“What I’d like to know is how old does a person have to be“One of you grab the iPad and look up stele. Check out the images.”
“Can we read another chapter? Please?”
“You’ve gotta get on your list if you wanna have time to hang with your BFF. Same for you, Will, if you want to make a tee time.”
“Can drawing a stele be on my list today?”
“After worksheets are done, you can draw.” Continue reading →
I see how you wince when I come running out of my bedroom with my braids flying, wearing socks that don’t match. I’m not being lazy, you know, I like my socks this way.
I notice the way you won’t let me talk when others are around. I know you are afraid that I could say something that will make you look bad.
Do you think I don’t see you roll your eyes when I show you my drawings? There are lots of ways to draw trees, you know. Your way isn’t the only way to draw a tree.
Do you think that I don’t notice the difference between how you treat me and the way you treat an adult when they walk in the room? How come you are all nice to the grown up and you are impatient with me?
“Mom, how old do I have to be again before I don’t have to visit dad anymore? I have already made my decision that I want to live with you.”
“You do live with me, honey.”
“I know, but I mean all the time. Every spring break and winter holiday and summer vacation.”
“But then you won’t see your dad.”
“Yes, but we have the memories…”
It doesn’t matter how much I reinforce that it is important to have a relationship with his dad. Nor does it matter that he doesn’t complain too much out loud. These conversations reinforce what I already know.
He is struggling inside.
Oh, how I know about that!
I know what it’s like when it’s all confused and churning inside, but on the outside it doesn’t appear that anything is wrong. To think that I have to wait a couple more years before he has a voice for himself makes my insides knotty.
I wonder to myself, why wait? But I know the system. I know it has to come at a time when it is right and unfortunately, something has to happen on the outside for them to listen. You can’t use history because they believe it will be different this time and as long as the stage lights are on, it may be.
But inside it won’t be.
He shut off the blender and yelled from the kitchen, “Mom, do you think it’d work to put some of those leftover brownie crumbs in my milkshake?”
“Sure. Try it. It’d be like a Blizzard.”
The blender starts whirring.
I look at Jenny and say, “Honey, I know that when we first talked about emailing your dad, we agreed that it wouldn’t make a difference. But it’s been a week now, and I know it’s still bugging you. Have you changed your mind? Do you want me to let him know how you are feeling?”
She looked up from the sewing machine and pushed the shimmery purply-blue fabric to the side to keep from sewing the end of the tail closed. “I don’t think I wanna make it so I can walk in it. Mermaids don’t walk anyway.” Continue reading →
Last night, no amount of bathroom humor would tease her out of her funk. She plotted a daughter’s revenge – cryptic drawings on paper that would then be tossed in the wood stove.
I asked if she wanted to have a slumber party in my bed. “I’ll tickle your back. You can tell me anything or nothing at all.”
She brushed her teeth. I braided her hair. She pushed the cat aside and crawled in my bed and said, “I’m sick of all of this.”
___________
Today she discovered how to make different sizes of paper frogs. She colored them brightly and called them Baby and Mommy and one of them was even Dad. Right now she’s beating her brother at a dice game, and when a favorite song comes on Pandora, she dances by me twirling and whirling and smiling and not thinking about anything but good stuff.
That is the resiliency of kids.
That is the roller coaster of life.
I was stirring the fettuccine as the door closed behind him. I looked over and noticed she didn’t look up. She didn’t speak. She kept her head down as she focused on her project.
Dinner was almost ready to hit the table. I turned to Will and said, “Buddy, dinner is close, but I’ve gotta talk to Jenny first.”
So what if the pasta was going to be mushy.
I pulled my stool next to Jenny and quietly asked her to look at me. When she did I said, “Honey, I want you to know that I remember how that feels. I know what it’s like to be in a room with my dad, have him talk to my brother, and leave before saying a word to me. I know how that hurts, but I don’t want to project my feelings on to you.”
“What does project mean?” Continue reading →
I did it. I left the high road yesterday. I didn’t just step a toe onto the shoulder of the road. No, I hit the gas, cranked the wheel and jumped the borough pit. I raced down the hill away from that high road as fast as I could go.
