musings

Friday afternoon randomness

On my run today I listened to a lot of Ray Lamontagne. I love Ray Lamontagne. I also love love love my orange ipod. Small pleasures.

I ran past my father in his little green Mini. Tall man, little Mini. Good man!

I thought about the ways I am truly an introvert. The activities that most women think of as social that I do, almost always, by myself:

  • running
  • shopping
  • movies (though this is not as gender specific)

It was a gray day and is now raining hard. My poor babysitter has Grace, Whit, and a friend of Grace’s on the T and is taking them into Boston. For the adventure and to drop Grace and friend at a movie with two other friends and one (generous, optimistic) mother.

Whit had as big a tantrum as I’ve seen in years last night, crying inconsolably for a good 45 minutes. I realized after I finally got him to sleep that he is coping with a lot of transitions: new school, new schedule, new classmates, new teacher, new babysitter situation. Plus mercury being in retrograde and all (I love Diana’s blog).

And this morning, running and listening to Ray’s scratchy, soulful voice, I thought about how I hate transitions too. How I hate change, that I fear anticipated change even more than the real thing. Of course Whit is freaking out. He is my kid. Of course he acts out by spitting, screaming, and calling names. I guess I do an adult version of that. With a lot more tears and less spitting. And I am not super proud of that behavior. What he needs – and I am, I guess, pleased that I figured this out last night when I gathered him into my arms and just held onto his shouting, sweating, red-faced, shaking body for a while – is just what I need in these times, which is for someone to say: It’s okay. Everything will be okay. I guess what we all need when we are afraid is shelter. As Ray sang about this morning (oh yes, the inelegant it all ties together! I am no Ondaatje, that is for sure!)

So this Friday I am thinking about change, about Minis, about the October half marathon, about Ray Lamontagne, about who shelters me, about the rain falling outside my window that mirrors my mood.

Transplants

Steve-o made his triumphant return to the Apple stage yesterday, and before he announced all kinds of wonderful new things for the Apple faithful, he made a remark I was deeply pleased to hear:

“I’m very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you know about 5 months ago I had a liver transplant, so I now have the liver of a mid-20’s person who died in a car crash. I wouldn’t be here without such generosity. I hope all of us can be as generous and become organ donors.”

Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project cites this today as well. Organ donation is intensely meaningful to me, and the story of why is here.

It’s important. There are no words to describe the miracle of a transplant. Please be a donor.

Thoughts on a summer

Sunset, Wareham, August 31 2009 (iPhone picture)

Summer coming to an end. This morning, as I ran, I basically leapfrogged with a yellow school bus picking kids up (it would stop, I would run past, it would pass me, repeat). That is a pretty good sign my summer vacation is now taking place in the fall.

Reflections on the summer of 2009

Fastest summer in history, despite the fact that the early Memorial Day/late Labor Day one-two punch must have made this actually an extra long summer. More rain than I can ever remember in June.

In the past few weeks, with the slanting evening light, I’ve confronted my own shadow a bunch and have decided that I have Frankensteinishly square shoulders. It occurs to me I must be walking east a lot at the end of the day. Towards Mecca, enlightenment, both, or neither, I don’t know.

There are a couple of professional decisions slowly gaining purchase in my mind. I’m wondering where the line is between being patient while you allow your thoughts on something to settle (living the questions) and being a chicken and using that as an excuse.

Whit is, I think, officially swimming. Though his swimming is definitely in the graceless, dramatic-impersonation-of-drowning style, he seems to stay alive.

I endured my first real injury and had to take almost two months off of running. I am cautiously optimistic that I’ve rehabbed it now, though I need to keep being careful. As a condition of this rehab, my body required that my pride accept that for a while I will be running 8+ minute miles vs. 7:30+ minute miles. And my pride accepted that! (perhaps the greater accomplishment for me).

Grace is tentatively reading for real. Still not sure how much she enjoys it, but she’s delighted to have an excuse to sit in bed with me in the afternoons and read while I read (something deep and educational like US Weekly, usually – me, not her. She is read the Magic Treehouse series.). Of course this means I am a human dictionary, but I am still finding this quasi-charming.

My insomnia is in high gear and I am tired. One fall resolution is to lay off the elephant tranq doses of sleeping “aids” and to try to tough it out. Maybe I’ll get more reading done.

