Joy In The Longing

Christmas Past

2011-12-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

This is our 13th year of wacky Christmas photos. Many thanks to my mom, who has taken most of the pictures (and to my dad for all his moral support), to my brother, Pete, who took the picture in 2000, and to my brother, Dan, who took the photo and ROCKED the Photoshop in 2006. We hope you enjoy this little retrospective. It's so fun to watch the kids grow!!!

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1999: "Dan and Bek receive a special delivery"

The idea to do spoof photo cards was Dan's. Seemed like a good idea to me, and since we'd just had our first child, it was a good time to start. Not everyone appreciates the tradition. Some people who got this card (or saw it displayed in the homes of recipients) wondered, "Why are they putting that child into a mailbox?"

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2000: "It's My Parole Officer"

We were kind of thin on ideas. But Ledon was all about the phone at this age so we took some phone pictures. Dan was concerned about some recipients being offended by the caption so we issued an alternate version with a caption about talking to Santa (I can't even remember what it was, it was so bland.)

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2001: "Mama, what does C.O.D. mean?"

Well, we'd gotten Eiledon via US Mail, so we went for consistency :) The caption refers to the ridiculous expense of having a child. You probably can't see it in this scan, but the receipt Eiledon is holding is actually a Best Buy receipt, which is pretty appropriate for our family :)

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2002: "Housework never used to take this long."

This was before we went digital, so the photo was captured by my mom shooting a whole roll of film as we tossed laundry around. 24+ exposures and only one--ONE--was usable. Luckily, it was also a fantastic picture!

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2003: "Krispy Kreme: Catnip for People"

This was our first card that was topical in nature. Krispy Kreme had just come to Minneapolis amid reports of people waiting in line for HOURS to purchase the airy confection. We had noticed that these donuts had a pronounced effect on our children's behavior, much like catnip to our furry friends, so we went that route for the caption. It was certainly "of its time" as Krispy Kreme has vanished from the Twin Cities market. A fad, indeed.

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2004: "Election '36: Is it us? Or is election season getting a bit too long?"

Another topical comment. We (at least Dan and I) were so exhausted with all the campaign rhetoric, attack ads, lawn signs, etc. that we thought it would be good to make fun of it. We officially launched our kids' campaigns for president in the 2036 elections. Gavin's slogan? "Gavin Alexander Fergus Moir: His name is REALLY long!"

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2005: "We were going to do a normal card this year but God said otherwise."

This was the year our house was struck by lightning so we joked that we'd taken that as a sign NOT to do a normal Christmas picture. We didn't quite get the "electrocuted" effect, though. With the exception of Dan, we looked more like we'd escaped a fire. Gavin was FURIOUS about having to have gel in his hair and wasn't too cooperative. This was the first year we had digital, at least, so we were able to go until we had a decent shot and then, gratefully, stop.

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2006: "Peace. With love, US 4"

I hope we didn't peak too early. Dan thought we should do an album cover and we chose The Joshua Tree. Again, Gavin had a serious issue with the hair gel and Eiledon REFUSED to portray a boy until we bribed her. My brother, Dan Fergus, took the photo on our deck and then worked his photoshop genius to get the proportions correct, put in the Joshua Tree National Park background AND put Edge's hat on Dan (it was the one costume piece we couldn't come up with.) This one is still my all-time favorite.

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2007: "We really, really tried. But in the end, we knew we couldn't top last year's card so we just gave up."

True dat. Still, this was fun to do and if you have the actual card (rather than this scan) you can read some of the facetious alternative ideas we nixed including "Land of the Lost" and "Quest for Fire." Who knows if those will re-surface in future years :)

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2008: "Feb 16, 2009, 11:59pm: "Maybe you were right. Let's just get cable.""

Another topical card, we were making fun of the date all television was supposed to be digital, requiring either a converter box or cable TV/satellite. It was a stretch of the truth: we already had cable and had only purchased the converter in case we dropped it some time in the future. AND, of course, the date of the switch was delayed a while beyond February 16th. In any case, we actually had all these crazy wires and cables lying around the house and it was fun to just randomly dump them all over the room. Gavin holding the 'rabbit ears' literally on his head and Eiledon trying to plug a cable into Gavin's nose just cracked me up :)

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2009: "We wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”

Dan has this horrible, ugly, green, V-neck shirt that’s completely falling apart and he STILL insists on wearing it now and then, despite my best efforts to throw it out when he’s not paying attention. One October evening we were chatting at the dinner table while the kids were watching Scooby Doo on TV and Dan suddenly said, “Hey! Shaggy’s wearing my green shirt!” We looked at each other and our jaws dropped: our Christmas card concept had just been determined. Since we had recently gotten our dog, Brubeck, we figured it was a perfect way to introduce him. What amazes me most is how many people told us they didn’t get it at first, even with the caption and the ghost flying out of the window. In most cases, it was one of their kids who said, “Duh, Mom. It’s Scooby Doo!”

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2010: “BRUBECK!!! JACK-JACK!!! If you guys CAN’T get a long, you can just FORGET about that chicken PATE in your Christmas stocking!”

This one was Eiledon’s idea. Brubeck and Jack-Jack STILL don’t get along and any time the poor cat’s feet hit the floor, Brubeck comes running after him until he’s back up on the cabinets. They’ve knocked over a few things in their time together, to be sure! Eiledon imagined they knocked down the Christmas tree and I was yelling at them. What makes this photo is Brubeck breaking the fourth wall with the perfect, “Oh, crap” look on his face. Jack-Jack, in typical cat fashion, looks like he doesn’t give a rip.

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2011: “We wish you a Merry Christmas. The Skywalkers.”

Yes, it's true. We're nerds. All of us. As if you didn't know that already. Anyway, we'd had this one planned for quite some time, but we didn't want to do too many in a row where we were dressing up in costumes. This just seemed the right year for it. We had the Darth Vader voice changer mask and the light sabers and Dan wore his grad school graduation robe as a cape. Everything else was borrowed or made (the Queen Amidala headpiece wasn't easy, but it was pretty fun to try to figure out how to do it with the least possible effort and cost.) Worked out pretty well, I'd say.

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Well, thanks for walking down memory lane with us! Hope you enjoyed our wacky shenanigans. Merry Christmas to all!

Rite of Passage

2011-11-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Dan and I finally broke down and got Eiledon a cell phone. She’d first started asking for one when she was ten and we looked at one on another, incredulous, and laughed out loud. What on earth did a ten-year-old need with a cell phone? Sixteen, we told her. When she started driving, a cell phone would qualify as emergency equipment, like an escape hammer or a spare tire.

“Other kids in my class have cell phones.” Fifth graders? You’ve got to be kidding me. I guess that’s what you get for accidentally moving into a wealthy suburb. The argument didn’t carry any weight with me, of course. When I was a kid it was that everyone else had cable or a VCR or a television that wasn’t a hand-me-down from their grandparents. And I turned out just fine. In fact, I think it gave me a better sense of what’s really important. No dice, I told her.

“But I need one,” she insisted, and I used a tactic I’d heard from another mom. “Give me an example of when you would need to use it,” I said. Of course she couldn’t come up with a single situation where she wouldn’t have access to a landline, and she finally dropped it. For a little while.

It came up continually through fifth grade and sixth grade, the announcements of “I really want a cell phone,” coming more frequently. We blew her off, mostly, sticking to our original statement that she had to be sixteen, but I could tell it was really distressing her, as more and more of her peers acquired this totem of growing up.

I had heard horror stories: sixth graders sitting around a table texting each other rather than having an actual conversation, teachers despairing at their students’ atrocious spelling, pediatricians and other experts warning about increased screen time, higher levels of distraction and decreased intelligence. And there still seemed no real need for the stupid thing!

The first crack in my conviction came several weeks ago, when my Girl Scout troop had piled into my friend Rachel’s van for a field trip. Not long after we set out, my daughter’s voice sailed over the chatter from the back seat. “Mom! I’m the only girl in the troop who doesn’t have a cell phone!” Surely not, I thought. At least, not Rachel's daughter, Megan! I was pretty sure Rachel and I shared the same sentiment when it came to cell phones. I looked at her, mouth open. Rachel didn’t take her eyes off the road. She only grimaced slightly and said, “I’m so sorry, Rebekah,” and I laughed out loud. I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask for an explanation. I have profound respect for my friend and co-leader and just accepted her judgment.

Which, of course, caused me to question mine. Not that I’m so easily swayed. It’s just that I’m more willing to listen than I used to be, to consider more than just my own knee-jerk reactions. So I started listening.

And then my father-in-law—my father-in-law!—told Dan that he understood how important it was for kids to feel like they fit in. That if it were Dan who had been asking for a phone, his dad would have gotten him one. Well, color me surprised! I still don’t hold with that logic, but that doesn’t mean I’m right.

In the end, it came down to pure self-interest on my part. Eiledon now goes to school in downtown Minneapolis and we live way out in the southwest suburbs. In the past year, on more than one occasion, she has either taken the bus home when I was supposed to pick her up, or forgotten to take the bus home when I wasn’t going to pick her up as usual. In a few cases, she has been able to borrow a friend’s cell phone on the bus and let me know she’d made a mistake and not to come get her. But once I slogged through the afternoon rush hour, only to find when I got to her school that she was already on her way home. And more recently, she called me saying she hadn't taken the bus because she'd forgotten she was supposed to, and I realized that if she'd had a cell phone, I could have called or texted to remind her. Instead, I had to go get her and we were late to a commitment that evening.

So the realities of a disorganized child and the high price of gasoline tapped the last nail into the coffin of my convictions. I finally had concrete proof that she really did need a cell phone. That I needed her to have one.

It came in the mail yesterday and Eiledon loves it. It’s not a smartphone, but it’s has a touch screen and it can text and take pictures and play music. She walked around the house with it all evening, stopping now and then at the mirror and holding it up to her ear, exclaiming at how it makes her look like a teenager. The teenager she almost is, I thought. And I was genuinely happy for her.

Forty

2011-11-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

I am forty, now, and hesitant. Overwhelmed by everything I haven’t read, seen, done. After years of convincing myself I simply didn’t have the time, I have begun reading again, tentatively. Afraid each page will confirm what I already know, that I have nothing to say that hasn’t already been said, and said better than I could ever hope to say it. Knowing that I don’t have the necessary tools—education, experience, enough reading—to express what insights I might actually have to a population beyond those friends and family generous enough to visit my blog.

I finally succumbed to the lure of Harry Potter, having resisted irrationally for a decade. I couldn’t bear the thought of J. K. Rowling, who unwittingly set an unattainable standard for successful writing, whose passion for the written word and gift for story has generated unfathomable wealth and a cultural phenomenon. It wasn’t really her success that intimidated me, though. It was hot, shame-filled jealousy that she got to spend a dozen years enmeshed and immersed in a world of her own making, a world full of humor and wonder and unspeakable evil, where of course purity of heart would win over soulless ambition, where beloved characters might die, but there was meaning in their deaths and proof of something after, and she had control over it all.

I have a world like that, too. Not as fanciful or elaborate, and not for children. I want to spend all my time there, like I did when I first wrote my novel in 1995. But I can’t justify it, because I don’t have the tools I need to be self-supporting through it. Not yet. And I’m not willing to live in an unheated apartment, and on welfare in order to get them. I guess I just don’t believe strongly enough.

And the real world compels me, too. I have learned so much in recovery, given up so much emotional and spiritual baggage, come to believe in life and love in ways I didn’t know how to, before. I acknowledge the messiness and pain in the world and feel called to do what little I can to alleviate it. Kerouac said, “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion,” and in the microcosm of my family, my church and my other small communities, I sometimes think this is enough. That God can use this to motivate others and create good.

But I am reading Anne Lamott, now, and I’m busy not measuring up. Her faith and her politics astound me. She believes what I believe but has treadmarks on her soul I can’t, and wouldn’t want to match: broken home, drug addiction, loss of loved ones. She marches for peace, is brutally honest about motherhood, has beautifully diverse friends, and a quirky, powerful faith. I judge her sometimes for her self-confessed neurotic narcissism, but that honesty is what makes her work compelling. And my honesty may not be that interesting.

So there’s my neurotic, narcissistic reflection for the day, inspired by my trip, an hour ago, to the library, where I picked up God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis, Crooked Little Heart, by Anne Lamott, and a Turning the Mind Into an Ally, a book on meditation. Here’s to acquiring tools.

Naming Names

2011-10-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

I scheduled a massage on short notice and my regular therapist wasn’t available, so I went with this guy named Artum. I’m guessing at the spelling, but I think it’s probably pretty close. On the other hand, nowadays it could be spelled F-R-E-D and still be pronounced Artum. And who am I to judge? I named my daughter Eiledon (eye-LEE-dun).

Apparently, Artum is my massage clinic's deep tissue rock star, but I didn’t care one way or another. I was just there for a run-of-the-mill relaxation massage with firm pressure. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the guy's name. When I’d booked the appointment they said, “Artum,” and I immediately forgot it. When I checked in, they said, “Who are you seeing today?” and I said, “I’m not sure.” “Oh! You’re seeing Artum. He’s really good.” “Great,” I said, “Artum.” Even repeating it wasn’t enough. By the time he came and got me from the waiting room, I had no recollection of who would soon be whaling on my aching muscles. He introduced himself, “Nice to meet you. I’m Artum.” Fifteen seconds later, my mind was a blank.

So I’m lying on the massage table and the kid is doing a marvelous job of working out the TMJ-disorder-created knots in my back, neck and shoulders and all I can think is, “Now what’s this guy’s name again?” I keep coming up with “Gunter,” but I know that’s not right, because I’ve heard the name Gunter before and I know this guy’s name is brand new to me. I run through a few more. “Hunter. Gunnar. Arthur.” Nothing. “Spencer? Artax? Wait, wasn’t that the horse in Neverending Story?” It’s no use. Some nameless dude is giving me a massage.

My hour is up and after dressing, I meet… this dude… in the hallway where he hands me a glass of water and asks me how I’m feeling. “Great,” I reply. “Thanks.” He walks me to the lobby door, reminding me to drink plenty of fluids and take it easy. Then he’s gone.

I walk to the front desk, very conscious of the fact that I need to leave this guy a tip and I can’t think of his name. Just as the receptionist smiles up at me, I overhear a member of the staff gushing to a new client, “You’re going to be seeing Artum today. He’s our deep tissue specialist. He’s one of the best therapists we have here.”

Oh, thank you God!

“I’d like to leave a tip for Artum,” I say, and then do so. As I schedule my next appointment, the receptionist asks, “Did you want to see Artum again?” And spend the whole time I’m supposed to be relaxing trying to remember his stupid name?!?!? “No, thanks,” I say. “I’d like to see my regular therapist.”

Her name is Kenisha. But I’ve already memorized that one.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part Five

2011-09-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

My Celtic Jewelry

My maiden name was Fergus, solidly Scotch Irish, but the truth is that I’m over half German and the rest is some sort of anglo-mutt. Still, I feel much closer to my Celtic roots than my German, and nowhere is this more evident than in my powerful affinity for the Celtic knot.

While the Celtic knot as we know it didn’t appear in Celtic art until after Christianity reached the British Islands (5th century AD), nor is there any evidence that knotwork or the spiral and geometric patterns that preceded it were assigned a particular meaning, I have developed my own interpretation and the symbol has become an important part of my faith statement.

A Celtic knot has no beginning or end, evokes beauty in simplicity, and depicts interconnectedness. That’s a lot of how I see God.

I started collecting Celtic jewelry in 1997, with this ring I purchased at the Scottish Heritage Festival in St. Paul. It’s still my favorite piece—simple, silver and stunning. In 2000, I used it as the pattern for the piece de resistance of my collection: my permanent anklet. The truth is that I lose things. Lots of things. I even worried when Dan proposed that I would lose the engagement ring (I haven’t yet!) So I thought a tattoo would be the perfect thing for me: jewelry I can’t lose!

The necklace came from Irish on Grand in St. Paul, probably around the same time as the tattoo. Just a couple weeks ago, I met a woman at the Scottish Highland Festival grounds at the Renaissance Fair wearing the identical piece. She didn’t know where hers had come from—it had been a gift.

I bought the barrette in St. Michael, MD, when I visited Sue just after her son was born in 2002, and I wear it more than any other hair accessory I own. It’s the perfect thing for pulling my unruly mop out of my face.

I have several other pieces, now, as friends and family have figured out these are gifts I’m sure to be happy with. Dan brought me a beautiful silver knot necklace in 2005 when he was in Scotland. His parents have given me a delicate, hammered gold Celtic cross, a stone-carved knot on a leather thong, and a large medallion engraved with the name of Manawydan, a character from Welsh mythology.

In all honestly, I’m not really that big on jewelry. I don’t own anything remotely expensive, have no desire for gold or diamonds or anything of the sort. I prefer simple, rugged and meaningful. And when I wear these pieces, I am reminded of my connection to God and that, as much as the jewelry itself, makes me feel just a little more beautiful.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part Four

2011-09-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

My Tupperware Modular Mates

Yes, I’m serious. I like to joke that my kids got my ADHD from me, and that’s why I’m so geeked out over really good organizational tools. Clutter makes me nuts. I find the sense of overwhelm extremely unpleasant and if I have to move more than one—at most two—items in order to get something I’m after, I get really irritated. I have been systematically downsizing my life over the past few years, predominantly because of a change in values and a genuine desire for a simpler, more spiritual life. But the side benefit has been less clutter. In some places, anyway.

But I was introduced to Tupperware long before I was introduced to Recovery. It was a sort of early marital rite of passage, I suppose. I was living in Grinnell, Iowa at the time and a gal from church had a party. I remember looking at the catalog and saying, “My mom has this.” “My mom has this, too.” “Hey, my mom has this. And she’s had this stuff for as long as I can remember. Maybe there’s something to this Tupperware thing.” What my mom had never had, however, was the Modular Mates system. I was blown away by the before and after pictures of a stuffed food cabinet and the promise of a pristine, symmetrical and easy-to-access organizational system. I HAD to have it!

The price was not right, however. I don’t know if you’ve ever considered Modular Mates, but the cost to put together even a basic set was more than my early-married one-income budget could allow. But I was not to be daunted so easily. When we moved back up to the Twin Cities, I hatched a plan to get my dream cabinets! I would SELL Tupperware, buy everything at 35% off, re-invest all my profits, amass a s---load of Modular Mates, and then promptly quit. Sound Machiavellian? Puh-leeze. The Tupperware company made plenty of money from my sales efforts. Plus I recruited my sister as a salesperson before jumping ship and she made them even more!

And yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am living the Tupperware dream, I tell you! And it was worth every bit of time, money and effort. Because when I want to make scones or granola, everything I need is right at my fingertips! Ahhh. The simple things in life.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part Three

2011-09-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Text Messaging

I know I’ve already written a blog on my affection for Text Messaging, but I think it’s worth revisiting for this series on my favorite things simply because of a text conversation Dan and I had a couple weeks ago that I’m still laughing about. A couple pieces of information you’ll need for it to make any sense follow. I don’t guarantee the information will make the conversation funny to you. It will just help you understand the context. Just sayin.’

First of all, years ago at St. Olaf, when we were dating on the QT, most of our quality time together was spent late at night and off campus. One of our prime destinations was the local More 4 grocery store, where we would just hang out, talking and laughing, messing around with the toys, reading greeting cards and being generally silly. Indicative of the rather off-beat and random sense of humor that drew us together, Dan would frequently threaten to shout out at the top of his lungs to no one in particular, “EXCUSE ME! DO YOU HAVE MAALOX IN THE GALLON JUG?” He wouldn’t actually shout, just fake-shout under his breath, and then continue his imagined conversation by adding, “OH! BUT DO YOU HAVE IT IN CHERRY? OR JUST THE MINT?” And so forth. Being young, deeply in ‘puppy love,’ and generally weird, we found this hysterical and joked about it for years. It’s probably been a decade since anyone’s referenced it, but it’s still there in the back of our minds, a great memory.

Secondly, I am notorious for frequent short-term memory lapses. I can’t count how many times Dan has asked me to stop off at Jerry’s Foods on our way home from church to pick something up and I’ve said, “Sure, no problem” only to drive right by the store not five minutes later. It’s well known among friends and colleagues that if you don’t see me write something down in my planner, there is almost no chance of it ever getting done. And if it’s not on my computer calendar, I simply will not show up. I’m pretty sure my kids get their AD/HD from me, which is why I’m generally so hyper-organized. But on the fly, I’m a total flake.

So a couple weeks back, I had to run up to Jerry’s Foods to pick up a couple items. As I’m walking out the door, Dan says, “Oh, hey! Can you pick up some aluminum foil? We’re completely out.” I say, “Sure. But I’m not stopping to write it on my list so I hope I remember.” He says, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you don’t forget.” At that point, I’m expecting a text message. It’s a frequent strategy he employs to help me.

I hear the text arrive while I’m still in my car. Not great timing, I think. There’s still a really good chance I’ll forget to even check once I’ve parked. But I do remember to check as I’m walking in. The following is the complete conversation as I’m wandering through the store.

6:48pm Dan: Aluminum foil

6:49pm Dan: Aluminum foil

6:50pm Dan: Don’t forget…

6:51pm Dan: Aluminum foil

6:52pm Bek: Dork

6:53pm Dan: Soon to be a dork with aluminum foil

6:54pm Dan: That is, if you don’t forget it. Buy aluminum foil.

A brief break while I actually shopped. And then:

7:02pm Bek: What was I supposed to pick up again?

7:03pm Dan: A giant gallon jug of Maalox

7:03pm Bek: Cherry or mint?

7:04pm Dan: Scotch

I laughed all the way home.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part Two

2011-09-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

The Big Blue Chair

Dan and I must have sat on every couch in the Twin Cities metro back in 1998, trying to find one we liked. Some of them were really nice looking, but none of them—none of them!—was comfortable to sit on. They were too firm or too soft or crumbled into a pile of pillows as soon as you sat in them. With some you just couldn’t get comfortable, with others you couldn’t get back up! The backs were too low or too high or too deep, the arms too narrow or too hard. After several days of this we were beginning to be discouraged, wondering if we would just have to settle for something that looked nice and was tolerable to sit on.

I still remember clearly the moment we both sat on “the one.” Our heads whipped around and we gaped at each other with bug eyes. Could it be true? Was it possible? We scootched away from each other and then toward each other. We leaned back and then stood up. Dan lay down on it and then got up to let me try. We sat down again. Nothing sagged. There were no pillows to fall off. The seats were cushy and comfortable, but springy and firm. The arms were overstuffed but not obnoxious. And it was even the color we were looking for. It was, in a word, perfect.

Except… well it might be a bit big for our house. We wanted the sofa and loveseat, but told the salesperson we lived in a townhouse. Did he think it would look too crowded with such big furniture? He asked the dimensions of the room and was optimistic it would work. Of course he was optimistic. He was a salesperson. And did we want to get the single chair and ottoman as well?

I loved the chair. It was huge. Big enough to curl my entire body into and read a book or take a nap. But the thought of our small house nagged. If the enormous couch and loveseat might overwhelm the living room, surely we didn’t have space for this. Dan and I talked about it and almost decided not to get it. But his point was that if it didn’t fit upstairs, we could always put the chair downstairs and that if we changed our minds at some time in the future, there was no guarantee they would still make the same set for us to get the chair. And it was a little cheaper to buy the set than to buy each piece separately, so if we thought there was any chance we might want the chair, the time to get it was now.

I was convinced. We bought the set. And it fit beautifully in our living room.

The chair, the afterthought, is now my favorite piece of furniture. I have probably spent more time in that chair over the past 12 years than on the couch, loveseat and downstairs futon combined. And I’m not the only one. The cats and dog love it. The kids love it. Dan… wait… I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen Dan sit in it. Probably because you can’t see the TV from there ☺. But ANYWAY, it has become much more than a piece of furniture in our house. It has become a chosen destination, at times a place of warmth and togetherness, and at other times a place of quiet solitude.

Also as you can see in the picture, it makes a good landing spot if you’re going to launch yourself off the hideabed—not a sharp corner in sight!

It is, in a word, perfect.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part One

2011-09-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Susie Mug

Not long after the outlet mall at Albertville, Minnesota opened, my mom and I spent a day shopping there. We stopped for lunch in a cute little café and I was charmed by the mugs they used to serve their coffee. Their rounded bases, sturdy handles and simple leaf pattern in periwinkle blue struck me as warm and comfortable, at once practical and pretty. Mine felt good in my hand, and when I cupped my palms around the base, as I often do to keep warm during the long Minnesota winters, it felt as if molded to fit, as if it had been designed with those cold winters in mind. When my coffee was gone, I turned the mug over. Pfaltzgraff. And, lucky me!, there was a Pfaltzgraff outlet not three doors down the way.

In the time it took to finish lunch and make our way down the strip to the dishware outlet, I first convinced myself that I needed a set of four of these mugs and then talked myself out of getting any. This was pretty typical of me. I reasoned that it would just be an impulse buy, after all. The last thing I needed in my house was another coffee cup. I mean, sure, they were pretty, but they didn’t even match the kitchen. And at six bucks a pop, a set of four seemed a little extravagant. By the time I was holding one in my hand again, this one cool and unused, I was resigned to leaving the shop empty-handed.

