Nels, Brushing Teeth (13)

from morning until night!

It is a beautiful life.Nels, Brushing Teeth (13)
My basement studio space is cold, super cold, and there’s no real getting around that. I bundle up as best I can but I work long enough hours that by the end of the day my fingers are stiff and I’ve got a chill set in my bones. I come back upstairs and warm up and soon enough I’m in the hot shower for the evening.

My studio time is currently split about evenly between work for clients, pieces for the family, and gifts. Every day I feel so much gratitude this is my reality: spinning gold out of straw, able to create anything I need to. Inside a jacket: rayon challis and faux fur. Underlined (invisible!) in an ugly flannel that came from I-can’t-remember-where:

Coat With Assymetrical Snap Closure, Faux Fur Trim, Fully Lined

Just out the door this week: a dress with sweetheart top and semi-sheer overskirt – taffeta, organza, mesh, and velvet ribbon.

Organza Overskirt with Velvet Ribbon

Playing with topstitch settings, to get it just right. I love the chunky look of proper topstitching thread:

Topstitching Practice

And of course, sweet little dates with each family member (or all three!) This next week is, mercifully, the last week of the quarter: Phee will only have two remaining before they earn their AA degree. This last week Nels and I accompanied Ralph and Phee to drop them off for German class, and he and I had a lovely date on the town. Our one car is officially dead, and the other needs brakes. It’s worrisome, but I try not to worry.

Nels, A Date

hurtling toward another muffled week of winter

Work has been hard, as I’ve been feeling ill. Pain comes and goes; today it didn’t start until the afternoon. But it must be taking its toll all day, as I’m considerably less energetic than I’ve come to count on. Now: lying on my back, temples feeling squeezed, lower back a dull ache and fire.

So today I fought to keep it together and to run the household. I’m only half-assing that for the most part. I can’t pay bills right now, so into the little wire basket they go. Sewing up my latest online tutorial, and the low-light in my basement studio and the deep cold (even though I wear a coat) is a deterrent. My kids ask for food and we put something together. My son hugs me – he’s over five foot tall now and will soon be reaching for things on the shelf that I can’t get. His hair still smells like sweet straw. His nose and cheeks still look like boyhood, when I watch him sleeping. Blond hair, caramel skin, against the white of the pillow.

Phoenix, she asks me about when she was born. I hold up my hands and remember how small she was. I remember holding her close. Funny, as the kids still put their arms around me and put their head to my breast. They will never not-remember how that feels, I suppose. I somehow lost that experience with my own parents. I have no memory of seeking them out in that way. Something got broken along the way, I suppose. But I always knew they loved me dearly.

The car has a light on, some kind of engine problem. We had a lovely, lovely person donate Phee’s tuition for this quarter – but soon I will need tuition for Spring. I am frustrated because I can’t seem to get the house in order. But – why should I? We have been down for the count. Ralph has been ill – he is also only a few classes away from earning his Bachelor’s Degree, which is kind of amazing, but it also means he’s working hard. In fact it seems everyone in the family is working hard on their projects. Family life seems never to stay in one spot for long. I am a veteran in that I don’t fear the future like I used to. But the present, the right-now, it seems to slip through my grasp as soon as I try to cling to it.

the impossible

“Mom,” my son says to me, quietly, from the passenger side of the car.

I know what he means. We’re just passing someone outside, a man with a cardboard sign, asking for money. It’s cold, and fizzly-drizzly rain. I am tired. I am hungry. I slept about half my normal hours, the night before. I have a working weekend ahead of me.

“I don’t have any cash, Nels,” I tell him. He is quiet, we turn the corner – there is another man, with another sign. My son asks, “Can we get some?”

I ask him, now: “Well – do you want me to buy them a couple burgers?” and he says Yes. His eyes are bright and his spirit is calm.

I am so hungry my stomach cramps and I feel lightheaded. Even if I was to head straight home, I’ll still need to cook. I resign myself that our outing will take as long as it takes.

I pull into the drive through of a fast food restaurant; even the thought of a burger – I haven’t had a fast food burger in many years – causes my stomach to clench.  As if reading my mind my son says, “I know you’re hungry.” (I’ve said nothing to him.) Then he laughs, “You don’t eat fast food, mom!” Almost like he’s chiding. Like he’s teasing.