Whit skinned the equivalent of an entire body’s worth of skin. So basically he molted.

I quit biting my nails and then started again.

Feels like a lot of peopled died this summer: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ted Kennedy, DJ AM (one of these things is not like the others?). Watched the Kennedy service at the Basin Harbor Club with with tears streaming down my face.

Grace lost a top tooth and the remaining one has migrated to the center of her mouth. It’s a weird look, and definitely a Big Girl one. I’m guessing orthodonture is in her future.

What it is …

“Its about knowing when it is time to lay something to rest.
Its about understanding what no longer serves you (or, perhaps, what never even did) and finding a new way instead.
Its in ignoring the lure to remain a victim and taking a look at what you can do instead of remaining stuck in fear and blame.
Its in surrounding yourself with people and activities that bring you to your best, and keep you from collapsing within and fading away.
Its in having enough integrity to care for yourself in the best way possible and ditching that ridiculous “sacrificing self for others” mindset. What good are you to anyone if you have just drained your life force?
Its about remembering the times you were the most happy, the most content, the most at peace, and finding the right recipe for your soul. Its allowing yourself time and permission to enjoy those things that spark your heart.
Its in being open to experiences you never dreamed of, and allowing yourself the freedom to have an adventure no matter how small it may seem.
Its in giving yourself a flipping break for once, and putting a muzzle on the voices in your head that try to make you believe you suck, or are not capable, or that you always fail, or aren’t worth it… (to hell with those lies).
Its about asking for help.
Its about learning to receive.
Its about healing your life.

Its possible. It really is.”

Oh Jen Gray, thank you for these gorgeous words. I am so glad I found your blog, full of exquisite words and images and deep wisdom. Thank you.

Sadness at Lake Champlain

Jenn’s words today (as they have other days) have me nodding and blinking back tears. Oh, Jenn. Yes. I know. First of all, I am not tired of your musings, nor do I suspect I ever will be. Second of all, I can relate to the sense of feeling pressure to be over it already, to get through this, to get out of my own head. Pressure to just stop fretting so. To stop being so sensitive, so sad, so stormy. And I imagine you know the answer to all of that pressure that I feel like screaming: You have no idea how much I wish I could!

This is as good as any summary I could write of where I am right now:

I parent… I owe. I miss. I yearn. I cry. I try. I fail. I try again…I’m not out to get anyone. I don’t think I’m special, or different, or that my sadness is worth more than yours.

I would never presume, Jenn, to say I know where you are. Of course I don’t and I could not. I do know, however, the bleakness of true chemical depression. For me that was an experience that changed my life, making me far more empathetic and less judgmental of people who struggle with mental illness of all kinds. It was a kind of darkness of the mind that I hope never to visit again. It was a time when I felt true despair of a kind I have only touched on since. It was a scary episode, and it left me with both a deep respect for others who struggle with psychological demons and a profound fear of returning there myself.

Where I am now – I think, I desperately hope – is different. This is a more common oscillation of attitude, though this particular valley has been long and deep. I do feel lucky in that I know, or I think I know, that my clouds will lift. I have no choice but to trust these rhythms of the mind, this gentle sine curve of mood that takes me through periods both blindingly sunny and disconcertingly dark.

It strikes me as an apt metaphor that while I refuse to go on roller coasters in the real world, I am in a very real way riding one inside my head on a regular basis. I wish I had more control over my thoughts and reactions. This is the inexorable pull of Buddhism and meditation to me: the dream of letting go of my monkey mind. Oh how appealing is this concept and, thus far in my life, how absolutely beyond my reach.

I sit here, listening to Lake Champlain lap up against the rocks below my cottage, watching the mist shift in the dark trees across the even darker water. My mind and my heart are both empty and full at the same time. I feel half asleep and agonizingly aware. My words come slowly, haltingly, and I doubt each one. I tell myself that these periods of sadness are, in retrospect, fertile times of growth and learning. I know this is true, but that doesn’t make me enjoy the passage any more.

Jenn, the reason you words mean so much is that it is indescribably helpful – maybe more helpful than anything else, actually – to know I am not alone in this journey. I think what we all want most of all is to be seen – and embraced – for who we authentically are. Reading words that ring so true is, for me, one way (the only way?) to feel felt and acknowledged. Thank you, Jenn. Consider my feet up on your coffee table. And thanks for letting me join you.