Forever, or the absence thereof

A friend shared this article, an essay by Emily Rapp, self-professed “dragon mother” to an 18 month old boy with Tay-Sachs disease. There isn’t anything I can say about her story that she doesn’t say more eloquently herself, but there was one paragraph that caught me full in the face.

"And there’s this: parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever."

None of it is forever. A sharp reminder in a compact phrase.

Parenting is a profession that seems to wax and wane with the cycles of the moon. Just when you think you have it licked, some other challenge comes along to remind you that in fact, you know nothing and your previous success in raising your child is proof to the saying that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut. At least that is my experience. Also, it seems that the older my child gets, the faster the race becomes between my feelings of abject incompetence and a vague sense that he might not need too much therapy as an adult.

I know that Ms. Rapp’s momento mori is a reminder to cherish every precious moment, every milestone, every loving word. But for me, tonight, it is a reminder that the hour-long struggle at bedtime, the tantrums over a twenty five cent toy in a vending machine, the pouting face and the shouted words, they are not forever either. And for someone out there, they would be a gift. How many parents or would-be parents would love to give a time-out to an absent or wished-for child? Even at my most exhausted, my most frustrated, I am blessed beyond measure. I may not remember it in the moment, but I am blessed all the same.

So how do I carry this lesson, slung over my hip or hanging from my neck, a burden I both cherish and long to lay down? How do I live in the moment of gratitude when I have used up my happy-crappy on everyone but my family? No answer except this, none of it is forever. The grass withers, the flower fades and all my failures and accomplishments will come to nothing, except maybe this one thing. I’m his mom and he’s my kid and sometimes I don’t totally screw it up. I guess for now that will have to suffice.

Jumping Off the Plane

It is now a month and a half since I wrote last. In that time, we've moved an entire household (although I'll confess there are still a lot of boxes around) and traveled to both coasts. In fact, we've driven through 27 states, stayed in 23 different cities and traveled just under 10,000 miles in two months. When we finally returned to our new home, we had just a few short days before we were plunged into that educational no man's land known as "in-service".

Things happened so fast, I barely had time to notice that finally, I am teaching in a school! It is only part-time (at least in pay) and my one daily class still has only five kids, but I am on the payroll. I have projects and email and meetings and office politics and the whole nine. I am gainfully employed and I don't think I could have found a better place to take this step.

I was sitting in our all school meeting, hearing the head of school repeat the resident, somewhat prosaic mantra. "The students come first, which means we come second." You think well yes, of course. But it was his emphasis on the second part of that statement that has made this idea curl up in my brain and take hold. Think about it, what does it mean to own this idea that you are creating a student-centered program? Putting the student first seems natural. Most people who go into teaching are the kind of people who will go that extra mile, so it seems redundant to state it.

However, to articulate that we come second is something else entirely. It implies a mindset that, coming from my protestant reformed tradition, I would almost call spiritual. My religious training taught me that I had to "die to self" in order to follow God, and I'll confess that this is a struggle in my life. In the true sense, dying to oneself is not the eradacation of personality in order to become a God-clone, but to have a willing and open heart, so that my true spiritual identity and purpose can be made manifest. It means accepting that I can make many, many plans but that they are all pretty much crackerjacks when faced with the eternal. It means control is an illusion and we only have power over the willingness we bring to bear on our circumstances and the spirit in which we respond to our challenges.

In more Oprah-esque terms, I have two options in spiritually dealing with things like displacement,  unemployment and financial hardship. I can cling to my self, and mourn the loss of my plans, where and who I thought I would be and let myself be wrapped up in my fears for my family. Or, I can try to let my illusory self go (an ongoing process to be sure) so that I might find my authentic life, in the present state of my circumstances. I will never know what is truly possible unless I put my self last and my life first.

So what does this mean then in the classroom? I'm sure for many the idea of "coming second" means poor self-care, being a doormat, passive aggressive resentment or even feelings of martyrdom. Teachers are so often asked to give past the point of breaking, it almost seems abusive to keep repeating to them "you come second".

