The Bucket List meets "Before the Age of Majority" List

My girl continually hears of all of my would be adventures.   She decided she was not to be left in the dust so she told me she was making her own bucket list...   I told her she could absolutely not call it a bucket list because 1- it wouldn't be fair because she has longer to live than I do.  2-  well anyone under 18 who is as healthy as my kid cannot use that saying.   Its my house, my rules.   God I love being the parent.  So we renamed her list as the "Before/At the Age of Majority" list.

Hannah's Age of Majority List

1. Learn to speak Japanese (started)
2. Save enough money to go to Japan with her friend at graduation. (started)
3. Eat a hot dog from a street vendor in Boise on a kickin' Friday or Saturday night.
4. See Katy Perry in concert.
5. Start her own babysitting business.
    (She has already become certified in CPR and the use of an AED)
6. Ride in a hot air balloon.
7. Sing as a part of a choir.
8. Learn to play the piano.
9. See the Solar Eclipse.
10. She wants to see the entire TV drama of ER.  It was one of our video binges we indulged in, in the beginning of the year, when she needed distraction and wouldn't leave my bed for fear of the silence, the suspension of real life for her so she didn't actually have to sleep alone in her own room alone.   Luckily, I was between temp jobs, by the grace of God, and we would wear her out with drama, Noah Wiley and I would sometimes talk about how this show used to be "date night" for my ex-husband (her father) and I.  I would tell her little things about that time in our lives when she was a baby and we would settle her down before 9pm so we could spend just a little time alone together.   It comforted her because she remembered what peace lived inside her blueberry home.  She didn't know the future.  Hell,  none of us knew the future.  So perhaps,  besides Noah Wiley, there was an internal calmness that she had forgotten about growing up in a functional home.  Growing up with a father that she didn't remember as  loving and kind, like the father I would tell her about.  We would watch 'till our eyes hurt and then we would turn off the tv and try to sleep.   She crawled in close to me,  we would whisper thoughts as they came to us.   One night, she and I talked about the last night I tucked her into her blueberry bed.   She knew I was leaving for a different house.  I knew I was leaving to a different house.   Neither of us wanted it to happen.  Although, being the grown up,  I knew why I had to.   A heartbreak I thought only I  would remember.  I was wrong.   I remember lying there in the dark with her and apologizing for having to leave.   I told her that I had no choice but to leave because I would have been living a lie if I stayed.  I was a lesbian and I had to leave.  I told her about the horribleness of pretending to be someone I wasn't and that I just couldn't do it any more.   We were both tearful, laying there whispering in the dark after our long evening of ER.   I told her I was so sorry for having to leave her there, tucked tight in her blueberry bed.   I thought she would say something like,  "I forgive you"  or "Its okay mom"  but instead,  she whispers,  "I know exactly how you felt now mom,  pretending, always pretending to be happy, and perfect and having no one know the truth."   I remembering reaching out to stroke her cheek. I missed and poked her eye.... we giggled but I felt her tears.  I wiped them away.  She reached out and fumbled for my face as well.  She found and wiped my tears away too.   She and I watched every episode of ER we could find but they are scarce... we didn't make it to the 3rd season.   I need to find the entire set of ER for her for Christmas.   I have seen it on Ebay.  I don't know where the money is going to come from but she and I need that.  It was our safe place.

We will update this list as it grows.  And it surely will.  She has only had a few months in which the world of possibilities has been laid before her and I told her the secret...  she can dream.  She can make anything happen she wants to.   She doesn't have to be perfect to be good.  And its okay to fall flat on her face, or change her mind.   It isn't something that she has been used to hearing in the silence of her room.  In a quiet house.  With no one to talk to.  

How exciting it is to be learning from the things I teach her.  How exciting to see her eyes light up when she finds there is no reason not to create her own experiences.

Wow!  Thanks!