Some time later, and having absolutely no sense of time, I can’t tell you if it was months or years, I flew to Maryland to visit my best friend, Susan. The first morning I was there, as we were preparing breakfast, Sue reached up into her cabinet and pulled out a mug for me. I nearly squealed when I saw it for, of course, it was one of those Pfaltzgraff mugs I had so admired back in Minnesota! I excitedly told her the story of how I’d seen them and flipped over them and she just sort of grinned and shrugged. “It’s a coffee mug, Bek,” she seemed to say.

We had a fantastic time, road-tripping to Pennsylvania Dutch country and Colonial Williamsburg. We milked cows and spent a day at Busch Gardens. We talked and laughed and just enjoyed being friends. It was so hard to go home, but all good things must come to an end, and we cried at the airport saying goodbye.

I arrived home and slipped into routine. Eiledon was around one at the time, so it was back to being a mom, a wife, an employee, an active church member. My best friend was a thousand miles away with her own husband, job and community. That’s just how life is.

A few weeks after my trip, a package came in the mail—maybe it was my birthday (again with that no-sense-of-time thing). Tucked inside was the mug. I could have cried. Because it wasn’t just a pretty ceramic dish I’d fallen in love with at some random café at an outlet mall anymore. Susan’s generosity had transformed it into a symbol of a lifelong friendship far more beautiful and valuable than the clay and glaze it was made of. And the love and memories it contained were richer and more delicious than the best coffee in the world.

I use it every morning.

Lost Time

2011-09-17T07:32:00.001-07:00

It’s mid-September and I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things around here. While I had hoped to continue blogging weekly through the summer, the reality of having my kids home 24/7 simply made it impossible. I’m not complaining—it was a really great summer, well-paced with down time and fun activities and topped off with three weeks in paradise (that would be Indian River, Michigan for those who don’t know ☺). Re-entry is always hard, but we slipped into the new school year with nary a bump and both kids are off to a great start. I think I’m finally done playing “catch-up” and feel ready to dig back in to whatever it is I feel called to do. That’s the hardest part: discerning the call. There are so many things I want to do, so many things that excite me, inspire me, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and slip into depression about all the things I simply can’t accomplish. At least not all at once.

What I CAN accomplish is a renewal of my commitment to blogging weekly. And to show my commitment, I am going to write an entry for every week I missed during the summer, simply because I never stopped “writing” in my head while I was offline, and actually have five or six already in mind and it would be nice to unload them! So be prepared for a bit of a barrage over the next week or so while I clean out the cobwebs of my brain so I can jump into what’s next with a clean slate.

The Neverending Story

2011-07-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

I love watching my kids engage in creative play. This summer, with their limited technology time, it’s what they do more than anything else. Inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, a constant stream of sound and motion, the enactment of writing out loud.

Thirty-plus years ago, Pete and I did the same thing. For us, it was all Star Wars all the time. We had dozens of action figures and, while elements of the movies were sometimes re-created, generally the plot and characters were a jumping-off place for our (mostly Pete’s) crazy imaginations. The green carpet in the living room (ah, the 70s) was “Green Stuff,” a substance so sticky that once you stepped in, you were forever stuck. Crock, the big stuffed frog with one broken eye, was the only creature who could move through Green Stuff unhindered and our characters often caught rides on the friendly guy’s back.

The red linoleum in the entryway was hot lava, of course, and the blue braided rug in the dining room was water. There was regular daylight, but when every light we could find was turned on, it was “Full Blast Daylight,” creating conditions so blinding even the twin suns of Tatooine couldn’t match them. And you always had to watch out for the “Deadly Colors,” a mass of whirling I-don’t-really-know-what inspired by Pete’s crazy scribbling with those old 10-color pens. The Deadly Colors didn’t hurt you when they engulfed you, but if you stepped out, you were instantly killed.

All of the storm troopers were completely addicted to Fig Newtons, so whenever they had the rebels surrounded someone only had to point and yell, “Fig Newton Man!” and the inept imperial forces would whirl around to find the guy who had their fix. Meanwhile, the sniggering good guys would dash off to safety. Our Star Wars figures climbed trees and jumped out of them with plastic grocery bags tied to their shoulders as parachutes. They bushwhacked through tall grass, excavated the sandbox, and wandered through the giant plants and flowers of Mom’s gardens. Childhood heaven.

With my kids, the characters are different, but the spirit is the same. Now they take on the personas of the heroes and villains of their favorite video games: The Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros., and Pokémon. In a big mash-up of the plots of a dozen different adventures, they explore haunted

mansions, fight epic battles, meet bizarre creatures and drink Lon Lon Milk. There is a great deal of laughter (and also fair amount of arguing, but that’s just kids). The game never ends. It has pauses, when there are places to go, jobs to do or technologies to enjoy, but it always picks up where it left off. The kids are even frequently in character at meals, which, frankly, gets annoying. But the creativity is free flowing and joyfully innocent. How could I discourage that?

Five Minutes Flat

2011-07-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

Turn on the water, almost all hot, which guarantees about two-and-a-half minutes of good temperature. Start mentally playing out the day’s schedule. Twist the knob to switch from bath to shower, gritting teeth against the ear-splitting metal shriek. I’ll probably need to make more coffee since Dan had a cup this morning. Step into the uneven stream, mostly dense and pelting, but with halfway decent pressure. Kids have occupational therapy this afternoon so no time for a nap. Oh, we’re almost out of shampoo again. Start lathering. I need to call the office about that grant budget. I can’t submit the darn thing if I don’t get approval on those numbers I tweaked. Rinse. I have got to put that doctor’s appointment in the computer calendar before I completely space on it—as soon as I’m done here. Lather number two. Ooh! Scones! I think I have time to make those today. Do I have sour cream? Yeah, a whole container at the back of the fridge. Rinse and turn down the cold water a bit. Why does the shower get cooler when I turn down the cold? Turn it further. That’s better. Conditioner. We really need to get a plumber out here. Pick through with conditioner in to form the curl. I love Dan’s hairdresser for that perm tip! Rinse. Wonder when he’s going to need another cut. I think there’s money in the budget for that. Turn the cold down again--really far this time so the water doesn’t do that cooling-off thing. Grab the soap. OW, Dammit! Step out and turn the cold back up. Just slightly. I still need to talk to Dan about doing special music this Sunday at church. Soap from head to toe. He’s at the Twins stadium tonight. I’d better talk to him about it right away. Turn the cold water off completely now. Rinse. Shave? Who am I kidding? Face cleanser. Need to wake the kids up early. They’ve been staying up way too late at night. Rinse. Still, need to get some grant work done and it’s much easier when they’re sleeping. Water off. Once again reminded that the faucet and handles are loose. Grab a towel. Launch.

A Bend in the Creek

2011-07-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

I sit on a metal bench, a folded up picnic blanket cushioning my almost-forty tailbone. I’m facing our favorite bend in Nine Mile Creek. Not that we’ve explored all nine miles of the creek, but there’s something magical about this little spot where the laughing water meanders almost 180 degrees around a child-sized beach. The jutting sandbar shelters a kidney-shaped pool, maybe a foot or so deep, with a slow current, sandy bottom and crystal clear water. It’s the perfect place to wade, or in my daughter’s case, completely submerge. My little water sprite.

The kids are playing there now. Their splashing and talking are absorbed by the sounds around us, blending in as if just as natural, as one with the creek, rolling and gurgling over the stones and rushing around the outer bank of the bend, as one with the birds and the gentle breeze. A train whistle, surprisingly close, reminds me we are still in the city. But even that seems right, a haunting contribution to nature’s symphony.

The sun is bright, but kind at this hour, and the bench and little pool are generously shaded by trees and shrubs. Hundreds of tiny puffs of cotton drift through the air like delicate snow. I watch as they slowly, gently land in the water and then are instantly whisked away by the current.

Dozens of black-winged dragonflies congregate in the vegetation across the stream, flitting and darting in the breeze. They make forays, individually, to my side of the water, landing in the grass and opening their quadruple wings, momentarily basking in the warm sun before zipping back into the welcoming shade.

Occasionally a mosquito or other pesky insect buzzes by my ear—the only imperfection in this idyllic scene, and this only a minor one.

For a long moment, everything is beautiful. I don’t even have the desire to write or read. My phone seems badly out of place. Nothing I brought to pass the time can compete with this.

I breathe it in. Drink it. Absorb it.

And I am grateful.

Transition

2011-06-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

School’s been out for a week now and I’m grateful to say “So far, so good.” (I probably just jinxed it, didn’t I?) I really was looking forward to school ending, to the slower pace of life, to the fun activities with the kids. I have great plans for some academic-type activities each day: times tables practice through silly games on multiplication.com, learning how to type, using a great website called typing web, and lots of reading. We’re also learning the song “Wakko Warner’s Fifty States and Capitals,” which is hilarious and makes geography lots of fun. I’ve also got “Adventure Day” planned for a number of the Fridays during the summer. Today we went to Moir Park in Bloomington, a favorite destination of ours and not just because of the name.

But transition is transition is transition. And if it’s not my kids’ strong suit, that’s probably because they inherited it from me. While these first few days have been great and, honestly, I feel more present with my kids this summer so far than I have for the past three, I AM TIRED! It takes a lot to get used to an entirely new rhythm and flow. Even though I’m driving less and doing less outside the home, I have to be “on” all the time. And I’m realizing I might not have taken into enough consideration my bona fide need for alone time/creative time. Because… well… I’m not alone. Ever.

I was gratified to have another mom relate a similar state of affairs in her world. Of course I’m not the only mom who does this to herself! I was encouraged again to take my own mental state seriously and incorporate activities that will recharge me. This will be especially crucial next week when I’ll be surrounded by hoards of kids at Vacation Bible School every morning. An introvert’s dream, I tell you!

So this isn’t much of a blog entry, really. I’m almost sheepish posting it. But it’s a commitment to myself. That for even just these few moments on a Friday evening I can put fingers to keyboard and pound something out. Creative? That’s debatable. Self-nurturing? That’s essential.

Alternate Realities

2011-06-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is what could have happened last night:

Eiledon has a band concert. My in-laws have come into town and the plan is to drop Gavin at a friend’s house (he can’t do band concerts), pile everyone into my car, and head downtown. After pizza, I run Gavin to Ethan’s and circle back to pick up the other four passengers.

Traffic is horrible—a real drawback to having a child in school downtown with a concert scheduled for right after the evening rush hour. Can’t be helped. We sit and then crawl, sit and then crawl, sit and then crawl. I start to get nervous that Eiledon will be late and wonder if I shouldn’t sneak off and take back roads. Dan discourages it. It won’t be any faster. I know he’s right, so I stay the course.

We finally make it to 394 where inbound traffic is much looser. Then somewhere past Highway 100, thick, white steam begins pouring from the hood of my car and the distinct odor of coolant fills the cabin. My temperature gauge starts heading north and the car is now vibrating in an uncomfortable fashion.

I swear out loud. Right in front of my eleven-year-old and my in-laws. Eyes darting frantically from mirrors to dashboard, I duck over three lanes of traffic and pray silently that I’ll make Penn Avenue before a total meltdown. Dan and his parents are firing off questions. Eiledon escalates to hysteria, babbling about the car and the freeway and her concert and—I snarl at her to shut up.

Easing the car onto the shoulder at the top of the exit, I throw it into park and kill the engine. It’s now 6:10 and Eiledon is due at school at 6:15. Pulling out my Triple A card, I’m pretty certain that the concert isn’t going to happen.

Wes suggests calling a cab, which arrives before the tow truck and I send the four of them off, hoping they’ll make it in time. I get to ride the tow truck back to Bloomington and miss my daughter’s final performance of the year. The garage says they’ll call when they know what’s wrong and gives me a courtesy lift home.

Ethan’s mom is nice enough to drive Gavin home and the other four show up around 9:15pm having made it to the concert, which, apparently, was wonderful. Frustrated, disappointed and worried sick about money, I make my apologies and take my sorry self to bed.

The next morning after getting everyone out the door, I see that the mechanic has left a message on my cell phone. The car radiator has gone kablooey and it’s going to be $400 to repair it. I dread having to call Dan and have the conversation we’ve had half a dozen times before when our 14- and 16-year-old cars have had an inevitable mechanical issue. Do we fork over? Or try to find some way to fit a car payment into our budget (HAH!)

MAN, life SUCKS sometimes!

---

This is what actually happened last night:

Eiledon had a band concert. My in-laws had come into town and the plan was to drop Gavin at a friend’s house, pile everyone into my car, and head downtown.

Dan came barreling into the house at 5:30 and I realized the impracticality of the plan. Instead, I decided to take Eiledon in myself, since she had to be there early, and let Dan drop Gavin off and follow later with his parents, since they didn’t need to be there until 7:00pm.

Traffic was horrible—that part was true. So I ducked off on Highway 7 and wound my way to 394 at Louisiana. I can’t prove it was any faster. We got downtown at exactly 6:14 and as I crossed 10th Street on Hennepin Avenue, thick, white steam began pouring from the hood of my car and the distinct odor of coolant… you get the idea.

Honestly? I wasn’t even ruffled. I just ducked into the alley behind the FAIR school and sent Eiledon running in, then zipped back out to round the block to the parking garage under the building. As I went, the temperature gauge started heading toward the red and I just hoped I could make it into the lot.

Once safely parked, I called Triple A. They would be there within 45 minutes. I might miss the first part of the show, but Eiledon’s band performed last, so no worries. Dan and his folks arrived just as I got the call that the tow truck was there. They grabbed the seats I’d been saving and I dashed outside to meet the very nice guy from Bobby & Steve’s Auto World. Within five minutes the car was gone. I didn’t even have to pay for parking.

The concert was wonderful. I got to see Eiledon sing two pieces with a choir, sit with her during the Beginning Band portion, and then hear her excellent 5th and 6th Grade Band play some pretty complex and exciting music. Car? What car?

Dan’s Volvo fit the five of us nicely and we made it home by 8:45, at which point Dan and his dad went off to pick up Gavin. I made coffee and cut brownies, chatting easily with the ladies. When the men arrived home, we sat and talked and laughed and ate and drank and really enjoyed each other’s company.

Bobby & Steve’s called my cell phone at about 9:30 with the news about the radiator and the $400 estimate. Even then I wasn’t really upset. We’d find some way to work it out. I slipped back into the dining room looking a little chagrined and Dan asked, “What did they say?” So I told him.

Dan’s Dad said, “We can take care of that.” Dan immediately declined, not wanting to put his folks on the spot. “Yes we can,” his Dad insisted. “Nate (Dan’s brother) is flying out to Washington, D.C. for a conference and we just bought him a plane ticket for $400. We were going to cut you a check for that amount anyway, to keep it equal.”

Um.

MAN, life is AMAZING sometimes!

This One's for the Schools

2011-05-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Often when I hear about parents’ experiences navigating the special education maze on behalf of their children there is a distinct ‘us vs. them’ sentiment. It seems, in these accounts, that the schools are either too quick to label a child or too slow to initiate the complicated process of accommodating special needs. In either case, the relationship created is adversarial, rather than mutually supportive. While I have had one frustrating experience along these lines, I am grateful that, in general, this hasn’t been the norm for me.

In fact, this past Monday I left a meeting with the special ed team at my daughter’s school wanting to sing. Honestly! We spent more than half an hour discussing her evaluation results and planning her IEP and several things were abundantly clear. One, these people were professionals. They knew what they were talking about not just from a theoretical standpoint, but from direct experience with children. Two, these people cared. My daughter was not a series of labels or diagnoses to them, but a complete person with great potential. Three, these people had taken the time to really get to know my daughter. They all had anecdotes about her, observations of her humor and her intelligence. They like her. They truly want her to be successful.

The one thing that struck me as odd was the reaction when I said that reading the evaluation had been “hard.” I mean, there were no surprises whatsoever in the testing results, but it’s still a little sad to read in black and white that your child is having difficulties; is not, in fact “neurotypical.” The school psychologist looked… could it have been… worried? He rushed to ask me whether there had been enough positive information in the report. Had I felt my daughter had been accurately represented? Did I see indications of where they had pointed to her strengths?

“Oh, of course!” I quickly reassured him. “The report was full of positives! It wasn’t that at all. I was just having a ‘mom moment.’”

There was palpable relief in the room. “Of course,” someone said. “You’re allowed to have those.” Nervous laughter.

I thought: these poor people! Could it be they were so used to being confronted by parents, criticized for the system’s inefficiencies, even blamed for children’s poor outcomes, that they felt they had to treat me with such kid gloves? What a pain in the butt for them! Who has time for that crap?

That’s when I decided to write this blog entry. Yes, my job is to advocate for my children’s best interests and I will go to any length to do so. But this is a team effort, and these professionals, whose expertise and services are being offered to me at no cost, by the way, are critical parts of my kids’ long-term educational success! Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but at both FAIR Downtown, where my daughter is a student, and Eden Lake Elementary, where my son is a student, I have felt supported and affirmed by the special ed department, teachers and administrators. And I firmly believe that they have my kids’ backs every bit as much as I do.

So for those public school professionals who so completely rock: I salute you!

That Mom

2011-05-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

I know what it feels like to be that mom
The one with the bad kids
enduring glances, always sidelong, fleeting
from acquaintances and strangers

To be told—never directly—
it's all my fault
that I don’t discipline
that I should have stayed home

To have tried everything
weary
of sticker charts and point systems and coupons
that work for a while and then don’t

To be criticized for overdiagnosing
a string of acronyms
conditions
disorders
as if I want to give my children drugs
and spend hours at appointments
as if it gives me justification
Exoneration

And still to have a sixth grade girl
punch me repeatedly
in a crowded, well-lit room
and have to pull her out of an event
that three-year-olds
are successfully enjoying

To have a fourth grader run
away from teachers
paraprofessionals
principals
out of the building
or into the bathroom, feet up, angry

I’m not looking for special privileges
or pity
or even understanding
A little acceptance, maybe—
I guess I'm human, after all.

I know what it feels like to be that mom
The one who laughs until sides ache and tears roll
hugs away disappointments and fears
hears time and again “I love you”

To be awed by a daughter’s wild creativity
exuberance
vivid expression

To be humbled by a son’s enormous heart
compassion
compelling earnestness

I know what it feels like to be that mom
The one who is doing her best
whose best is not perfect
whose best is enough

Mercurial Me

2011-05-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

mercurial, adj (muhr-KYUHR-ee-uhl): characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood

On Sunday morning I was full of positive energy, unflappable even in the face of spring-fever-crazed Sunday School kids. Monday morning saw me sobbing for a good bit. By Tuesday afternoon, I felt even-keeled and motivated. Wednesday I was joyful to near manic. Then on Thursday I was dogged by anxiety and directionlessness, resentful at my own inaction. I don’t even know what to plan for today. Kind of like the weather this week.

Maybe it’s my own spring fever. The school year is winding down at a pace I can only describe as frantic, with IEP meetings and picnics and final projects and band concerts, trying to figure out summer plans and even fall ones, and all this on top of the usual slate of appointments and obligations that thickly populate my iCalendar. I’m probably not alone in the mad dash mentality.

But it’s possible my up-and-down nature is just part of living life on life’s terms. When I’m fully engaged in life, rather than trying to stay numb through compulsive eating and similar behaviors, there’s no artificial buffer between me and my feelings. Being suddenly confronted by a challenge over which I have no control brings me face to face with naked reality. Whatever my immediate reaction, be it calm decorum (appropriate) or wounded rage (not so much), I still have to feel what I feel.

Often my own, imperfect response to a situation exacerbates the feelings. On Sunday afternoon when my daughter’s hypoglycemic meltdown in the middle of Orchestra Hall infuriated me, my response was to make sure she knew just how angry I was and just how awful a human being she was. The incident itself was unpleasant, to be certain. No one wants to have her pre-adolescent daughter dissolve into a temper tantrum in a public place. But upon reflection, I could see there were a whole lot of things I could have done better as a parent before, during and after the debacle, which would have minimized or even prevented the problem. So now I had to deal not only with the feelings that come from the challenges of raising high-needs children, but also with my own sense of failure for the way I handled it. Hence Monday morning’s sobbing.

The good news is that allowing myself to truly experience my feelings means that just as quickly as I can slump into a funk, I can also bounce back. When I’m wallowing in self-pity, it honestly feels as if there is absolutely nothing right in the world; that I’ll never recover from whatever is painful at the moment. Yet, as I frequently tell my daughter, when it comes to this kind of thing, the quickest way out is through. It’s not easy and it’s not comfortable, but it’s not permanent either. And once I’m on the other side of it, it really is gone. The resentment seldom lingers and I’m free to skip back into life with my preferred buoyancy.

I guess instead of trying to plan for what today might bring, I’ll just accept things as they are in the moment and go with it. No matter what might smack me upside the head, I can call a friend, write in my journal, and pray, and I know it’ll be fine, even though I might feel otherwise for a while. I’d rather be fully alive, even when it hurts, than spend my time and energy wishing the world would just go away.

Two Choices

2011-05-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

Every morning I have two options. I can choose to live the day in fear or in hope.

My practical nature pulls me toward fear. This world is a messed up place, filled with unimaginable suffering, rampant human evil, natural disasters and meaningless death. I can’t pretend these things aren’t so, because they are. If I am honest with myself, I have to accept that in the incomprehensible scope of time and space that surrounds me, I am utterly insignificant.

So why get out of bed? (Other than to pee, of course.)

Because I won’t choose fear.

The very act of pushing back the covers and swinging my legs over the side of my bed is the embodiment of hope: a great big Bronx cheer to all the nay-sayers, the “realists,” the pessimists and every force in existence that tries unceasingly to crush the spirit. In the heart of the mundane; eating breakfast, greeting my husband, waking my children and preparing them for school, even walking the stupid dog!, there is a spark of hope infinitesimal yet capable of generating more energy than a collapsing star.

This is not blissful ignorance, but a call to action. I don’t pretend there aren’t parents who fatally neglect or brutalize innocent children, oil companies who post record profits while collecting billions in government subsidies, or fundamentalists—of ALL religions—who aren’t using their so-called faith as justification for oppression and atrocities of every sort (these are just a few random headlines from the past three days.) I cannot change these things myself, but I will not let them immobilize or enrage me—neither is productive.

Instead I will choose hope.

I will do what I can, when I can. I will try to teach my children that the meaning of life is to love and serve others regardless of differences. I will do my best to put this belief into action at every level—in my home, my community, my church, my government, my world. When I fail, as I will often do, I will pick myself up and try again. I will know that I am not alone. I will stand at the edge of the universe, smile quietly and say: I hope, therefore I am.

----

(with gratitude to Douglas Adams)

Following the Plow

2011-04-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I turned to enter onto the freeway and found myself behind a snowplow. I was glad, at first, as a light snow had fallen and I suspected the roads were slippery. As we headed down the ramp I had to slow down a bit to keep a safe distance, and smiled as I drove through the still-bouncing salt crystals he was scattering behind him. Briefly, I thought, “When we hit the freeway, he’ll be going too slow for me,” and then wished I’d been ahead of him. But I mustered the necessary patience and steadily kept my distance as we eased into traffic.

I thought about the advantages of following the plow. Certainly the road directly behind it is safer than any other place on the freeway. I couldn’t drive as fast as the other cars, but shouldn’t we all slow down a bit in our lives? Do I really need to go everywhere at 60-plus miles an hour? What is so important that it requires that kind of speed? So at first I took my position behind the plow as a sort of admonishment, a message to slow down and enjoy the ride.

When the plow turned off at the next exit and I passed it on my way elsewhere, I had a very different thought. Sure, the safest place on a wintry freeway is a few hundred feet behind the snowplow. And maybe it’s okay that it moves along at a slow and steady pace. But what happens when it turns? Do I just follow it in order to stay safe even when it’s not going the direction I need to go?

Then I realized: “I’ve been following the plow.” The path of least resistance. The easiest, safest way. I applied to one college, was accepted and went. I majored in Biology because it was straightforward and made sense to me, whereas pursuing writing was scary and full of gray area. I took jobs that were easy for me and quit when they got boring. None were in the field for which I claim such passion. I wrote all the time—and continue to write—for safe audiences: church, friends, children, fellows in recovery, myself: none prone to be critics.

If I were to pull over and get out of my car would I have any idea where I am? Would I be anywhere near where I was hoping to go?

It’s not as if I immediately skidded all over the road the moment I drove past the plow that morning. The road became more dangerous, certainly, but they're always dangerous. And even plows wind up in the ditch if the weather’s bad enough. I can’t keep following the plow if it’s not on the same path I am. I need to pull out and go my own way, follow my vision, even if the road doesn’t seem as well-groomed.

Confessions of a Martha

2011-04-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Now as they went on their way, [Jesus] entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ --Luke 10: 38-42 NRSV

My mental illness is most pronounced first thing in the morning. When I roll out of bed, my brain takes flight like a startled covey of pheasants. While turning on the shower a single thought; a song lyric, movie line or newly created piece of narrative, for example, loops crazily until I realize it’s stuck on repeat and then deliberately shove it aside. My morning routine is a practiced ritual from the order in which I cleanse my body to the sequence in which I assemble my breakfast. If I get distracted in the slightest, it’s almost guaranteed that I will forget something and, upon sitting down to eat, will realize I am without a fork or a napkin or—the horror!—my coffee.

