I dithering about nothing?

Here's the tent I'm thinking about: Andrea's tent. I have no intention of camping in the winter, so it should be fine. I'll probably just borrow a sleeping bag and pad from the boy-child. Should I start like little kids do and camp in the backyard ;)

It's Enough to Wear a Girl Out

I'm tired all the time. I don't succumb to it, or anything. It's not as though I spend days in bed -although I wish I could! But it's definitely keeping me from doing all the things I want to do and from some of the things I need to do.

In social work, we do a quick run-through when people report excessive fatigue.
Are you exercising enough? Of course not. Next question.
Are you overweight? See above.
Are you worried and stressed? Read the blog!
Are you depressed? Probably a little.
Have you had an emotional shock? Ummm.... yeah.
Do you expect too much of yourself? Well, if I did wouldn't I be accomplishing more?
Do you work at nights? Yup
Is there stress at work? Yup
Do you drink more than 6 cups of coffee a day? Yup

And I've had this same cold really since February.

Ok,so I have an excuse or two. But that doesn't change the truth that there's a lot to be done. Excuses don't matter. Nonetheless, I'm kind of (excuse the sad word play) tired of plodding through my days in a combination of dreading the legal/relationship discoveries and just plain exhaustion. And, I'm adding the fun of a summer class to the mix. Is someone going to find me in a dark closet sucking my thumb? Or is the activity going to be an antidote to the exhaustion?

Remedies I've considered:
a short retreat at the Cenacle
a day trip to the Indiana Dunes
a mental health day sometime very soon
today I skipped rock climbing in favor of puttering around the house (reducing further still the amount of exercise I get, so maybe that wasn't wise)

What do you do? I need some help here!

Who Am I? -Revisited.

Oh! You thought I knew the answer??!! Seriously, what were you thinking? This is a big question, and it did sort of get thrown at me.

Some of you have been following the evolution of my profile to the left of this post. It's a work in progress, to be sure, but it's getting there. And I've made one more decision. I'm changing my name back to my birth name. This is going to be a confusing transition for all of us. I've had my married name for longer than I had my birth name, but we'll figure it out. We're nice smart people.**

Here's my thinking. I have only a little anger toward Dave and none toward his family. But they are not my heart's home, as fine as they are. My siblings, on the other hand, well, we're gifted with each other for life. If someone needs a kidney... If someone's ex-partner needs a serious ass-kicking.... Pretty much no matter what, siblings stand up. Mine certainly did. So, I'm saying in a fairly maudlin way, actually, "these are my people" and leaving a family that didn't stand with me -never even knew me, really. (Of course, not all my siblings have the same last name. The argument gets a little wispy, but work with me here! We're talking symbolism.)

There's also the claiming the new me. I'm not that former person who let someone else define her. I'm this new chick who wants to be brave and idealistic and ...all those other things. So maybe taking a new name will symbolize that.

The kids are okay with this plan, but only okay. They're not crazy about it. I'm trying to figure out a way to help them understand that there is no name change that will affect the ferocity of my love for them. A kidney wouldn't begin to cover it ;) And since that's so unshakable, maybe they need to relax and work on their sibling-ness. They're very close, as it turns out, but all relationships need nurturing. (Are you paying attention, Dave? Lesson #1) I'm here. My name only matters to me. Run off, now, and be sibs to each other. As persuasion goes, it lacks a certain elegance, but that's the gist of the idea.


**It's Buford, by the way. Welcome to the world, grown up girl!

The Gift of Being Seen

These reflections might well become so tangled up as to be, not just useless, but indicative that I am in need of some serious help. We'll have to see. The unrelated thoughts that started me down this road are these...

We had a memorial service at work yesterday for the people who died. I met and expressed the traditional condolences to one of the families. I was talking to the sister of the deceased. The thing she didn't know is that I didn't know her brother. She of course assumed that I did, and there was no reason at all to correct her. The point is that I didn't deserve her effusive praise of our efforts to save her brother. "You knew him. You understood him. You SAW the real him", she said. I have every confidence that the shelter staff who did know him did exactly that.

And what a gift that must have been for a person most people not only overlook but exert effort not to see. The seeing would have been a quiet thing, with no fanfare or announcements of "I see you and know you to be a valuable person. Surely your life will henceforth be changed." It was more of a quiet "namaste" -the divine light in me honors the divine light in you."

So we have quiet, profound seeing -or envisioning, to make it sound more important- and that allows a person to name their own dignity, perhaps.

The second thing that happened is that I realized a few days ago that I had to work hard to be as deceived as I have been about my marriage. Effort had to be expended in order NOT to see the data that were right in front of me. Which doesn't make the demise of the marriage or the deception my fault, but I did more than make it easy for him. I helped. The bone-chilling thought that occured to me is that my efforts might have been so intense that I missed his betrayal of the kids. What if he betrayed his fatherly role as profoundly as his husbandly role? Since "Oh he would never do that" has fallen completely out of my vocabulary, I felt like I had to ask. I didn't so much want to know what Dave had done, but what I had done. Had I failed to see something that was vitally important? (The answer seems to be no, thank all that is holy.) I'm not sure I could have recovered -or that the kids could have- from such a spectacular failure of vision on my part.