The drive-through is packed. Moving slowly (for fast food). As if on cue, comedy of errors, I realize my car engine temperature is millimeters away from THE DANGER ZONE. I curse, switch the ignition. Then in the next several minutes I have to turn the vehicle off, then on, as we inch forward. I raise the heat in the cab. The engine temperature falls to normal.

By the time we get two burger meals – fries and a Coke apiece – and pull into the street, and wheel around the corner back to the parking lot, one of the men my son had indicated, is gone. The other is huddled up under a sign asking for a ride to the HOSPITEL. We pull up, ask if he’d like a meal. He takes the food but tells us, “I cut my hand… I need a ride,” waving a napkin bright with blood. His eyes are a clear, watery blue. I tell him, “I hope someone finds you a ride.” He smiles and thanks us. A block later as I look back I can see him fishing around, the comfort of a hot meal on a cold night.

We drive through town, and my son sits up straight, our dinner groceries on his lap balanced alongside the cheerful white paper bag full of hot food. He holds an ice-cold Coke in his left hand. He asks me about the man, How can he get to the hospital? I say, “Someone else will help him.”

And I tell him what I was taught. “I was taught, you don’t have to help as much as someone asks, you have to help enough. Ask if you’ve done enough. Think about that man who wants a ride. If everyone who passed him helped him the little bit we just did, what would happen?”

“He’d be clean, and have warm clothes, and medicine, and food. Maybe a home,” my son says. I can see his mind working, as he pieces this together.

I am tired, and I am hungry, and I feel tender, and sad. My children are as compassionate as they were at age two. I am feeling overwhelmed with a love and a sorrow, like balancing on a riverbank.

My son asks me now, “Am I trying to be too generous?”

Then I tell him another thing I was taught. “I was told you can help as much as you want, after you’ve taken care of yourself and your family.” I tell him: “I have food for my children, so we can buy food for these men.”

It isn’t until Hoquiam, a couple blocks from my house, we find another man who might want a meal. I’ve seen him many times on the street – I don’t know if he’s friendly, or what. But I’m a hearty enough soul. I pull over and, after we get his attention – and he spies the bag my son holds out. I ask, “Want a burger?”

He is eyeing us, then: “What the hell,” he says cheerfully. He takes the food, and the pop, and thanks us. In the rearview mirror I see him dive into the bag.

My son puts his fingers through mine.

They’re cold, from the Coke.

réalisant mon espoir

“I don’t understand why everyone acts like Florida is so special,” my son says to me cheerfully – easing the shopping cart through the aisles and every now and then slyly tapping at something in the midway.

It’s a little after 11 PM on a Saturday and even Walmart is fairly empty. I’d had these visions of getting an oil-radiant heater for our freezing little attic bedroom, and am quickly realizing they don’t have anything like that in stock. I’m tired – tired in a way my schedule, and my waking hours, don’t quite explain.

The last few days the sun and balmy skies have given way to rain – vicious, cold, angry rain. “Sidways rain – it gets up your nose!” a cashier in the grocery store cheerfully says to me, yesterday. You’d think, living here as long as I have, I’d be used to it. That my friends and neighbors, and the grocery store clerk, would be too. But we kind of hunch up, retreat; our conversation taciturn, skin roughened by the cold. Grab at hot cups of coffee and stay inside.

And then there’s the bills to pay. A stack of a few more, since my daughter’s sudden illness (she’s feeling better, by the way – responding to medications). And I’d just knocked down our medical debt to within sights of zero. And now – back up again!

I realize my son is still talking – gloriously denouncing The Sunshine State’s undeserved reputation: “… not as if it’s a land of gold and riches or something!” he finishes with a flourish.

His energy is unflagging. Until nighttime when he strips down to sleepwear and tries anything to climb in bed with us. I will miss these days when they’re gone and there is nothing I can do about that.

Last night the friend of a friend ran into trouble; her husband was chasing her around the house. Berating her. She texted a friend and the friend texted me and I did what I could. And tonight I’m wondering how many women I know have those troubles, locked up inside their hearts, in the memory of their bodies. I’m glad my home is a safe one, a pleasant one. Even if right now I’m walking about in the garish lights, asking help from retail workers with red-rimmed eyes and knowing it’s a long cold drive home with a busted heater in the car. I got a home and it’s a good one.

paradise is you

The kids are out of school for Spring Break. Don’t think I even get how I’m supposed to be this schooling parent. In fact I think I have given up trying. I am often at a loss as to schedules. I don’t fit in with the culture. My kids had conferences last week and it seemed like for all the haranguing about standardized tests and attendance, the school staff and admins are lost and jumbled about it all. One of my children had a low (for the child, anyway) grade in a class. Now last week the child and Ralph tried to get to the bottom of it, and the teacher had a bunch of assignments incorrectly allocated. But here we’d confronted the child the night before – and the child had cried – over this mess. I don’t know if I’m supposed to not give much of a shit, or if I’m supposed to bust in there and straighten everyone out. And it’s hard to get too excited about something, grades and such, that seem entirely meaningless.