Except it isn't. If you had been in any of my meetings this week and seen the looks on the listening faces, you might have thought you were at a tent revival and not an in-service meeting. I'm sure there are dissenting voices and I will come to know them in time. Still, the majority of the folks hearing looked ready to finish each repetition with a rousing AMEN! And I wondered, what is different here?

I think the answer lies in two things, purpose and ownership.

It is one thing to take advantage of a teacher's natural inclination to sacrifice themselves for their students. It is quite another to charge that teacher with a purpose. It is powerful to be told we are here for one common purpose, no one of us is greater than that purpose, and that includes everyone. We must die to our preconceptions so that we are free to do the work that needs doing, not the work we thought we wanted or that feels most comfortable. It's a worthy mission and it puts into positive terms the given circumstances of the profession.

Ownership is something else, it is not just responsibility, but also knowing you are not alone. It's the difference between being thrown out of an airplane and having someone jump with you. While the first instance might be empowering on some level and you may yet land successfully, the jump was not your choice. In my experiences this week I've felt on several occasions like I'm standing at the door of the plane and instead of feeling a push, there is a linking of arms. We may all go down with a thud or our chutes may get blown miles off course or we might make a nearly perfect landing. But the decision to jump is mine, and there is a whole group of lunatics waiting to jump with me.

So maybe teaching is a religion. Maybe we shall all worship at the holy shrine of student-centered process-driven hyphen-happy learning. More importantly for me, however, I'm starting to feel safe for the first time in years, and it is in the midst of total uncertainty and risk.

I'm ready to come second. I'm ready to die to self. Bring it on, I want to see what happens next.

Packing Up

Tomorrow is the day. The truck comes, the boxes start loading on for the next two days and I hide somewhere washing down lorazepam with a pitcher of mojitos. Okay, so maybe not that last part, although I wish it were possible.

I’ve counted it up and I’ve moved fifteen times since I was 22 years old. That’s fifteen times in twenty years. Some of the moves were small, a few milk crates and garbage bags to a new short-term crash pad in Manhattan. Some of them have been 2,000 or even 3,000 miles. I’ve been blessed with friends and family willing to help on almost every move and in some circumstances, people actually took me in when I had no place to live. From these facts, one might presume that I move easily or at least well or perhaps that I even enjoy moving.

The truth is I hate it. No, that’s not right, hate is not the correct word. What I feel is definitely an emotion that is about three steps past anything as rational as hate. Moving terrifies me. Transition terrifies me. I had this same sense of irrational dread before getting married and before becoming a mother. In my daylight mind I understand that once I get to the next place, all will be well and in fact, I will likely be happier than I was before. But, in the sludgy emotional dank at the bottom of my spirit is a complete terror of that journey from the known to the unknown.

When I was a child one of my recurring dreams started with my windows becoming ringed with fire. Then the door and then the walls would light and finally the fire consumed everything, my entire house, even the ground below me. I would fall and fall until I woke up in a cold sweat. This comes back to me at every major turning of my life, this fear of an all consuming flame that will take everything and leave me in free-fall.

All transition is by definition a loss, but usually we see the finish line and we believe the trade to be worthwhile. We exchange our present for a brighter or at least a different future. This is the lure of religion--travel through the vale of tears and paradise awaits you! I’ve never really bought it. Because this is the truth. You have in your hand the now. You can imagine what is next. But the journey, that point where you step out into the unknown is where you have nothing. It is the place where all can be and often is lost.

This is where the inspirational turn to my essay should show up, but it isn’t coming. Unfortunately, sometimes things are just dark and difficult and risky and nothing will improve them but time and movement. Do I believe God is with me in these times? Yes. Does it help me? Not at all. God is perfectly willing, for whatever her reasons may be, to let loose life’s shitstorm at a moment’s notice. I don’t believe I am any more protected or special than any of God’s blessed children across the world who suffer loss and change on a level that make my fears look petty, at best.