They both report, by the way, that they never talk about important things with their dad. He sends them money -which he can do and I can't, so that's a good thing. But how is he ever going to see them as interesting and nuanced individuals if they don't talk about important things? But I'm trying not to own that sadness. It isn't mine. The point is that questioning and listening to the answers ought to be an important part of the kind of seeing that can help a person become their most authentic self.

And finally, I'm wondering if Dave and I failed so spectacularly to see each other that we actually lost sight of our own identities. I certainly lost mine. I had to work so hard to be the person I thought he would like -and he didn't like her either, as it turns out- that the real me just plain wandered off. Is being authentically seen part of knowing who we are? You have to claim the real version of yourself and act on it. You have to allow the authentic vision of the other person. And those two things are intertwined in some way that I haven't figured out yet.

So, if I'm on the right track, authentically seeing someone is a life-changing gift that involves:
quiet reflection
questioning
listening
acting
allowing
-and probably more reflection just to round things out. And besides, it's just good to know that there's someone who knows how you take your coffee. Someone has noticed that you're on the planet. That's not nothing.

Godspeed -and May Our Hands be Blessed

Four homeless guests of our shelter died this weekend. They weren't together when it happened; we have four separate events. As far as I know, there was no violence or mayhem, but four of the "least of our brethren" are dead.

It's easy to think that this is a sign, somehow. I mean... seriously.... FOUR???? OK,we're paying attention. What are we supposed to learn here? It's easy to think that we missed something, overlooked something, avoided something that might have helped us prevent these premature deaths.

Did we do too little? Of course we did. We might have done all that could be done. Probably, that's true. Nonetheless, we did too little.

Did we do the wrong things altogether? That's possible and more disturbing.

Or, was this inevitable, and we offered some solace and comfort and a smidge of dignity to their last days?

I just don't know. We scramble and scrape and pull more than a few rabbits out of hats in order to relocate the inherent dignity in our clients. We see their worth before they do, but that's just a function of the human condition. Most of us can see someone else's dignity more clearly than our own. Now we're faced with -not for the first or last time- the task of crafting a dignified death and memorial for people who have no experience of that.

Peace to Terry McBrien, Dennis Jones, Dave Smith, and Jim Blomberg. We will miss each of you and all of you.

It also occurs to me that as we offer the basic necessities, a little focused attention, and some hope to our homeless brothers and sisters, we can be really hard on ourselves. I can not be okay with a "you win some, you lose some" attitude here. We have to grieve the losses. We have to challenge ourselves to be more effective, more gentle, and all-around better models of a just world. Yet we also have to be gentle with ourselves about those losses.

We do a lot with a little. We take our work home. We agonize over our mistakes. And we go to bed every night knowing that we're safe and cozy and blessedly self-determining, while others are under bridges or safe-but-harried in the shelter. We have to get up in the morning and do it all again. People's needs are relentless.

So... homelessness finally broke these men. We couldn't stop it. That doesn't make them -or us- weak. It just means that injustice is a formidable foe. And we have to figure out some way -many ways, no doubt- to be sure that it doesn't break all of us.

Godspeed to these men, and may our hands be blessed for the work still to come.

Hope as a Spiritual Practice

A monastery where I've found some peace and some spiritual direction burned to the ground at the end of April. Doesn't that just figure? That's what my cynical self asks -or suggests. The place I find solace burns up; my power to attract negative energy apparently knows no end. (insert eyeroll here... I don't really believe that.)



But they're rebuilding. I don't know what their meetings are like. I don't know what their individual reflections are like. There must certainly be moments of despair and darkness, particularly for the person who's single-handedly financially supported the monastery. However bleak those moments are, though, they're choosing to rebuild.

(If you want to help them, go here: John Michael Talbot)

One chooses -they're choosing- to act as if they're certain that there is goodness in the world, that given the opportunity people will do the good thing, that the universe will support any effort to bring good into the world.

I know, in a way I never knew before, how much courage and faith that takes, and I stand in absolute awe. I've spent the day putting my phone away where I can't reach it. I've wanted to talk to Dave -the one I used to know- so badly today that I can hardly stand it. The thing I have to do, the grownup-Andrea-thing, is not do that. I have to remember that no good ever comes to me from that. There is no hope there. I don't mean hope for a marriage. There's been no hope there for a long time. I mean there's no hope that he is who I want him to be -that he is the man he ought to want to be.

Work was hard -and I'm bloody TRYING to bring good into the world. The legal stuff was hard, and I'm trying to do that gracefully and without too much malice. Is it wrong or naive to want to talk to someone -to talk to my husband- about that? Of course I know it is. But I'm thinking that the universe should jolly-well step up to the plate and support the people who try to bring good to the world. So how do I reconcile these two things -the courage to believe that the universe supports the good and the courage I need -to believe that this particular person will take advantage of the fact that I'm trying to be and do good? Or am I just failing to live up to the possibility of hope as a spiritual practice, and I ought to act differently?

