Small Moments

Pearl is about to finish elementary school. Imagine many platitudes here about how fast it has gone, how startling it is to wake up and realize this tiny baby I brought home is now about to enter middle school. 6 years has seemingly dissolved into the past and here we are about to pass a major educational milestone.

When we were first entering the process of adopting I let go of any expectations that I had about how things would be, honestly it was the path of least resistance. I didn't want to deal with any dissapointments so I just opened up and let things happen. When Becky chose us to parent Pearl it was her doing not mine. I held out my arms and received this little bundle, took her home and got down to taking care of her. Without the encumbrance of genetic attachment I was free to watch Pearl emerge from babyhood into toddlerdom and onto childhood. Because she was not biologically mine I never looked at her and thought oh look she likes that because I liked that. She was herself and my job was to watch and see who she was and help her do a good job at being that person. She is an amazing person all on her own.

As she is entering middle school the kids have to choose an elective, Art, Band or Choir. Pearl has been in the 5th grade band and was taking piano lessons. She showed natural ability with both so when it came time to choose an elective and she chose Art I was a bit stunned. I thought perhaps she was doing it to placate her dad or me, not sure there. I suddenly felt strongly that I had to intervene. God no I thought not art, don't choose art. Art is hell. I know. When I look at my graduating class from design school, the practical approach to art, very few of my classmates even work in their field. Pearl's dad who is a talented artist by most accounts and has acheived some aclaim over the years struggles to this day with his career. Very few people have the chutspa to acheive anything in the world of art. Pearl dabbles with art but she shines where music is concerned. I explained all this to her dad, saying that we should keep her in band and teach her about art on the side, we have about a dozen combined years of art education under our belts and decades of experience between us, I think we could muster up a few lessons, perhaps get her painting some nice watercolor still lives. I have no musical ability, Pearl's dad has some but we have no formal training. Pearl is a natural performer, she can read music already, sings non-stop, and has the most beautiful long fingers with which to play whichever instrument she chooses. We filled out the form, Band as the first choice, Art second.

Then came the Middle School band concert awards night. Pearl has been playing with about 10 other kids in the 5th grade band. They have performed a few times and while they have their moments it often sounds like cats being stepped on. Well you can imagine my pleasure when I heard what an 8th grade band sounds like. The 7th graders performed Lonely Bull and even the 6th graders got jiggy with their pieces, coming on stage in dark glasses playing something that sounded like a kookoo clock gone wild. It was wonderful. In between the groups, members of the High School Band made impassioned pleas to the middle schoolers to stay in band as the High School needs them, I am sure many of them will. When it was the 5th graders turn they did well and at the end the whole group, about 80 kids in total were on stage playing 'Cardiff Castle". Pearl was up front and I could see her spring to attention as they played the piece, it was powerfull, all those musicians playing together and at the end and it screeched to a finish, Pearl looked at me and said that was so cool! She remarked that she had never played it so fast but that she had hit all the notes, the power of the group had pushed her along it seemed.

Today we went to replace her rental flute with a newer one and I asked her again how the performance experience had been. She raised her arms up and said she could feel the music inside her as they all played, coming up through her. I felt delighted for her. She is now looking forward to fall and to band and having that feeling again. When we got home she actually spontaneously practiced her flute for awhile.

I wish I had been more of a group participater as a youth and that my parents had maybe helped guide me a bit more, I might have ended up a chemist, who knows. I often feel very much at odds with the whole group thing, art is perfect for me, I don't fear being alone. Pearl on the other hand is enormously social and as a single child (for almost 11 years) she will benefit from working in a group. Plus when you are in a band you automatically belong, how great is that? I am really proud of her and so glad I get to be her mom. I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for her.

Walking It Out

When I emerged from my depression earlier this spring I suddenly became interested in doing things again, making lists and setting goals. So far I have followed through on many things, I have made a skirt, a painting, just last night I cut out a linen dress I am going to make, hopefully later this week.

My biggest goal for the summer is to walk the 20 miles from my home in Everson to Bellingham. I have been reading this book called "The Lost Art of Walking" since the winter and it has captured my imagination. Throughout history people have walked for all kinds of reasons, from survival to spiritual discovery and often the two are closely related. People walked for sport and reward, for art and for salvation. I walk primarily to keep my body in shape, as a cure for the enormous amount of sitting I do in front of the computer. In addition to the positive effect the walking has on my keeping my ass from getting totally out of control it has an amazing effect on my soul. For me walking is a form of meditation a way to clear my head, release a few endorphins, connect with nature, watch the changing of the seasons on my stretch of road. In many ways the simple act of walking keeps me anchored to the earth, an active reminder that I am here, grounded.