And there, I suppose, is the lesson. There is no true security in staying put. You can live in one place your whole life and a tornado or a flood or an earthquake can take it all away in the blink of an eye. We are all in transition every day that we breathe, we are all journeying every day that we live. Security is an illusion and we can lose it all whether we stay or go.  So here’s to loss, to chaos, to fear and to the unknown. I cannot say I’m facing it bravely or well, but I’m facing it, and that at least, I think, is something.

On Mothering, with and without children.

Mother’s Day is always an interesting time for me. I never quite got it as a kid, because as I understood it, I should be nice to mom all the time, what was with the special day? (Of course, looking back on my teens and twenties I’m considering that my mother probably deserves an entire week.) Once I became a mom I still didn’t see the need. My kid is the best gift of my life, every single day. Additional presents or recognition are superfluous. In fact, I am dreading his upcoming preschool program for Mother’s Day, because selfishly, I don’t really see the “treat” in being asked to sit on a bleacher for an hour and a half with a child who has at best a fifteen minute attention span and who knows that this is the one place where mom can’t give him time out. If we make it through the morning without one of us ending up cowering under the bleachers I will consider it a success.

It is interesting to think now that the time I believe I most appreciated Mother’s Day was when I was a childless, single adult. Since I had no children of my own and my own mom was far away, I started thinking about what “mothering” meant. My own expectations for a family had pretty well died off in my early thirties and I had several friends that had lost or were losing their mothers to rotten diseases much too soon. One of these women I referred to as my “musical mom” as she had shepherded me through my entire musical education, encouraging my every effort, nearly since I was born. We lost her the spring I made it to the regional finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and to this day I believe some part of my ambition died with her. I know that when someone inspirational dies you are supposed to fight on even harder in honor of their memory, but sometimes they are more than inspirational. They are your rock, they are that source of energy you tap when all of your own is gone. In short, they are your mom. You find a way to continue, but the way will never be the same as before.

Motherhood is not about giving birth to a biological child. While that is a tremendous gift for which I am truly thankful, motherhood is more than that. Someone can give birth to a child and never be a mother, while another person can live childless their whole lives and yet have dozens of children. I might even go so far to say that it is not exclusive to women. True motherhood means unconditional love coupled with high expectations, mentoring combined with nurturing and the ability to imprint a part of one’s soul on another person. I also believe that for those of us who are mothers of the heart, our children can come from our bodies, from another biological family, from our classrooms or even in the form of our animal friends or the art that we create.

Being a mother is not about who loves me, but who I love.

It is this thought that recurs as I pack up the baby things, finally knowing this is the end, there will be no more children beyond my one ridiculously amazing gift of a child. There is still grief and loss, but I have tried to remember that time in my thirties when I realized that mothering was not a biological function. I will still have many more children, but they will not come from my body, they will come from my heart, my mind and my teaching. And that will be enough. It will be more than enough.

Marching to Pentecost

As some may have noticed, the Lenten blog died an early death this year. I kept writing, I just had to stop publishing because frankly, it was too personal. Life has taken some major turns this spring and not all of my internal monologue has been appropriate for public consumption. So, for a while, this blog became a diary and it lives only on my personal computer. Which is okay. I believe it is good to express oneself but sometimes it is also good to shut the hell up. I hope I can share some of this thought process at a future time, but for now it was enough just to write, and knowing I did not for once, have to think about what I said.

So now I reemerge. I don't know how regular this will be. I'm in the process of moving my family for the second time in two years. At least this time around it is just under a thousand miles, instead of two thousand. I'm also on the cusp of a new career, although I am still carrying my current work with me. Some days I feel like my chest will explode with the stress and other days I am happily anticipating the blessed relief that will come with a change of scene. Most days it is all of the above with a side of whatever unexpected crisis is along for the ride this week. As my husband reminds me, at least we're not fleeing the Germans in WWII, trudging through the snow with all our belongings and our child strapped to our backs. So there is that.

Here we are then, Lent is done, Easter has come and forward we march to Pentecost, when the tongues of flame will appear and the Spirit will speak to us and all will be made clear. Or at least we can hope. Thankfully we still have several weeks to get there.