Here's all I have right now. Their fire and my trial-by-fire... it all does the same thing. It strips away all the stuff you think you need -the buildings and the history in their case, the relationship and the history in mine. It teaches you who you are. It teaches you that you can live with terror and even move through it, slowly and carefully if need be. It teaches you to hope for the right things.

They might wish that their buildings and artifacts had never been burned. I might wish that my life hadn't been ransacked. But so what? Wish all you want. What you have is right in front of you. Deal with that. Move forward from that. The right hope is in the belief that you can.

Right this minute that hope -for me- is feeling as fragile as it felt in the beginning of this process.

Anger and Dignity

My wise sister (which doesn't narrow it down; I have two wise sisters) suggested that I dig deep and find my anger toward Dave. Yeah, yeah... I've tried that. In some desperation, she suggested that I pretend that the things that have been done to me were done to one of my sisters or brothers -or one of my children. How would I feel then?

All of it...

the infidelity
the renewal of the wedding vows with no intent at all to live up to them
leaving me homeless and unemployed and 800 miles from my friends
begrudging me financial support while I reclaim my life
hiring Lady Voldemort the attorney, to publicly belittle my life choices
leaving me vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases
trying to take my house...

You've heard the litany of his sins; it's longer than this. How would I feel if these things had been done to Victoria or Nicholas?

WHITE..... HOT.....RAGE....

That's how I would feel. And you BET that anger would power me toward action. So that's what I'm going to pretend. A strong, angry woman would stop letting things happen to her and take charge of the process. I may not fully be that person for myself, but I certainly would be her for my children.

So, I think that action starts with another phone call to my attorney. I know that she's protecting my interests and is as interested in defeating Lady Voldemort as any group of Hogwarts wizards could ever be ;) But we need to step it up here. I'm not going to be pushed around.

And when I forget, remind me please.

Happy Mother's Day

I'm smiling at my green and black lanyard, made for me by the boy-child, and I'm reminded yet again of this Billy Collins poem.

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly -
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift -—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even

And this -the original reason for Mothers' Day, from Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

How Can This be True?

A month or two ago, I posted about the importance -to me- of forgiving Dave. Everybody said that I should cool my jets; the time is not yet right. Elisa said the most prescient thing -that there was probably more stuff to accumulate that I would have to forgive, so I should just hold on.

Seriously guys, I don't think I'm doing this whole divorce process right. I keep finding more things that are plain hateful -or unspeakably cold and dismissive, to put a nicer spin on it- that Dave has done. Yesterday was a slam of horrifying information. It was mostly discovered accidentally, so I wasn't prepared for it.

And I'm STILL not mad. I just become more and more beat-up. How can a person DO that -simply not care that his actions are this destructive? I don't mean this to turn into a "let's support Andrea" thing. I'm really more curious about him. How does it feel to sit in that big apartment in Swarthmore and plot these things? And before he ever went to Swarthmore he was plotting. (That's part of what I learned yesterday.) I've had to learn -yet again- that he is willing to leave me literally homeless, so he can have his life of freedom. I feel like every time I start to get my feet under me, I find out something new and I'm flattened again.

Does he think it's fun? Does he think it's not important? Don't tell me he doesn't know how destructive he's being. His children know, and he visits this blog almost every day. I couldn't be so dismissive of a person I didn't even know, much less a person I lived with for so long. I have a fine mind and I just don't understand what could be happening here.

Or, to turn it around, was he always this way. If that's the case, I should be posting something like "How could I have been so dim as not to notice?". It's all just so sad.

Feathering My Nest

As I said, it's time to divide the property, so that means we have to get the house appraised. So, today and tomorrow, his and hers appraisers are coming over. Which, in turn, means that I've spent the morning tidying up. I'm not here very much, so you'd think there wouldn't be much mess. I don't know who's breaking into my house while I'm gone and leaving little piggy piles, but I'd be grateful if that person would cease and desist!

But as I run around and put things away and dust the surfaces that then reveal themselves, plans start to form in my head. This end table could go here instead of there. Why do I own this gruesome couch at all? I think the porch curtains should attach to the rods the way a shower curtain attaches... wouldn't that be cute? Or maybe fabric shades would be better out there???? On and on and on...

I have always maintained that it must be a very dull person who can't think of ideas faster than she can implement them. By that measure, I am fascinating ;)

Apparently, this is a common phenomenon. It's not just retail therapy as a strategy for healing, because I'm cleaning not buying. A quick browse through cyber-space suggests that there is "divorce decorating" and even "revenge decorating." Divorce decorating is the gradual (or not, I suppose) purging of the signs of the other person. His books off the shelf... his knick-knacks gone... the things he insisted on removed... that kind of thing. It can be liberating to decide what I want, how I want to use rooms, how I want to inhabit this house. Revenge decorating seems silly and sad. It's when, say, he hated florals and you dump a chintz factory over your house after the divorce. He's not going to see it, forcryingoutloud!!!