So anyway, school is whack and I am amazed they like the good parts – of which there are many, they’re called “other children” – enough to tolerate the rest. But they are enjoying themselves and this gives me immense pleasure. I know they appreciate that we support their rights to do what they want.

So I figure my job is to keep them in school clothes, and try my reasonable best to support them in their extracurricular activities and social lives, and feed them, and provide a safe, loving home for them to rest and recover in.

My son’s birthday is tomorrow – he turns eleven. I am hardly prepared – mentally, emotionally, or any other way, really. I sound a mess and maybe I am.

This afternoon I picked up my car from the shop. Gotta rob some rent to pay for that. But that said the kids and I were grinning like fools to have the car back.

And we were driving home and laughing with my mom, talking about our cat, trying frantically to bury a slimy mushroom on the floor. And I realize that with the little ones by my side, I’m really at my best somehow. I don’t know I’ll ever do much better. It’s like a really small, ignoble little victory in my heart, that I’m really okay with this.

merry go round broke down

My car went kaput today. At least we pulled over safely. We weren’t that far from home. I’d paid the bills, dropped off the mail, and fed myself.

I got the kids home and set them up with food. Ralph and a few generous friends hauled my car home.

FUUUUUuuuUUH

*slowly lowers head to desk, gently sobs tears into plastic fake woodgrain*

Here’s the thing though. The secret. Life is good. Life is good because I like myself. I like myself because I’m at peace with the dharma.

“It’s boring. But it’s part of my life.”


the dark wolf

My sleep – fitful. I wake early while Ralph and Phoenix prepare for a long day: she is off on an all-day field trip and Ralph has to have her out at her rural school location by 7:15 in the morning.

But my sleep is poor not due to our slight shift in our morning schedule, but because I was plagued with a nightmare. Very unusual for me. I know the root of this, at least – sort of. I am worried. I am worried for someone I love. It is this gripping kind of fear; nothing abates it, I only get a moment here or there of reprieve. My hands and heart seize.

My worry has not died of neglect yet. Oftentimes, this is the case. But since it hasn’t, I know who I should talk to. So many love me, but many of those don’t have the strength I need right now. I share my feelings and thoughts with my loved ones if it seems appropriate. Something like this, I talk to someone who has a correct view. Who will understand where my heart is and will listen to my troubles – but also give me direction in how to set aside my fear.

I’ve only survived and thrived as much as I have, because I have learned how to take spiritual direction.

Kidney pain, car repairs, and stressful appointments with professionals. The kidney pain is one thing: the worry (about the future), quite another. Relapse into illness brings me to a dark place. I am glad though nothing can slap my gratitude from my mouth.

And, there is much to be grateful for. All the daffodils splashing across the countryside. A wool coat, found on sale – a deep grey and cranberry. Visits from friends. Email messages from those who seek my friendship and counsel. Watching a nature documentary with my son – we are enraptured by the tiny, impossible perfection of the flamboyant cuttlefish. My daughter, sliding into my arms and letting me put my hand on her soft belly.

My new phone! And: Ralph’s new phone. He didn’t think I’d buy him one, but I let him choose exactly the one he wanted, and then I bought him a case for it as well.

Taking care of myself, and my family, as best I can.

creeper peeper

Nels lays on the bed, eyes fixed, body still. He’s pretending to be a lifeless, motionless doll – for as long as he can. I lay my body on top of his to see if he’ll giggle. He’s silent. My right ear on his chest; his birdlike ribcage, his heartbeat – so strong! After a few moments I find a peace, feeling the life of my boy, but I’ve enough of our game’s concept in mind that when he suddenly and silently cranes his head to bite my neck I am half-convinced this eerie doll is coming to life and I am freaked out. He starts laughing, and his arms grasp me as he tries to play-bite in earnest – and now I’m scrambling off in equal alacrity. From a loving stillness to a froth of action! Phoenix, hearing the commotion, flits in the room and tries to fight him off. We’re all tense and electrified by our creepy little preternaturally-undead talisman!