Once the food and caffeine begin coursing through my veins, my thought processes become more linear. I wish I could say that the mental mania subsides completely, but I can’t. Sometime after the coffee, I create a list of all the things I’d like to accomplish in those generous hours my kids are in school. I am aware as I write this list that it’s going to be impossible, but I tell myself that as long as the highest priorities are covered, I can let the rest go. I seldom do. Because inevitably, the things I most want to do wind up at the bottom of the list. And as the weeks pass, the list of “want to do’s” grows rapidly without the “have to do’s” proportionally scaling back. So I am left each day feeling like Martha—standing in the kitchen at 9:00pm wondering where my day has gone, irritated with everyone around me, and feeling the pain and sadness of once again having missed out on “the good stuff.”

I want to be Mary. I honestly do. I believe that writing creatively is what God wants for me. After years of fear that I loved writing too much, that I would never be allowed to do it seriously because it was selfish and wrong, I have finally reached a place of trust that God would not have given me this passion if I wasn’t intended to use it.

So why am I standing in the kitchen still trying to complete my “to do” list before I’m allowed to go and experience the joy of sitting at Jesus’ feet? Why am I unable to reconcile my need to create with the full basket of laundry on the couch, the grant deadlines and the sound of the school bus dropping off my kids at the end of their day? I mean, even if Martha had joined her sister, eventually someone would have had to clean up the dinner dishes. I don’t suppose Jesus would have offered to do them for her.

But maybe that’s where I’m wrong. Maybe if I’m just willing to set aside my own agenda for a while and stop to listen to God’s call, I’ll find that there is time for everything. Everything in God’s plan, anyway. I believe my creativity is a part of that plan. So I will stop and listen and have faith that all those little tasks will still get done. Nothing is impossible for God.

Otherworldly Origins

2011-02-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

For many years now scientists, historians, science fiction writers and the general public have marveled at the advanced scientific achievements of some very early human civilizations, raising the possibility that such impossible wonders indicated an otherworldly origin for human life. But the debate has raged on with compelling arguments on both sides of the issue and no real evidence. Until now.

I have suddenly realized that there exists proof positive that life on our planet came from elsewhere in the universe. It’s so simple and it’s been staring us in the face for at least… well… a few years certainly.

I offer you as evidence the written Hebrew language. A beautifully crafted, poetic and vibrant communication tool used for thousands of years by one of the earliest cultural groups in recorded history. How is this proof of alien origins, you ask? Hebrew has no vowels. Clearly, this is an irrefutable example of ancient text messaging.

No, think about it! Now that we’ve evolved to the point of having developed both space travel and text messaging we can certainly expect expeditions in the not-too-distant future to populate far flung planets ourselves. Planets so primitive and remote that basic survival will supercede all attempts to preserve records of these pioneers’ former home. Here and there, as civilizations develop, someone will find a record of his advanced origins and convince everyone to build something completely out of whack with the rest of their capabilities. But any other connections to the original settlers will be lost.

Can it be long before someone discovers the Dead Sea Phone in some desolate cave along the shore—unrecognizable in its specific form, perhaps, but deciphered as an advanced alien technology from long ago? I’ve no doubt that when the years of grime are stripped away, there on the bottom of the device will be an inscription in Hebrew translated as: iPhn.

The Talk

2011-01-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Eiledon and I had “the talk.” Not THAT talk! We’ve had an open dialog on THAT subject for over a year now. No, I’m talking about the Santa Claus talk. I had long been dreading it, that time in her life when she realized her parents, along with most of the adult world, had perpetrated the ultimate hoax on her for years.

I had no idea how she would take it, because my own experience had been so different. I can’t remember ever believing in Santa Claus, most likely because I had an older brother, precocious in the extreme, who caught my parents red-handed one December and passed the revelation along to the rest of us. But my parents never really played into the Santa mystique. We never had pictures on Santa’s lap, and when we did sit on Santa’s lap after the Sunday School Christmas Program, we all knew it was really Mr. Vanstrom in a fake beard. Under the tree each year there might be a gift or two “from Santa” but we all just sort of laughed and knew it was from Mom and Dad.

My husband’s family, on the other hand, cultivated a rich and detailed Santa mythology. They always saw Santa before Christmas each year to make their wishes. They opened their gifts to one another on Christmas Eve, and then Santa came that night and brought a few more gifts to be opened in the morning. Santa filled the stockings, Santa put the candy canes on the tree, and Santa left the Whitman’s Sampler for the family to enjoy. Santa’s presents were always wrapped in plain, brown paper and he always left an empty milk glass and the last little bite of the cookies left out for him. And, of course, Santa always left a note, written in big, black, shaky handwriting, congratulating Dan and Nate on having been such good boys that year, and politely thanking them for the cookies.

When Dan and I had our own children he made it plain that he wanted to continue his family’s Santa traditions. At first I argued because I’m lazy and it just sounded like too much work. Then I argued because I deeply believed—and still do, somewhat—that Santa Claus represents nothing but the crass commercialization of what ought to be a rather humble religious observance. A little later, I got all Doris Walker on his ass, refusing to perpetrate such nonsense on my impressionable children and deliberately LIE to them until they got smart enough to do the math and physics themselves.

I lost.

We have truly wonderful pictures of the kids on Santa’s lap which, looked at together, are a hilarious record of our kids’ development over the years. Our annual dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s on a slow-paced weeknight, which precedes the visit to the Big Man himself, has become a cherished family tradition. There’s something simple and charming about gifts wrapped in brown paper, plain candy canes that magically appear on the tree, and a piece of fruit in the toe of each stocking, even if it is buried under enough sugary crap to choke a horse. We have heartwarming notes the kids have left on the table with cookies each year. And I have many sweet memories of the kids’ reactions on Christmas morning when the one thing they most wanted for Christmas was there under the tree, when it clearly hadn’t been the night before.

But now Eiledon is eleven, and while I pray that she hangs on to her wide-eyed, wild, creative spirit, I know she lives in the real world with a lot of other almost-teens struggling to figure out what’s truth and what’s bull. She started asking last Christmas, but only half-heartedly, not really wanting an answer. Then this year the angst became unbearable. Every time Dan answered her question, “Well, what do you think, Eiledon?” I could see the painful struggle in her eyes, between wanting an answer and not wanting an answer, all the while suspecting the answer but hoping upon hope that so long as no one confirmed it, anything was possible.

I sat silently and uncomfortably by. I hated her confusion and I hated my complicity in creating it. And while it’s one thing for Dan (43) and his mom (70) to speak earnestly to one another about Santa, almost making him real by sheer force of will, it was more than I could bear to see a conflicted pre-adolescent trying to keep one foot on each side of the great divide.

Finally one night, as I sat with her at bedtime, she said again—asking, but not asking directly—“I just wish I knew for sure one way or the other.” I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes!” she cried.

I sighed and smiled sadly and she knew before I said a word. “There is no fat man in a red suit who flies around the world in a sleigh drawn by flying reindeer delivering toys to millions of children in one night.”

The relief was palpable. I’m not sure which of us was more relieved. Possibly it was a draw. She said: “I didn’t think so,” and smiled a real, easy smile. “It’s sort of ridiculous to think it’s even possible.”

I smiled back, glad to be on equal footing with my wonderful daughter, grateful to have been so easily forgiven for my years of elaborate dishonesty. She seemed instinctively to understand that it was never malicious. That she ought not to feel stupid for not having figured it out sooner, nor betrayed by her most trusted source of information.

We talked a little about the “spirit” of Santa—the idea of selfless, even anonymous giving that expects nothing in return, except maybe good behavior and a couple cookies. I told her that, to this day, her father and grandmother will not say that Santa isn’t real. For them, the mythology is deeply entwined with family history and that, in and of itself, makes it true, gives it substance, imbues it with life.

Believe it or not, my eleven-year-old got it. Maybe it’s the Watson genes. In any case, we ended our conversation feeling closer, both relieved of our burdens and grateful to be moving forward. But just before I got ready to leave the room, I turned back to her and said, “Don’t tell Gavin. He may not be ready yet.” She assured me she wouldn’t breathe a word.

The “bad mom” in me secretly hopes she does.

New Year’s Ultimatum

2011-01-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post to my blog on New Year’s Day. I woke up excited, faintly buzzing with a sense of purpose and meaning. As I puttered in the kitchen early that morning in a dim and silent house—well, except for the cats pouncing on each other and hissing and growling to wake the dead—I thought, “How wonderfully symbolic! I can start the year with a blog entry and renew my commitment to writing regularly.”

Then it was nine thirty p.m. and I was struggling to get my kids to bed, feeling crabby and exhausted and I hadn’t written a darn thing.

At several points throughout my day, most notably as I combed through three months of bank statements trying to find a mysteriously missing seven dollars, my mind lit on the idea that I ought to be writing. And each time, following the initial excitement about the idea of writing, there came a crushing resignation that there just wouldn’t be time. This was followed by a nagging voice at the back of my mind telling me that if I didn’t write something on New Year’s Day, then there was no point in bothering to continue.

What?!?

Whose voice was that?!?

Whose idea was it that January First should have a deeper significance to the human condition than just the arbitrary point at which some cultures start counting the next 365.2564-day trip around the sun? What exercise-club magnates got together and hatched a scheme to explode their January revenue each year by promising success if only you start trying to lose weight right now? When did I decide that “resolution” was synonymous with “ultimatum?”

I stopped making “resolutions” about six years ago when I actually took action to get recovery from my food addiction (in November, by the way). But this year some things are shifting emotionally and spiritually again. I think I was excited on New Year’s Day not because “this time I’m gonna make it stick!” but because I’ve recently been gifted with a broader sense of vision. I don’t “have a plan” for employing my creativity. Instead I’m trying to be quiet, to listen, so that I don’t miss those sometimes elusive invitations to the sacred act of creating.

Not surprisingly, as soon as I called it out, that voice disappeared. Like most bogeymen, it was entirely insubstantial and only had power so long as I supplied it. Call it what you want, but I think of it as one voice in the broad repertoire of Evil, the ingenious way it twists something so benign as a New Year’s resolution into a monster with the power to kill creativity and any vestige of joy that creativity might generate.

A dear friend said to me yesterday, “I need to surrender the life I’ve planned to be open to the life that’s waiting.” This January third, I resolve to be open.

Generational Serendipity

2010-09-23T14:23:00.001-07:00

When I was 13 years old, some brave family friends took me, along with my best friend, Sue and their own three kids to the New York State Renaissance Festival. They may have even brought additional kids, but I honestly can’t remember. In fact, I don’t remember much about that day: long rows of porta-johns, long lines for funnel cakes, a wooden bridge. That’s near everything. But one event from that long ago excursion remains crystal clear.

I hadn’t brought much money with me—certainly not enough for a souvenir at the arts fair prices found at the festival. At one point I remember browsing a stand of pewter figurines; dragons, fairies, warriors, some as small as my finger, some large and spectacular, perched on rock crystals or holding dazzling jewels in their silvery talons. I gazed longingly at the beautiful statues, wishing I had the means to take one of them home with me, but I knew it wasn’t to be.

Then the lady, decked out in period costume, who was running the stand called to me. “You know,” she said, “I need to run to the rest room. Would you mind watching my stand for me?” I looked around. Me? I was the only person at the stand. Honored by her trust, I said, “Sure.” With a grateful smile she wandered off toward one of those long rows of biffs, leaving me basking in the reflected glow of dozens of metal and crystal sculptures.

It must have been early in the day, because not one other person stopped to look at the stand while its proprietor was gone. After a short time, she returned from her errand and thanked me for my help. “You’re welcome,” I said. As I was about to go, she held out a hand to stop me.

“Here,” she said, pressing something into my hand. “For your help.”

Wide-eyed, I looked down at the tiny pewter dragon she had gifted to me, no more than an inch tall, with a curled tail and open mouth, detailed down to its tiny claws and the scales on its body. I was astonished and gratified. Grinning back at her like an idiot, I thanked her and ran off to find the rest of my companions and show them my newly acquired treasure.

I never shared that story with my husband and children. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it until about a month ago, when I came across the little pewter dragon in a box that had been under our stairs for twelve years. I moved it to the vanity top in my closet, expecting there would be a time to show it to the kids and tell them about its origins. But life kept moving at its breakneck pace and school started and there the tiny dragon sat, forgotten once again.

This past weekend, I took my daughter to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. The first hour or so of the day she couldn’t contain her excitement, jumping and squeaking with glee every couple minutes. She wanted to see everything RIGHT NOW and I practically chanted, “one thing at a time, Ledon,” as we walked/ran from booth to booth. Wooden games and ceramic instruments, floral headpieces, copper sculpture, face painting, hair braiding, soaps, swings, food stands, and performance areas, midway-type attractions, a petting zoo, and a place to ride an elephant. Complete sensory overload! It was marvelous to see her experience it all for the first time.

To keep her from exploding entirely, I kept our pace even, stopping in to look at every merchant’s wares and encouraging her to see everything before deciding what type of souvenir she might want. At every stop, she would find half a dozen things that she “wanted for sure” and I would say, “We’ve been here less than an hour. Just keep your eyes open.”

In one corner of the grounds, the row of shops along the outside wall was mirrored by a few free-standing booths, one selling incense, another costume hats and another small ceramics. We stopped at this last, as I was thinking of buying a hand-made coffee mug. As we browsed, the proprietor engaged us in friendly conversation. It was very early in the day and traffic was light—he was still removing the previous weeks’ cobwebs from some of his items and adding things to the shelves. Eiledon babbled about how this was her first time at the fair and she was SO excited and it was SO cool, and on and on. The man smiled at her good-naturedly as he worked and commented whenever he could get a word in edgewise.

As we were preparing to move on, the shopkeeper called Eiledon over. “See this dragon?” he said, holding a ceramic statue about six inches high. Eiledon nodded and smiled. “His tail broke—see there? Just the tip of it broke off. I can’t sell him—would you like to have him?”

I gaped.

Eiledon accepted, of course, and then helped the man dig through a few other broken pieces of pottery to see if they could find the broken tail. At length the man did find it and handed it to Eiledon. “You can glue it back on with superglue or epoxy,” he said. “Let me wrap it up for you.”

“I have to tell you both a story,” I said then, still a little overcome by the coincidence. And I shared what had happened at my first Renaissance Festival.

The shopkeeper was nonplussed. “That’s amazing!” he said, finally. “You’ve come full circle.” I nodded. I almost felt like crying. “Well, it’s meant to be, then,” he finished, handing the wrapped dragon to Eiledon. “Enjoy your day!”

At that point, I don’t see how we could’ve done otherwise!

Teachable Moment

2010-09-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Eiledon dealt with a little bullying last year in school. Truth be told, her own behavioral challenges can make her seem quite nasty to other people, and her tendency toward the melodramatic might make her perception of others’ behavior more upsetting than those others intended. But I’m inclined to believe that there really were some ‘mean kids’ in her fifth grade class.

This year, Eiledon is in a new school, which offers an emphasis on fine arts, and a smaller and far more diverse student body. We were hopeful that she would find more kindred spirits or, if nothing else, a place where acceptance of differences was prominent in the environment. We warned her that there was no “geographical cure” for her problems, that she would take herself with her to the new school, and that she would still have to work hard both academically and socially to get the most benefit out of it.

The first week was encouraging: “Mama, the kids at this school actually think I’m cool!” She already has a good friend who has invited Eiledon to her upcoming birthday party. And she has a group of friends with whom she eats lunch every day. That NEVER happened last year. I didn’t want to jinx anything, but the relief was overwhelming.

Then yesterday evening, after a prolonged melt-down spurred on by hunger and fatigue, she muttered, “I hate school.” My heart dropped.

“Already?” I asked.

“Well, just because of that girl on the bus.”

Ah. That girl on the bus, whose name Eiledon still doesn’t know even though they’re in the same class of 20 kids. That girl who has said some pretty mean things to Eiledon including, according to my melodramatic eleven-year-old, “Go away. I don’t want to see your face.” And “Just shut up. No one wants to hear you babbling all the time.” The girl also allegedly knocked Eiledon down to the floor of the bus in order to beat her to the back seat one afternoon. (I don’t know if it makes me a bad mom that I’m wondering what Eiledon has said to her, even though she insists: “I have never done ANYTHING to her!” But I’ll let that lie for now.)

By the time Eiledon had finally finished her bedtime snack, and was feeling more coherent, we talked about some strategies for dealing with the situation. I kept coming back to encouraging her to ask for some kind of mediation between the girls. To having Eiledon offer to “start over” and figure out how they can “get along” rather than just complaining about the other girl’s nastiness. Eiledon was unsure. “I know what she’ll say if I ask her that. She’ll just tell me to go away and that no one wants to see my face.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. “But if you really make the effort to hold out the olive branch, and stay positive about it, and she still isn’t willing to be friendly, then it’s her problem and not yours.”

As Eiledon went off to bed (finally!), I could tell she wasn’t completely convinced, but she agreed to talk to her teacher about how to proceed. Good for her! I thought, and then collapsed into bed myself.

This morning, as she sat eating breakfast at the kitchen counter, we somehow started talking about the literary device of personification. The conversation soon turned to the anthropomorphism in her favorite book series, Warriors, which is about feral cats living in a tribal society with lots of human-like customs and beliefs. All of a sudden Eiledon said, “I feel so bad for Scourge. I really relate to him. He was such a cute kitten and it’s so sad that he turned out to be so evil. It wasn’t even really his fault!”

BINGO. “Eiledon,” I said, “I think it’s interesting that you relate to Scourge. Do you think that some of that is because you have lots of challenges that sometimes make people think you’re mean when you really don’t intend it?”

“Yeah,” she said, a little sadly.

“So maybe you could look at that girl on the bus like Scourge.”

Silence.

“You don’t really know her. Maybe she doesn't want to be mean. Maybe there are other things in her life that make her seem that way.”

“I guess,” Eiledon answered philosophically.

“Do this,” I said. “When she gets on the bus this morning, think of her as Scourge. And just talk to her. Tell her you’re sorry you haven’t been getting along and you wonder if you can’t just start over and try to be friendly.”

“What if she just yells at me to go away?”

“Well, then just say, ‘okay’ and go sit down. Then you can talk to your teacher at school about it, like you’d planned.”

She nodded and then grabbed her backpack and headed for the bus. You go, Girl! I cheered silently.

I don’t expect Eiledon to come home all smiles about her new friend, or anything. But I could tell, just by looking at her as she walked out the front door, that she ‘got it.’ That by reframing her adversary as someone misunderstood, someone she related to, she suddenly had a little compassion for the girl. And no matter what happened after that point, Eiledon had learned something very valuable.

You get used to the bugs.

2010-07-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Upon arrival at the cabin each summer I am aware that it’s not insulated, and that regardless of any effort to the contrary, Herculean as it may be, there will always be spider webs up in the rafters and strung between any two objects left undisturbed for more than a day or so. There will be earwigs and green bugs found on furniture or walls or crawling over the floor now and again. On still evenings, there will be countless moths and other night bugs on the window screens, the tiniest of which will figure a way indoors and flutter madly around the bare-bulb lights in the crossbeams. You are almost certain to find a small, multi-legged friend in the bathtub each morning when leaning in to turn on the shower, and it’s not at all uncommon to see a daddy longlegs scooting from the stack of logs by the fireplace as someone reaches to add more fuel to the fire on the hearth.

There was a period in my life when I absolutely could not abide these unwelcome guests in the cabin. I remember being unable to sleep, feeling as if there was some bug crawling on me at all times. I hated the idea of sleeping in a place where, like as not, some hungry jumping spider would visit me in the night to snack on my blood, leaving an itchy welt as a tip. I am not certain that it was solely due to the inevitable bugs in such a rustic setting, but for a few years, the very thought of the cabin raised considerable anxiety in me and, as my husband wasn’t willing to spend all his vacation time in the same place every year, I simply didn’t go. I am happy to report that either age or experience or copious amounts of Prozac eliminated the unfounded anxiety and in 2002, I began taking the next generation to this earthly paradise each summer, with or without my husband.

Now, I believe I can say with some tranquility, I am resigned to sharing the cabin with those possessing four, six or even dozens more legs than I. Just this morning I moved one of the little wooden footstools across the living room without even bothering to turn it over and check for stowaways. After just a few hours in the cabin, the slight tickling sensation of tiny feet running across my skin results not in a paroxysm of revulsion, but a quick, decisive hand movement ending with a firm pressure on the affected area. Squish first, ask questions later.

I have even been known to allow spiders to build elaborate orb webs from the light fixtures, welcoming tiny eight-legged visitors—who are sometimes even given names, for goodness sake!—to drop down and watch a game of pinochle or hearts, so long as they don’t reveal the contents of my hand to my opponents. And when I step into the shower each morning, scanning the ceiling for loitering arachnids I’m as like as not to simply mutter, “As long as you stay up there, we don’t have a problem.”

Still, I’m not completely at peace with my cohabitants. I will check the ceiling of my bedroom each night and put an end to anything lurking above me. And as I mentioned, the sensation of being crawled upon will not be tolerated under any circumstances. But by and large I can enjoy the splendors of cabin life without constantly worrying about my ever-present invertebrate companions.

A McMansion Moment

2010-06-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

I once came across a quote that read, roughly: “Social justice exists at the intersection of rhetoric and envy.” While it’s quite likely that whoever originated the quote was loitering at the corner of avarice and self-justification, this kind of mean-spirited overgeneralization is always more painful when barbed with a modicum of truth.

I have been systematically downsizing the “stuff” in my home and in my life for the better part of five years, now, with a deep conviction that I ought to be simplifying. That I need to set an example for my children about what is “enough” and about real joy having nothing to do with the things we think we want. I try to live by the adage: “Happiness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you have.”

So why is it, then, when I drove through a nearby neighborhood of enormous houses the other day did I find myself thinking, “Who are all these people who can afford these houses? What do they do for a living and how on earth can there be so many of them?!?” I call incidents such as these "having a McMansion moment." Implicit in my confusion is the additional question: “What am I doing wrong that I don’t live like this?” Envy. Then judgment: “Whoever these people are, they obviously have no moral conscience that they would choose a life of such conspicuous consumption while children are going hungry every day.”

It’s easy from that jumping-off-point to rage against the American economic machine that rewards the wealthy to the detriment of the poor and riff endlessly upon how a simple redistribution of such massive wealth could solve a myriad of social ills. Mind you, I am not, for even a moment, saying I agree with the above quote. I think most people who struggle for social justice have no ambitions to golf-course living. But if I’m to be honest, I need to cop to the fact that sometimes I just wish I had more, and if it came at the expense of those McMansion dwellers, that wouldn’t be so bad. And I don’t even know them.

On the other hand I truly do think—not as a product of envy, but as a product of my Christian belief system—that such exorbitant wealth carries with it at least the temptation to evil, if money cannot be said to be evil unto itself. I don’t know if I’ve heard this quote somewhere or if I made it up myself, but I giggle, sometimes, when I think, “Well, I don’t have a lot of money. So I have to have values.” Hah! As if the wealthy are completely bereft of conscience! Then again, if a tiny piece of my desire for social justice arises out of envy, surely a tiny piece of their chosen lifestyle arises out of greed?

The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

Humbled to be an American

2010-05-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

On April 14th, my brother-in-law, Nate, began a 1-year tour of duty in Afghanistan. He is, at the moment, still on US soil, doing final prep before heading out. He will spend ten months in one of the most unsettled regions in the world.

When the family gathered for dinner on the 13th to say our good-byes, the anxiety was palpable, the sadness all-pervading. But there was also a sense of awe at the level of courage, commitment and humility in Nate’s decision to serve his country in whatever way they asked.

I have been thoughtful these past weeks about the sacrifices Nate and his wife and children are making for this duty. I have been accused, in the past, of not being a patriot because of my left-of-center political views. This is ridiculous, of course, but it bears exploration at a time when questions about US military action in the world have landed so close to my own backyard. I dug through my journals and found this entry, below. I thought I would share it, in honor of Nate’s selfless service to us all.

-----------------------------------

July 23, 2004

I’ve had an epiphany. I think I finally understand what it is, exactly, that bothers me so much about America’s national pride. About flags on t-shirts and “God Bless America” on bumper stickers and “Proud to be an American” on the radio.

The truth is, I am a patriot. There are those who might think otherwise, as I openly criticize our current (Bush) administration, disapprove of the war in Iraq, and strongly support the separation of church and state, among other things. But I love being an American. I thoroughly and heartily enjoy my freedom to speak my mind, worship my God, educate my children, and share in the plenty that America offers.

But proud? No.

Humbled.

I am humbled to be an American. I am humbled that 200 years ago, a group of intelligent people had the foresight to write as beautiful and flexible a document as the US Constitution. I am humbled that men and women have died because they believed in the freedoms laid out in that document. I am humbled knowing that many of them died unwillingly, pawns in a shameful, imperialistic game played by powers far beyond them, but that all, nonetheless, fought for the right reasons.

I am humbled because here I sit, reaping the unbelievable benefits of someone else’s hard work and sacrifice.

Proud to be an American?

No.

Ashamed, often, of what a few, powerful men do in the name of American pride. Ashamed of the reputation our country has created in the global community—a John-Wayne-esque go-it-alone bully who will stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to increase its wealth and influence and domination of others. Ashamed, really of that whole concept of “National Pride.”

When did pride become a virtue? If I’m not mistaken, it’s still listed as one of the “seven deadly sins.” Pride is dangerous. Pride is blind to truth. Pride in a person makes him arrogant and unlikeable. Pride in a country leads to genocide. Did we learn nothing from the Nazis in World War II?