Seven

I stood on my balcony tonight alone and watched the heavens, breathing in the fullness of universe and breathing out the empty that resides inside me and I watched as the meteor shower displayed it's glorious performance.   Seven.  I counted seven in the half hour I gave myself.   Breathing in the fullness,  breathing out my disappointment of regular life.   Breathing in more deeply as the meteors shot across my head hoping to consume stray stardust to fill me up with the very elements which I am made of.  The basics.   The basics that wear down and become lost as we turn our attention to frivolous concerns of our life.   Frivolous memories that, if not kept in their proper proportions will become too big for us to hold in our hearts without them breaking.   Breathe in the fullness,  breathe out the pain of everyday emotional life.   Breathe in the chaos of the universe.  Breathe out control.

As I breathe, I pray for sleep with out the physical pain that follows me everyday.   I pray for sleep without the mental merry go round of reproach.  I pray for permission to allow myself compassion for just being human.   I pray that I remember to say  "thank you for giving me one more day to get over myself and to get out of my way"  before sleep comes and the stardust has settled into my DNA.

I pray I dream of groundlessness.

she said to be careful...

As I continue to move through my struggle to climb higher up Maslow's diagram it has continually been pointed out to me that I need to be careful of what I ask for.   Asking for something from the universe is sure fire way of getting it.   But being cognizant that Physics won't be fucked with helps when you find yourself with a gift. Repeat after me,  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction..."  Your gifts aren't always going to make you feel good.  Well maybe for a while but within the gift, there is also a test or a lesson that needs further action.  If you don't want the next uncomfortable thing, don't ask for the gift.   Simply awful.  I always assumed that enlightenment and empowerment would always feel light and powerful.  It simply isn't so.   I am in a place today were I relate my internal frustrations to Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin:

See, I did join the army, but I joined a *different* army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms..."

"My name is Judy! J-U-D-Y Judy and I'd like somebody to call me by my name! Oh, okay I took my life in my own hands, I made a mistake fine I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I wanna wear my sandals... I wanna go out to lunch. I wanna be NORMAL again!"

Too late Judy, errrr N-I-N-A...

I borrowed it, I didn't steal it... I promise....

I find inspiration from every direction and try to use it in my life in my words and writing.  I have a teacher who absorbs so many movie quotes that she no longer realizes that she is a living breathing quote generator.   She even gives us candy if we can call her on it and name the movie.   I am like that but I don't give out candy.

Recently, between the millions of "Hate Chicken" and "Hate Chicken Haters"  on FB I saw an inspirational post on comparing human spiritual growth to a bow and arrow.  It rang true and I put it in the back on my head for later.   AL carries around recipe cards so she doesn't miss the exact sentence or moment.  I have not yet evolved to that point,  besides I didn't have pockets.  I have many other excuses if you care to sit and listen.  My point to all this is that I will fall back on the saying,

 "There is nothing new under the sun"

 I got sick of hearing it from my parents as I was growing up.  Perhaps it is disingenuous to use it after mocking it all that time...

1- I  realize that the bow and arrow FB thingy I saw, is brewing.
2-  Thanks to the blue chair's full moon emergency session in which it was pointed out to me that when things start to wind up or begin to feel really uncomfortable and the tension in your life, spirit, thoughts are at their apex, it is a sign that change is coming.
3-  And then there was the woman at the store today.  She was the wine pusher, as I like to call them.  "Have some wine?!"  she said, as I walked passed her table.  I stopped and smiled and started flirting... just a little bit.   I know it must be the full moon causing this,  I have many other excuses if you would you care sit and listen.   "You mean its legal for me to stand here in public, in a grocery store and drink wine with you?"  and grinned.   Yes,  I knew it was legal.  But she returned my smile and was so friendly.   We exchanged memories of  when anything with alcohol wasn't even sold in stores.  "So what type of wine do you like?" she said.   "I am a red wine girl and I don't like it unless it bites me."  I said, grinning again.  She grinned back and her eyes sparkled as she poured a taste of something and handed it to me.   It bit me.  "Was that hard enough?"  she said, as she poured a different taste of a different type.   I felt as if I were in a play.   We somehow started talking of how dramatic life was feeling in the last few days and she began to tell me that she was feeling as if she were being physically pushed and pulled uncomfortably and that she agreed with me that the full moon was especially strong this cycle.  She told me that she uses what she called "cold baptisms" for herself to help when she needed renewal.  That she prays in the shower with the cold water running and her kids think she is nuts.   I really started looking around for the cameras then.   My jump is tonight.  My jump into the deep, cold, darkness to shock my system into submission.  I told her about that and she touched my arm and her cool air conditioned hand lingered on my forearm  and said that she felt as if our connection was strangely strong and giggled and added that we had indeed shared a moment.   She might have been being completely honest with me or she, herself may have had other excuses as well.   I did buy the bottle of wine from her that bit me the best.  I don't drink wine.