Sometime around the summer solstice I will rise early and begin the trek to Bellingham. I am not sure of the route I will take, I am interested in the old railroad grade as it appears to be the most direct route to town but I am not sure how clear the right of way is. In the next few weeks I will be increasing my daily walks, building up the length and distance of my daily excursions. I walked about 8 miles a few weeks back and it took around 2 hours, hopefully I can cover the 20 mile distance in about 5-6 hours. My goal is not speed, just distance.

I heard a story once that our homo sapien bodies are designed to walk long distances, 20 miles or so per day. We were once hunter-gatherers covering great distances to find food to sustain ourselves. Obviously these days the distances we have to travel for survival have become truncated and softened. The distance from my couch to my fridge for example is not a rigorous journey and with not much effort I can get in the car and drive to the store for more sustenance if need be. It was this germ of information that first inspired me to take this journey and Jeffrey Nicholson's book sort of sealed the deal.

Some people walk to cure cancer, some have walked because god condemned them to travel the earth for all eternity. I am walking because I can and in a way I am celebrating the fact that I want to, I have no expectation of the journey I am just glad to be on it.

Home

Araya, Becky and Pearl

Just back from our trip to Eugene to visit Pearl's new baby birth-sister. It was good to see Becky in her now role as active momma. She is a bit nervous but totally doting and attentive to her little bundle. The baby is sweet and content to sleep under many watchful eyes. On Sunday after a busy family dinner Mark sat for about an hour just stroking the little angel and she seemed to enjoy the constant attention, cooing in her sleep and making little faces. It was a quick trip, a whirlwind really and we were back on the road in 24 hrs heading north again, hurtling home. Somewhere south of Seattle Pearl had a little meltdown as she often does after these visits. How strange it must be to visit this perfectly good home and family who clearly cherishes you only to leave them over and over again. I can't fix how she feels I just have to let her know that the sadness she feels in the transition between homes is natural and nothing to be ashamed of. I try not to over talk the experience, I don't want to minimize or maximize her experience. I do want to know the specifics of it, but for that I will have to wait until she is a bit older and has more perspective on her reality. When we got back home Pearl seemed more herself and while we waited for Mark to set up the TV to watch the video of the experience we had just had Pearl played in her room. I went in at one point and she was playing with her Polly Pockets dolls, she said Jasmine, (a mini Bratz doll) is trying to move in with the Polly Pockets and they are not being very nice to her. I kept moving and when it was time to watch the video she came out and said that everyone was all moved in and they were all getting along just fine. We snuggled on the couch to watch the video, me on her right, Mark on her left and when it was time for bed she said how good it felt to be back home in her own bed.

Snapshot

Today on the way home a car in the oncoming lane violently pulled off the road onto the shoulder, still under construction, throwing up dust. Lights red the drivers foot pressed hard to the floor. As I pass he is irate yelling at his female passenger, shaking his finger leaning toward her. In the rear view mirror I see her getting out on the curb where there is no sidewalk, she is wearing shorts and flip flops. I keep moving looking back, he pulls away. I wonder if this is the first time this has happened, has he abandoned her before on a stretch of road, leaving her to fend for herself. Did he come back moments later and get her realizing the absurdity of the act or did he just keep driving, bitch would not shut up. Maybe it was the best thing to happen to her in a long time, the opportunity to get away, to reclaim her sense of self. Maybe she really loves him even though he is a prick and cannot manage his anger, lashing out, hurting her deeply, all she wants is to love him and be loved by him but broken people can't love. Even I know that. I wonder if I should go back, pick her up, insinuate myself into her life, help her see the light about assholes. I keep driving, it's the second time this week that I have witnessed in public, this level of domestic despair confirming that more people than I would care to count live lives of quiet desperation.

Ceaseless Light

I started writing the blog about a year and a half ago. When I started I thought it would be a daily chart of my activities, a record of the weather, mood, menstrual cycle, humidity, moon phase and other pertinent (ha) details. I saw it as one of those charts that Edward Tufte makes. Clearly I was not that detailed but it has served to be a reasonable document of my life. On the outside looking in that is what it is but on the inside looking out it feels quite different. For many years I had a deep compulsion to write but never did, I had no forum. I wrote a few things but never shared them with anyone. The blogging thing has given me a place to write that is more public than my journal so there is a tendency to think twice about what I am writing about, and to try and keep it compelling or at least useful and authentic. The private journal is a no holds barred, all out whine fest which I will hopefully burn moments before I die. The blog on the other hand invites others to read and to occasionally comment and this is really good for a person like me who needs a bit of recognition and encouragement. Additionally, the morning pages I have been writing, have again revolutionized my thinking about writing and my creative process. I realized the other morning as I walked back from the hen house at 6:30am in my bathrobe, that I have made progress with my writing and it feels really good. I have lost that hungry feeling of needing to get started. I am not really into patting myself on the back but this is one thing that I feel quite proud of. I can say that for the last several months writing has become part of my daily routine and it is nourishing me in ways that I never would have expected. One day I will share some of the other stuff I have been working on. Generally I feel better than I have felt in years and I owe it all to the act of writing it all down everyday.