Humility. Now there’s an asset. Humility leads to sharing and cooperation. It leads to seeing others as they truly are. It leads to honesty and an inability to place yourself above another person—especially for things you could not possibly have earned for yourself: white skin, Christian beliefs, heterosexual leanings.

I am humbled by all those who have gone before so that I might sit here and muse on the awesome blessing of my very existence in this time and place. And I sincerely believe that if everyone waving an American flag was humbled, rather than proud, to be an American, this country would be a truly great nation.

---------------------------------

Thanks, Nate.

-

Community Service

2010-03-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a small church. There just weren’t a lot of Lutherans in suburban New York. There were about six kids in my Sunday School class and it was generally a two- or three-grade span in each class. We had one pastor and one Sunday worship service. There was a lot of work to be done and not a whole lot of people, so everyone pitched in on a regular basis and I watched my parents direct and teach Sunday School and Bible studies, serve on Council and committees, organize local and national service opportunities, serve as assisting ministers, preach when the pastor was on vacation, and sing in the choir, among other activities too numerous to remember. This was the place my faith was formed.

Moving to the Minneapolis area in 1996 was quite the culture shock. Even the smaller church of which my husband and I initially became members had about 1,500 people on the rolls. It was sort of exhilarating to be part of something so… teeming is the only word I can come up with. There were two choirs and a small singing group, lots of Sunday School kids, two pastors and an unbelievable organist. For a few years I directed Christmas programs, served on committees, participated in musical theater, and did many of the things I had seen my own parents do when I was growing up. What surprised me was that despite the congregation being literally 10 times larger than that of my childhood, there really weren’t many more people actively involved in service to the congregation and the community. There were still only a handful of families who consistently attended and participated in worship and education opportunities, who attended every event and who stepped up to help out when needed.

About three years ago, I found another tiny Lutheran church a bit closer to home. For whatever demographic and societal reasons, Calvary Lutheran in Edina is as small, if not smaller, than my home church in New York. In sharp contrast to the proliferating mega-churches of all denominations in the Twin Cities, Calvary feels like a community to me. We all know each other. We all participate together. I don’t worry about where my son, who has Asperger Syndrome and ADHD, has gotten to—people know him and love him for who he is and help keep him from getting into too much trouble. I love watching my daughter participate in music and art and especially drama, where she excels. My husband has had opportunities to play his guitar, attends the monthly “men’s breakfast” group and willingly substitute teaches in Sunday School. My parents are members, too, continuing in their lifelong commitment to and passion for their church community.

There are times when it’s frustrating to belong to a church this small. Sure, it would be nice to have a dozen or so more families with children to bolster the Sunday School rolls. I think sometimes people are afraid to become part of a small congregation because they want to remain anonymous. They want to drop in for worship and disappear afterward. And they don’t want anyone to ask them to help with anything—schedules are simply too overcrowded as it is and they would feel terribly guilty if they had to say “no.” I get that. I do. But I’ve learned in recent years that simply showing up is of enormous value in a worship community. A family serves its congregation simply by lending its voice and its presence to the experience of corporate worship. A person who is struggling serves her fellow members by allowing them to be of service to her. Whether you feel inclined to offer more of your time and energy to the workings of the community is always up to you. I have found that when I am ready to serve, the opportunities are provided.

I know that lots of people are leaving the church because they don’t feel like they “get anything out of it.” I’ve learned that you get just as much out of it as you put in.

Mission Accomplished

2010-02-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

90 days. 90 blog entries. Not exactly every day—there was the one day I totally spaced and the other day I had no access to the required technology, but both times I made it up.

So I’m done. And what have I learned?

1) If I had to, like for a job or something, I could squirt something out every day.

2) If I were actually being paid to squirt something out every day, I’d like to think it would be of higher quality than some of the mental refuse I slapped up here on more than a few occasions.

3) I write much better in the morning.

4) I write much better when I actually have something meaningful to say.

5) I don’t have something meaningful to say all that often.

6) When I’m at a loss for what to write, or when I feel so overwhelmed and insane that the last thing I want to do is write, it is very, very, very hard not to rant. Ranting about idiots, incidents, indiscretions, institutions, injustices, indecencies, incompetence, ignorance and lots of other things that start with “i" would have been an easy way out for me. Even with some of the pointless crap to which I had to resort in order to avoid ranting, I’m glad I set that limitation on my subject matter.

7) I am completely, hopelessly and ridiculously in love with the written word. That said, I’m looking forward to a break.

Peace out.

Open Up My Head and Let Me Out

2010-02-27T17:39:00.001-08:00

(little BAY-bee!)

Coincidence that a) Dan just found out he has fabulous Warehouse-member-seniority-based-butt-kicking tickets to see Dave Matthews Band BOTH nights at Alpine Valley in July AND at the Xcel in September and b) I’m feeling like the DMB song lyric which titles this blog entry pretty much sums up my emotional state at the moment?

Never mind the fact that the above sentence was a ridiculous run-on.

I had six lovely hours without husband or children this afternoon, no place I had to be, nothing I had to “get done,” no need to do more than have a little quiet me time. And in that time I managed not to get my blog written, not to nap for more than a few minutes, not to read anything interesting or even watch anything interesting. Or uninteresting. In fact, I managed not to do so many things that I honestly can’t account for the time. Except that for the entire six hours, my brain was running on one of those metal gerbil wheels (which helps explain the nap deficiency—I didn’t say I didn’t lie down. I just said I failed to actually sleep for more than a short while).

In fact, it’s still running. I’d love to share, except I’m pretty sure that if I get started, I’m just going to rant for fourteen pages which a) violates my ground rules for this blog and b) would take far too much time and energy.

This is the time to use the tools of my recovery program. Write the stuff down. Literally “open up my head and let me out.” Get on the phone with folks in my network. Pray and meditate. Do service for someone else. Just shove a giant 12-step wrench into the gerbil wheel and launch my frantic synapses into a welcoming pile of cedar shavings. Too much of a gerbil analogy? Probably.

So I apologize to anyone who actually reads today’s blog. It’s little more than half-crazed dribbling. But at least it’s honest.

In Praise of Text Messaging

2010-02-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

When Dan and I got our cell phones, we didn’t care anything for text messaging. It wasn’t all the rage, yet, and seemed a frivolous add-on to an already pricey monthly contract. Now, of course, educators and parents are up in arms about the epidemic of poor spelling and soaring inattentiveness caused by kids sending “OMG, r u fer real? L8r!” to one another. In fact, a friend of mine who gave into her son’s desire for a cell phone was recently horrified to have half a dozen sixth graders sitting around her dining room table texting each other rather than just talking. I can see the concern.

But as for me and my house, WE LOVE TEXTING. For a few reasons.

First of all, I hate the phone. The last thing I need in my unpredictable household is one more entity suddenly bursting out with a nerve-jangling demand for my attention. I know I don’t have to answer it, and with “Opt-out” websites and “Caller ID,” we get few calls from solicitors and can easily see which ones not to answer. But even then, there’s the frustration of running around to find the portable handset just to realize it’s a “Restricted” or “Out of Area” number, which I will never answer. Or if it is someone dearly beloved to me or my family, I often feel overwhelmed with anxiety, knowing I have a zillion things to do and that this phone call will take a minimum of ten to fifteen minutes I really don’t have, but I feel like an absolute schmuck not answering when I know it’s someone I would otherwise LOVE to engage in a friendly conversation.

Don’t call me. I’ll call you.

But then, if I call you, I put you in the exact same position of having to drop anything and everything in which you might otherwise be involved to respond to my sudden demand for your attention. You probably aren’t as neurotic as I am about the phone, but I automatically assume that if it bugs me, it might bug someone else and why would I want to do that?

Enter the concept of text messaging. I need to find out whether Dan will be able to take Eiledon to Kung Fu the next day so I can schedule an appointment for Gavin. I don’t need to butt into his crazy work day. I just text him a quick note and, when it’s convenient for him, he gets the necessary information and responds. If he has a question or a piece of information for me, he can send it on over and when I don’t have my hands full or if I have a moment free from dealing with the kids or various pets, I can take a look at it. It’s just a much more non-invasive method of communication, ideal for busy parents.

Secondly, I’ve never been a big fan of chatting by phone. Whether it’s my own brand of Asperger’s or just anti-social behavior, I find the expectations for casual small-talk very difficult. It’s not like that with my closest friends or people in my recovery program, but in general, having to be spontaneously witty and mutually engaged in a telephone conversation is exhausting for me. With a text, I can quickly convey the one pertinent piece of information without having to chat about the weather or the price of gasoline. Like portable e-mail.

Third, I have ADHD. There are more unconnected pieces of information flying around between my ears at any given moment than there are on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. If I suddenly remember something important, I can text it to the appropriate party before it disappears into the far reaches of my gray matter! Even if it’s as simple as asking Dan to please stop at Jerry’s Foods on his way home to pick up the ice cream Eiledon is supposed to bring to school tomorrow. The information is in written form, the instruction is simple and clear, and Dan can receive the information when he has an opportunity to do so, on his terms. How do you not love that?

Lastly, texting offers a unique avenue for truly creative expression and a level of intimate connection on a moment-to-moment basis. I like to describe my phone’s text feature as a sort of walkie-talkie, direct to my husband, through which we can send secret messages at any time of day or night, in almost any situation (NOT WHILE DRIVING!!!! Just sayin’.) We spend so much of our time apart, and so much of the rest of our time focused on our kids, there’s not a whole lot left for the two of us. Each morning, if we’re lucky, we get about 15 minutes to have coffee together and take care of any family business. Text messaging gives us an opportunity to send love notes, share a joke, relate a funny event or ask a pertinent question and otherwise just let the other person know we were thinking of them. I’m not advocating texting as a replacement for togetherness. But when togetherness just ain’t happ’nin’, texting is a Godsend.

It’s a joy to be sitting in a hellaciously boring meeting and be able to text “I think I feel my toenails growing,” or some such nonsense to each other. When Dan and the kids are on a fun outing and something weird or funny happens, I get a little piece of the action in the form of a humorous message. Add in the camera phone and I get all kinds of bizarre pictures with hilarious captions from all over the place! I have grown so fond of this direct access to Dan and a few other friends that few things make me smile more readily than the sound of my phone receiving a text message: Casey Kasem yelling, in Shaggy’s voice, “Scooby Doo! Where ARE you?!?”

Because what I hear is, “Hey, Bek! I’m thinking of you!”

Bubble Guinea Pop

2010-02-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

(Gavin helped me write this entry :)

After a nonsensical intro in which an ill-defined ‘bad guy’ seems threatening (doesn’t actually DO anything threatening, mind you, just seems threatening) to some zoo animals, a couple of maverick guinea pigs decide to save the animals with serpents, bubble gum and bossa nova.

I’m sorry, WHAT?

It’s an online computer game, whose title is that of this blog entry. You can find it here. Gavin discovered it the other day on the computer at school. The object is to launch guinea pigs from the jaws of pendulum-like hanging snakes toward waiting zoo animals. When the guinea pigs come to a complete rest, they immediately blow a huge bubble-gum bubble which bursts, covering the targeted animal in pink, sticky goo which, supposedly, makes it so that vaguely threatening guy’s “powers” don’t work on them. You know, for their own good. In the sage words of Gavin: “It’s stupid.”

But it’s pretty darn fun, too. Each very short level requires you to click on a snake or two to release a bubble-blowing rodent at just the right time to have the proper trajectory so it lands close enough to the animal in peril to sufficiently coat it with pink goo. With every passing level, the layout of the ‘board’ is more complex, requiring advance planning as to when to release the pig, how to use other pigs and/or objects on the board to push the pig closer to its target and, in some cases, blow up bricks or pieces of wood (with bubble gum—because that makes sense) before being able to complete the task. In some screens, there are portals from one part of the board to another. In another screen, there’s a little machine that, when you launch your pigs into it, it divides the guinea pig into four smaller piglets (each of which is capable of blowing enough of a bubble to save a zoo animal). Gavin calls this the “guinea pig grinder.” Kind of a gross image, no?

He finished up to level 31 (out of 57) this morning before I had to literally threaten him to within an inch of his life in order to disengage him so he could head for the school bus. The really sad part is that we’re supposedly under a technology ban (for the kids) until further notice. But Gavin really wanted to show me this game he’d discovered and all of his attempts to explain it to me made absolutely no sense (and is there any wonder why that might be???) So I let him show me and was instantly sucked into a ridiculously silly morass of bubble gum, snakes, fuzzy rodents, assorted zoo animals, whirly portals, moving parts and mechanical switches all accompanied by a maddening synthesized overly-cheerful bossa nova.

And I think my life is crazy? My life has nothing on Bubble Guinea Pop.

ROFLMAO

2010-02-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

Norman Cousins, journalist and editor for the New York Post and the Saturday Review from the 1940s to the 1970s suffered from a rare form of arthritis later in his life. Part of his self-created treatment for the pain involved watching Marx Brothers films. He said: "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."

Last evening, during the family ritual of “bedtime snack time,” Gavin asked us to help him come up with a Moir-family-style ridiculous multiple name for his new stuffed Pokemon, Uxie. I don’t know what it is with our family and creative naming, but within about fifteen minutes, we were all in such hysterics, the dog started freaking out.

This is clearly a case of “you had to be there” so it won’t make much sense for me to write out exactly what was said. It’s probably enough to know that once the weird names started flying and Eiledon started writing them down, a series of errors in spelling and the incorrect re-stating of what another person had just said quickly escalated me to tears. I think the kicker was when Eiledon said one thing with her mouth full, I said back to her what it had sounded like to me, and then Dan, who misheard my misinterpretation asked, “Did you just say that Brubeck looks like a hamburger that came out of someone’s nose?”

Tears, I tell you. And acute abdominal muscle pain. I thought of the Norman Cousins quote: “Laughter is inner jogging,” because this was some workout.

After the recent days of wandering around in frustration, confusion, self-pity and the like, this was the best medicine anyone could have prescribed. For the first time in a week, I went off to bed in a good mood, grateful for my wonderful family and for all the gifts we truly have.

Keep those endorphins comin’, y’all: Spend some time LYAO!

Emotional Traffic Jam

2010-02-23T15:05:00.000-08:00

After driving in the Twin Cities metro area for fifteen-plus years, now, I’ve come to expect, and generally accept, a certain amount of unpredictability in traffic patterns, driving styles, and the amount of time it will actually take to get from point A to point B. It’s also the only metro area in which I’ve driven extensively, so I can't say for certain that it's different than any other. Well, there was Des Moines, which I was semi-familiar with for about three years, where I referred to the locals’ overall driving technique as “freestyle” and joked about starting a foundation to repair the thousands of turn signals which appeared to be non-functional in the average Iowan’s car.

But back to the Twin Cities. Now, I’m not going to rant about city traffic: a) I don’t allow myself to rant (too much) on this blog and, b) it would be way too easy. Instead, I want to relate my own contribution to today’s random highway insanity.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m under a great deal of stress. I won’t go into it here: you can find musings on the current turmoil in my life in other entries. Just know that, when I left my house this morning for my weekly meeting, I was probably not in the best frame of mind. Therefore, when traffic on 494 east unexplainably came to a near stand-still at France Avenue at 9:05a.m. I was a little annoyed. Here I had actually left home with enough time to get to my meeting and now it looked as if I would be late as usual. When the backup stubbornly persisted past Penn, I-35W, Lyndale and Nicollet, I just sort of threw up my hands. You know, ‘best laid plans’ and all that crap. But when I saw what had caused the back-up, I allowed myself a little self-righteous indignation. It was a multi-car accident with half a dozen police and rescue vehicles with flashing lights… on 494 WEST-bound. It wasn’t even on the same road. But whatever sick emotional void is filled by rubber-necking at someone else’s misfortune managed to inconvenience me terribly. (Of course I looked, too. I had plenty of time ;)

In the end I was maybe two minutes late. Big fat hairy deal. But my agitation lingered.

For two hours, I sat in the meeting, sometimes listening, sometimes participating but mostly, I have to admit, multi-tasking. I had yet to read the official report of all of Gavin’s testing at Children’s Integrative and spent the lion’s share of the time poring over the psychologist’s methodology, observations, interpretations and psychological diagnoses. No surprises. Still painful.

I bolted after the meeting, unwilling or unable to engage in the social niceties of fellowship, and headed home. After following an extremely slow driver all the way down Cedar (It appeared as if he was trying to find a specific address, yet he just kept on heading south), I breathed out in relief when we hit Highway 77 and I could pass him. In the next five minutes or so, I witnessed an unusually high incidence of irresponsible driving, from tailgaiting to speeding, to excessive lane changing, all seemingly without reason. I got on my auto-safety high horse and started mulling over all the stupid choices people make when they get behind the wheel of a car.

And then I glanced down at my speedometer. Um.

So I slowed way down and gave myself a bit of a talking-to. There was absolutely no reason in the universe that my general sense of stress and unhappiness should endanger myself or others through bad driving. Especially when I’m the first one to look critically at other’s choices and judge them for not being as safe and conscientious as I like to think I am. Thereafter, I committed to paying better attention and separating my emotions from my driving.

494 westbound was now completely cleared of the previous accident and traffic was moving in the usual 5-15 miles over the speed limit. In anticipation of the upcoming I-35W exchange (from HELL) I scooted into the far left lane to avoid the inevitable clog at that point. Unfortunately, once I passed the interchange, I was not able to return to a more central position on the road—traffic was just that thick. I noted behind me a sporty little BMW who was clearly irritated that I was in the left lane and wasn’t willing to drive 90 to get out of his way. At first, I was grateful when traffic loosened around France Avenue. But then, unfortunately, I had another issue. The pot holes between lanes along that stretch of road are unbelievable. There was no way I could move over a lane or two without jeopardizing my suspension in a serious way. So with the unhappy Beemer crawling up my rear end, I maintained what I believed to be a happy medium between the safety of the speed limit and the safety of avoiding a rear collision.

Finally, the yawning chasm between me and the next lane leveled out a bit and I slid into the center lane, tempted beyond belief to give the driver of the BMW a dirty look as he accelerated and roared past me in his impatience. Who was I to judge, when just twenty minutes earlier I had to dress myself down for the same vice? It was just enough, at that point, to get myself home and let go of “all the idiots out there.” It doesn’t do one bit of good to whine about other drivers and, as I so wonderfully demonstrated, it’s pretty hypocritical. Who’s to say the BMW-driver was even aware of his speed? Maybe he was lost in thought about some life tragedy. I’m not the traffic police. All I can do, just for today, is just take myself out of the equation.

The Least I Could Do

2010-02-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

At some point in the last week or so, my kids left a library book within reach of the dog. Yes, the same dog who compulsively chews to tiny bits any item that can actually be reduced to tiny bits. Luckily, I didn’t walk into a room to find a pile of unidentifiable shreds, but caught Brubeck in the act and rescued the book with only the bottom left corner partially removed. Or, more correctly, the bottom right corner, as it’s a Japanese manga book, written in English but published with the pages in Japanese, rather than English order.

Heavy sigh. I examined the damage, wondering if the book was salvageable. It wasn’t all that bad, I thought, and put it back on the shelf in the library corner, along with all the Time Warp Trio books for Gavin, books about Aspergers and ADHD for me and Dan, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, which Eiledon is reading for a book report, and various and sundry graphic novels, school library books and picture books.

Yesterday I got the e-mail reminder that I had books coming due. Among them was the damaged Pokemon book and I sighed again. Chances are I could return it and it would be listed as “damaged.” I saw, when I read the Simon Singh book on The Big Bang, a note in the front cover that said: “Condition Noted.” Later in the book, I found multiple instances where a previous reader had highlighted portions of the text. So in this case, I was guessing the condition would also be “noted” so that no future borrowers would be blamed for the damage.

Still, by the time I reached the Library, I knew I’d be paying for the book. It was the only honest thing to do. What bugged me about it was having to admit I allowed my kids to be so irresponsible with a library book that the dog destroyed it. Me! For whom books are sacred! Whose blood curdles when I see someone fold down the corner of a page to mark his place.

Suck it up, Moir. You blew it. Get over yourself and pay for the stinkin’ book.

I placed the other three returns on the moving belt and wandered up to the desk. When the librarian noticed me, I smiled, lamely, and told her my dog had damaged the book. She took it from me and looked at it, making a noncommittal sound as she noted the teeth marks. There was a short pause. “I think I should pay for it,” I said.

“You want to pay for it?” she said, without emotion.

“I think I ought to. It’s my fault it’s damaged.”

She seemed almost embarrassed when she replied, “Well, I suppose that would be the right thing to do.” Like she was trying to give me an out. Or waiting for me to argue. Or I don’t even know what. It was weird.

“Yes,” I said with conviction. “I’d like to pay for the book.”

She walked me through the transaction and checked out another book I had on hold. She handed me the damaged book. “In our system, we have to list it as “lost” so we can go through the process of replacing it,” she said. “So you can keep it.”

Great, I thought. I can reward my kids for destroying public property. “Thank you,” I managed, and wandered out with my new “purchase.”

Sure enough, when I told the kids about what had happened and how I’d had to pay for the book (and how they would be reimbursing me out of their allowance), Gavin immediately piped up: “What happens if Brubeck chews up the other one?”

I don’t think he was being devious. He really isn’t like that. But I was DARN quick to say, “I returned it. And this will NOT happen again.”

“Good,” said Gavin, with a smile.

Here’s hoping.

A Crock of…

2010-02-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

…pot roast. I LOVE pot roast. Take one large hunk of natural (grass-fed, no hormones or additivies) beef, toss into a crock pot with potatoes, carrots, onion and tomato, turn on to “low,” go about your business for a few hours and: voila! Dinner. Effortless, I tell you. If only everything in life could be so easy. But not so.

Tonight I get to go to a talk called “The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Odd: Asperger’s Syndrome.” It’s presented by a man who has Asperger’s an focuses on demystifying the condition for the general public. A friend emailed me the information about the talk and I’m terribly grateful she did, and that my brother and his family are willing to host the kids for a few hours this evening. I’m hopeful that I’ll glean something that helps me to be less overwhelmed by the task ahead.

Meanwhile, life en la Casa de Moir feels like a complete zoo. Both kids are behaviorally all over the board, trying to deal with school and church and homework and flute and natural supplements and traditional medications. The younger cat (Jack-Jack) insists on pouncing on the more decrepit cat (Perry) causing explosions of hissing and growling at all hours. Jack-Jack also has a flower fetish which means the beautiful irises I brought home today (my FAVORITE flower) will likely be on the floor in a pool of water and broken glass when we get home from the talk. Then there’s the dog, who continues to pee all over my daughter’s carpet, chew up everything in sight, knock over the bathroom garbage and just generally add to the chaos, and my husband who is unwilling to part with the dog. When I said we should, he asked pointedly if I was willing to get rid of the cats, too. I totally called his bluff, because, honey they ALL can go. Still, Dan is determined to train Brubeck to be a contributing member of the family (actually Brubeck could probably make dinner in a crock pot, it’s so easy. There may yet be a future for him here).

So I continue to cling, white-knuckled, to what passes for sanity in the belief that “this, too, shall pass.” My mom has been quoting that Bible verse to me all my life and she’s never been wrong. Here’s hoping that this time it doesn’t turn out to be a crock of…

Glass Half Full

2010-02-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

I’m liking this ELCA Lenten Calendar thing. Easy inspiration. Yesterday’s suggestion was to put $1 in our ELCA World Hunger Relief collection bank for every pound we feel overweight. Of course, with my food plan, I don’t feel overweight at all. At most, a pound or two, which I’m still in the process of losing. So I’ll have to put in, say, $5 bucks a pound. My poor husband, on the other hand, looked pretty chagrined at the suggested exercise. Suffice it to say that, together, we’ll put a nice sum in our little bank (which we don’t actually have yet, but you can hold me to it since it’s in print :)

Today’s suggestion is to “Smile because your glass is half full.” Honey, there are days I’m totally convinced my glass overfloweth. Even with all the craziness around parenting kids with “special needs” (and, really, don’t all kids have special needs?) by and large I’m ridiculously wealthy in material, spiritual and relational things. Oh, wait, after dealing with another daughter-meltdown, I still have to remember the part where I SMILE. So, here you go.

I actually have a regular habit of smiling at other drivers when I’m out and about in my car. I think it’s funny to see how genuinely surprised most people are when you make eye contact with them and smile. Ninety-eight times out of a hundred, the other driver

will eventually smile back, once he or she is over his/her shock. The other two times out of a hundred, I’ll chalk up to the fact that the other driver is too distracted to smile back, has a genuine reason not to smile, or thinks I’m a raving lunatic and is afraid if they smile back I’ll turn my car around, follow them to a secluded spot and eat them with fava beans and a nice chianti. Actually, now that I write that down, I’m suddenly questioning my decision to smile at strangers.

No, seriously, I’m not.

So unless you live in an area where eye contact will actually lead to bodily harm, I challenge you to smile at other people for a few days. I guarantee it will lift your spirits and help you to feel that we humans are all in this together, cooperatively, rather than trying to just claw our way to societal dominance to ensure the perpetuation of our genes through the next few generations. (Where did THAT come from?!?)

And you never know: you might be on Candid Camera!

Disability vs. Personality

2010-02-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

I’m trying to be accepting of my children. Unconditional love is, as I’ve written before, the most important part of any plan to help with ADHD or other challenges. Acceptance is a cornerstone of 12-Step recovery, but a dicey one when it comes to parenting. There are things in life I can’t change. There are things about my daughter that I can’t change. But there are things that, as a parent, I must change. Well, let me put that a different way: It’s my responsibility to teach my daughter a basic level of appropriate behavior and the tools she might need to get along with her fellow human beings. But it’s at just these teachable moments when I completely blow it in the unconditional love department.