I think I'm doing something different from either of those. I do want to fully inhabit my house, my planet, my life, and learning how I want to live here is part of that. On the other hand, the revenge decorating just seems ridiculous. Of course, I have been unable to even summon anger, so revenge seems like way too much energy to spend on someone I can't even respect any more.

I think this nesting process is actually a form of crisis management. I almost lost myself earlier in this process. There is no hyperbole there. My interior certainty about my identity was just plain gone. When you're walking around in a fog like that (hopefully dressed appropriately and without mascara running down your cheeks from crying), friends and loved ones will offer suggestions as to who you are. "You're strong, capable, smart, important...." ....whatever they can think of that used to be true. These affirmations are essential. But there's a dangerous tendency for the lost person to just tiredly agree. "OK, I guess I'm that" and then wander off, again living someone else's vision for her life.

I don't want to suggest that those affirmation are wrong. On the contrary, they're an essential touchstone. But the grieving person still has to re-locate her own center, and that just takes time. I'm not finished, heaven knows, but it's coming together. Remember that feeling in college when you saw how big the world really is...the possibilities, the ideas, the places, the enormity of the options? I'm starting to feel that way again -just a little bit and just sometimes.

So, having the house I want, no matter how gradually it evolves, is part of that claiming of opportunities. I want light and color and warmth and maybe just a little bit of wit. I want soft textiles and comfortable chairs and good smells coming from the kitchen. I want to be the house where people say "let's pop over and see what's happening at Andrea's." And metaphorically -if you strain your brain and squint a little- you can see how those things could be broadened to show me part of who I am at my core.

But if I don't go dust a few more things, nobody's going to want to come over!! But just for fun, here's a little gratuitous house-gorgeousness:

Next Stop: Divorce

In my mind, I thought I wanted to write about how this feels. We're done, except for dividing up the property and walking away, never to see each other again except at our kids' weddings, I suppose. I wondered how that realization would feel.

In this process, I've admitted to the mistakes I've made, only to get back agreement that I made mistakes and no parallel offering from him. I've begged. I've sobbed. I've been told I was undesirable and unloveable. I've walked away. I've become stronger. I've started to glimpse way off in the future how this could turn out to be a good thing for me. I've started to feel like a little bird, standing on the edge of the nest. No, more than that. I was pushed out of the nest and damn near hit the ground. But somewhere just before disaster, I learned to fly.

And it turns out that's what I want to write about. I'm starting to think that Dave's self-esteem depended on my being nobody. And through his force-of-nature stubbornness, he made that happen. Probably subconsciously, but very effectively.

I'm loving stupid little things, like deciding what brand of laundry detergent I want, buying 2% milk instead of skim, and hanging curtains in the bedroom. (OK, Jeanine did that part.) I'm loving riding my bicycle the way I want and not having to apologize or feel "less-than". I'm loving rock climbing and not caring that I don't dyno up insane climbs.

I'm loving feeling really good at my job and like there's a visible career path again. I'm loving the feeling that I have a contribution to make.

I love that when I hang out with friends I no longer have to worry that Dave's sullenness about socializing will damage the evening. My friends and I choose each other, care for each other, forgive each other as needed, and stand together as called for. That's what friends suit up for.

Next stop: divorce. Indeed. It's still sad that this couldn't all be true with us together. But I paid too high a price for too long. It's time to fly. And you know what? I'm going to be good at that!

The Pain of the Medical Procedure

I have a friend who is very ill, so I've been spending most of my non-work hours at the hospital. It's one of those things where you have to be there, but you aren't doing anything. The phrase "hurry up and wait" must have been invented for this situation. How can there be urgency and boredom at the same time?

But I promised her she wouldn't become blog fodder, and I have to keep that promise. It's just important for you to know the back story. I'm at the hospital and I'm stuck here for a bit, and with too little to do.

Now we're going to turn this story around to be ALL ABOUT ME. Now there's a surprise. Sigh. But I'm hoping there's something to be learned here. Cross your fingers.

I thought at the beginning of this marriage debacle that Dave had left me for another person. He'd found someone he loved more, I figured. That seems not to be quite the story. What seems to be true is that he left me for a series of no-strings-attached liaisons. I don't know how many there have been. Nor is the timing completely clear to me. But we were certainly still married, and with no talk of divorce, when the first one happened.

Gradually it dawned on me that I had had unprotected sex with a man who had multiple partners. I don't know how or if he protected himself and these other partners. But imagine the look of pitying disbelief if I had gone to a health care professional and said "My husband has recently been unfaithful, with at least one and probably more people. We haven't used protection in over 20 years, and he continued to have sex with me during that time. But I don't need to get tested for AIDS or other STDS; he would never jeopardize me like that."

But by not getting tested I was acting as though that was exactly what I believed. For crying out loud. So Sunday's "pull up your big girl pants and do the thing you have to do" task was to get tested. I was at the hospital anyway, sitting around doing nothing. The question that rattles around in my head all day every day -"what can you do to move yourself forward?"- had a simple answer. Roll up your sleeve and let the nice girl test your blood.

