Month: July 2010

Rhythms, tides, waves, sine curves, and the ebb and flow of life

I’ve been riding the swells of my moods lately, dipping into sadness, rising into joy, then back again. When I looked back at what I was writing a year ago, I see I was talking about the very same theme. I wonder if this is a bad thing, this apparent wallowing in the same topics, if I am not moving on, moving forward. Or if the continued exploration is just my getting deeper into an important rhythm of my life, a critical component of who I am.

I feel frustrated, sometimes, by the fact that I seem to write the same thing over and over.  When I slide down the trough into another sad day, I often feel like I’ve failed, that somehow all this work to be more present, more engaged, more patient, has amounted to nothing and my hands are as empty and grasping as ever.  Shouldn’t I be getting more steady, more happy, more mature?

Maybe not.  It’s gradually sinking in (I’m slow, I know) that the up and down of happiness and sadness, of life and loss, will continue no matter what. I’ve described this pattern as a sine curve before, but it also reminds me of waves, of tides, of the waxing and waning moon, of some fundamental drumbeat of truth that happens deep inside my body. It is as unavoidable as the turning forward of time and as essential as air, both an reflection of and somehow animated by the natural world.

What I am beginning to suspect, though, is that it is actually in this slow, meandering oscillation, both rhythmic and random, that life exists. I return again and again in my writing and in my thinking to this space, the space in between, to the inscrutable and unknown force that sets the cadence of these movements. Is this another example of dwelling, and not growing, or is it just that I continuing to tell one of the elemental stories of my life?

Maybe my whole life, and all my writing, is simply my search for metaphors to express this. Maybe, as to my son’s blue eyes, I’m being drawn somewhere that I just don’t understand yet. Maybe the way I return over and over to these themes is just an echo of the mountainous up-and-down terrain of my emotional landscape. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Sunflowers, hot sauce, and a wonderful surprise encounter

The words haven’t come back. Sadly, there’s no sign of them. What I have instead is this ordinary life, full of early-waking children (and late-sleeping children, one of each), fresh herbs, blooming flowers, wild afternoon thunderstorms, red shoes, and both laughter and tears in every single day. And lots of pictures.

We really mixed things up today for tennis camp at Casa ADSV, as you can see. Whit wanted to wear all red. His tee shirt says “the muddy puddles,” which was the name his soccer team came up for for themselves last fall. I think this is the best team name of all time. They competed against the dragon thises and the leopard thats. Fierce they were not, but those puddles, boy did they enjoy splashing around. Whit observed that he was hot sauce today, but that unfortunately he was not wearing hot sauce shoes.

He was delighted, however, that I had hot sauce shoes on (also, the veiniest feet on the planet. My arms are like that too. Gross, eh?)

While the kids were at tennis camp, I met a friend for coffee. And the universe had a treat in store for me – sitting right there, visiting my very own neighborhood, was the indescribably wise and brilliant Katrina Kenison. Even better? We recognized each other. Sometimes, I feel that invisible hand guiding me to safety, rather than pushing me to more challenge and risk. This was one of those comforting, reassuring moments, and am I ever grateful.

I also ran by the farmer’s market en route to pickup, and got, among other things, these gorgeous sunflowers. My car smelled divine all afternoon, the full-blown summer smell of basil and mint.

Off to swimming, including the standard change-in-the-car routine. I ordered this bathing suit on sale for Grace without noticing the Juicy Couture embroidered on the bottom. Actually I didn’t notice it until she put it on today. Hmm. Final sale. A little cheekier than I might have wished (no pun intended).

Whit was at swimming too. In his classic hilarious fashion. He is working hard (some of the time) to earn back his Legoland trip, which was rescinded due to terrible behavior the last few days. Stay tuned for how that goes, and for whether I head to California next week with one or two children.

The only way to find our way home

I believe we are all full of stories.

I believe we are all looking for the way home. To whatever our essential, fundamental home is, where we are truly ourselves, where we are seen and recognized and known and witnessed as such.

I believe that telling our stories – to others, maybe, but most of all to ourselves – is the only way to find our way home.

Some days, the words of my stories shower over me, like a waterfall or a sudden torrential squall. These are the days when I pull over on the highway to tap sentences onto my iphone. The days I wake in the night to scribble thoughts onto the pad of paper beside my bed. The days I run with words tumbling over themselves in my head, the words of others, songs and quotations, somersaulting over and with my own images and thoughts, and as I run I repeat them over and over, hoping not to forget them.

Other days the words are thin. I fear they are gone. I might catch a glimmer of them, like the surprising sparkle of mica in concrete pavement. But there aren’t enough to hold onto, not enough words to form a rope that I can use to go hand-over-hand from here to there. They are a fragile line, the streak of a snail’s slimy passage, the evanescent foam on the edge of a wave, the fading white path of an airplane, disappearing before my eyes in a hydrangea blue sky.

The words tell the stories that show us the way home. Without the words, it follows, I feel a bit lost.

Trying to trust the rain will come again.

The full summer of life

I have a strong and perpetual instinct to just sit still. I’m sure this is inextricably bound with my endless preoccupation with how fast time is passing. I relentlessly under-program my children during the school year, and I say no to far more things than I say yes to. My favorite story about my antisocial hermetic tendencies remains the one about sitting next to a dear friend’s husband at a dinner party. He asked me something about plans and I said that I usually said no because I compared everything to sitting at home with a book in bed and 9 times out of 10 the book and bed seemed more appealing. I guess, on reflection, it’s no surprise that he was a bit taken aback by that answer!