The truth of the matter is that it is sometimes impossible for me to discern which aspects of a particular behavior are her disability (e.g. Tourette’s causing uncontrollable outbursts or anxiety causing uncontrollable outbursts or ADHD… causing… uncontrollable… out—well you get the idea) and which aspects are her personality (as children are often generally willful, defiant and self-absorbed). I can accept that she has greater challenges to her serenity than some other children. I can accept that I need to take these challenges into consideration when structuring her routine or establishing discipline. But in the moment when she seems completely incapable of performing the simplest task, I can’t seem to accept that she might not be entirely willfully misbehaving. She may be willfully misbehaving in part, and that’s the part I’m supposed to lovingly discipline but I can’t tease out what’s what and, in the end, three out of five times I wind up losing it and yelling, sending her to her room, or revoking various privileges.

Mind you, three out of five times is a vast improvement over my natural instincts. Having to report my own melt-downs to my sponsor each day has helped a fair amount in delaying my outbursts at least long enough for a few rational thoughts. And I’m ridiculously proud of the few times I’ve managed to navigate a behavioral mine-field without blowing off any body parts, hers or my own.

Come to think of it, maybe I oughtta cut myself a little slack if I’m dealing with my own self-diagnosed ADHD. I should look at my own behavior and ask which parts I can easily control and which parts might need more intensive intervention. Where can I develop alternative coping mechanisms that would allow me to approach my daughter without going off the deep end? Aren’t those just the things I’m hoping to develop in her? Wouldn’t it be easier to teach her out of personal experience rather than mandate out of my own need for order and quiet?

Uff da. I’m off to do my daily 10^th Step inventory. Luckily I get to write down the good things I did, today, too.

Living Simply

2010-02-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

I have a print-out of the ELCA’s 40 Day Lenten calendar focused on hunger taped to the dining room wall. There’s an activity for each day designed to help me stop and think about those in need, to remain aware and prayerful, to discern where my own choices can make a difference and how I can be of service to the greater world. For today, the suggested activity is to write about the struggle to live simply. Since I’m committed to this daily blog, I get to kill two birds with one stone. I’d say I’m off to a good start in the area of simplification.

Over the past five years, I have taken very deliberate steps to simplify my life and that of my family. Perhaps most drastic was my decision to quit working outside the home. Suddenly there was enough time to get everything done, including resting sufficiently. What there wasn’t any more was extra money. It’s amazing how you spend to your available income. We have to say “no” a lot more, but it’s clear we really didn’t need all that other stuff we’d been wanting.

In fact, it became clear that we really didn’t need most of the stuff we already had. With the kids in school and more time to myself, I systematically began downsizing all the junk in the house. Room by room, garage sale by garage sale, I got rid of a truckload of “stuff,” and found that I could get at things more easily in my kitchen, hang clean clothes in closets with room to spare, and see the floor of my kids’ bedrooms. I think maybe twice in the past three years have I missed something I’d chosen to part with. Not too bad. But I’m not fooling myself. I have more junk than anyone could possibly need.

This afternoon, I went to Ikea for the first time. I wasn’t terribly impressed, to be honest. Dan and I picked up a couple of things we actually did need and then just had fun traipsing through all the staged rooms. It felt good to say, “that would be nice, but we don’t need it,” a few dozen times. It felt even better to escape the place having dropped less than twenty bucks.

That being said, Dan and I treated ourselves to a very nice dinner at Red Lobster—frivolous to be sure!—and then spent the rest of our ‘date’ grocery shopping at four different places to the tune of $600. Now that’s enough dog, cat and human food to keep us for some time, but it sure didn’t feel like living simply.

I remember one staff discussion when I worked at PRISM. The case workers were wondering what a reasonable monthly grocery budget was for a family of four. The amounts tossed around the room were in the $200-$400 range. I almost choked on my lunch. Dan and I are exceptionally frugal (or, as Dan likes to say, “Scottish,”) when it comes to grocery shopping, even with my special food needs and three pets, but our monthly grocery budget is more in the level of $500 to $600 a month. Are we not living simply enough? Or is it unreasonable that a family should be able to feed itself for half of what my family spends?

I’ve no wise conclusions to draw from this exercise, except that living simply isn’t easy, but it is possible, and no matter how far I scale back, I will still have an embarrassment of riches compared with the vast majority of people in this world. So it’s worth it to continue pushing out of my comfort zone in the area of cutting back, knowing that I have more than enough.

Self Indulgence

2010-02-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Dan is taking the day off from work and he and I are going to have some time just for us. We generally do this every year in December or January, but it’s been a bit hectic around here in the past couple months. We’ll go have coffee, maybe even see –gasp!—a movie, and top it off with dinner out. DINNER OUT. Whoa.

You could say it’s poor timing. Yesterday we could’ve chalked our excesses up to Mardi Gras but here we are in Lent, when we’re supposed to be paring things back, engaging in spiritual disciplines to strengthen our connection to God.

Thankfully, I’m pretty sure God’s in favor of our strengthening our connection to each other, too. I like to make jokes when people ask me about Dan such as, “Dan? Isn’t he that guy I see for about fifteen minutes every morning over coffee?” or “Dan… Dan… rings a bell. About so high? Dark hair? Gorgeous eyes? Yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about.”

I know it’s just the nature of life at this stage. I’m not the only one out there who is so focused on raising children that it’s hard to remember when it was just the two of us. That’s why I can joke about it instead of simply complaining or wishing it were different. But that’s also why it’s important to take these days now and then, to spend time (while the children are in the safe care of loving family members) not thinking about the kids. Or talking about them. Or dealing with them. Which isn’t to say they won’t come up: we’ve had hardly a moment to really talk about what’s going on with Gavin’s anxiety and Asperger’s and Eiledon’s ADHD and troubles in school. But at least we won’t be interrupted every fifteen seconds if we do discuss it.

Heck, even the DOG is going to doggy daycare so we don’t need to come home every couple hours and walk him.

Unattached. Unencumbered. Unrestrained.

Unbelievable!

Maybe I’ve inspired you to set aside some time for just you and your significant other. I’d be glad to have done so. Meanwhile, I’ll be hanging out with my best friend, Dan and enjoying the time to its fullest while I have it.

Because baseball season starts in a few weeks.

Tired Snots

2010-02-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

When the four of us Fergus kids started to demonstrate that bed-time, punchy, crabby, obnoxious behavior that all children display now and then, my grandmother referred to it as “the tired snots.” Well after two full days and two nights away from home with a bunch of 10-year-olds, my snots are exceptionally tired, and so are my daughter’s. She actually skipped choir and took the bus home from school today without consulting me first, apologized half-heartedly when I expressed my annoyance at her choice, and then immediately dragged herself up the stairs to her bed and crashed for an hour.

After reviving a bit, she managed her math homework and a little reading, but that was all she managed. From about four o’clock on, she just whined ad nauseum about how Gavin was lucky because he got everything and she never got anything fun. Gavin got a really cool new Nintendo DS game and got to see the Alvin and the Chipmunks Squeakquel, and got to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, and stay overnight at Grammie’s house and the whole Girl Scout weekend wasn’t any fun except for the dance and the movie and pizza party and playing with Megan and the Comedy Sportz theater improv workshop, but that was all that was fun about the weekend and Gavin had much more fun than me and I don’t want to be in Girl Scouts anymore because I had to miss all the fun stuff that Gavin got to do…

Oh, for the love of Pete, can you just get OVER yourself?!?!? said the Mom with little sympathy. After biting Ledon's head off about practicing her flute, it took a quick phone call to a friend to settle down a bit. My friend lovingly pointed out that I wasn’t picking my battles all that wisely and if it came down to a choice between being compassionate toward my daughter or bullying her into complying with my mandate, which might be the better choice at this point? Breathe in. Breathe out. Thank goodness for the voice of reason.

Due to unfortunate timing, we had a Girl Scout meeting this evening. I left Eiledon at home. We needed a time out from each other and I had the distinct feeling I’d be a bit more able to contribute to the meeting than she.

Now, I have to admit, I think Dan may have gone a little overboard on compensating Gavin for Eiledon’s fun weekend away. True, the boy did use his own Target gift card (a Christmas present) for the new DS game, but the Chipmunks movie and Chuck E. Cheese’s? On the other hand, I think Dan’s just a lot more ambitious than I am. If he’d been gone with Eiledon, Gavin and I would have rented a DVD and sat on our butts for two days. So kudos to the doting papa. But would it have killed him to swear Gavin to secrecy until Ledon caught up on her sleep?

By the time I got home from the Girl Scout meeting, Eiledon was in better spirits—well fed, more rested, and watching her favorite cartoon, Teen Titans. It was a relief not to be subjected to another round of circular moping a la paragraph 2, above. It was also a good reminder to me that she really is overtired, and that this rather severe case of “the tired snots” will eventually run its course. I’m hoping my own tired snots pass quickly so I can show more compassion to her in the morning.

Unexpected Graciousness

2010-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

On Sunday evening, one of the Girl Scout troops at Winter Fun Camp threw a dance for all the older (5^th grade and up) girls. There was an Oscars theme complete with red carpet, film-strip decorations, foil stars, and a dozen mini Academy Awards statues to give away. As the dance got underway and the 75 or so girls from 10 to maybe 16 started to bounce around the floor, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in entire troops, I was touched by the sense of innocence. The girls were dancing because they liked the music and were with their friends and were dressed in their prettiest dresses, not because they were trying to attract boys or impress anyone. It was sweet.

I was a little disappointed when they started handing out the awards. Every so often, one of the girls in the sponsoring troop would turn down the music and announce an award category: Best Attitude, Most Sparkly, Coolest Hair, etc. and then another girl from that troop would wade out into the crowd of hovering girls and escort the winner to the front to announce her name. Lots of old memories of sham popularity contests popped up and I hoped the girls’ sense of openness and fun wouldn’t be dampened by the introduction of a certain level of competition, no matter how frivolous.

As the evening progressed, I grew to be more impressed with the troop in charge. While, at first, it seemed only one or two troops of mostly older girls were supplying the award-winners, it became clear that it was my own discomfort and suspicion that had led me to the premature conclusion that the race was fixed. As more and more silly and fun categories were announced, a wide variety of girls, some in dresses, some in pajamas, one in a wig and a cowboy hat, some older, some younger, and even one leader were led to the microphone to announce their names as they accepted their awards.

I watched my daughter during this process. She stayed on the dance floor the whole evening, sometimes dancing with her friends, but most often alone. She was quiet and focused on the music, dancing with very small, but deliberate moves. Every time the music would stop for the next award, she would push forward with the surge of dancers clustering around the front table. I could tell, even from across the room, that she was tense with anticipation, hoping beyond hope that she might snag one of the golden plastic statuettes. But each time another girl was led to the microphone, she simply stepped back into her former place and resumed dancing with the music.

I joined her on the floor toward the end, spinning her around and offering her a dance partner, but she still seemed more intensely focused on doing her own thing, clearly lost in her head, not really looking at me. I’d only been out there with her for a song or two when the radio was turned down for the final three awards of the night. The last was, they said, the most important award. It was for “Best Dance Moves.” The announcer said they’d been watching the dance floor the whole night and the winner of this award had not stopped dancing except to eat. She was focused on the music and her dancing and deserved to be recognized for her participation. The presenting Scout wandered around the perimeter of the crowd and then plunged in with a hand extended for Eiledon.

At first, Eiledon didn’t get it. She looked at the other girl and said, “Me?” When the other girl nodded and took her hand, my daughter’s face just shone. She walked to the microphone and said her name, accepted her statue and everyone applauded. The dance was over. The crowd broke up. Eiledon wandered over to me in somewhat of a daze, a sleepy grin on her face. “Mama!” she said, “you always said I would win an Oscar!” I laughed: we both knew I said that to her when she was having a melodramatic melt-down over nothing. But here she stood, statue in hand, tired eyes, beaming.

I recalled a scene from the prom episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” in which her senior class gives Buffy a special award after all the other popularity-based awards have been distributed. The character of Giles, acting as a chaperone at the dance, says to her, “I never knew children, en masse, could be so gracious,” to which Buffy replies: “Sometimes people surprise you.” This was a surprise Eiledon is likely to remember for a long time.

The Sounds of Silence

2010-02-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

I just want to say that any attempt to wake up early, make coffee and take care of a few tasks without waking up a room full of sleeping Girl Scouts is foolhardy to begin with and next to impossible at that. I say “next to” because after the second night of Scout camp the girls were so exhausted no one even stirred when I dropped a heavy Tupperware container into a crinkly paper bag a bit more rapidly than planned. I think even the leaders kept right on snoring.

After the first night, however, my cell phone alarm went off on low volume in my sleeping bag at 6:30 a.m. and it scared the living heck out of me. Luckily I’d slept with my finger on the snooze button. After a quick squeeze, I sank back into my pillow for a few moments to gather my resources. A minute later, the coffee-maker that I had set to start brewing automatically turned itself on. Honestly, I had no real idea how unbelievably LOUD my coffee maker is. It brews in the kitchen at home and I guess there’s enough sound insulation in my house to dampen the noise. In a large, high-ceilinged, one-room cabin housing seventeen girls and six leaders, it sounded like an avalanche on the Matterhorn.

So I scrambled out of my vinyl sleeping bag (loud) on my flimsy camp mattress (louder) and tripped on my bag (even louder) before frantically turning the machine back off. The machine, for its part, took it’s sweet time realizing it had been switched off and continued to make resounding clicks along with sounds like a heavy smoker clearing her throat, for about another two minutes.

At last, all returned to peaceful quiet, but the damage was done. First in one quadrant of the room, then another, the high-pitched hiss of preadolescent whispering began to rise above the hum of the central heating like a distant rain and once it had started, it steadily swelled into a downpour.

I apologized to all the leaders a little later that morning, when everyone was up and dressed and moving about. None of them indicated they’d even heard the noise I’d made, and all were very gracious in suggesting that since all of these girls go to Oak Point, which begins at 7:40 in the morning, they’re all used to waking up around six thirty anyway. So it just may have been that their early rising had nothing at all to do with my clumsy attempts at silence. I’ll take the grace, but I gotta tell ya, I felt like an elephant at a tea party that morning! Lesson learned? I’ll let you know next year.

Temporary Hiatus

2010-02-13T05:13:00.001-08:00

I’m off to spend the weekend with my Girl Scout troop so there’s no way I’ll be able to blog tomorrow. I’ve committed to journaling tomorrow and posting two blogs on Monday. Meanwhile, I get to go run around with eight fifth graders in a gathering of zillions of little girls. Being an introvert, this is daunting. Luckily, my co-leader shares my predilection for solitude and we’ve agreed to give each other time to nap during the weekend—and write a blog entry for Monday in my journal.

Before I go, just a shout-out to my husband: if it wasn’t for his help in getting ready for this weekend, I would have had a nervous breakdown. Because I decided on a last-minute whim to make my daughter a fancy dress, I had a ton of loose ends to tie up that Dan took care of. He filled my car with gas, checked the tires, the oil and vacuumed out the back seat. He got some cash for me to carry, just in case, and helped get the kids organized for bed time. He walked the dog, cleaned up the dishes and otherwise just acted as a gopher whenever I remembered something else I needed to finish before heading to camp. Dan Moir ROCKS.

Wish me luck in the upcoming introvert’s nightmare. See you Monday!

Sewing the Seeds of Love

2010-02-12T13:34:00.001-08:00

My mom sews. When we were little, she made clothes for us all the time. When I was engaged to be married, I asked if she would make my wedding dress and at first she said “No.” She didn’t want to make a mistake, or miss a detail. But not long after, she relented, possibly because, since she was a thousand miles away, she wouldn’t be able to help out with any of the other planning. It meant a lot to me. Especially when I decided I wanted the bodice from one pattern and the skirt from another. She made it work and I still think it is the prettiest wedding dress I’ve ever seen. When mom sewed for me, I always heard: “I love you.”

Home on break, my first year of college, I made my first clothes for myself: three skirts, one of which I still have. My mom helped me figure out the patterns, let me use her equipment and offered me her expertise. Since then I have made things here and there, on and off. In retrospect, I realize I’ve done a fair amount of sewing, but I don’t consider myself an expert. Still, now that I have my own children, I’m terribly grateful for the basic ability. I’m not big on patterns unless I’m looking for the highest quality: normally, I use existing clothing for templates and my imagination for the rest. It works just fine for Halloween costumes, outfits for class performances, curtains for bedrooms and the occasional blanket. I never find exactly what I’m looking for in the pattern books anyway. So I improvise and accept the imperfections of what comes out.

I love the way my daughter takes my sewing for granted. This weekend, we’re going to a Girl Scout event and on Sunday evening, one troop is throwing a movie/dance/pizza party for the Junior Scouts and older. The theme is “The Red Carpet” and the girls are encouraged to wear fancy dresses. As soon as we heard about the plan, Eiledon turned to me and said, “You can make me a red carpet dress, right? I want a strapless one.” This was less than a week ago. “I think we can shop for one or put something together from your closet,” I responded, thinking: Don’t I have enough going on?

But this morning, I had a Jo-Ann coupon and a few hours to kill. It occurred to me that this kind of creativity was just what I needed to get out of my own self-pity. And everything was on SALE! I found sky-blue (her favorite color) satin and pale blue sheer fabric with a turquoise floral print. I glanced through kids’ patterns but found nothing ‘strapless’ for a 10-year-old, of course, and looked forward to the opportunity to make it up. In my mind I thought: empire waist, floor length, sheer overlay that opens at the high waist to show the satin underneath. Clear straps for the appearance of strapless and a Velcro closure to make sure she could get it as tight as possible (she is a toothpick after all!) Twenty minutes later and happy as a lark I headed home, whipped out the machine and a couple of Eiledon’s dresses and started cutting.

Man, was it fun! I still have to run back to Jo-Ann for some kind of sparkly ribbon for the waist, maybe even a big rhinestone accent-y thing-y, who knows. Ledon can pick it out. I’m so grateful for the ability to create something my daughter will enjoy, and more grateful for the concrete way to show her how much I love her and how important she is to me.

Thanks, Mom.

UFE's

2010-02-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

(Unidentified Flying Emotions)

It’s unnerving to be reading what is generally seen as the definitive work on Asperger’s Syndrome and suddenly forget who it is you’re supposed to be reading about. How is it that phrases I’ve used throughout my life to describe the way I make and keep friends, the way I find solace in solitary creativity, and the way I just “don’t get” my peers, are written verbatim within the first twenty pages of this text book? Is it Gavin I’m grieving for? Or myself?

Certainly I’m not a 100% fit for the clinical profile as set forth by the psychological community. The author, Tony Atwood, describes the characteristics of Aspergers as a 100-piece puzzle. The most critical pieces to making sense out of the picture are the corner and edge pieces. After that, when at least 80 of the pieces fit, you can say with certainty that the person in question’s puzzle shows a picture of Asperger’s Syndrome. Lots of people may have 20 or even 40 of the pieces without being over the critical threshold that leads to a diagnosis. I think my edge pieces are there, but maybe not so much in the middle?

But it also talks about how girls and women and those with higher than average intelligence are often able to compensate for many of their social inadequacies and seem to defy convention by having lasting friendships, reciprocal emotional relationships, and responding appropriately to nonverbal signals from others. Screw whoever thinks I’m conceited, but I do have a higher than average intelligence. And I’m female. Have I been “passing” for normal?

HAH! I was once at a party where the only people I knew were the two hostesses and my little brother. Completely unable to make small talk (and, honestly, not seeing much value in it) I spent the entire evening talking to my brother. After the party, one of the hostesses (now my brother’s wife) related that another guest wanted to know if she was jealous of the girl who was shamelessly flirting with her boyfriend. She responded: “That’s his sister.” Passing for normal?

I think what’s bugging me the most—you’ll appreciate this, Pete—is that the strengths and positives of Asperger’s as described in this book are exactly those things which fuel my sense of spirituality. Suddenly I’m wondering whether all of my creative and spiritual tendencies aren’t just the product of a personality disorder. Where’s God in that? On the other hand, maybe that’s just the nature of spirituality and I could spend all year dissecting the chicken-and-egg nature of this conundrum.

Atwood is clear that Asperger’s, while labeled a “disorder” or “syndrome” is essentially just a description of personality along a continuum. In some ways, it’s like saying the fact that the sky is blue is a product of Light Bending Syndrome, a continuum wherein the expressed color is dependent upon the angle of the bend.

Who cares? In the immortal words of Popeye: I yam who I yam! Waitaminute: didn’t GOD say that to Moses? Probably didn’t sound quite the same.

Bleary

2010-02-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

Someone suggested to me today that I’m grieving. I’m trying to decide if that makes sense. I’ve been clear on the fact that we knew Gavin was dealing with what was probably Asperger’s Syndrome, so the diagnosis was more a confirmation, even a relief. The ADHD piece doesn’t really bother me at all. It’s more a personality description than a medical diagnosis. I could look at AS that way, too, I suppose. However you slice it, it just means more work for me as a parent. And I’m tired. For the past week or more it’s been a Herculean effort to just handle the basics. Kids’ laundry doesn’t get put away until it’s time to do the next round. Cat boxes may or may not get cleaned out on any given day. Dog gets walked just far enough to pee and then we’re back inside.

The other morning, a friend and recovery fellow asked me what I needed. I must have looked like a complete idiot, staring at her. I realized I have no idea what I need. So I just started crying. Honestly, I can’t think of one single item or gesture or service that would help me. Nothing practical or realistic, anyway. I keep coming back to good old the Star Wars retort to the question, “Is there anything I can do?”: “Not unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest or teleport me off this rock.” I mean, I think I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and I don’t know that there’s really anything for anyone else to do for me unless they want to adopt and raise my kids and send me off to Scotland with a million dollars.

Yeah, I’m probably grieving. It’s new. I don’t like it very much. But mostly I’m tired. So I’m gonna go to bed now.

Evil

2010-02-09T20:30:00.001-08:00

I’m working with the 3^rd & 4^th graders at church on a drama they helped write based on the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. We talked about different ideas of temptation and concepts of evil or the devil. I played them “Save Me” by Dave Matthews and explained how, in that song, the devil is just some guy. Any old guy. You and me, even. One student asked, “But what does it mean that he just keeps saying ‘Save Me?’” I said, “I think this guy is saying, ‘You’re God, you’re all powerful. All I have to do is believe in you and it’s all okay. Well, if you’re God, then you can make me believe in you, right? I’m not asking you to perform miracles or anything. Just make me believe.’ And that’s exactly what the devil said to Jesus in the desert.” (The kids then turned around and knocked my socks of by relating their own experiences and brainstorming a drama about a girl who’s new in school (the ‘wilderness’) and keeps getting pushed by the cool kids to go against what she knows is right. I may have written the dialogue in the end, but they get all the credit.)

In my recovery circle, fellows occasionally refer to “my addict,” that part of our own mind that makes it impossible for us to moderate. That actually revels in our addiction. I have heard: “My addict would just as soon have me dead,” and “No matter how long I’m abstinent, my addict is out in the hall doing push-ups, just waiting for an opportunity to take over as soon as I let it.” It’s not that I see my addictive tendencies as separate entity, but as a product of my own human imperfections run amok. I think therein lies the truest and most potent form of evil.

I don’t have some little red dude with horns and a pitchfork perched on my shoulder, encouraging me to make bad decisions. If only it were that obvious. Instead, I have my own voice at the back of my mind, quietly making insinuations that somehow I’m getting the shaft. Wondering why it is that I can’t just kick back and enjoy the ride. Telling myself that by this point, after all the work I’ve done, life should be easy. What’s all this with kids with Aspergers and ADHD and issues at school, a husband who’s underappreciated and undercompensated at work, a slew of money-sucking home and car maintenance issues looming on the horizon, a scad of commitments and responsibilities that I somehow allowed to build up when I swore I wasn’t going to spread myself too thin again?

That little piece of my brain tells me I have every right to be disappointed and self-righteously indignant. That obviously God has failed me, despite all that I have done for him, because clearly, I deserve some compensation for being such a wonderful person. That it’s good and right to wish for financial stability (Hah! Let’s be honest: inexhaustible wealth), happy children (more like: academic prodigies, star athletes and the most popular kids in school), sufficient rest (no need to go anywhere or do anything I don’t want to, ever), and recognition for my service (humanitarian of the year awards and glowing accolades from every segment of society). And that if I don’t have these things, then damn it, somebody owes me.

“I don’t need to you stop the sunshine. I don’t need you to turn water into wine. I don’t need you to fly. I’m just askin’ you to save me,” says the devil in the Dave Matthews song. It’s the same exact thing.

Whatever you may or may not believe about the existence of evil in the world, I think I’ve seen it. And it doesn’t necessarily appear hideous and horrifying. It’s warm and friendly and makes you feel like you’re the greatest person in the universe, supports you in your righteous indignation, encourages you in your self-absorption, affirms you for your oh-so-deserved indulgences, and forgives you when you throw up your hands and stop trying because, after all, you can’t save the whole world all at once. And in the end, we’re the ones looking hideous and horrifying, even to ourselves, and the subtle instigator in our heads thinks that’s the funniest part of all.