Fourteenth Day - The Fish

I had a blog already planned out in my head for tonight but it is going to have to wait because the fish died. I should be clear, this was a carnival fish, one of those creatures that your child wins by somehow magically displaying more coordination than you ever thought he had and popping a ping pong ball into a small bowl. We gave him a few days to live, he made it several weeks longer than that. So, on the one hand I'm impressed he lived this long, on the other hand, I am totally and utterly devastated by the death of a fifteen cent goldfish.

When it became clear that Bready (my son named him that because he wanted to feed him bread) was not going to immediately die, I scoured the internet for information on how to keep a goldfish healthy. I realized our cheap bowl was not recommended, but I followed all the instructions for frequent water changes and chemical conditioning, tried to give him a recommended diet. I searched Craigslist, hoping someone would sell a larger aquarium with a filter for something more in our price range than the offerings at the pet store. I had no idea how expensive an appropriate habitat is for a "free" goldfish and it really isn't in our current budget to put up a fish in more deluxe surroundings than our own. We joked that perhaps Bready would meet with an unfortunate incident, whenever we wondered what we would do if we needed to leave town or when I grew sick of changing stinky fish water for days on end.

Still, it all came down to the kid. The kid loved the fish. He would sit and have breakfast across from him, sometimes having little conversations where he would provide the fish with an appropriately watery voice. He's been begging for a dog and a cat for over a year now and I thought, well, this is a good introduction--everyone has fish, right? So I'd change the water and wonder how much longer our luck would hold out.  As it turned out, not very long.

So tonight, when I had put the boy to bed and was cleaning up the kitchen, I noticed it. The fish. Belly up. Or rather sideways. In any case, definitively dead. What I wanted to do was to flush him and then tell the boy that we had taken him to the river to play with the manatees, but some shred of higher motherhood (and the advice of several friends) intervened and I now have a small disposable plastic container in my fridge containing a dead fish, awaiting a morning discussion with a four year old on the mutability of all things.

I know how this is supposed to work. I spent over 10 years in children's bookstores selling books like The 10th Good Thing About Barney and telling parents how healing it was for a child to learn about death, pontificating on honesty and the value of story to bridge the gap of grief. Yeah. I didn't know shit. It is one thing to talk theoretically about addressing death and the loss of a pet with a child and then to actually realize you are going to have to present your child with a little fishy corpse. I have no idea how he will react and I'm scared witless. Will he be in denial? Will he insist we put him back in water? Will he want to touch him? Will he freak out about death now? Do I say the fish got sick and if I do that will he think sickness=death? Or will he be completely unfazed or even curious? What if he asks to perform a post-mortem?

Where's my damn parents manual? I am not prepared for this. I refused to have a pet as a child because I couldn't bear the thought of it ever  having to die. I refused to even have helium balloons because I knew I would be heartbroken when they deflated. Even now, when my son's mylar balloons from his birthdays deflate I blow them up with air, reseal them and use them as wall decorations. I am not kidding. So you see, it is not an exaggeration to say I am possibly the least equipped parent when it comes to the subject of loss.

You would think I am an expert, our lives have experienced so much loss in recent years. We've lost a home, a house, jobs, career, friends, roots, security--it's all gone. We've been living on the edge for some time now, I place I never thought I would be again, made that much more difficult by the knowledge that there is this awesome little boy who looks to me and his father for every need. Our boy doesn't have a yard to play in, or the sibling we so wanted to give him or the "real" dog that he begs for weekly. (He does insist that his stuffed dogs are real and thanks God for them every night at prayers.) I think when he won the fish I thought it was some sort of a sign, finally a little living thing for him to love and befriend, finally something for him to come home to other than his tired and stressed out parents. Of course that is a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a fifteen cent carnival fish. Come to think of it, it's probably the stress of inappropriate expectations that killed him.

So we'll see what happens tomorrow. Hopefully I'll keep it together and the boy won't be too upset and we can dispose of Bready with sufficient decorum. Hopefully this small loss, like all the greater ones, will continue to refine us instead of simply laying us low. Rest in peace, Bready the fish. We hardly knew ye.