But now I feel like I’m perched at the top of a tall roller coaster, feel as though this summer feels like it’s about to unfurl at dizzying speed. I look through the weeks between now and Labor Day, which signals the beginning of school and my new job, and each one is full of something. Other than this week and next. There is Legoland, there is YMCA camp in Marion, there is time in Vermont, etc, etc. There is BlogHer! I feel anxiety rising in my chest when I think about this schedule, feel literal tightness of breath.

I have been guided by my eagerness to jam pack this summer with memories for the kids, by my wild determination to take advantage of this time off. These are good instincts, I really believe that. But now I feel that sense of vague dread that I feel before something difficult, or something intense, sort of the night-before-a-final feeling. I let my mind drift to my to-do list, which includes small things like the pesky dentist appointments and big things like finding a new nanny, and I start to feel slightly panicky.

I’m trying to remind myself that this time will never come again. That I even need reminding about this seems preposterous: I hardly think of anything else, and that truth throbs like a drumbeat inside my head most of the day. I also try to remind myself that within each of these trips there will be tremendous downtime. In Marion for a week I’ll be on the back porch with my laptop. At Lake Champlain, ditto. There will be plenty of time for writing, reading, thinking. For moments like this one, where I sit on my bed with Whit resting silently next to me, almost catatonic with exhaustion and remarkably, charmingly docile. And all of the programming for the kids is actually very relaxed. And these are the days. Right?

I think what I’m really anxious about is the next transition that looms, back to Real Life, to a job and school and all of those routines that I was so scared of letting go of in the first place. Just as I settle into the rhythm of this summer, the next disruption, the next earthquake, begins to darken the horizon. I know what the Zen priest I cannot wait to meet in Boston (September 18! Yippee!) would say to me, and I try to heed it. Here. Now. It’s all I have anyway

I suspect, too, that I’m aware the larger arc of time. After all, this time in my life is surely the moment of full summer. I know that, and I am trying mightly to drink it in. But I fear so desperately the fall, the knowledge of which lurks around every single moment. There is already an elegy in the evening light, because I know we have already turned back towards the darkness.

How to honor this and not let it swamp me? I do not know.

These are days

Yesterday Grace, Whit and I went back to Storyland. Our first visit was nothing short of magical and I wanted to experience that again. I am determined to jam this summer that I’m not working full of memories for the children. I’m anxious about what reality will look like once I go back to work, and I realize this may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance. To that end, I just made plans to take them both to Legoland (yes, in San Diego, ie almost as far as you can get from Boston within the continental US) for three days in early August. I don’t know if I’m insane. After Whit melted down at Chili’s tonight I was convinced I was. But once I caught a glimpse of his angelic sleeping face in the rearview mirror, I decided again that it was a good idea. Stay tuned.

They had another marvelous day at Storyland. We left an hour earlier than planned because it started pouring. As I pulled out of the parking lot I felt a pang of real sadness, surprised by how unhappy I was that this much-anticipated visit was over. I don’t know when we will be back, if I’ll be able to just take them here on the spur of the moment next summer, or even what next week holds.

As we sat in traffic in North Conway, the kids descended into their annoying and predictable bickering. Whit snapped at Grace, “I don’t like you, Grace. Not at all.” She surprised me by saying to him, calmly, “Whit, I know you don’t mean that. I know you care a lot about me.” Conversation closed. She turned and looked out of her window, ignoring him for a while.

After a dinner pitstop at Chili’s we drove the last hour to Boston. Whit fell asleep clutching the threadbare and treasured animal that he’s taken to calling his Beloved Monkey, a name that for some reason charms me. Grace was tired but not asleep, gazing out into the evening. It was simply a beautiful night, everything soft around the edges, the world draped in the faint pink haze of sunset. “Grace?” I spoke into the quiet stillness that had settled over the car. She nodded, caught my eye in the mirror. “I thought what you said earlier about knowing Whit loves you even when he said otherwise was really smart. Try to remember that in life. People say a lot of things they don’t mean.”

“Yes. I think sometimes people say things because they are tired, and cranky, and angry.” She lapsed into silence again and my breath caught in my throat at my daughter’s wisdom. May she hold onto this particular piece of it; I know I for one could use the reminder on an almost daily basis.

The song “These Are Days” came on the radio and about halfway through I realized I was singing along under my breath.

These are days you’ll remember …
Never before or never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this.

I was startled to feel tears rolling down my face. These familiar roads, this beautiful city that I love, on the horizon, wreathed in pale pink fog, these sleepy children, these days passing faster than I can bear. Yet again of the loss that limns every single minute of my life lurched up into the foreground. My heart is so full of aches and fears right now, of feelings so big they threaten to overwhelm me. No matter how determined or desperate I am to make this summer full of warmth for Grace and Whit, of memories and joy, it will end. There is nothing I can do to change that. The keening anguish of this fact is sometimes truly more than I can bear.

I noticed that the license plate on the car in front of me was BEACON. Yes. This is my beacon, there is no question: remembering that this is all I have brings me back, over and over again, to right now. I drove through the beautiful dusk, feeling again the haunting awareness of how fleeting it all is, acknowledging reluctantly the unavoidable truth that my grasping at moments just makes them run through my fingers more quickly. Following my beacon, my eyes dazzled by the deep summer blue sky smudged with faint pink and gray clouds, and light glowing from below the horizon, I drove my children home.