Mix all of that together in my head and something will be born from it.  Because it is a good description for what is happening right now for me.  I feel the winding up of the universe.  I can hear something far off that sounds a bit like the turbines that roar in the Hoover Dam.  I am feeling like Stretch Armstrong (if you are much young than me you will have no idea what I am talking about).

Moe

memories from a mother-written 10/24/04

I over heard a conversation between my 5 and 2 year old.  I had just picked up Hannah from Kindergarten and I had surprised them with the thought of picking up lunch at a fast food drive-thru.  Of course when I asked them where they wanted to go I got two different answers and the controversy began.  I told them that if they couldn't work it out between them I was going to make the decision for them.  My 5 year old suggested that they do eneey meeny to decide.  My 2 year old thought that was fair.  So Hannah begins... she is pronounced Moe.  There was a silence and calm that took over the car.  The choice had been made by the hand of fate.   On my way to Moe's choice, I realized that I was going to pass by the other choice and it wouldn't take any time to just get what each of them wanted.  So as I turned into the parking lot, my 2 year old begins to protest loudly, "Hannah is Moe mom! Hannah is Moe!"  She refused to let me get her anything from the place she wanted to go in the first place.  After all,  once Moe is determined, it is sacred and no one questions the outcome.  I found that quite remarkable for a 2 year old to be able to accept that she wasn't Moe and had fought so hard for her sister's privilege.

I miss watching my girls interact with each other.  They are now 10 and 13.   Currently, they are separated and I watch as my 13 year old becomes more and more like an only child.   It is idiocy.  They are losing such precious time with each other.  The bond that siblings make from the beginning of life should be the ultimate important thing.  Why I seem to be the only one worried about it is beyond me.   So the only thing I can do is to remind my daughter of stories of them growing up and we watch movies of them running around happily as best playmates.  And I keep hoping if I do that, she will remember her sister that way, any way at all.   Life is sacred and life goes by so fast.   They are losing time that is rightfully theirs.   A relationship that is rightfully theirs.   Amazing that it is treated so nonchalantly by people.

My Secret Lover

I have been spending a great amount of time with Anne Lamott recently.   Now, before you start tweeting news breaking un-truths, understand that she doesn't know anything about it.   I find her voice comforting and slow.  She speaks a lot like me.  I have been accused of being on drugs or  "just not quite there" before because I do speak slowly.    I find I have to think about the words coming out of my  mouth before I actually let them.    She and I say mostly different things, especially when she goes on about George Bush...  I want to scream and tell her how fed up I am with her praying to try to love him as a brother by the time she gets to heaven, and get back to  Mary picking up rocks to throw at Jesus, when in his teens,  he was certainly driving her crazy like any other teen does.    I close my eyes really tight and try not to listen until she backs away from politics.   After all, she is there to help me fall asleep.  I am finding nights to be rather quiet, long, scary and lonely.  If I can just get myself to lay down, I will pop in one of her audio books and she speaks to me of things that comfort me, almost always.