I don't have the results yet. I did learn that I have to get tested for three years. Who knew? And I sort of wish that insurance hadn't covered the cost of these tests. I would LOVE to send Dave the bill; it's only fair that he pay for them. And of course I'm very aware that a bill might come due that he can't pay. He was clearly willing to put his needs before my health.

Yet, I'm oddly not freaked out about waiting for the results. There's more on my mind than that, these days. Other people and processes have the prime "worry spot" in my brain right at the moment. But maybe I'm also not freaked out because I know I can handle the news, whatever it is.

Let This Be My Prayer Today

This is probably a stupid question, but it's bugging me. It's Sunday, so it's time for Andrea to fret about Catholicism and religiosity and faith... Big, deep questions.

Except not so much today.

A few weeks ago, I went to church. It happened to be the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul. The short version is that he was a French peasant in the late 1500s. He became a priest, and had a special heart for poor people. Other priests came to work with him, an order of priests formed itself, and today there are Vincent de Paul ministries in many parishes around the world. Mostly it's true (but not required) that these Vincent de Paul ministries are led by lay people rather than priests or nuns, which makes me inclined to like them just on the face of it.

So, I'm at Mass on this feast day. There's a commissioning ceremony for the Vincent de Paul volunteers -pretty standard stuff. By accident, though, I was sitting in the pew with them. They are good people. They are dedicated people. The few that I actually know are interesting and wonderful people. But mostly they were people I don't know.

And I have to tell you that they looked like no fun at all. They were mostly old (and you thought I was as old as a human can be. Apparently not.) and grumpy-looking. The woman next to me read her missal throughout the whole Mass. The woman next to her said the rosary throughout the service. Blech. What that behavior tells me is that there's a very old-school theology attending this ministry to the poor.

That inclination makes me worry about what their service to poor people looks like. Is it similarly conservative and old-fashioned? I don't know. But mostly I was wondering why only old grumpy people are attracted to this ministry in the church. It wasn't always like this. Why would anyone want to join them??? They didn't seem terribly welcoming. What do they do at their meetings? Why would I give up an evening to join them?

I couldn't think of a single reason, and that's just a shame. And I'm sort of predisposed to think that the work is important. What's it going to take to persuade young, comparatively hip people that this kind of work is fun and important and the mission of their lives?

So, my prayer today is that people I like will come join me in these ministries to the poor and oppressed. Fairly lame, as prayers go, but it's all I've got today.

Making a Little Mark

It's a day of unimaginable spring beauty AND it's my day off. Could a girl ask for more? I could ask for a little more, as it happens. And here's where, if you listen carefully, you can hear my siblings start to shout warnings.

Step away from the home improvement project. It only seems small.

I ignore them. I went to the garden store and bought some baskets of flowers. How much trouble can this cause, for heaven's sake? But I want these flowers -at least some of them- to hang. The baskets come with hooks, but the eaves of the house don't come with hooks. No matter. The nice young man at Menard's will tell me how to do this. The answer seems to involve a drill and a screw and a prongy thing. This could go very badly indeed, but he assures me I can handle it.

I know my limitations, so I also stop by the liquor store. If I can't get the flowers to hang, I can at least drown my sorrows. Or, I suppose, I could offer whomever I con into helping me a fortifying glass of Pinot Grigio.

The morning's haul:


But it turns out that, by climbing on a dining room chair and balancing on the porch rail (thank heavens for yoga and balancing postures), I can drill a hole and hang one of my plants. Here's what we have so far.



I honestly thought I'd bought enough plants, but it's not quite the look of abundance that I wanted. It's a nice start, though. And the congratulatory glass of Pinot is all for me.



Now I'm off on my bicycle. Laundry can wait.

The Dance of Everyday Life

I don't want to start a nutty rhapsody about the Zen-like beauty of home-making and housework. Some days it's scrubbing diapers and cleaning up spit-up, and there's just no poetry in that -and no sense pretending otherwise. But there are days and tasks that are opportunities to see it as something else, even if just for a moment.

I've probably mentioned this; I say it frequently in real life. I have the world's stupidest kitchen. It was designed by a man, back when men didn't use kitchens. They were just magic rooms that food came out of, and certainly didn't merit the serious planning attention that a man's study, for example, might deserve. Even a man's garage probably got more attention that the kitchen.

But it's MY stupid kitchen. Tonight I was making dinner -just for me, so nothing special. But I had Vivaldi playing on the iPod; the kitchen windows are finally open so there was a breeze. I could smell the onion cooking. And I was doing this thing that cooks who know their kitchens can do... stirring one pot, reaching behind me without looking to open the drawer and reaching for the cheese grater, kicking the cupboard door closed with my foot so I can open the oven door... that thing. It was a strange, but oddly fun, dance.

Yes, it's entirely ridiculous that you have to close the cupboard before you open the oven, but you get used to it. Yes, if I had a jillion dollars I'd remodel the kitchen. I don't and I won't -at least not any time soon. But I've cooked in other kitchens. I cooked in Swarthmore. I wasn't there long enough to really get into a rhythm. I cooked in Becky's kitchen when she so generously offered me shelter when I needed it. Her kitchen IS remodeled, and it's stunning. But it's not mine.