Grace Is All I’m Askin’

2010-02-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

--Dave Matthews Band, ‘Alligator Pie’

Another quote:

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft agley,"

or, as often translated:

“The best laid plans of mice and men, Go often awry.”
—Robert Burns

‘To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, with the Plough’

Yep. I forgot to blog yesterday. Completely spaced it. 69 out of 90 consecutive days and I blew it. So I’ll be blogging twice today. It would be too tempting to say, “Oops. Oh well. Guess I don’t have to finish, now.” But if there’s anything I’ve learned working a recovery program it’s that it’s not enough to admit your mistake. If it’s at all possible, if you can do so without harming anyone else, you have to make restitution. So you tell me: is my blogging twice in one day causing harm to all of you sane folks? :)

Another thing I’ve learned, and this is arguably the most critical lesson I have ever needed to grasp, is that perfection is neither possible, nor desirable as an end unto itself. An ‘all or nothing’ person from the get-go, I have a long history of trying something, failing, and then quickly turning around and pretending nothing happened. (“Say nothing, act natural!” –Igor, Young Frankenstein). Wrapped up in my own certainty that admitting failure would negate my value as a human being, I leaned into my obvious successes and actually convinced myself in my early adulthood that I had never failed at anything I had tried.

Robert Burns points out in his poem that while the mouse can live in the present moment, humans are dogged by their sorrowful history and their fear of the future, over which they have no control. I am trying, imperfectly but honestly, to focus on the now and find stability and peace in whatever good I can do for others, trusting that even if my life gets inadvertently ploughed under, I don’t have to throw in the towel.

So today, I’m hanging onto the towel, picking myself up, dusting myself off and moving forward. No excuses. No justifications. Just restitution. “Grace is all I’m askin.’ ”

Fahrvergnügen

2010-02-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

I just couldn’t help it. After the last two blogs entitled “Dadgummit BLAH!” and “Verschleppen,” respectively, the word just popped into my head so I thought, why not have a trifecta of non-English (nonsensical?) titles? I might have titled the next one “Trifecta,” as my Microsoft Word dictionary doesn’t recognize the word. Thank goodness for Webster’s online!

Maybe the word popped to mind because my husband is watching the Superbowl and Brett Fahrvergnügen isn’t in it. (D’oh!) I wonder if Brett would consider changing his name if Volkswagon offered him enough money.

I suffer semi-regularly from what I term “word attacks.” Actually, I think the phrase was coined by Tonia Faenza when we were kids. It’s a condition in which a word which you’ve heard before but can’t remember where pops into your head and absolutely DEMANDS to be defined, by any means necessary. Most memorable to me was the time when I was in high school going somewhere with my mom in the VW Vanagon (fahrvergnügen!) and suddenly felt compelled to ask: “What’s a colloquialism?” My mother, having a rather expansive vocabulary, was able to define it on the spot and I have never forgotten what it means.

The condition is genetic (it is not, as I have just learned, “congenital”—I love Webster’s online!). Just the other day, Gavin turned to me and asked, “Mama, what does ‘maximize’ mean?” I was so proud!

I suppose it’s just one more sign of my boundless nerdliness (a word I just made up: poetic license, you know) that I so dearly enjoy words, word games, obscure words, plays on words, and on-line dictionary websites. At the cabin, my family would play “The Dictionary Game,” which was later released as an actual board game called “Balderdash,” I believe. But all you need is a dictionary and pens and paper for each player. The person with the dictionary finds a word that no one in the room has heard before. Then the dictionary-holder writes the real definition on his or her paper (paraphrased a bit to sound slightly less scholarly) and everyone else makes up a fake definition (and makes it sound as scholarly as possible). The dictionary-holder then collects and reads out all the definitions and the rest of the group has to guess which is correct. Points are scored for guessing the correct definition and for fooling someone else into choosing your made-up definition.

So is it any wonder that I loved Volkswagon’s Fahrvergnügen ad campaign? Or the bumper sticker which appeared soon afterwards that said “Fukengrüven”? (see “Dadgummit BLAH!” for discussion of my predilection for profanity.) Or that I can appropriately define and use the word “nonplussed” when so people regularly misuse it thinking it means the opposite of what it actually means? Or that “exacerbate” has enjoyed frequent use in my discourse since reading Food First by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins in 1989 (it seemed to appear on at least every other page.)

I will now cease and desist this pointless perseveration (also not recognized by my MS Word dictionary!) in favor of repose before I get accused of somnambulism. G’night.

Verschleppen

2010-02-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

to carry off
to go off with

I’ve started a journal for each of my children during this emotionally chaotic time to remind them that their labels don’t define or limit them, that I love them no matter what, and that I’m committed to working with them to “unwrap the gifts” they have to offer God and the world. It’s not so formal. I just hope to jot down the good things that happen, the evidence of their unique beauty despite whatever lenses others choose to view them through. I wrote this entry to Gavin this afternoon and thought I should share it. I haven’t read it to him yet—I will when the time is right. But I shared it with Dan and he affirmed my decision to post it. So here you go.

Pa died in January of 2007, when you were only five years old, so you may not always remember him very clearly. He was Grammie’s dad and he lived with her for the last few years of his life. Because of that, he got to see you a lot, especially when Grammie watched you every Thursday evening while I worked late, and all summer of 2006 when Grammie and Grandpa watched you and Eiledon every day.

Pa absolutely adored you. He loved to watch the way you crawled around on your hands and knees pushing your cars and trains and other toys on the carpet. He often said how much you reminded him of himself. He said when he was a boy, he always wore out the knees of his pants and the fronts of his shoes by crawling around and playing.

Pa was a very smart man—an engineer. He loved to see how things work and made a career out of working with electrical gadgets and machines. He could fix anything. He loved to watch the way you were so curious about everything, the way you held things and examined them and wanted to know how they worked and took things apart. He recognized himself in his great-grandson and it made him proud.

He told me a story that I will always treasure about a German word: “Verschleppen.” Pa grew up in Missouri, in a village where everyone had come from Germany and still spoke German. His parents were dairy farmers, which meant they had lots of cows that they would milk, and big machines that would store and separate the milk and make cream or butter or other things made from milk.

Pa remembers one day when he was probably about six or seven years old. He was looking at one of the big machines and he was curious about how it worked. He took a piece off the machine and examined it, and then wandered off with it. It wasn’t long before he got distracted and interested in other things and set the piece down and forgot all about it.

A short time later, his dad came out to use the machine and it wouldn’t work. He noticed the missing piece and had a good idea who had taken it. “Hilmer!” he called and Pa came running. “Where is the missing piece of this machine?” he asked in German. Pa replied: “Verschleppen,” which means “I went off with it.” Eventually, Pa assured me, the piece was found and the machine was able to work. But watching you play at Grammie’s house always reminded him of “Verschleppen.”

Not long ago, at Gramma-gramma and Grampa-grampa’s farm, you saw a big metal tub of water that was set out for the farm cats. At the bottom of the tub was a plastic ring with a long cord that was plugged in to the wellhouse. You realized that the ring was keeping the water from freezing and you were very curious about what would happen if you took it out. How long would the water take to freeze in the late November weather? You set the ring in the grass and then forgot all about it. That was Wednesday evening. On Friday, you went out to find the tub completely frozen over and you had fun chipping away at the ice.

Unfortunately, Grampa-grampa was having electrical problems in his workshop and finally traced them to the plastic heating coil you had set in the grass. The coil had melted its plastic coating and burned slowly into the ground by the tub. He and Gramma-gramma got very upset because they were afraid the well house might have caught fire. You were very upset because you were embarrassed by your mistake—you hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. You were just curious. You didn’t realize what would happen if you put the coil in the grass.

This might be a bad memory for you—certainly everyone seemed scared and upset and angry. But when I stopped to think about what had happened, I suddenly remembered: “Verschleppen.” It all made perfect sense! You were just like your great-grandfather! And what a cool guy he was! You can be proud to be like him. I will always see “Verschleppen” as Pa’s legacy to you.

Dadgummit BLAH!

2010-02-05T19:49:00.001-08:00

My parents don’t swear. Or curse. Or use profanity. Or whatever you want to call it. Well, one time, when the ceiling under the upstairs bathroom went crashing on to the entryway floor, my Dad said, “S—t.” But he said it in a very restrained, understated fashion.

I don’t remember any particular time when I became aware of foul language, of words you should or shouldn’t say in certain circumstances or with certain audiences. I just never did it because it never occurred to me, probably since I never heard it at home. But at some point in Junior High the occasional naughty word started to slip into my discourse with friends. Lightning didn’t immediately remove me from the face of the planet as a result, so I figured it wasn’t so awful.

At one point, either I said a bad word at home or I was discussing such words with my family at the dinner table and my father made the statement that using foul language wasn’t so much an evil unto itself, but if you had to resort to using swear words to make a point, it just showed that you had a limited vocabulary.

Brilliant though this sort of reverse psychology might have been with another child, with me, it completely backfired. I was the straight-A's, goody-two-shoes, teacher’s pet at school and got absolutely no respect. Any time I would use a word longer than two syllables in a conversation with my classmates, someone would sneer, “S.A.T. word!” Could it be that tossing an occasional profanity into my interactions with my peers might dumb me down enough to avoid persecution?

One afternoon, as I was going through my locker in the eighth grade wing, I dropped the F-bomb. I honestly can’t remember why. All I know is that Neva Jones stopped dead in her tracks, whirled around and near shouted, “Did Rebekah Fergus just say F—k?” The incredulity in her eyes and the wide grin on her face were instantly intoxicating.

It was all downhill from there.

Mind you, I am generally cognizant of my environment and do a fairly decent job of choosing my audience. I have made a valiant effort not to expand my children’s vocabulary along the lines of R-rated movie dialog and seem to be doing alright. The last thing I want is to be the father from A Christmas Story.

But when I get together with Sue for any extended period of time, I start to wonder if there aren’t more than fifteen or so words in all of the English language. (I’m a terrible influence on her—she’s so much better about it than I am, but within a few hours, I’ve dragged her down to my level). And I have to admit that when I’m extremely angry, it’s much harder to self-censor. So I had to choke on my bad parenting the other day when, in the midst of a meltdown, Eiledon wailed, “Why do I HAVE to set the damn table?!?!” I changed my middle name to ‘hypocrite’ and sent her to her room. Yowtch.

Here’s hoping she passes her S.A.T.s before it’s too late.

Answers and Questions

2010-02-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

It’s not as if Gavin is suddenly different. The little boy who left my house on Tuesday morning with a designation of “Emotional Behavioral Disorder” and who has been in a behavioral freefall at school since before Christmas was the same little boy who came home Tuesday afternoon with a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD of the combined type and severe Anxiety.

It’s not as if we didn’t know it was coming. Ever since a preschool teacher rather melodramatically insisted we should have him evaluated or he’d “never make it in Kindergarten,” we’ve been on a treadmill of test after test after test. Four years of neuro-psych batteries, IQ and aptitude testing, behavioral rating scales and any other tool you could think of. He never quite “fit” on the Autism Spectrum, but he never quite “fit” anywhere else, either.

It’s not as if we’ve been entirely blaming ourselves for his difficulties. Despite feedback from various well-meaning people that we weren’t disciplining him properly, we knew that wasn’t the case. From the first school district evaluations we have been affirmed and supported by professionals and told we’re doing an outstanding job with him, under the circumstances, even flying blind as we’d been for so long.

It’s not as if it’s a death sentence or an insurmountable obstacle. There are almost as many variations within the Autism Spectrum as there are people who are on it, and there are clear and effective interventions that have allowed children and adults with Aspergers to live high-functioning lives. This is the kind of stuff that makes people interesting, after all.

But it’s still overwhelming. A little bewildering. A bit scary. Even with much of the groundwork laid, the task ahead is daunting. Having answers doesn’t solve problems. Acting on those answers does. And even knowing all we know and all we already knew, there are more things we just don’t know yet. And can’t know until we run into novel situations or until Gavin matures or until we’ve plowed through the absolute mountain of information out there.

The good news we don’t have to figure this out on our own. The better news is that the professionals have lots of experience and the prognosis is good. The best news is that Gavin is still Gavin and, label or no label, he’s a pretty damn cool kid. We’re all gonna be just fine.

Random Thoughts

2010-02-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

I don’t mind winter in Minnesota. I honestly don’t. Aside from one or two absolutely brutal weeks, it’s entirely tolerable. Heck, if it’s not frostbite-within-thirty-seconds weather, I’m inclined not to wear a coat if I’m just running to the mailbox or from my warm car to a warm store. I’d rather not be over-bundled. Not that I’m in shorts and a tank top, mind you. After 20 years in this state I’ve learned to dress in sensible layers. Granted, there have been one or two occasions when the distance from my warm car into Jerry’s Foods seems to have grown to several miles and even I’m giving myself strange looks for not wearing a coat. But by and large, no problems.

All that being said, I must admit that when I took Brubeck out for a walk the other day I had a real yearning for spring. The sun was shining and the ice was slightly mushy and I got a mental whiff of those first days of April when it really is comfortable to be outside in just a sweatshirt. I started imagining long, brisk walks with the dog, Eiledon on her bicycle in the cul de sac, the muskrats and turtles reappearing in the pond (oh! Did I ever mention that we had a pair of foxes out there a month ago? I think they were scoping out the muskrat den for having their own kits! WAY COOL. But we haven’t seen them since.)

Digress much?

So the stupid groundhog saw his shadow. Has anyone bothered to point out to the folks in Punxsutawney that regardless of whether their portly rodent mascot sees his shadow, March 21^st comes about six weeks after February 2^nd?

In any case, it does my heart good to look out the window at 5:30 in the evening and see that it’s still light. I know it makes a difference to my husband to walk out of the office and know for certain that it’s not 10:30p.m. It’s amazing how just a few minutes more of sunlight each day can make such a dramatic difference in a person’s outlook.

It’s good timing, because my outlook needs a bit of elevating these days. Things aren’t going so well for my son at school or at home. We finally did get the official Aspergers Syndrome diagnosis, along with ADHD of the combined type and extreme anxiety. So there’s work to be done. The good news is that we’ve already been doing a lot of it. He’s had an IEP since kindergarten for social/emotional issues and it’s mostly the same stuff they do for kids with AS. Still, it won’t be an easy road ahead.

But in the mean time, even when there’s snow and cold, there are these glimmers of the coming spring. Eiledon had her first band concert today and it was wonderful to see how far these children have come in just seven rehearsals. Dan even snuck out of work for an hour to be there to show his support. Ledon was front row, first chair (probably courtesy of being so tiny) so we could see her clearly as she played her flute. It was good to end her school day on a high note (ba-dump-bum: tssss!)

And I didn’t have to wear a coat out to my car.

Bed

2010-02-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

Gavin gave me this topic when I told him I couldn’t think of anything to write about. He typed it at the top of this page and said, “There. You can write about that.” So I am.

There was an ad campaign for mattresses some time ago, possibly for Slumberland or some such store. The tag line was “I love my bed.” I always liked that ad because I could relate. As someone who needs a more-than-average amount of sleep, I utilize that particular piece of furniture more than any other in the house.

It’s sort of sad that we haven’t made a greater investment in our mattress—we bought it 1999, when Eiledon was a baby. It was all we could afford and we were told it would probably last about five years. We thought by that point we’d certainly be able to “upgrade.” Alas, other things have always taken financial precedence and we’re still sleeping on the same mattress.

It has two deep wells, one on Dan’s side, one on mine, so that when a child crawls in with us in the middle of the night, he or she inevitably rolls on top of one or the other of us. With Gavin, the problem is that he generates more heat than a small nuclear plant, making the crushed parent sweat profusely. With Eiledon, it’s her elbows and knees—she has almost no body fat so she’s quite bony. I love waking up with a sharp object crammed into my neck, don’t you?

We originally bought the king-sized bed because I am a restless sleeper. I flop around and kick and on not one but two occasions have awakened in the middle of a dream only to watch myself punching my husband in the face. Dan takes up about 20 percent of the bed, crammed into the top left corner, unmoving, with a gray tabby wrapped around his head. Having a bigger bed has allowed him to get decent sleep even when my active and vivid dreams have me flailing all over the other 80 percent.

Who would have thought that a king-sized bed STILL wouldn’t be sufficient to meet our sleeping needs? But toss in a kid or two now and then (along with a couple of cats) and we’re wishing we could have custom-ordered something bigger. A lot bigger.

Of course, the bed isn’t just for sleeping. (Get your mind out of the gutter, that’s none of your business.) No, I meant that the kids believe that our bed is a trampoline. Or a landing pad for a running leap. Or a wrestling ring. I guess, after all, it’s good that we haven’t invested more in it. I’m sure a couple of rowdy kids could destroy a two-thousand-dollar supreme-deluxe-extra-cushy pillow-top, memory-foam, you’ll-feel-like-you’re-on-a-cloud mattress just as easily as our bargain basement number. Maybe we’ll just wait until they move out before upgrading.

G’night!

The Best Christmas Present Ever

2010-02-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Not a new car. Not a piece of electronic equipment. Not jewelry or crystal or fragrance. Not music, or even books. No, the best Christmas present I have ever gotten is a pair of slippers.

I’d been asking Santa for slippers for years. Probably since we replaced the carpet with laminate. We keep our house pretty cool overnight in the winter and the temperature difference between our bedroom with the door closed and the rest of the house (largely open) is significant. The worst, of course, is the floor which, at 5:45 in the morning and 62 degrees Fahrenheit is a rude, daily reminder that I’m no longer unconscious.

Each year as the days grew shorter and the mornings became more chilly, I reiterated my desire for a pair of slippers. But in typical fashion, I never remembered to actually go and get any, nor to ask Santa for them with reasonable time left before Christmas. So every year I got great gifts (I’m on my third Bruegger’s bottomless mug, thanks to my wonderful husband) but no relief for my poor, frozen soles. And, of course, I would whine to Dan about how I hadn’t gotten what I’d really wanted and he would feel bad and then I would feel bad and then my feet would still be cold.

This year I remembered earlier, and made a pointed request for a pair of Lands’ End shearling slippers. I’d seen them in a catalog once. They looked warm. However, when Dan and I hopped out on line and found some, they were RIDICULOUSLY expensive! I hope it doesn’t make me sound cheap, or anything, but FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS for a pair of SLIPPERS?!? I threatened Dan to within an inch of his life that he was not to buy those slippers for me. He just rolled his eyes. Maybe Santa would take care of it.

By a few days before Christmas, Santa still hadn’t had a moment to find slippers for me, so he wandered into a Lands End Inlet. The supply of everything was pretty much decimated, but there was a big bin of “clearance” items and, upon digging through, Santa found one pair of navy blue, fleece slippers in a size XL. He was pretty sure they would be too big, but considering the state of the inventory, he thought it would be prudent to hang on to them. Originally more than $30, they’d been marked down to $14.50, so, bonus on the price. A helpful salesman confirmed that there were absolutely no slippers in the Land’s End online inventory in my size. He did suggest that Sears at the Mall of America carried their merchandise and offered to hold the XL pair until 9:00pm.

Off Santa went to The Mall, where he spent three hours parking, surveying that pathetic leftovers in the Sears slipper department, and wandering the miles of other shops, never finding quite what he was looking for. At last, he returned to the Inlet, resigned to purchasing not exactly what he wanted.

He was graced with a reassuring sign when, upon his return to the Inlet, he found the exact same parking spot from which he’d departed four hours earlier, vacant—just for him. The slippers were waiting at the check-out counter and, with growing certainty, Santa said he’d take them. In another Retail Christmas Miracle they rang up at an additional 40% off, bringing the total cost to just eight dollars and seventy cents. It was meant to be.

On Christmas Eve, Santa wrapped the gift in his trademark brown paper and tucked it under the tree alongside presents for each of the slumbering Moirs. He still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced, but knew he’d done his level best and that I would appreciate the effort. Back in his sleigh, he called to the team and headed off to the next house.

Christmas morning was a blur of bright packages, cheerful stuffed animals, and exuberant, pajama-clad anticipation. There were treasures for everyone, even the dog and the cats, and I received some lovely gifts from family and friends. Nothing, however, was as joyous as the moment I tore the brown paper off those slippers. Navy and not brown. Fleece and not shearling. Extra-large and not large. And absolutely perfect in every way.

My feet couldn’t be happier.

Rites of Passage

2010-01-31T20:10:00.001-08:00

Brubeck graduated from his first obedience training class today. The instructor even put a little mortar board on his head and gave him a celebratory an ice cream treat (which he promptly threw up. Apparently my dog is lactose intolerant.) Gavin and I stopped in toward the end of the class to witness the pomp and circumstance and, after photos, the dogs had free play, which was great fun to watch.

Our little guy has come a long way. He can sit, stay, come, (lie) down, and leave it on command. Best of all, he can WAIT.

It used to be that the moment I picked up a blanket and a book, he would vibrate with anticipation: Where’sshegonnasit?where’sshegonnasit?where’sshegonnasit? he seemed to say. I’d hardly start to lean toward the chair and, with an explosive bound, he was suddenly in it. With irritation, I would remove him from the chair and hold him in one hand over my head while trying to adjust my position, my blanket, my book and the light while he wiggled and licked and frequently fell right out of my hand (he has a very odd center of gravity).

After he learned “wait!” three weeks ago, all of that changed. Now when I grab my blanket and book he still starts to vibrate, but all I have to do is get his attention and say firmly, “Wait.” He will drop to a lying position, tail erect (what there is of it), ears perky and watch intently while I slowly and carefully choose my spot. I stretch out the blanket. I set down my coffee. I turn on the light. I find my place in my book. Finally, without even looking up, I say, “Come!” and with an explosive bound, he’s in my lap. What an improvement!!!

As someone pointed out at dinner this evening, dog obedience training serves primarily to train the owner, not the dog. I conceded the point eagerly: I admit I knew absolutely nothing about dogs when Brubeck joined our family. Well, I knew the things I didn’t like about dogs, but anyone can complain if they’re ignorant. Within a week of his first class, I knew how to get him to stop jumping on me and barking to get my attention (simply turn my back to him and say “no.”), and why he seemed aggressive with other dogs (in fact, Brubeck is ridiculously social and was not actually exhibiting aggression).

I’m not saying we don’t have a long way to go. My niece, Rachel, asked how long it would be before they taught him not to jump and bark and snap at family members when they came for a visit. Yeah, I’m hoping for that one in the next class myself. So is Eiledon’s flute teacher, I imagine (“It’s not just me, is it?” she asked on Friday afternoon. Poor woman.) But I’m hopeful about Brubeck’s future in this family, whereas before I was starting to think one of us was going to have to go and it wouldn’t be me.

So congratulations, Bru, and thanks to Dan and Eiledon for taking him to training classes, and to LaTasha Hamann for being a fantastic instructor. As long as he can wait until I have my book open, he can stay.

Wonderland

2010-01-30T18:51:00.001-08:00

A Journal entry from October 7, 2003

I would swear, sometimes,, that I’m living in Wonderland. One must question one’s sanity or reality (or substance use?) when a little girl dressed as a princess is crawling on her hands and knees pretending to be a horse and pushing a stuffed white rabbit, which is wrapped in a dish towel and sitting in a stroller, across the floor with her forehead.

Then there is the little boy who says he’s “Blue Spirit” and neighs when he’s not babbling sing-song nonsense to himself or laughing rather maniacally.

We have, of course, the Cheshire Cat—two, actually. One of them begins howling deep in his throat every evening when the house goes quiet. And when I yell at him to “can it!” the little horse princess calls out from her bed, “No, Mama! He has do to that to scare away all the monsters!”

With any luck, I’ll come across a cupcake labeled “eat me” and I’ll take a bite and find myself on a marvelous adventure. Then again, isn’t my life already a marvelous adventure?

Pleasantly Nondescript

2010-01-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

On Facebook in the past couple days, people’s statuses have been popping up with an inviation to change your profile picture to someone famous that others have said you look like, and then pass it on. I don’t think anyone has ever said I look like anyone other than “someone I know.” I get that all the time. I must have the same generic, run-of-the-mill, German/Scots-Irish/Anglo mutt look that everyone knows someone else who has. Wow. Could that grammar be any worse?

While wandering around campus my freshman year of college I remember thinking that there must really be a finite number of possible combinations of human features. Everyone I met looked like someone I already knew and most people who met me knew someone back in their home town who looked just like me. That could, of course, be because I went to a Lutheran College and was surrounded by a whole lotta Lutherans. Who knows.

My husband looks like LOTS of famous people. In the 20 years I’ve known him, these are just a few of the people others have said Dan resembles: Paul McCartney, Bob Geldoff, Al Pacino, Dave Grohl and Robert Downey Jr. Now, with the exception of Sir Bob, these are high compliments and I’m tickled to be the wife of such blatant eye-candy.

But me? I look like my grandma Fergus. You know, Hilda. Hilda Anna Wilhelmina Markworth Fergus. What, you didn’t know Hilda? Your loss.

When I was a little girl and would shake my head until my tow-head blonde hair was a disastrous mess, my older brother told me I looked like Debbie Harry. I thought that was pretty cool. But aside from the mop on my head, there's not much resemblance. Oh, and I'm no longer blonde.

When Star Wars came out, and, more importantly, when Star Wars action figures came out, Princess Leia wasn’t on the first run so I got Chewbacca. And became known as Chewbekah. Not that I looked like him, but whatever. Or maybe I did. Or still do.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy just looking like me. And that's a pretty big statement for someone who had a painfully bad self-image most of her life. I love having my grandma's nose and my mother's eyes and all those little genetic tweaks that make me recognizable to those who know and love me. Famous people, schmamous schmoeple.