The cold outside seemed all the more cruel after the evening’s swim; a pristine sky and harsh, cold stars – a bite to the air. My time in the water tonight was rough – I had to work too hard to get my requisite number of laps in, and this work left me nauseated. My husband’s car; no heater. Brakes so bad they grind. My car is in the shop as of this afternoon on the forth iteration of a door handle repair – our previous garage bungled the job three times in a row. I’m upset as this car repair means we won’t be able to afford taking Phoenix and a friend for a zoo trip for her 12th birthday, Sunday. I haven’t told her yet, but I know she’ll be okay. I just have to wait until I’m okay. I need a night’s sleep on the disappointment of today.

My son, and Emily – our sunny afternoon lunch at Thai Smiles. I dunno. I think you can tell that they like one another.

Nels + Emily

Nels + Emily

Nels + Emily

crine

Today…

sweet Baby Jeebus.

Five pets. Three vet-office visits split between two vet clinics. Medications. A surgical procedure (Bun-Bun’s neutering)! A cone of shame for Hutch. A financial commitment (to us, by another) dropped, quite suddenly. So: bank errands. Hustle.

Exhaustion.

I’m out of gas, so I use my mom’s truck. I take a break and call a mentor; I get a few moments’ relief. Then, right before I’m off to collect the rabbit post-surgery, the front driver’s side tire shreds. I mean just completely flies apart. I got a bunny to pick up, and a little girl to get at a rural bus stop.

I don’t panic. I make some calls. My son is trying to talk to me. I’m so tired. I lean back.

The day got wetter, and colder, and more scowly, and weirder from there.

I’m tired and tonight I feel a little low. It’s easy to beat myself up when things don’t go according to plan. Gotta practice a little of that self-kindness, that love and compassion, so profound a lot of people never get to it for more than a brief moment at a time. Gotta practice it because I need it and because I want it for when times are shite.

All animals medicated, fed, warm, safe, & love. THREE of them on my bed right now, with a little son about to join to boot.

Goodnight, lovelies.

a small spark in the gloaming’s dark

One of the nice things about having only one car, that has a broken heater, is that when I get in the car, every time, I am cold and I chuff my hands and look forward to when the car gets warm. Then when I realize it’s not going to, I have this surge of awareness. I feel awake and alive. I think about those things we take for granted and how grateful I am for the opportunity to NOT forget those wonderful blessings.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity, by turns exhausting and exhilarating. A friend shows up in need. A friend shows up to give. Someone tells me Thank You and then tells me why. A friend looks like she’s been crying. Another is staying away. A family member offers support. Our cat comes home with a tattered ear. A restaurant gives us a free pizza! I cook up two pots of soup in two days. Friends arrive for a movie, and an hour into it our rabbit rudely yanks out the electrical cord to stop the film, and we all laugh.

The financial help is so welcome while we have hardship with the cars and while the weather is cold and while Christmas is upon us. When it comes to cash I’d like to save up for a house payment maybe, but instead I inevitably cave and purchase here-and-now-needed items: today, a few pieces of winter clothing for my children. It is very cold here and it kills me to see children improperly provided for (anyone’s children). My kids rarely complain about being cold but they gush gratitude at the new coats.

But, only after I buy the garments and zip them up under their chapped cheeks. While on our way to Ross my son is cranky: “Why are you buying me winter clothes? Last time they only lasted ONE winter then I grew out of them.” He is querulous, wanting things like video games and ice cream sundaes and trips to exotic locales, and I feel this kind of wild urge to cry, but it is a gladness all the same.

My husband leaves for work in the morning. He kisses my son and myself, snuggled in the same bed, Goodbye. I tell him, “I am not doing very well. I am feeling like a terrible mom.” Ralph says gently, “You’re the best mom I know.” I rest, breathing in and out, and I think No So Much, I don’t feel great. I feel unsettled and unsure.

Every morning when he and my daughter hit the rode I pray for their safety. Car travel is treacherous, especially when weather is foul.

It takes a lot of courage to get up each day and try to do well, and try to do the best we can despite what has happened recently to one of our children, and given what our family is going through in dealing with the aftermath. But one day I know I will feel better, and I’ll have a friend who will be having this kind of struggle. And I’ll be able to tell that friend about courage and maybe they won’t feel so alone.

For now having that full pantry and having something hot on the stove is a tremendous help.