This is MY stupid kitchen. We've been together a long time now, and we understand each other. It may be that I decide that I don't want the house, or that it's just too much room for me, or that I can't maintain it. But you know what? That's going to be MY decision. This kitchen and I are attached. We're both a mess. But we know each other's quirks. I can dance in this kitchen. I'll leave it when and if I'm ready, and not one second before.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

WELCOME, NINA LOUISE

Doesn't her cuteness just make you melt? Don't you just want to kiss the place where one day there will be a neck? Don't you think that, perhaps, Auntie Andrea should get a grip?? ;)

Well, perhaps she has a slightly dotty aunt (more than one, truth be told). But she's here and the world is improved by her presence. Pleased to meet you, dear one!!!

Joyous Abundance

You have to picture 17-year-old Andrea, heading off to college. I weighed 84 pounds (why this is relevant I don't know -just picture a tiny little innocent). I had spent most of my educational life at a convent girls' school in Arkansas. And now I was at a world-class urban university in Chicago. Cognitive dissonance, anyone? I was protected mostly by the sad truth that I was SO in over my head I couldn't even realize how precarious my situation was. When you don't know you can't do something, you just do it.

The day I bought books for my first quarter of classes I almost hyperventilated from excitement. Wandering the corridors of the bookstore, I glimpsed all the things that I could learn. There was Russian literature, calculus, French history, Chinese language and history, art, germ theory, international development, organic chemistry.... There was no end to it. That alone delighted me. People get to know all this stuff? Where should I sign up? I want to learn things forEVER!!!!

I've settled down somewhat, I suppose, but not about that. Even now when I sit with someone who's an expert in a field not my own, and that person explains something about her field elegantly and succinctly, it blows my head apart. How amazing! Now I want to go learn more about that!! I reject entirely the idea that it's dilettantism to want to know lots of things. Sure, I want to be really good at a small set of things. But mostly I want to hang around in a world where ideas float around as part of the everyday environment.

At my launch party in December, a dear friend challenged a bunch of professors to explain why they had earned PhDs. (Truth be told, they had had too much to drink and were acting a tad pompous.) I didn't hear their answers, but I know what mine would be. There's this gorgeous world that hangs together so elegantly. There are God's people in amazing variety and similarity. There are the things people build; there are the principles that hold the whole thing together. I can't stand not knowing this stuff.

And that's why people get PhDs and hang out at universities. Or, at any rate, why I want to again. So I'm going to. That's part of my new news. One piece of my "things that take courage" worked out and I'll be connected to the university again-teaching and learning and, I fervently hope, figuring out how to make things better for poor people around the world.

I Felt the Earth Move

At about 4:30 this morning, I woke up and my bed was shaking. Now, I would like to tell you a tale about why that was happening, but the truth is, I had no clue. I convinced myself it was a train going by; the tracks are just a few blocks away. Of course, I heard no train, but at 4:30 in the morning, I'm easily persuaded by slightly weak arguments.

An hour later, the clock went off and the charming NPR commentator was talking about the earthquake that rumbled through the Midwest. Oh!!!!

So there we are -the second earthquake of my whole life. It's a strange feeling!

What Courage is Required of Me?

I'm contemplating the next right moves in my life. Worse, I'm contemplating the risks that have to be taken in order to take the next steps. I'm bloody sick of risk taking. (Picture me, shaking my fist at the sky, like Scarlett O'Hara. As God as my witness, I'll never be frightened again.) But there are changes brewing in at least two areas of my life. It's too soon to name them publicly, but they're both weighing heavily on my mind.

Etymologically, courage is just acting in consonance with what's in your heart. It's not so much not being afraid, or even "feeling the fear and doing it anyway". It's just being authentic. And that's plenty scary enough, thank you very much. It's like when you're a teenager and people tell you "just be yourself" and you think "Terrific. What the heck does THAT mean???" I'm not used to looking into my heart and seeing what's there.

Nor do I have long experience being brave. I'd never really needed to be brave until recently. So, I may be drawing conclusions from too little data, but it seems to me that the pattern is that I limp (or maybe crawl, and sometimes desperately broken) toward something that looks like a healthy outcome. Then, much later, I can walk, run and possibly even fly. I said I wouldn't ignore the signs life offers, and I'm trying to honor that intention. Nor do I want this post to be just another bemoaning of the truth that every day requires courage. It does, and I wish it were otherwise. The thing I wanted to know is WHAT courage is required of me.

I have to look at my goals and dreams for myself. Might these new opportunities bring me closer to them? Yes, it seems clear that they might. But, I'm afraid that if I pursue these opportunities, I might not get them. I might not be skilled enough or smart enough or nice enough... or whatever. Then my feelings will be hurt, and my battered self esteem will take another hit. Seriously, how many can it sustain? On the other hand, NOT pursuing them guarantees the outcome. Things stay the way they are, until I work up the courage to change them.

I've survived rejection. It hurts. Oh my lord how it hurts. But on the face of it, if I pursue these opportunities and nothing good happens, I'm no worse off than I am now. The water could be muddied a bit, but I think I could survive that.