So I chose Chewbacca for my profile picture. Good old Chewbacca. He’s got lovely hair.

The Cat Who Played Fetch

2010-01-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

Jack-Jack Oinkpuff Orange Squeakbox Moir, the Cheeto Padawan came to live with us when he was eight weeks old. His new compatriots, Dolby and Perry were a dozen years old each and regarded the young upstart with some misgiving. Jack-Jack, for his part, was completely oblivious to the negative vibe. He was all about the fun.

At the time, Gavin was in a phase where he had to systematically remove every single tire from each of his toy cars and trucks and then get me to put them back on again. He never tired of this game. In particular, he had this wonderful eighteen-wheeled truck that doubled as a matchbox carrier and it actually had eighteen separate rubber tires that could be removed from the plastic wheel rims. In short order, these were all over the living room.

Jack-Jack flipped. They were the perfect cat toy. He could play with them on his own, but he far preferred when one of us would toss or roll one across the living room floor. It wasn’t long before he started bringing the tires to us, wordlessly begging us to throw them.

For the next several weeks we found these 3/4-inch tires in every nook and cranny of the house, in every possible state of disrepair. When we moved furniture, we found tires. When we swept out corners, we found tires. When we opened the hide-a-bed, we found tires. Or, at least, pieces of tires. The tires didn’t last all that long.

That fall, Eiledon participated in a running club which required her to wear her hair up. I purchased a cheap package of thick, multi-colored hair rubber bands for her and emptied these into my bathroom drawer. They didn’t stay in her hair too well and she tended to discard them any old place. Day by day, the supply of rubber bands in my drawer dwindled.

One morning, as I was making breakfast, Jack-Jack tripped lightly into the kitchen and dropped a fuschia hair rubber band at my feet. “Cute,” I thought, picked it up and tossed it down the stairs. A blur of orange fuzz tore after it at breakneck speed and I returned to my task. Moments later, the distinct sound of the metal clip on a hair band hitting the wood floor at my feet caught my attention. There sat Jack-Jack, the fuschia hair band between his front paws. He looked up at me plaintively.

“Okay, Jack-Jack,” I said smiling, picked up the band and tossed it again, figuring the matter was done with. I’d hardly flipped my oatmeal pancake when he was back, fuschia band dangling from his teeth. He meowed eagerly and the band fell out of his mouth and hit the floor. “How odd,” I thought. “He plays fetch?”

It took me a LONG time to finish making my breakfast that morning, as I had to stop every fifteen seconds and throw the stupid hair band down the stairs again. I showed Dan at the first possible opportunity: “This cat plays fetch,” I declared and, sure enough, he pursued and retrieved a chartreuse hair band multiple times. We got bored LONG before he did.

Eventually, it became a challenge to see who could last the longest. No greater sense of victory have I experienced than the time that Jack-Jack finally gave out and flopped onto the wood floor at the top of the stairs, exhausted.

So obsessed was he with these simple pieces of elastic that once when I was actually using one as it was intended--in my hair!--he climbed onto the back of the chair I was sitting in and proceeded to swat at my head in an attempt to dislodge it.

We figured he’d eventually grow out of it. But it’s been almost three years and just this morning, when I was making my oatmeal pancake, I heard the distinct sound of the metal clip on a hair band hitting the wood floor at my feet. He’s on his second package of hair bands now—he got them for Christmas. I can’t even imagine what we’re going to find if we ever move out of this house. In the mean time, at least he gets some exercise.

The Definition of Insanity

2010-01-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

I’m good at finding things. For one thing, I’ve deliberately gotten rid of so much junk over the past three years that there aren’t as many piles into which things might vanish. For another, I’m constantly losing things (I often joke that I got my tattoo as an ankle bracelet I couldn’t lose). Much as I strive for the ideal of “a place for everything and everything in its place” I still have a terrible habit of setting things down and forgetting about them, so I’ve evolved a corresponding skill in searching. When it comes to my kids’ or husbands’ missing objects, I seem to have an innate ability to mentally sniff things out, whether it’s by systematic elimination or an ability to analyze the logic of my family, probably both.

The others in my household are less gifted in this regard. It’s an accepted fact that unless a given object jumps up and bites him on the butt, Dan will be unable to find it. This is a lifelong disability which seems impossible to train out of him. The kids are even worse, of course. “Mom, where are the granola bars?” “Pantry closet, second shelf from the bottom on the left.” Silence. “I can’t find them.” “Have you looked yet?” “Yes!” “Second shelf from the bottom. Start at the bottom and go up one shelf. On the left side.” “They’re not there.” “They are there.” “No they’re not, Mama!” **sighhhhhhh** I stop what I’m doing, travel through two rooms, reach into the pantry closet and pull out a granola bar from exactly the location I specified. “Oh.”

Between my long history of having to locate misplaced objects and my natural ability to think like a lost object, not much gets permanently lost in this house. After five years, we still have every single piece of Eiledon’s Disney Princess tea set, including all 12 utensils. I see that as proof positive that if it’s in this house, I’ll find it.

So someone tell me WHERE IN THE HECK IS GAVIN’S SOCK MONKEY!?!?!? It’s maddening, I tell you. I have searched in every nook and cranny in this not-all-that-big house and Hobbes, as he’s named, is not to be found. I KNOW Hobbes was sitting atop the entertainment center at supper time on Sunday, and I KNOW he went missing that evening, so I KNOW he must be in this stinkin’ house!

I’ve heard that insanity can be defined as doing the same action and expecting a different result. Well, I’m completely bonkers, then, because I’ve checked and re-checked and re-checked AGAIN in the same drawers and cabinets and closets and beds and under those beds and behind furniture and in my car and through the entire blanket cabinet and I can’t find the stupid monkey.

I’d give up. Except once, when I lived with my sister, I lost my checkbook. I tore the place apart searching for it, retracing my steps, checking my clothing and backpack, you name it. I must have checked all four pockets in my Ragstock blazer a dozen times but finally, Kathy picked up the blazer, reached into a pocket, and pulled out my checkbook. I was utterly flabbergasted.

So now it’s Wednesday and my son’s favorite stuffed animal is still no where to be found. It’s maddening, I tell you. MADDENING.

Maybe I should invite Kathy over.

One Wacky Dream

2010-01-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

Another cop-out today. I figure in light of yesterday's entry, I'd include the write-up of my dream from the morning of September 11th, 2001 just 'cuz it's wicked creepy. Enjoy!

--RM

-------------------

I woke up on the morning of September 11th, 2001 and said to my husband, "I had the weirdest dream! George W. Bush was in it. I don't think I've dreamt about a political figure in my life." I proceeded to tell him the following dream:

I was standing on the deck of the Titanic. I think I knew it was the Titanic because it was a visual image straight out of the James Cameron movie. It was late evening and the sky was purple-black and cloudy. Next to me stood President George W. Bush. We were aware of each other in a casual way. I didn't feel as if I were working for him, more that we just happened to have run into one another by coincidence.

In front of the President was a radar screen, the large, round display half-lit as the straight line in the middle went around. (Ok, so, my technical knowledge of radar is nil. If you know the right terminology, please don't be shy about telling me). He was looking hard at the screen with a neutral expression.

Curious, I leaned toward him so I could see the screen. Right away, I gasped. I could see clearly that there were obstacles--ice bergs--all over the screen! I stepped back and turned to Mr. Bush.

"Mr. President,"I said with alarm, "we're going to hit an ice berg!"

The President regarded me blankly, as if to say "What are you talking about?" But he just said, "I don't see anything. There are no ice bergs."

I was incredulous and started to feel a little panicked. "But, Sir," I insisted, "don't you see them? They're all over the screen!"

Mr. Bush looked back at the screen for a time. I could see in his face that he honestly did not see anything on the radar screen to cause any alarm. I thought maybe I was nuts, so I leaned back in to look again.

No. It was very clear that we were surrounded by large, jagged ice bergs and that at any moment, we were going to hit one. I tried again. "With respect, Mr. President," I said, "please look again. We are in imminent danger."

The President turned back to the radar screen and, once again, showed no reaction or any indication that he could see anything amiss. My feeling of panic began to rise. How could I make him see what was going to happen?

Just then, there was a horrible sound of squealing, tearing metal and the world lurched and I woke up.

Once I had shared the dream with Dan, I forgot all about it. About an hour later, I heard NPR report on the first plane crashing into the Twin Towers. No one knew what was going on yet. It wasn't until Dan was watching some news coverage from his own office that he remembered my dream and called me, feeling a little sick. Who knows why I had the dream. It wasn't as if I could have done anything with the information. I figure I probably just picked up on whatever sinister energy was floating around the world that morning. My brother said he wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people had similar dreams then. Let me know if you experienced anything like this.

The Sixth Sense?

2010-01-25T18:58:00.001-08:00

I’m reading a fabulous book about the history and development of modern physics as it applies to the origins of the universe. I can totally geek out over this stuff. And while some who might misunderstand the nature and character of science might think this information is contradictory to my spiritual beliefs, in fact, it is not.

So I think it’s funny that just as I'm reading about Einstein’s early ‘career’ my daughter says, “Oh, Mama—can I tell you something that happened at school today? I was sitting by Ethan at lunch and he was playing hangman with another kid and I could tell just from where he put the “E”s in the words what it answer was. It was Albert Einstein.”

“Um.” I said. “What made you think of that all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, “I just remembered it.”

“I’m reading about Albert Einstein right now. I don’t know that I’ve ever read about Einstein before. And I had no idea you even knew who Einstein was.”

“Who is he, anyway?” she asked.

I believe that science is testable and provable. I don’t believe in coincidences.

I might still believe in them if things like this didn’t happen so darn often. Not necessarily to this degree of oddity, mind you, but with enough regularity it gives me cause to wonder what, exactly, is happening when someone in my family appears to be able to read the mind of another. Well, not “read the mind,” per se, but, like pick up on things in other people’s heads.

My grandmother once had a dream that a family acquaintance died and then found out the next day that, in fact, he had been killed in an accident during the night. (I can’t remember the details, Dad—correct me if I’m wrong. And did you say you had a dream like that once, too?) I had a dream about my mom’s dad (Pa) in which his departed wife (Nana) appeared and indicated that she was going to take Pa with her. I found out the next day that he’d been admitted to the hospital overnight with serious heart issues (he did not die that night). Then there was that crazy dream I had on the morning of September 11^th, 2001 which turned out to be eerily prophetic.

But it isn’t just dreams. It happens more often than I can accurately quantify that an obscure song unexplainably pops into my head while I'm standing in the kitchen and then I find out later that right around the same time, Dan heard it on the PA system in a convenience store somewhere. Or vice versa.

While I believe this kind of connection is related in some way to spirituality, my inclination is to believe that there is also a scientific explanation for this sort of extra-sensory perception. To date, I have yet to hear any credible theory (not that I’ve been looking for one or anything, so if any of you know something about this, please do share.)

Meanwhile, Dan and I have chalked it up to both of us using the same brain. But if Eiledon’s using it now, too, can it be more than a matter of time before Gavin moves in? Things are going to get a little crowded in there. Maybe Dan and I should move to a tropical island and just sip rum on the beach while the kids are in college. They’ll probably get better grades.

Book Addict

2010-01-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

My name is Rebekah and I am a compulsive over-reader. That would be funnier to me if it weren’t true. I can go weeks, even months without reading a book, but the minute I pick one up, I disappear into the oblivion of voracious intellectual consumption until the book has been completely devoured. I have tried again and again the experiment of reading “just one chapter” only to give in three or four days later to the inexorable need to disengage completely from life until the last page is turned. With the recent institution of “Family Reading Time” after dinner each night, I figured I could control my consumption. Half an hour. That was it. It worked for a few days, and then it didn’t. Dang. Am I going to have to start committing my reading to my sponsor?!?!? She all but said so this morning. Dang.

I’ve always read like that—at least for as long as I remember. And it’s probably worth noting that I was reading before I can remember. I think the figure my mom gives is that I started reading at three, which means I literally can’t remember a time when I didn’t read.

In high school, I would do most or all of my homework at school, during study hall, lunch or other classes. After supper, I would disappear into my room to read, starting before bed-time and often continuing until 3 or 4a.m. My mom didn’t realize I was doing this: When I told her recently of this pattern she commented, “No wonder it was impossible to get you out of bed in the morning!”

I guess this is further evidence of my self-diagnosed ADHD. I could do a zillion things at once and thrived on chaos. But when my energy was focused on something I loved, everything else in the universe vanished.

It’s been problematic since having children. While I used to read at least a book a week, and at times a book a day (my Agatha Christie period was like that: they’re quick reads) with the arrival of responsibilities which stubbornly refused to cease existing for the period in which I was immersed, my drug of choice had to come second. At times, I really resented it. And for the addict, resentment is a serious ‘no-no.’

So I don’t read much anymore. My husband and children are kind enough to let me mainline at least one book each summer at the cabin (two years ago it was Watership Down which was friggin’ awesome!) and now and then they have the patience to tolerate my psychological absence for an extended period of time. But by and large, the books are down. They have to be. I have too darn much to do.

Dang.

This afternoon, I inhaled the second two-thirds of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by Jim Webb, lent to me by my father-in-law. Sitting in the living room waiting for me, on the recommendation of my brother Pete, is Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, by Simon Singh. And gosh darn it if my father didn’t hand me the latest Sister Fidelma mystery by Peter Tremayne at church this morning!!!

Thirty minutes at Family Reading Time. That’s it. I swear.

Suuuuuure. Heard that one before.

Angels in our Midst

2010-01-23T18:30:00.000-08:00

“Buckle Close Friends to Your Soul”

--Maya Anjelou

And so it begins. Eiledon came home from school last Thursday and said, “Mama, the other kids in my class really aren’t nice. Especially the girls.”

The first kick to the gut of a mom who went through upper elementary, junior high and high school completely lost among the daily dramas of adolescent identity-seeking, internally crippled by insecurity and falling back on the only way she knew how to be, which was “weird” and a “know-it-all” and a “teacher’s pet.” I didn’t get my classmates and I was sure they didn’t get me.

“Oh, Eiledon,” I said as gently as I could, trying not to make it about me, “I remember how that felt. And it’s okay. It’s normal. But it may be that way for a while, maybe even up through high school.”

“Well that sucks,” she said. “Sucks” is a new word for her. I try not to giggle.

“Now is the time, Eiledon, when you have to hold on to your good friends.”

I am so grateful that Eiledon has good friends. A handful of girls for whom she has indomitable affection and with whom she can truly be herself. She will need them.

I think if it hadn’t been for Lora Grisafi, Susan Waldenmaier and Mika Nishida, I wouldn’t have made it through high school with my sanity intact, much less my optimism.

Lora was my very first friend. Seven months older than me and just two doors down the street in our neighborhood, Lora and her brothers were just a part of the pack we kids ran with. When we were little girls we fought like sisters, friends one day, “I’m not your friend!” the next. As we grew up, it was evident that we had little in common beyond proximity, but it never mattered. Lora was a constant in my world and someone I could count on to love me even though I had absolutely no clue about anything worldly. We talk maybe once a year anymore but every time we connect it’s as if no time has passed, we just pick up where we left off.

I met Susan in kindergarten at Carl L. Dixson School. We would be Brownies and then Junior Girl Scouts together, have the same third and fourth grade teachers, and both play flute in the Alice E. Grady Elementary School band. When you’re kids, friendships are more casual and situational and, particularly after I skipped fifth grade, I wouldn’t say we were “close.” But for some reason, when I was in ninth grade and she was in eighth, something changed. It’s weird, when I think about it: I have this crystal clear memory of the Hamilton High School cafeteria, sitting with Sue and a few other people, eating lunch, and from that day, things were different. We were inseparable. She probably doesn’t remember it the same way, like it was an ‘all of a sudden’ thing. But I just remember that before that day, I was horribly, miserably, devastatingly lonely and after that, I had a best friend. (I still have her. I am so lucky.)

Mika moved in when she was in the sixth grade and I in the eighth, having been born in Japan and lived in California from age 3 to 10. She lived two doors down from me in the opposite direction from Lora. Because of a quirk of school district mapping, she was in a different district than I so we never had the common backdrop of school. What we did have was a shared passion for music and the arts. We sang together, we drew together, we ran around like maniacs together. She went to church with my family for years. When I went off to college, and she, later, to the Boston Conservatory for the Performing Arts, we lost touch. For whatever reason, we just couldn’t keep up the communication. Say what you will about Facebook, but it has brought Mika back into my life and my life is much richer for it.

I’ve grown past all the stomach-churning memories of ‘mean girls’ from my past. I understand, now, that they were as lost as I. But at the time, in my naïve and socially inept navigation of the confusing maelstrom of growing up, Lora, Susan and Mika were no less than angelic presences in my life, giving me all the unconditional love and grace I didn’t know how to give myself. They are still buckled close to my soul. Thanks guys. You rock.

Yer Darn Tootin'

2010-01-22T14:50:00.001-08:00

I played the flute from fourth grade through senior year of high school. I had adored playing the recorder in 3rd grade and was chomping at the bit to take up a “real” instrument the following year. I wanted to play the clarinet because it seemed like that was the instrument all the cool kids were going to play. My mom wasn’t so sure. She said she loved the sound of the flute and encouraged me in that direction. I think she was probably terrified of the sounds I would make learning the clarinet—that whole dying goose thing, you know. Whatever the reason for her advice, I took it and the flute became my instrument of choice.

When I brought my school-owned instrument home that first day, I couldn’t get a sound out of it. I was crushed. I had an absolute melt-down, yelling that I would never be able to play the flute and I should just give up now! (Does anyone remember my blog about when my daughter started the flute? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’m so sorry about that Mom & Dad). As it turned out, the flute was actually broken and I was given a different instrument and then things were just fine.

Flute came easily for me. I don’t recall practicing much at home, though I must have at some point. By the end of the fourth grade, I was playing on a sixth grade level and was given a perfect score at the solo festival that year (for a fourth-grade-level piece.) I was no prodigy, mind you. I just picked things up quickly. At some point in high school, the requirements of playing the instrument well caught up with my natural ability and I believe, for all intents and purposes that I was pretty mediocre in the end. I did take private lessons on Saturday mornings for a while, which were lots of fun until I decided I really didn’t want to spend the time practicing. Then Saturday mornings were awful. I always walked up Mr. Cohen’s walk with a sense of dread, certain that he would know I wasn’t practicing. Which he always did. Eventually, I asked my parents if I could stop the lessons. I felt like I was wasting their money.

When I graduated from high school, I made the decision not to continue playing flute. Part of it was that I was going to a college with one of the premier music programs in the country and I was completely intimidated and unwilling to do the work I knew it would take to keep up there. I gave my flute to a junior high kid who couldn’t afford his own and felt like the gesture validated the decision to quit. I remember my mom, again, not being so sure. She said there might come a time when I would regret quitting.

That time came in 1998 or so, when I was actively involved in a church with a ridiculous number of gifted musicians in its membership. It wasn’t that I wanted to do what they did. It was that I remembered how fun it was to play music, to create sound, to be part of a musical team. Choir was fantastic, don’t get me wrong, and I would never choose one over the other, but when people would play flute in church I would feel my fingers wanting to follow along with the notes, and I was sad I didn’t have my own instrument anymore.

I got over it. Like you do.

So when Eiledon decided she wanted to play either the violin, the clarinet or the flute (in that order), I said not one word. I didn’t even tell her that I had once played the flute. The school had an evening event where each kid got to try out their top three instruments and I sat silently by while my daughter clumsily drew a bow across the neck of a three-quarter-sized violin. She didn’t appear to be all that excited about it. Then, in another room, she tried the get a sound out of the clarinet. Nothin’. Not even the dying goose. She was very disappointed. The band instructor smiled kindly and handed her a flute mouthpiece. “Now look at the wall over there. I’ll hold the mouthpiece. Don’t look down—look straight ahead, make a small hole with your lips and blow.” Out came a high and lovely note. She was hooked. Instantly.

After she had made her decision, and was certain of it, I told her that I had also played the flute, but hadn’t wanted to influence her in that direction. But now that she’d chosen it, I was really excited for her.

A few weeks ago, I held her flute and played it. Not well. But I played it. And I remembered how much I loved it. As a result, I’ve been able to work with her in her practicing, to play pieces for her so she can hear what they’re supposed to sound like before she starts plugging away measure by measure. Who knows, maybe I’ll take this as a “refresher course” and get my own flute and we can play duets some day. Meanwhile, I just want to say “thanks” to my mom for steering me away from the dying goose. :)

Precious Gems

2010-01-21T06:49:00.000-08:00

A Michigan journal entry from August 8, 2008

As I sat at the bottom of the dock digging my hands into the rocks, I thought, “how priceless are these little bits of stone.” They may not be diamonds or sapphires, but they are in so many ways infinitely more valuable. I love the way they change color in the light or between water and air. I love the amazing variety and how, no matter how often or how long I look, I an always find something beautiful and new.

My favorite are the subtly striped stones, like little pieces of far off planets, the dark swirls hinting of alien weather patterns and things too ancient to comprehend.

The fossils always give a little thrill, their surfaces etched with the lacy remains of life from long ago. Most precious of this is, of course, the coveted Petosky stone which, when found is cause for celebration indeed.

Then there are the different quartz-like stones, shimmering pink or gold, the leopard-spotted stones in orange and the ones which are pale blue-gray with black and white striations, like miniature planet Earths. The rocks with portions cut away by time and the elements make me think of layered jawbreakers half-eaten. Even the most plain-looking rock can have secrets when you turn it over and experience all of its facets.

There are also a myriad of shells, tiny curling snail shells in brown or blue-gray or white, and copious zebra mussel shells. While I am aware of the ecological ravages of this introduced species, I can’t help but find their empty shells beautiful, with their iridescent interiors and colorful exteriors.

On rare occasions there might even be a precious piece of beach glass to be found. Usually white or clear, but sometimes brown, pale blue or green or, if you’re very lucky, dark blue. Leftovers from human attempts to pollute and destroy, taken by the water and sand and transformed into luminous gems, now more valuable than the original glass ever was: these are reminders that nature can and will outlast our attempts to subdue her.

These treasures are right there for the enjoying, before my eyes and under my feet, whenever I can again sit peacefully on the shore of Mullett Lake. May I never take them for granted.

Rocking

2010-01-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

A Michigan journal entry from July 31, 2008

Often when I lie down to rest, I can almost conjure the sensation of gently swaying. I crave this feeling. It makes me comfortable. I experience security and release. I have repeatedly expressed my desire to have a hammock or sky-chair at the cabin so that I might lie beneath the trees and swing in the lake breezes accompanied by the sound of the waves and the gulls.

I know where this desire originates. I know why rocking is so infinitely comforting. When we are rocking, we know, instinctively, that we are Held. From our very first experience in this life, we are snuggled securely in the womb and the movement of our mothers’ bodies speaks of contentment. All our needs are met, there are no fears, just this continual sway.

As small children, when we are upset, warm, strong arms hold us and we rock, once again safe and secure, removed from whatever pain or frustration might assail. We are reminded we are loved and that someone who cares for us deeply is looking out for us.

Recently, though I am an adult, the yearning for this sensation has returned quite strongly. Few days pass wherein I don’t find myself lying in bed and attempting to feel that rocking. I think, as I said, of hammocks. I imagine a bed frame on a sliding track that could create this motion for grownups. Rocking chairs. Swings. Amusement park rides.

Perhaps this explains why I love the lake so much. I can sit in the boat or on an inner tube in the water and feel that delicious sway. I can feel that I am Held and loved and cared for in ways I cannot possibly comprehend. And so I am, and that is why, even on solid ground in a stationary bed, I can still feel that I am gently rocking.

A Series of Fortunate Events

2010-01-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

It’s rare that one discrete event, such as reading a book, can have a singularly transformative effect on everything else in life. I know the book I read last Wednesday wasn’t magic and that it’s wisdom and insight, unto itself, can’t “fix” my parenting challenges. It occurred to me in the days following that it wasn’t so much the book itself, but the fact that I had “hit bottom,” as we say in the 12-step community, as it related to my children. Until January 10^th, I had been assaulting the problem with my considerable will power, hell bent on “figuring it out,” as I have always done. Just as with my food addiction, my will fell short and I had to concede utter defeat. I simply could not do it on my own. It took slumping into a multi-day depression to get me to the point where I was ready to listen, ready to accept help. That was the first piece of the puzzle.

Enter the perfect book at precisely the right moment. Suuuuure. Coincidence. Yeah.

It gave me the next couple pieces. It said that the single most important part of a treatment plan for a child with ADHD is unconditional parental love. I realized I wasn’t doing this all that well. It said to look at ADHD as a gift to unwrap. When I first approached Eiledon with this idea, she didn’t buy it. She challenged me, “How is it a gift?” I had a few limp responses, but I really didn’t know myself. Still I muddled through and, if nothing else, I stayed positive.

By Saturday, I was noticing some distinct changes in Eiledon’s behavior.

She started self-checking her temper (she would yell “Hush!” at me but then immediately shake her head and say, “Sorry, sorry,” and bring it down a few notches rather than fly off the handle per usual).
She started putting effort out for others (I asked Gavin to hang up his coat and she quickly said, “Oh, I’ll do it for him, I’m down here. And he always hangs up my things.”)
She started laughing through her flute practice whenever she would mess up (instead of dissolving into rageful tears and self-abusive negative talk, she would launch into a clearly fake performance of the same painful behavior and then start giggling hysterically).
She started doing her homework on Saturday without being nagged. Without even being reminded. (Somebody pinch me).