Recently,  Anne instructed me to write "really shitty rough drafts".   I found no problem there.  So if you come read something here and then come back again and it seems to have morphed its Anne's fault.  She would prefer I print out the first draft and take a red pen to it but instead I just keep coming back and reediting until I am either happy with it or sick of it and let it float in cyberland to die it's small insignificant death.   I would like to think she would be happy to know that I at least highlight in red the parts I really hate about whatever is here while I edit.  But I doubt I will ever have the chance to ask her.

I find myself resentful of her because she can just say things and her world doesn't seem to fall down around her.  I guess it's a love/hate relationship I am having with her.   I always fall back to a time when I was writing everyday.   Real "heart" stuff and ended up being crucified and complimented all in one week about a piece I had written.  It was even printed in a publication and it meant so much to so many people that I met.  Some tried to use it to as irrefutable proof that I was hopelessly incapable of being a good mother, let alone a good person.  Some others sat with me and told of their own stories from their own experiences with the subject matter.   They all were thankful for the piece but for such unbelievably (until it happened) different reasons.   The dichotomy of that week was so ridiculous.      That is why I am resentful.   As far as I know,  no one tried to take away love from her because she talked about her life.   The real one.  The life that everyone has even if they don't admit it.  The one where they pick up rocks they want to throw at Jesus or at someone or something else.   Granted, even George Bush.

I don't know how writers survive and have real lives outside of their written word.  I wonder where writers get the bravery to even go to the store, let alone, walk among the living everyday.

At least I didn't kill Ed...

It is about gratitude.   It is about fear of self.  The self you don't really know is there.  Or the self you know is there and you are too afraid to admit it.  It is about looking at life with a wider lens because if you don't you get to a place where you almost kill someone who just happens to be in your small line of vision.  It is definitely not about Ed.   Unless you are Ed and didn't know about your possible fate, sitting just inches away from me one Sunday.  If I were Ed,  it would be all about me.   I hope Ed never reads this.  But in case Ed, you do.  I apologize from the bottom of my heart.  I promise it really isn't about you.

I sat in the blue chair one day while I explained that I was horrified with what had almost REALLY happened.   What I had almost REALLY done.  For all intents and purposes, I considered that I HAD done it.   It got inside my head and then there was the fact that there was that second where I moved forward,  absolutely no one else could have seen it, it was so tiny, but every sinew of my body reacted and moved me a tiny bit forward before the rush of shamed shock and horror engulfed me.  True horror at myself.  And shame and embarrassment.

The blue chair tells me that at least I didn't do it.  That I could choose to be grateful that somewhere inside of me I had enough humanity and knew right from wrong and could control myself even if murderous thoughts got so close to the surface.   I was not having any of it.  I remember tearfully saying how pitiful and small I must be if THAT was the only thing I could say about my character.   I was grateful I didn't  kill Ed.  I started to look for a rock to crawl under.  And waiting for the guilt police to come to take me away for the crime I almost REALLY did commit.   It didn't take long for guilt police to get there.  But instead of taking me away to my cell,  they stayed.  Settled in as if I had invited them over for coffee and a danish.

I, still in turmoil, sought out more counseling from my pastor.  She saw how stunned I was.  We talked about the safe places we all have and expect to always have and when it is violated it can be frightening and confusing for our spirits.  She also mentioned that I hadn't been the only one who had experienced a jolt in our spirit over the whole ordeal.   She mentioned that I should consider, once I had  brushed the gravel off my knees, that I should sit and share with Ed, the affect that horrible Sunday had on me.  She also mentioned that I might not want to explain, in detail, what could have happened to him had I been of a different constitution.  Good plan, we both decided.

I remember sitting there after having these conversations and I was still disgusted with myself,  I took a recipe card and wrote,  "I Didn't Kill Ed"   I stuck it on the long mirror in my bathroom.  This mirror reaches from one end to the other.  A huge space, yet this note card, as small as it was seemed to be the only thing I could see.  So big and horrifying, I couldn't even see my reflection for a long time.  It was there to satisfy my sense of irony.   My desire to beat myself up over and over again and to mock myself at how truly small and stupid my attempts at living a grateful life were.


“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”   -Anne Lamott-