So the courage I need to find is the courage to put myself out there and take some chances. It could turn out that I AM smart enough and skilled enough. Maybe one opportunity comes through and not the other. Maybe I get both of them to come through for me. I need to step forward rather than back. That's the courage I need right this minute.

Christopher Robin tells Pooh:

Pooh, Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Jill and my sibs and others regularly remind me that my experiences, choices, perspectives, and needs have value. Acting as though I believe them will have to do for now ;) Perhaps actual belief will follow. But I think my heart is telling me that I could both blossom and make some meaningful contributions in these potential new opportunities. So... suck it up and put yourself out there.

I guess that's the conclusion.

Damn.

Disregarding Stitch Markers

I'm developing -quite by accident- a list of aphorisms that I tell knitters. At the absolute top of the list is my belief that our knitting tells a story about who we are and how we interact with the world. We reveal ourselves as who we fundamentally are all day every day; all it takes to read the signs is a careful observer.

One of the best parts of my week is helping people improve at knitting. I love teaching. I love knitting. I love empowering people to confront the challenges that face them. So there's this knitter who is becoming quite accomplished. What she isn't yet is confident, but that's not really today's story. She's working on a sock, and she'd made a little mistake. She could have fixed it herself -or ignored it, since the evidence is going to be inside her shoe- but she wanted me to fix it.

The first step to fixing someone's knitting (or any other) problem is figuring out what's going on. The knitter almost always wants to talk in my ear, pointing out the tragedy. They of course know because they have an intimate familiarity with the fabric they've created. I have to get that familiarity fairly quickly, and the talking really doesn't help much. It's more a matter of quietly looking. Really looking. It's not usually a big deal. One of the painfully true things I tell knitters is that it's impossible for them to make a mistake that I haven't made -and way more than once.

This knitter was creating the heel of the sock, which is where accidents will happen if they're going to, and there were two stitch markers just sort of hanging in the middle of nowhere. I saw the mistake well enough, but I couldn't figure out what the stitch markers were for. Maybe they were marking other mistakes? Maybe she was making a sock in some new way that I don't understand? What's happening here?

She told me that they were just leftover from when she had done the decreasing for the gusset. (For the non-knitters among us, the details aren't terribly important. She had needed the stitch markers. Then she didn't. That's all you need to know.) She just hadn't dropped the stitch markers back into her knitting bag when she was finished with them.

My comment was "Don't train yourself to disregard stitch markers." Ask me how I know. I'm probably more inclined not to use markers when I should, rather than using them when I shouldn't. But the effect is the same -a lack of credible information that would have been easy to obtain if I had just done the simple things: pay attention and make a little effort.

You don't need to beat me over the head with this. I've been disregarding bigger signs than stitch markers. I get it that there was something of a failure of mindfulness, to put it mildly, in my life over the past few years. Had I been paying attention, at the very least I wouldn't have been blind-sided by my husband's betrayals and lack of commitment. I might even (although probably not) have caught it in time to be able to make an effective effort to save the marriage.

But he's not even really the story. I missed lots of other signs along the way -small places where there were alarms ringing quietly and I just breezed on past them. Places where I gave up autonomy, accepted too little, accepted stories that made no sense at all, truncated my own life, skipped opportunities because I was afraid.... I disregarded the stitch markers in a big way.

Another truism that falls out of my mouth is "do something different. Do ANYthing different." If you want things to change and you're not quite sure how to make that happen -or even exactly how you want it to look on the other end- do something different. Do anything different. The hope is that the entire system will adjust itself in accommodation to your new behavior. So, my "anything different" is to pay attention to the stitch markers. Which is just another way of saying that I'll try to be mindful and aware of the signs in my life.

All we need to know, we learned at knitting group ;)

Girls' Day Out

For Christmas, I gave Victoria the gift of a girls' day out in Chicago. She figured pedicures and a glass of white wine. Not quite, but she had the theme right. We finally arranged our schedules so that we were off on the same day and didn't each have 4 jillion other things to do.

We headed for the train at 7:15. This is a day off????


Then off to Intimacy where, you will be glad to know I did NOT take pictures. Several hundred dollars lighter in the pocket book, we've been fitted, disturbed at the size we discovered that we both are, amazed at the comfort that wearing the right undergarments brings, and we each have some new underwear. Girl stuff, in a big way. Seriously, go to this place. We've developed, I'm sad to say, another expensive habit :(

Then we needed sustenance. Coffee was essential to the recovery process: L'Appetito. But chocolate was the real key.
.

Then, we walk. We see the sculpture that is supposed to be called The Cloud Gate, but everyone just calls "The Bean": We check out the Pavilion. This isn't a great picture; the real thing reminds me of the Sidney Opera House.








We check out the faces. There's only one today.


A glass of Grand Marnier at Bennigan's, and back to the train we go. Tomorrow, it's back to work, but our new undergarments will remind us of our the girls' day out.