Now, it happened that around the 11^th or 12^th of January, we upped her ADHD medication dose to what would be, most likely, the proper therapeutic level for her size/weight, and it’s likely that that’s another piece of the puzzle. And the more I noticed positive changes in her, the more my own outlook improved.

On Sunday morning, in this mellow, optimistic state, I led the littlest Sunday Schoolers through a re-enactment of the epiphany story during worship. The older kids held their star art-projects in the air and sang “Bright and Glorious Is the Sky” while the 3, 4 and 5-year old “Wise Men” followed a gold star-shaped mylar balloon to Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Way fun.

As I was carrying the last load of props back out of the nave after the service, I was stopped by one of the ushers. He’s not someone I know well, except by sight, but he stopped me by saying, “You know, I have been trying to figure you out.” He said he’d seen the various work I had been doing at Calvary and kept trying to guess from whatever I was doing what my professional career might be. He listed (in very complimentary terms) some of what he observed as my talents and then guessed at what career each might indicate, marveling at how none of them seemed compatible. Finally, he said with a smile, “I can’t figure it out. I give up.”

I stood listening to his monologue, my arms full of cardboard tube “telescopes” and scrolls, my eyes wide, a stupid grin across my face. He had just handed me the missing puzzle piece. He was, at that moment, the very incarnation of God, looking me right in the eye and saying, “Come on, now, Rebekah. Haven’t you figured this out yet?”

I have ADHD. And it’s the greatest gift I possess.

It’s also been a serious challenge. But I finally realized that my ADHD makes me who I am. And who I am is pretty damn cool. Which means I can now look my daughter in the eye and say, “Your ADHD is a gift. And we’re gonna have a blast unwrapping it.”

Who Am I?

2010-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

Just a short jotting about a game my family has been playing at dinner every evening for the past few days called “Who Am I?”. It’s basically “20 Questions,” although there isn’t a limit, and generally we all chose a “person” to be. I put person in quotes because we’re often various cartoon creatures, aliens, animals and others. “Personalities” might be a better word.

Eiledon had played it at school and then brought it home for us to try. Everyone does a pretty good job choosing personalities that we’re sure the other three would be able to identify. This isn’t easy. The kids and I have the shared reference of Cartoon Network shows which Dan never sees. And, of course, Dan and I have years of common experience we can’t tap because the kids haven’t been around that long. But we’re a close family and it’s not too difficult to find a personality we can all figure out.

An example of how well we know each other: It was Dan’s turn—possibly even the first time he ever played. He said he had though of someone to “be” and we could start asking questions.

Eiledon and I asked a few and narrowed the field to an actual person (rather than a fictional character) who was living and male. Gavin, who had been absolutely silent to that point said, “Billy Joel.” Dan’s jaw dropped open, for, of course, Gavin was right. He had pulled the name out without pertinent facts like: famous, musician, rock & roll, or any other clues. He just knew that Dan would pick Billy Joel. We all had a good laugh at Gavin’s perception—and Dan’s obvious choice.

In the book I just read on parenting kids with ADHD, the author stressed the importance of nurturing a “connected childhood” for such children: connected to family, traditions, community and so on and so forth. It good to know that something as simple as a family game around the table carries such weight in child development. I remember playing all sorts of games with my family growing up and it makes sense to me now how that encouraged a depth of interrelationship that created security and stability in an otherwise unpredictable life. At the time, I just thought we were having fun. Because we were. I guess it doesn’t always have to be rocket science.

Letting It Go

2010-01-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time and energy working with Sunday School kids on drama and music. The creative arts are my passion and I love to experience the way children’s minds are so much more free than adult minds. Most of the kids really respond to drama, too. Even the one or two who are getting to the point where they’re “too cool” to sing in front of the congregation warm right up to the opportunity for some good comedic lines and the spotlight.

As a result of my efforts with the kids, I’d like to think they are each getting a deeper understanding of God’s word by experiencing it in multiple ways. As another result of my efforts, people compliment me a heck of a lot. I’m much better at accepting praise gracefully now, with the help of my twelve-step program and my honest work toward more humility. But my lifelong MO is to absolutely thrive on the praise of others. In fact, growing up all of my self-esteem came from what other people thought of me. So when someone pulls me aside to tell me how amazing it was to see the kids do thus-and-so and did I write that skit???, I have to be very deliberate about being gracious and giving the credit to the kids for their engagement in the process.

Then there is the matter of Gavin. I remind myself with some frequency, whenever my head starts to swell, that for all my passion for the arts, for all my ability to get kids to act and sing and really dig into the Gospel, the only child who absolutely will not participate in anything I do is my own son.

It’s not his fault. Whatever his emotional-behavioral challenge might be labeled eventually, the bottom line is that he will not participate in group activities, especially if they involve any kind of audience. He did manage to do his Kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd Grade Performances at school, but every year was a crapshoot and we were always surprised when he did it. Third Grade? No dice. Even though he seemed to want to participate, even though I bribed him shamelessly, reports kept coming from school that as soon as he would get to music class to start rehearsing for the play, his behavior would quickly go downhill. As the performance loomed closer, he started getting agitated at just the mention of music class and the play. At home, he still told me he wanted to do the performance but the facts coming from school didn’t support this. In the end, his special ed team strongly recommended that, for his own sense of serenity, he shouldn’t participate.

This was hard for me. Gavin has a beautiful voice. He is engaging and funny. He memorizes lines effortlessly. He. Will. Not. Perform. My primadonna diva proud stage-mother ego was being poked with a hot skewer.

I asked Gavin directly: if the bribe were not hanging out there, would he really want to do the performance? He said no.

I had to concede. Whatever it is that sets Gavin off about public performance is real. And it would be mean to force him to do something that was so terribly unnerving for him. Even if it was something he was good at. Even if it was something I loved.

After letting it go at school, I was able to start letting it go at church, too. I can’t force him to participate in Sunday School, sing songs with the other kids, or stand up in the sanctuary and act out a skit or a Bible story. I don’t want him to hate church. Or singing. Or me. And I realized that if I was honest with myself, the main reason I was pushing was pride and ego, not love and service to my little boy with the big heart.

I am grateful for this. Today, another mom was near tears at the way her children did not want to participate in the worship service. I just hugged her and told her I understood, and that the purpose of the experience wasn’t to impress the other grown-ups, but to dig in to the story. They had already done that. They didn’t need to prove it to anyone. I gave her daughter a hug and said, “I love you, Hon, even if you don’t want to sing.”

It was a good reminder, too, that my job isn’t to impress the congregation with the talents of its children (or the talents of its drama director). My job is to facilitate the children in sharing the story with those around them. That has nothing to do with me. Thanks, Gavin. :)

Paleolithic Metallurgy School

2010-01-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

Trying to advocate for kids with learning and behavioral challenges is a study in acronyms. In the past year or so I have come to be very familiar with terms such as FAPE, IDEA, IEP, ASD, CAM, ADHD and PDD thanks to a number of MDs, PhDs, LPs and LicSWs. I don’t mind all of these shorthand terms, but it’s very hard for me when my 10-year-old daughter says in frustration, “I wish there were no such thing as ADHD. What does it even mean, anyway?”

How would you feel if a couple dozen authority figures in your life insisted upon referring to your personal frustrations by an acronym that included the words “deficit” and “disorder?” Eiledon is only now able to remember what the letters actually stand for. I’d rather she forgot again.

When I was an adolescent and young adult, I was regularly plagued by another acronym: PMS. It wasn’t all in my head, as medical practitioners contended for years rather than having to address the issue. My cramps, moodiness, food cravings, fatigue and volatility were all real. I wasn’t just blaming my emotional and behavioral challenges on a convenient medical term so I didn’t have to deal with them. I dealt with them. Every stinkin’ month.

At one point in high school or college I was sitting around with my brother, Pete. I must have been in the throes of PMS—weepy, tired, ravenous, miserable. He felt bad for me—he really did. Pete’s an amazing friend to me. He suggested coming up with alternate meanings for the acronym PMS. We pulled out a piece of paper and started making up completely ridiculous phrases with the same initials. Within a short period of time, we were laughing hysterically and I could focus on something other than how lousy I was feeling. Sadly, I remember only one of our new meanings: Paleolithic Metallurgy School. It was Pete’s creation and it appealed to me on so many levels, nonsensical as it was.

I don’t get PMS as badly anymore (unless I eat beef chock full of hormones—then I’m positively homicidal). But now and then, I still think of Paleolithic Metallurgy School and it makes me smile.

I thought a similar exercise might be in order with my frustrated and shame-filled daughter. She forgot to go to her in-school flute lesson yesterday and the two other girls who go with her absolutely refuse to help her remember. She didn’t notice they’d gone and she missed the lesson completely. She came home from school embarrassed and dejected, furious at her “mean” classmates, but determined to apologize to her flute instructor in person on Tuesday. I was proud of her for that.

This morning, before Gavin woke up, Eiledon and I sat together in the big blue chair and I told her what Pete had done for me all those years ago. How it had made the label ridiculous and more bearable. I’ve been talking a lot with her about how to see the gifts of ADHD, to see the ‘disorder’ as a ‘difference in thinking.’ So she agreed to my suggestion that we got to decide what ADHD stands for in our house.

A partial list follows:

Astronaut Dinners Have Dumplings

Any Day Has Donuts

Ancy Dogs Help Drive

Ape Drums Have Dingoes

Astronaut Downers Have Diarrhea

Another Day Hugging Donkeys

Always Do Happy Dances

Awesome Dramatic Hi-Definition

In the end, I pulled together several of our crazy brainstorms to create what I believe ADHD says about my daughter. It says: Astonishing, Delightful, Hilarious & Dramatic. Because she is.

What’s In A Name?

2010-01-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

Names in our family are completely arbitrary. They pretty much serve the function of legal identification for tax purposes. Beyond that, no one in our house is who their birth certificates say they are.

On a road trip to the east coast about 18 or 20 years ago, Dan and I saw a huge rock along the Pennsylvania Turnpike onto which someone had spray painted, “I Love You, Booper!” We found this quite funny (not even having seen the movie “She’s Having A Baby” yet) and kept threatening to start calling the other one by that nickname. Dan won, consistently referring to me as “Booper” for the requisite 21 days it takes for something to become a habit. He claims self defense. I still sign e-mails, text message and other correspondence to him “Booper” or, the more informal “Boop.” I got my revenge, inventing the ridiculous name “Dannypookernose” and then proceeding to call him nothing else. He signs most correspondence “Pook.” Cutsey? Maybe, but who asked you? ;)

When we adopted our beloved cat, Dolby, he, too was given all kinds of nicknames, Splinky, Spider-monkey cat and Lump being the most memorable. When we adopted Perry, we called her “Perry-Girl” or “PG” for short. PG is still her primary identifier between Dan and me. Collectively, they were known as “The Buddies,” never “The Cats.”

It’s somewhat of a miracle that our daughter ever learned her given name. Eiledon Katharine is a mouthful in any case, but those words rarely come out of anyone’s mouth in this house. From birth she was “Binky,” and then “Binks,” “Munchkin,” and then “Munch,” (which is still my favorite) and a slew of other endearments. At daycare, she was dubbed “Leelee” since the other kids couldn’t pronounce her name. It’s stuck and is probably Ledon’s most commonly used nickname. Her middle name came into play when her behavior got rocky. I will never forget the time when she was about three and we were in a Stride Rite shoe store. She was chattering away to a complete stranger: “Hi. My name is Eiledon. But when my mom is mad at me, she calls me ‘Kate.’” Ledon-Kate, Leelee-Kate and other similar concoctions are still frequent.

In fact, we had given Eiledon so many nicknames that when Gavin arrived, we were sort of tapped. Seriously. I actually sent out an email to friends and family asking for suggestions. I thought about calling him “Dutch” after my grandfather’s CB handle: “The Flying Dutchman” but it just never stuck. Gavin was… Gavin. We did shorten it to “Vin” and Eiledon sometimes called him “My Gavy” but nicknames didn’t come easily. Then later, when he was about 2 or 3, he went through a phase when he refused to be called anything but Gavin. Not even “Sweetheart” or “Vinnie-bear.” If I called him anything other than his given name he would look at me with a scowl and say, “Mama, I’m just Gavin!” Eventually he accepted other permutations and I most commonly call him “Vinnie.” These days, he is generally one or another Pokemon, so as soon as I find out which one he is, I call him that until he changes his mind. Poor Dan knows nothing about Pokemon so he gets kind of lost in the nickname shuffle.

Collectively, the kids are referred to as “The Monkeys,” which is appropriate since they both like bananas and jumping all over the furniture.

When Jack-Jack arrived, nicknames really weren’t necessary. We had a family meeting to choose his name and wound up laughing so hard at all the different suggestions, we just kept them all, giving him an official name of “Jack-Jack Oinkpuff Orange Squeakbox Moir the Cheeto Padawan.” Where do you go from there?

A similar situation arose with Brubeck, when he came into our lives. Having set the precedent for multiple given names, we skipped the formal process and all came up with one or two we liked and just lumped them all together. His full name is Brubeck Dyoxis Obstreporous Yankovik Moir VIII. Still, this hasn’t prevented the nicknames from flying out the woodwork (which isn’t the best thing for a dog, really—he’s confused a lot). My sister dubbed him “Brewski” which totally stuck. It then mutated into Bru-skaDOOSH (courtesy of Kung-Fu Panda) to just “SkaDOOSH” to “Ski.” Ledon calls him “Ski-baby” usually (which she pronounces SKEE-buh-bee). He has no idea who she’s talking about. I shortened Bru-SkaDOOSH into “Brushka” with a heavy Russian accent. He responds to that one.

Then last night—which is the reason for this entry in the first place—Dan came in from walking Brubeck, took him off leash and gave him a treat saying, “There you go Spazzy MacBarkBark.”

I about peed my pants. Spazzy MacBarkBark. I’m still laughing.

Poor dog.

One Among Many

2010-01-14T14:42:00.001-08:00

Another cop-out, folks. Too much going on to be inspired and it's against policy to write about how I have nothing to write about. SO without further ado, here's an earlier version of my children's book One Among Many, written with a lot of 12-step influence for my kids. It's been edited/cleaned-up a bit since then but I don't have it in a format I can upload. So here you go. Peace out.

--RFM

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I Was Wrong.

2010-01-13T15:01:00.001-08:00

This kind of admission would once have been the ultimate humiliation for me. I remember the one altercation I had with my high school social studies teacher over a test question I got wrong that I was certain was right. She had some very pointed words to say to me after class about otherwise being a such a polite young lady who oughtn’t be so outright rude to her teachers. I was red to my toes. Even more so when, for a brief moment, I understood why I had gotten the question wrong. Made my arguing that much more ridiculous.

I won’t say I’m completely different now—I’d still prefer to be right and I still have a tendency to be quick to correct the inaccuracies of others.

But this… Today… I have never been so happy to have been wrong.

I just read a book about parenting children with ADHD. It wasn’t preachy. It wasn’t jargonistic. It wasn’t rigidly procedural. It was about loving your child for who they are. Not just that you should. But why and how to do it.

I read about my own children in that book. I laughed out loud. And I felt like I was going to cry on several occasions. Mostly because I realized what a lousy job I’ve been doing of loving them for who they are. Or, at least, showing it.

I read about myself in that book. About how I have trouble seeing ADHD as a positive trait. How I’m deeply worried about my children’s future. How painful it is to see them struggling in school. How bringing all my will to bear on the situation with checklists and behavior charts and constant nagging at them to try harder, to behave better, to pay more attention simply isn’t working and, worse, seems to be making my children depressed, frustrated and self-loathing.

Four days ago, I hit a wall. After my son’s behavioral issues escalated to the point at which he is no longer able to ride the regular school bus and my daughter failed for the third day in a row to simply hand in an assignment which was complete, I was defeated. I blogged a few days back about being a lifelong quitter and how I couldn’t quit on my kids. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to quit that day. A friend had tried to encourage me by telling me God knew what He was doing when He gave those kids to me. But I felt kicked in the gut by the reality that I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t seem to have anything left up my sleeve.

Six days ago, I had poked around the Hennepin County Library system catalog for books on ADHD, hoping to find out more about the condition, treatments and prognosis. Grasping for any kind of resource that might help. Nothing was available immediately but I put in several requests for books that looked promising. The first three were ready for me to pick up within a couple days and they sat on the shelf until I ‘had time’ to read them.

Finally, last night, during the recently instated “Family Reading Time,” I started Superparenting for ADD with low expectations (it really isn't a great title). By the end of the introduction I was nearly in tears. By one o’clock this afternoon, my hope was completely restored.

The good news is that Dan and I have been doing a lot of things right. The better news is that the things we’ve been doing wrong—the things that aren’t working for our kids—are completely fixable. Not easily. Not instantly. Well, some things can change instantly, like my attitude. For the very first time, I can honestly say that I can look at my kids’ ADHD as a gift. As a truly positive trait that can be nurtured for their benefit in the long term. I didn’t believe that yesterday. I’m happy to say that I was wrong.

-------

Here's the Book:

Hallowell, Edward M., MD, and Peter Jensen, MD. Superparenting for ADD, New York: Ballentine Books, 2008.

When in Doubt, Make Pizza

2010-01-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Now, if you’re one of those people who believes everyone should just shut up and eat whatever is put in front of him with a smile and LIKE IT, you might as well stop reading. Of course, if you do keep reading, I’m sure you’ll have lots of things to say to me about how I’m raising my children incorrectly. Oh well. That’s the risk of blogging, I guess.

My household is made up of the following members and their associated food issues:

Daniel G. Moir, age 42. Dan is the quintessential “guy.” He will not, can not, does not stand for anything remotely resembling “hot dish” (that’s a “casserole” for all my east coast peeps). Different food types can’t touch each other. Seriously, if the man eats vegetables (which, to be fair, he does) he will actually finish eating everything else on the table first and then have the proffered vegetable as a separate course. Additionally, he prefers to avoid anything that can be considered “production” around meals. In his perfect “guy” world, all meals would come frozen, be heated on tin foil and eaten off paper plates.

Rebekah M. Moir, age 38. I’m a food addict. I don’t care what it is or how it’s prepared. With a few exceptions for “out there” type foods (I won’t eat anything still living!) and lima beans, bring it on, Baby! Yeah, this wasn’t the greatest philosophy for my health. Now, to maintain my recovery from my addiction, I precisely weigh or measure individual food items that I eat so I have to make almost everything from scratch. And sugar is absolutely out of the question (did you know that Green Giant actually adds sugar to its canned corn? I am not kidding.) Luckily, since I’m the family chef and I like to make things from scratch, I’m covered.

Eiledon K. Moir, age 10. Your typical, picky eater, Eiledon will not consume anything without first tasting the tiniest piece of it to within an inch of its existence. Everything puts her off. Taste, texture, aroma, sometimes even the name of a food is enough to elicit complete refusal to consume. She subsists on bread, pasta, cheese, a few fruits and vegetables and some highly processed meats but only very limited varieties of these items. And what she adores one day, she may honestly detest a few days later. With her, every meal is a crapshoot.

Gavin A. F. Moir, age 8. Your not-so-typical picky eater. Actually, Gavin likes a much broader variety of things than his sister. He will gladly eat meat of any kind, and a good number of items from all the food groups. What’s frustrating about him is that the foods he doesn’t like are the only ones Eiledon does. He will not eat macaroni & cheese or pasta of any kind. What kid doesn’t like PASTA for crying out loud?!?!?

Lest you think I fall into the role of a short-order cook, I will tell you that I can and do feed my family a single meal as often as possible. But just as in my childhood when my mother made herself liver and onions and the rest of us pasta (because, well… liver and onions, Mom! Eww) there are times when each individual gets his or her meal a bit tailored. And even when I do serve a single, unified menu to the family, there’s a pretty fair variety of choices on the table. If we’re having spaghetti, there’s sauce and (plain) meatballs, butter and parmesan cheese, and bread all of which can be consumed by anyone in any combination. But EVERYBODY has to eat the vegetable, dammit. Even if it’s for dessert.

Still, there are those nights like tonight when I think, “Heck with it. I’ll just throw in a pizza.” (And then I make a little homemade one for myself and it’s so tasty!) Bon appetit!

"Television Tastes Funny"

2010-01-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I loved after-school and Saturday morning cartoons. I don’t know that my television intake was excessive, I was never a big fan of evening live-action sitcoms or dramas except Mash. But I adored cartoons and watched them all the way through high school and beyond. There were all the classics: Looney Toons, Woody Woodpecker and Tom & Jerry, and then more ‘current’ cartoons like Scooby Doo and its millions of formulaic knock-offs, and later the Smurfs, Inspector Gadget and Robotech were big favorites of mine.

It’s tempting to think that “those were the good old days” and that today’s cartoons just aren’t of the same caliber. I do believe there was a fallow period in kids’ animation not long ago. For some reason, many cartoons were drawn in a style to make the characters as absolutely unappealing as possible. Sloppy-looking forms with thin, wavy lines and asymmetrical features, along with a focus on excessive body humor and just general grossness make shows like Ed, Edd and Eddy, Rugrats and their ilk unwatchable to me. Possibly I never gave them a fair shake, since my kids were too little to watch them and I wasn’t interested at that point in my life.

I’m happy to say there are a few smart, funny kids’ cartoons on Cartoon Network these days, most of which I have to admit I haven’t sat down and actually watched, but have more absorbed as I putz around the house when my kids are watching. There’s still a great deal of body humor and some things are downright disgusting, but I love hearing references to the pop-culture of my generation, just as I’m sure my parents found a lot of Buggs Bunny’s wise cracks funnier than I ever did, because they were directly targeted at them, not us. In fact, I think what makes for the best cartoons is that multi-level humor: the kids find the drawings and situations silly and enjoyable and the adults can dig into the subtext and innuendo.

In particular, I am quite fond of the Cartoon Network shows Johnny Test and Chowder. Johnny Test is fairly straightforward but Chowder, while being one of the most creative cartoons I’ve seen stylistically speaking, also derives most of its humor from wordplay, for which I am a total sucker. (The rest of its humor comes from bodily functions, which I could do without, and the sheer talent of the young boy who voices the title character.) I find myself giggling at things my kids just don’t get and at the same time, I enjoy some of the catch phrases bandied around the house now such as, “Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.” and “Bacon-WHAT-Lettuce-WHAT-Tomatoes-WHAT!”

Flapjack, a show about an angelic little boy being raised by a whale and a ne’er-do-well sailor in an old-time rough-and-tumble seaport can be pretty funny at times, but also has moments of downright creepiness (lots of moments, actually). I’m not sure how I feel about that one overall; it’s inconsistent.

Lastly, a nod to Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends which isn’t a new show, but is fairly new to me. It’s highly stylized animation takes getting used to, but as I’ve gotten to know the characters, I have found myself laughing out loud on numerous occasions and repeating dialog with my kids and even my husband. Seriously, the episode “Mac Daddy,” in which the character of Cheese is introduced, is without a doubt one of the funniest single pieces of animation I have ever seen. It has become, for my family, what the animated one-episode show “The Family Dog” was to my family of origin. Few days pass without someone referencing some quote from the uncomfortably weird dude with no personal boundaries or ability to interpret social cues. In fact, the title of this blog is a Cheese-ism. I highly recommend getting a taste of this character.

Low Ebb

2010-01-10T15:12:00.001-08:00

I know next to nothing about physics, relativity, spacetime, etc. beyond snippits of incomprehensible conversations among those in the know (or in the “theorize” really) and sitting through the movie What the Bleep do we Know? which was enjoyable and a good starting point for some way out conversations, but which many in the “theorize” generally dismiss as lightweight and misleading.

I do know that spacetime is often described ‘fabric’ which can be fluidly moved, bent or folded like a piece of muslin. Fabric I know. I sew. But I don’t think anyone is saying I could make a lovely sundress out of spacetime. Or maybe I can. Whatever.

My husband and I have often discussed the idea that there are periods of time that, to our perception, pass more slowly than they ought to, if time were at a constant speed. Usually these things happen when caught in a barely tolerable meeting, during an uncomfortable confrontation or at a boring movie (did anyone see Kevin Costner in Revenge? I swear that movie was thirteen and a half hours long).

But sometimes these slow periods have no direct correlation to an unpleasant or boring experience. More interestingly, in our experience, multiple people tend to feel the slowing of time together even when their activities are quite varied. Dan believes these are moments when time actually slows down. “Goes around a curve,” is how he describes it. I have no idea if there’s any theoretical merit to his instinct, but it seems plausible.

Whatever the reality (and is there even any such thing?!?!?) the experience seems real enough.

At the moment, my energy, my life force, (and my general attitude) are at a low ebb. I feel as if I am in slow motion, except there’s no ‘bionic woman’ sound effect and I don’t have amazing powers. The sense is one of wandering aimlessly even in the midst of directive action. I have a ‘to do’ list and I seem to be sticking to it but there’s no urgency, no desire. And it doesn’t even bother me.

But it’s back to school and work tomorrow. And there are meetings and grants and flute lessons and homework and dog walking and cat box cleaning and baths and church council and choir carpool and orthodontist appointments and phone calls and brochures and… Does anyone have a cosmic iron?