I was saying that word the whole way down, too. No, I was screaming that word – repeatedly.
At first I felt guilty.
I try to be as evolved/enlightened/mindful as the next person, and some days I fake it pretty well. Yesterday, I didn’t want to fake it. Hell, I wasn’t even going to try.
But I wasn’t going to give in to guilt, either, and be bullied back onto that high road. I was going to take that ride for all it was worth. Continue reading →
How are you with it not being all about you? When you walk into a room, are you good with blending in, or must you stand out? Do you get uncomfortable if a conversation doesn’t center on your job or your car or your haircut?
Are you quick to anger if your plans are derailed?
Do you insist on controlling everything, including the people in your life?
How adaptable are you to not being able to watch your favorite show at the scheduled time, every week, eating the same food in the same spot on the couch? Continue reading →
How do we forgive our fathers, maybe in a dream?
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous, because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying our mothers, for divorcing, or not divorcing our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning, for shutting doors, for speaking through walls, or never speaking, or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them, or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers what is left?
– Thomas Builds-the-Fire
She wanted to switch on the light, but she didn’t dare wake him. On those sleepless nights, if the moon wasn’t too bright, she could see stars through the skylights above their bed. Maybe one day, when she was free to pursue her own interests, she’d learn the constellations – Cassiopeia, Orion and the others. The names made her think of possibility.
Possibility was what she needed to believe in right now.
Was it possible to feel good again?
Was it possible to create a healthier life – better than this life full of fears and disappointments and anger?
She gently turned back the covers and stepped out of bed. She had tiptoed down the stairs enough times in the dark to feel her way down without bumping into anything. Once downstairs, she could turn on a light, slide out the drawer in the office desk, and reach into the back for a small, innocent-looking spiral notepad. The pages were worn. The pad was almost full. She had turned down corners on pages that held the notes that touched her most deeply. Continue reading →
Meet me on the hill – the one where
we used to start at the top and race to the bottom.
Remember how we’d pick the sunniest day
and wait until after lunch
when the grass had sunned enough to be warm.
We’d start at the base of the biggest tree,
lay on our sides,
stretch our lean bodies and scream as we rolled,
mowing over dandelions and Johnny Jump Ups.
We’d make crooked zigzags all the way down,
and for the length of the ride,
the world turned into a blur of puffy clouds and green grass.
We’d reach the bottom,
gasping and laughing.
We wouldn’t even brush off our knees
before we started back up again,
pumping skinny arms and legs to reach the top. Continue reading →
Mantras, prayers, meditations, famous quotes,
personal Post-Its, and journal entries –
these are the words I used to move on
and create a better future for myself and my kids.
This new ebook is a compilation of the powerful words
that made a difference in our lives.
Find Words Got Her Home on Smashwords.com or Amazon.com.
Thanks for reading!
I’d swear my body was in the chair next to the fire. I could see the cat curled under the wood stove. Will was wearing a head lamp, while sitting in the rocking chair. Jen was camped in her favorite corner. They were both quietly reading.
I was reading a myth from Women Who Run With the Wolves, and I lost track of time and place. I was completely immersed in the story, focused on the words on the page. I finished a chapter, looked up from the book and glanced around to see what I had missed.
They didn’t notice. Apparently, it’s easier for kids to get lost in books. I’d forgotten what that was like.
I didn’t think about having to feed the wood stove or break up a fight between kids. The television wasn’t blaring, the dishes were done. There was no other place to take my mind to.
It was delicious. Continue reading →
A few more boxes to pack and load into the car and she’d be done.
She thumbed through magazine clippings that had been filed in an office drawer. Some clippings dated back to her college years – that dreamy phase of, “When I grow up and marry, I hope my kitchen has …..”
There were clippings of herb gardens, bathroom paint colors in sage and mint, examples of open shelves instead of upper cabinets for the ideal kitchen, and nursery ideas.
__________
Her girlfriends thought she was crazy for not wanting upper kitchen cabinets. She loved how open shelving prevented her from collecting junk. Continue reading →