ADDENDUM****

Bready was laid to rest this morning in a beautiful service attended by family and friends. He was buried in a wrapper made of butcher paper (no irony intended) which was hand decorated in red marker and glitter glue and accompanied by a paper effigy of a little fish created by his owner so that he might "have company". Tears were shed, prayers were offered, notably by agnostic daddy who commended Bready to God, asking his creator to look over him as he "swam in fishy heaven". All parties, including mommy seem to be appropriately transitioning through their respective stages of grief.

Thirteenth Day - The Wish

My son likes do what he calls "his wish" at night. Somehow he combined wishing on a star with saying goodnight prayers, so he goes to the window, looks out and has a little chat with God. Tonight the wish was clearly a delay tactic for bedtime, but what am I going to say--no, you may NOT pray? So okay, out of bed again and over to the window seat we go. While I am always amused by his prayers, especially since the phrase "Thank you God for stuff and stuff" usually figures prominently, tonight was definitely in the top ten.

The boy went over to the window, folded his little hands and looked out the window. One of the things I love about the way he prays is that it is in the same voice he uses to sell pretend ice cream to passers-by on our nature walk or when he tells strangers at the grocery store about how he is four now and therefore big enough to weigh his own fruit. He is a friend to the world, is my boy, and God is just another member of his big friendly posse. Tonight he set out to have another little chat with the Creator of the universe, saying "Thank you God for the sun, thank you for the moon. Thank you for my mom and thank you for my dad. Thank you for my good food and thank you for my doggies and thank you for my friends and thank you for my school. Thank you for my toys and thank you for the chairs and the carpets and the closet."

I think there has to be some kind of maternal girl scout patch you earn for keeping a straight face during prayers and I earned mine tonight.

I'm always glad to make the thank you list, but to be included with the carpet and the chairs? Well, that is gravy! I wish I knew what made his little mind tick. I could probably come up with a few theories about his funky little prayers and why he thinks of certain things, but at the bottom of it I believe is this one truth. My little boy loves the world. He absolutely loves everything in it. Including the chairs. He's truly grateful for things like peas and dustpans and junk mail, because everything carries the potential for transformation and delight.

It is such a privilege to parent a happy child, and I try to always be mindful of this. When I say my own prayers, my thanks are for him. My first petition is that I might raise him in such a way that I keep safe this wonderful kernel of goodness that is the core of his little soul. I know he will be tried and he might have some tough times ahead, tender-hearted children often do, but I will fight as hard as I can to give him the self-confidence he needs to send the bullies and doubters packing.

So tonight as I am contemplating a number of stressful things on my plate, I am taking a moment to be thankful for the chairs. And the carpet. Because what is good is what matters and my son reminds me daily that this world is full of goodness.

Eleventh Day - What Sucks

The last few days I've just been doing some private journaling, rather than posting. I may go back and try to glean a few bits to post, but trust me, I am sparing my small but loyal audience. (Hi Mom.) Writing is such an excellent therapy for the mind and spirit, it is easy to make any journal entry all about one's misery. After all, you get together with friends after work, you order some drinks, what's the topic of discussion? Surely not to talk your fabulous life. Unless you're that person. And if you are, we all know you're faking it, so get over yourself already.

Seriously though, when people get together to unwind, they talk about what sucks. It might be politics, jobs, family that are bleeding our psyche dry at the moment and monopolizing our waking thoughts, doesn't really matter. Very seldom do we wax lyrical about how "life is pretty much okay".

When I was in junior high, discovering writing poetry for the first time, this phenomenon was ideal. Here I was, full of angsty truth as I saw it and all I had to do was start writing and the emotion flowed like black eyeliner. It was cathartic and freeing to write melodramatic poems and stories, to wallow in my 13 year old pain and to feel quite transformed by the act of writing emotion on a page. Even when I think now of some of those awful testimonies to my long hours spent reading Sylvia Plath, I have a generous spirit towards that 13 year old. God bless my nerdy little self.