Conquering Small Challenges

In social work, we talk about the "but first" tasks. I can't do THAT, because first I have to do THIS. And I can't do THIS, because there's this impossible thing in the way that requires THE OTHER THING..... On and on and on. Life can become a snarl of but-first tasks for all of us.

In my life, those snarls of impossible tasks holding everything else up are frequently mechanical. I got nothin' when it comes to mechanical skills. I've got less than nothing. I've reduced car mechanics to tears and begging me, please, never to attempt another thing on my car. Unless of course I have some weird fascination with being stranded on the interstate.

The challenge lately has been the digital camera. I got one for Christmas. I took pictures with it (after a certain amount of thrashing around and taking pictures of my own thumbs). And then the memory card was full. So, clever girl that I am, I knew I had to move the pictures from the card to the computer -where they will eventually fill up all the available space. But Scarlett O'Hara has nothing on me; I will think about THAT tomorrow.

"They" invented digital cameras to be easier than film cameras. "They" did not include me in the focus group, that's for sure. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the pictures moved. I e-mailed computer-whiz-boy and his helpful text message in reply was "plug it in and turn it on, Mom". Can you hear the sarcasm? I could. Yeah, sweet pea. I thought of THAT.

But today, I made some progress towards figuring it out. It turns out that I'm not stupid. (assuming for a moment that the only evidence supporting the "Andrea is stupid" hypothesis was the camera. Work with me here.) The USB port I was using doesn't work. By plugging the camera into another port, I've actually made some progress.

So now, I can take pictures of my knitting projects for ravelry. Then I can mail the knitted items to the recipient (who isn't born yet) before she heads off to college. Having done THAT, I can move Dave's desk down to the basement so that I can use the office in ways I find more congenial. Having done THAT, I will have made yet another stride toward claiming the house as my own.

And all of this has been waiting for me to discover that the USB port I was using was faulty. Not me. The USB port.

Growing a Life

It might actually -finally- be spring. (She whispers, lest the goddess of weather hear and inject a freak April blizzard into the mix. It's happened before.) You can't actually tell that it's spring in the gardens yet. But I know it's here because the interstate is under construction (a surer sign than the daffodils), and my across-the-street neighbor has undertaken a home improvement project. This one seems to involve a jackhammer, which is a little irritating. But he'll be done eventually, and then I can open the windows.

So, this morning I took my coffee out into the backyard. I dusted off a fabulously dirty lawn chair, located my sunglasses and a book, and plopped down. I quickly abandoned the book. It's a tragedy of another knitting-group tale. I don't think it's supposed to be a tragedy; it's just that the writing is so very bad. Too lazy to get up, and enjoying the sun on my shoulders, I just started looking around.

Why did I put my lawn chair here, when all it gave me a view of is the garbage can? Rotate my chair a little, and I see the driveway. That's no better. Rotate a little more and I get the sump pump. Oh, that's elegant. Rotate a little more, and it's the neighbor's trashcan. Houston, we have a problem.

Dave has always taken care of the gardens. And really, when they are in bloom, they're lovely. But I think I have a handle on why I never wanted to hang out and enjoy them. They don't invite anyone in, except to do chores. That's no good.

There's nowhere to sit, nowhere to sleep, nowhere to walk, and the views are kind of icky. Nothing says "come have a glass of tea with me" or even "keep me company while I weed this flower bed". We didn't have a garden; we had a flower laboratory.

I have a tendency lately, which I really have to keep in check, to feel that I have to do everything all at once, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. I have this new opportunity in my life to organize things my way, to fulfill my dreams at long last -and I don't have to defend that to a single person. But being me, I could easily throw away all the old furniture to begin the house redecorating project, tear up all the sod in the yard to begin a landscaping project, buy a plane ticket to heaven-knows-where to begin the travel project, and then get on my bike and not come home for 8 hours.

When I did come home, it would be to an empty house, a destroyed yard, an empty bank account, and a sore body. I would then melt completely down -and then I would have to go to work. This strikes me as a bad plan.

The gardens are actually a nice metaphor for the way I should undertake this new life of mine. I know there are a few things I want to change right now. I need some decent chairs in the backyard. (I bought two white Adirondack chairs this morning.) Those chairs need a little table and a foot stool for at least one of them. I'm just going to move them around until the right place for a seating area reveals itself to me.

And from that vantage point, I'll watch the gardens. Dave wanted blues and purples in the gardens. I like that idea a lot -except he was a little wrong there, too. Blues and purples alone look gloomy. There need to be accents of pink and white, I think. So I'm going to watch what comes up and looks a little lonely. Pink and white annuals will go right there. I need giant pots of geraniums on the front steps. I need ferns hanging on the front porch. I have a little fantasy of an herb garden, but no clear sense of where it belongs yet. So, really, all I might get done in the gardens this year -other than maintaining them- is the furniture, the annuals, the pots of geraniums and a few hanging plants.

But I will have started. I will have made a little mark. I will have honored what's come before, without being bound by it. Even these little changes are, to my mind, about welcoming people in and offering something peaceful, or possibly even joyful, to see. And I'm waiting for the next right move to reveal itself. I'm not a good wait-er. Maybe that's what the garden has to teach me this year.