I am calling him Piku

It's been about 3 weeks since the Peacock showed up at Rancho Relaxo and I have decided to call him Piku. He is a lovely specimen and is growing friendlier by the day. He hangs out on the roof of my house where he can survey the yard well. He flies down when there is something interesting to investigate. If we are in the house he lingers near the doors to keep an eye on us. He no longer shrieks when the dog gets too close to him. I think he is a bit miffed when I disappear for days but he will adapt to that too overtime.

I am just really struck by the significance of this beautiful creature who has appeared as if from nowhere and now seems duty bound to keep an eye on me, a beautiful eye at that. What good luck is this.

How to Get what we Need

Many years back when my first marriage was falling apart I found myself at home alone cleaning out my shed. My mother had been dead for about 5 years and I still had many of her things stored there. Amazingly while moving one of those basket type carry bags which contained some miscellaneous weaving and spinning tools I came across a small spiral bound notebook. It surprised me that I had never seen it before and that it seemed to be in such an obvious open place, not tucked away in the least. I took this as a sign that perhaps my mothers ghost had placed it there so I would see it. It was the type of notebook you would find in a University Bookstore, it was stamped "University of Edinburgh" which is where both my parents went. It was not dogeared in the least in fact it was well preserved considering the dates indicated she had used it during the mid 1950's. I found it in 2001, 45 or so years later.

She and my dad had made notes about their wedding, who was present and the gifts they had received. They had a pretty simple wedding but people sent them some nice things. I even have a bit of their Edinburgh Crystal left, when Madge and I are good we drink our Gins out of them.

Beyond all the wedding details my mother had written down her feelings about being married and this is what really rocked my world. She and my dad had a pretty good marriage, at least on the outside it looked good. I realize now that she really suffered in the confines of the role. She wrote at one point that she questioned her entire existence when Denis (my dad) was not there. Somehow her job was to wait to live until he got home from the office. I found this symbolic at the time but now looking back at it I wish there had been a way for us to have a dialogue about it when she was living. I got two letters back from her college roommate at Christmas and in those she also questions the whole institution of marriage. The idea that one woman and one man bound together could get everything they need from each other seemed to her neither realistic nor desirable. It was such a gift to read that from her because I believe that she must have imprinted some of it on me and Madge, we both have pretty unconventional marriages.

I have been married to my husband Mark for 5 years now and we have never lived together. It's a novel situation that will one day change when Mark's dad Eddy leaves this mortal coil. I do look forward to living with Mark because I'm mad about him but in the meantime having this space is really pretty wonderful. I have a lot of time when I am on my own which suits me, Mark is very self possessed and is happy on his own as well. There is no jealousy, guilt, or resentment. I do my work, Mark does his, we keep in touch by email semi-constantly, we talk on the phone a bit. I love my place and Mark has done a ton of work there to make it more comfortable and to look better. I do little here at his place except cook occasionally and clean sometimes but even then Mark takes care of most everything, shopping, cooking, decorating. It's his domain and I respect and value that. He makes improvements here based on my suggestions and his own desires. We have two very comfortable homes to spend time together and apart in.

This marriage is such a gift to me. I get what I need from my partner, unconditional love and support, endless respect and admiration. I also have a ton of freedom to feed myself, to fill the gaps that a husband can't fill and because Mark is smart and secure, he understands that when I am happily doing my own thing—hiking with friends, going on art dates, spending time with my sister, being alone because that's what I need—when we get back together he cherishes his happy whole wife who is present and loving. I am really proud of this marriage not for the mere fact of it but because of the substance of it. I am quite sure my mother feels proud of how I have redefined this marriage to suit better who I am and what I need. I know Mark's mom is awfully proud of him. And most of all I hope that when Pearl grows up she has some good tools to help her pick a mate and create a partnership/marriage that nurtures her. I just hope she waits until she's at least 35 to do it.

This May Be Significant

I don't have a great memory. At least this a thing I repeatedly tell myself which sort of makes its true. It occurred to me today, listening to a poet reading on the radio that one of the few things I do remember from early educational experiences is poetry. Hmmm I thought, this might be significant so I am writing it down here to hold it in my memory. Tweeting and Facebook updates are like little poems, I wonder what would happen if I strung a few of them together.

Poem #1

Feeling satisfied about
writing it down,
Being hit by waves of ideas
the tide is on the rise.
Wishing the snow could disappear more gracefully.
Switching tasks in the same genre.
Wondering what happened to the beautiful summer of my dreams,
floating in the sea.
Stumbling, trying not to fall.
Marvelling.
Just coming to.


This adequately sums up the process I am currently engaged in of reclaiming my creativity.