I'm not sure exactly when the transformation occurred for me, but if I could find the moment, I believe I would label it "when I grew up". This was the moment when I shifted from enjoying the catharsis of the page to understanding its brutal and unforgiving nature. It is so easy to lie with our voices, we do it all the time. You look great in those pants, the check is in the mail or no, I'm not angry. Our inflections and expressions smooth the gaps and make our little necessary lies go down smoothly so that we can interact with each other without having to resort to cudgels. Writing is a different matter. Writing is between you and the page, or rather your full self and your blank self. The only way to fill that page (or screen) is to drop that bucket down and bring something out from within, be it superficial or deep. It is possible to lie to yourself of course, but it is not easy. It takes work, and it becomes extremely evident with each editorial pass.

The day I grew up was the day I realized that the page was not my friend or confidante, but my betrayer. No matter what I intended to write, I always lay bare more than I meant to, whether it was a poem, an essay or even a letter. Why this seems to skew to the negative, the fearful and the sad, I still don't completely understand. I suppose that for me, spoken words are chatter, porous stoppers to keep the functional world separate from the negative world in my head. What is positive, loving and hopeful flows freely through the barriers as "acceptable content". Written words, on the other hand, are doorways and have the power to let out the whole rabble that lives in my brain. Opening a door, there is always a chance you won't like what is on the other side, but by the time you've figured it out, the bastard has his foot wedged and you're well and truly screwed.

There is no way out of this mess of doors and rabble and ooze but to write it out and perhaps at the end you have something you can share and perhaps you don't. Hopefully you've retained a small amount of truth from whatever crawled out of that door, sufficient that someone other than your narcissistic self can appreciate the workings of your fevered brain.

And if not, well, that's what blogs are for.

Eighth Day - My New Philosophy

Another day of non-fun writing. I really wish every school district, job website and placement agency would combine so that it is not necessary to write 20 subtly different answers to what amounts to the same questions. The next form that asks me about my "philosophy", I'm going to insert a sound file with this song.

So, since my goal here is to write something honest, I can honestly say I fell asleep on my computer  and this is all I wrote. Unless you have a compelling urge to read a paragraph on my personal weaknesses and how I overcome them, this is it for the night.

And that's my new philosophy.

Seventh Day - The Reason

Some days are just a slog, hard to wake up, hard to keep moving. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the pain in the world, from across the sea to within my own heart. I remember a time in my life when those days would pull me under, when all I had to keep me going was me and sometimes that wasn't quite enough.

Then six years ago, something completely unexpected happened. Some guy told me that he had been put in my life by God, so that I "wouldn't give up". My initial reaction of course was to look for the nearest exit. I must have gotten distracted along the way because nine months later I married him. When we exchanged rings he gave the best, simplest and hardest promise to me, "I will never stop trying". And he never has. No matter what the challenge, no matter what misunderstandings and frustrations fill the moment, in the end he is always there, still there, still trying.

It was nearly untoppable, until he gave me the only thing better than himself and that was our son. When he was born my first words were "He's perfect" and "He is so worth it". Still the most appropriate words about him, five years later. Like any mom I could go on and on (and usually do) about the cute things he says and does, but what I want to write about today is the way he looks at me.

I'm not sure it is describable, but there is this moment that stops my heart every time. When I've dropped him off for preschool, we've put away his things, had our hugs and kisses and I'm out the door, I take one look back through the glass window. If it is late enough in the morning, the children will be circling on the carpet to start their day. He is always there, sitting up and watching me, eyes right on me, smiling, with such a look of love that I could never earn, not in a million years. Sometimes he blows a kiss, sometimes he waves, but always he is looking, with an expression of trust and adoration that humbles me to the bone.

These are my reasons, the man who won't stop trying and the boy who loves me beyond my worth. These are the reasons I will never go under, I will never stop fighting. When I think of all the people hurting across the world, whether from war, natural disaster or their own secret pain, this is my prayer. I pray that even in the midst of suffering, particularly in the midst of their suffering, that they be blessed as I have, each in their own way, with reasons to go on.

