The Movers And The Stayers

Summer is here, and I have not been. That's the way with these warm weather months....all digging in the yard until way too late to make a proper supper by accident, reading way too many books and going on way too many exciting outings, catching up with all the friends and forgetting entirely those I communicate with online and far away. Please, let's pick up where we left off and carry-on with grace flowing around us to fill in all the gaps and distances and things I forgot to share and mention. We'll all catch up, shall we?

First of all, the elephant in the room we went on a stupendous trip to Italy. Totally amazing.

I have to write a post on several of the things I thought about our trip. So much to process and so much to share....more on that later.

Secondly, so much else is going on with us. One of my very close friends is moving away, the garden in our second year here at Orange Blossom Cottage is finally starting to come into its own, we had a really fun trip home to Michigan to see so much wonderful family, I have been doing some homeschooling public speaking this summer, and we are still ever in pursuit of giving ourselves a rich vibrant life with lots of space and breathing room in it.

Having a close friend move is a new experience for me as an adult. I realized once when talking with my husband that I had never been dumped by a boyfriend...although I'd dumped guys several times. It was a strange self-discovery. Did that mean I was selfish, pompous, picky, or lucky? I felt like I had kind of missed out on a rite of passage and the ability to claim normalcy in some tiny way. Weird how all the things mean things sometimes. Having a girlfriend move away and leave me is like this too. I have left several times, been guilt tripped, sobbed over and begged to stay. I've had people tell me they could never replace me, that they were mad at me because I had to move or resentful because I didn't consider them in my life location plans. But, through all of that I have always kind of played the same role. Tried to thank the stayers for their love, their loyal affection, their sharing of their time and lives and feelings and tried to walk the balance of showing just enough of my own feelings about moving to make sure that my humanity shows but be strong enough to comfort my friends and help them imagine a good future while not letting the negativity and depressing guilt get to me. I've never been the stayer. My gal is leaving and while I don't resent her adventure or the stress of packing up and shifting all her worldly goods to a new state....its surprisingly complicated for me too....even though I have no real clear role in the moving and shaking. I'm all conflicted about how much to show my cards with her. Do I cry in front of her, tell her exactly what she means to me or try to just keep it light and cheer her on while crying on my own time? Or is it some back and forth seesaw of behaviors. I don't want to be clingy and desperate but of course I'd love to make sure she knows that I care and that I will deeply, rawly miss her when she's suddenly not there for random roadside berry picking and hilarious girl's nights.

This relationship stuff gets me in to trouble in my marriage too. I want to be strong and independent and never have my husband be suffocated by trying to "be there for me" but I really want to be real and open and wear my heart dissected open on my sleeve. I think the thing that really gets me is that I so badly want reciprocity. I want to be sure that I share like he shares, that he wants my dirt and my pain as well as my hips and my best jokes. I start to feel gun-shy when its not clear that we want the same depth. Nobody wants to realize retroactively that they were an over-sharer. Ain't nobody got time for that!

I worry about this kind of thing with my friend too. I want to communicate my pain at her loss and my adoration of who she has been in my life at exactly the same level she discloses with me. I'm not sure I want to feel the same...just control what I tell her to visibly be her emotional twin. I'm always the emotional one, the deep feeler, the raw transmitter and sometimes its fatiguing to be judged as the eternal mess or the out of control girl or the person who is never done processing. I don't mean to be that way and when my feelings stay inside of me it mostly doesn't feel that way....its only when I leak them in disproportionate amounts and people get their measuring tools out and point them my way that I look a mess and seem like a problem. I wish there was a neat way to let my friend know that I will miss her exactly as wildly and deeply as she misses me and that I will probably culture some even darker and deeper feelings that she'll never know too and it all means that she's been really very special to me and I wish her the world. I'm lousy at being what people expect or want although I am one of the most people aware and over observant humans I know. Its tough to wish you could be just right and feel blind about making it happen. Moving is hard, even if you're staying.

Good thing there is shiny, crinkly swiss chard in the garden and orange roses by my front door, the sound of children's laughter in my yard and more phone calls than I can answer from people who love me. Summer ain't so very bad, even if its lumpy in places.

Calling My Sisters In The Eye Of The Storm

Last night I made my first ever trip to the Emergency Room with Pom. A glass floor lamp fell on him and cut open his lip in two spots and it took a little while to clot. He wouldn't hold still and let me examine it for glass and was really panicking so, older brothers and I rushed around the house collecting extra shoes and my purse and everyone's jackets and made a panicky little trip to our local ER. He was fine. No stitches, no glass in the cut.

This afternoon a close friend's little toddler had a serious finger laceration and a we had a mutual shaky stomach prayer session over jerky texts. It flooded me right back into that scary spot I was in last night. I was so taken back in by the undertow of the feeling that I stopped what I was doing and told the women who happened to be around me and we stood there with mama tears in our eyes and prayed out all our worries and then hugged each other and hugged each other some more.

Then this evening another close pal reported that she was just in a serious accident and although the car is smashed up and she is feeling very wobbly emotionally....they are all okay. Whew.

I am tempted to say that it is all too much. Enough with the emergencies and the accidents and feeling vulnerable as a mama. Sheesh! But, you know....I was talking to my new friends today at our homeschool co-op and we were discussing emergencies and I mentioned that I sometimes worry about who to call if I need a hand, if I can't reach my husband, if I have to troubleshoot a scenario that's scary...and we all laughed when I realized out loud that the right people to call are the other women, patiently listening to me and also dealing with this kind of thing. We mamas have to have each other's backs. Its great if you have a spouse who is willing to field questions from his desk at work or a mother-in-law who can drop everything and come over to drive you to the doctor but when in doubt, a person who is in that same boat and knows that mama panic personally is the right person to call. There's something very bonding and healing about going through emergencies together, about the feminine connective instinct to nurture which echoes and calms your own reflexes and about the community of collective feminine experience open to your needs in a moment of desperation. I certainly have no desire to wish more emergencies on my community but, I'd love to be equipped to help my sisters in the neighborhood and the other mamas in my co-op. I'd also love to build an instinct to call another woman or two when things are rough and plan to lean in to the safety net of others when I emergencies crop up.

Sitting here thinking about this way I want to live made me remember the time last summer when my next door neighbor lady had an emergency and I happened to see the rescue vehicles arrive. I peeked over the fence nervously and smiled and waved at her when she was scared and I ended up helping her call her daughter, bringing her a cup of calming tea and just sitting with her and giving her hugs until her daughter arrived. I forgot that I did that for her and how good it felt. If it felt good to me then I have remember that it will be just as powerful for others when I let them help me. Yes, I only have one car, I don't have medical training, I don't know the area super well but, I know people who can help with all those concerns....and I can provide Bandaids, mugs of soothing tea or lend my phone out to a mama who needs help. Lets have each other's backs, lets call when we are scared and lets quite trying to be self-sufficient and step into interdependence. This is womanhood.

35 Years, Pain and Pleasure....No Regrets

Today I am 35. Life is grand and heartbreaking and strange and beautifully poignant. Life is also dull and dragging and overwhelming. At 35 I am feeling more alive and fresh than I thought I would but I am also more grounded, at peace with crazy things and addicted to learning than I have ever been.

I am living a totally charmed life in many ways but have had some things happen to me that I never thought would occur, things that scared the living daylights out of me. I almost lost my marriage in my 30's. I got arrested and subsequently had to go to court to fight for my fitness as a parent. I held one of my sons in my arms while his lips turned blue and saw him pull back from the edge of death. I have lived in big houses and small apartments and historic properties and left "home" over and over. I've lost grandparents and aunts, had friends break-up with me spectacularly and had a neighbor decided to wage a massive war of hatred over our hedge because she was certain that I was a thief. I have become an aunt, raised baby animals, become a painter, traveled internationally and learned that extended family is one of the sweetest and most humbling gifts I've been given.

 Family drive us crazy but they know us. They help us learn tolerance and can teach us by their irritating rub, to grow past the demons that trip up the clan in all the familiar ways. As a wise man once said, "If you think you are enlightened, go home for Thanksgiving." Family also know us utterly and can accept us despite our super irritatingly uninhibited flaws that flash as soon as we feel "home" and relax. There is nothing like the security of siblings and cousins who tussled and tumbled with you and know the lore and jokes of your tribe. I know its very trendy right now to cut people out of your life if they rub, irritate or hurt you....I think, especially with family, its wiser to learn how to interact. Boundaries within interactions are good, maturity is good and compassion is a must. I am shocked how much I have learned the truth of the fact that that which drives me most monkey-bonkers crazy about my relatives is somehow a shadow quality in myself. Its embarrassing but its there. Not running away but instead learning to be strong and to co-exist with irritation and pain and to take responsibility for our own path, to learn to have allegiance, and even cultivate a fondness for these flawed people with whom we have been tossed up on the shores of life....who love and are driven crazy by us too in the same tortured dance. This is family and intimacy and humility and the great mirror that is long-term relationship.

I am lucky to be me. I am learning so  much about myself and about A and about life. I am utterly grateful for the peace and beauty of my life. The world is gorgeous and I have lived in it so lusciously, I lived a pretty charmed childhood in a log house my dad built by hand, I have four gorgeous sons and have never had a miscarriage, I have had my own chickens and fruit trees and vegetable gardens as well as so many beautiful flowers in every home I've ever had, I have never been in a natural disaster of any serious scale and have never seen someone die of anything besides old age.  I am also so grateful for the things that have happened to me that were painful. People have left me and accused me and hated me. I have been hurt and scared and have felt like I'd made a botch of everything. I have had to do things the hard way and felt like everything was a mess and my life was out of control. I've been embarrassed and felt out of my depth and Its been so good. That's where the growing has been, the humility, the changes, the grit and the healing. I'm so glad that I've had my path.

I'm trying to live with courage and heart and full-engagement. I am so proud of myself for my learning, my resilience and for protecting my sense of fresh amazement at the world. I feel so lucky to be in my life and yet so specifically called to it....I know my life was meant for me, We are all here, where we should be and our paths are divinely laid out. This is my 35th year....a perfect mid-life stopping point for reflection.  I hope I always keep learning, always look up, and always am receptive to God leading me on because my wiggly, slippery story is the most perfectly messy-delicious and useful lesson I could ever have imagined.

“This is an important lesson to remember when you're having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won't feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can't feel real joy unless you've felt heartache. You can't have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can't know what it's like to feel holy until you know what it's like to feel really fucking evil. And you can't be birthed again until you've died.” -Kelly Cutrone