Sixth Day - Mama Don't Play

When I worked at a church in New York, I assisted with the children's choir. It was a great job, but it was also barely organized mayhem from time to time. If you've ever tried to organize turtles duct taped to tumbleweeds you might have an idea. This was my crucible of learning when it comes to disciplining children in large groups. What I found was the absolute bottom line was consistency. Didn't matter what I did, I just had to do the same thing, every time and not let anyone get by, no matter what. We had one particularly rambunctious six year old who was always one of the last ones to get quiet, often earning her shushes and dirty looks from her fellow choristers who wanted to get to the fun stuff.

One day we had a new little boy in the group. All the children had taken their places and were waiting to sing, while this little dude was poking his neighbor and giggling and making faces. I just stood quietly and waited--that's my gig, and it always works. Except this time. I was wondering to do next when my little squirrel girl leaned over to this little boy, fixed him with the hairy eyeball and said "You'd better be quiet. Because TEACHER. DON'T. PLAY."

Of course, some part of me was horrified, I "play"! I'm fun! We're all here to have a good time!!! Pleeeeezeeee like meeeeeee!  But the truth is, no, I don't play. I believe discipline is important and that you can't enjoy a chaotic good time unless you also know how to control yourself.  Otherwise, what is energy, what is your creative force without discipline? It's like water without a container. Whether it is a creek bed or a clay pot, without some kind of vessel to shape it, water runs into the sand and is lost.

Which is why I am sitting here, writing a blog, while my four year old raises holy hell in the next room. He has pushed the envelope at bedtime more than once. I told him where the line was, he deliberately crossed it and now I've enforced it. And now the neighbors are probably going to call child protective services because my child is wailing with all the drama that only a son of mine could produce.

It has been a long day, I'm tired and part of me wants to just go in there and wail with him. But he needs to know I mean what I say.

*********************************

It was at the point I was called away by a screeching voice in the bathroom proclaiming "I'M GONNA SPIT OUT!" I arrived just in time to see my red faced pride and joy shove his fist down his throat and let forth a stream of vomit that would give a frat boy pause.

Yeah. My kid can make himself throw up when he's really pissed. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that particular skill, but he's been like that ever since about 18 months. Which is why we do what we can to use constructive discipline that heads things off before we get to the puking stage.

So, um, what was I talking about? Yes, the importance of discipline. Now, I appear to have three choices. 1) Erase the whole blog and start over.  2) Erase the last two paragraphs and write a good, inspirational whopping lie for the conclusion 3) Admit that I am tired and that this round, the kid won.

Yeah, we're going with door number three. So discipline is a clay pot. Sometimes it holds the water of creativity and self-control. Sometimes it holds vomit.

Fifth Day - Necessary Grief?

I'm a little burnt out on writing today, I had to put in 2-3 hours on mundane work-like or please let this get me work-like writing. You'll have to take my word for it, as it is all too boring to post here.

I did want to share something from yesterday's reading of Reliving The Passion.

What causes joy?
What transfigures you, you flaming disciple, you burning witness, with such a fusion of joy in the encounter?
This: not just that the Lord was dead, but that you grieved his death.

Wangerin contends that "it is the experience of genuine grief that prepares for joy" and that our experience of Easter cannot be complete if we begin with resurrection and work our way backward. Rather we must begin with the Passion of Christ, with all it's horror and pain, before we can truly inherit the joy of what is to come.

This goes back to some of my first musings--are we deliberately tried, are we purposefully made sorrowful? And is this the reason why? So that we can leave our grief to be more joyful than if we had never felt pain?  I have trouble with this. It makes me think of something my father would often say, "it's like hitting  yourself in the head with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop." Does this make sense as a way to live?

My little boy is just four, a truly delightful age, but in the mold of his parents he is probably too smart for his own good and has a will of iron. We went for a bike ride this weekend, or rather, a brisk walk for mom while the boy continued to master his balance bike. I decided we would try a mile long loop, his longest ride to date, and dangled the prospect of a path through the woods with a playground at the end as incentive for this adventure. I knew he would probably complain at some point about the length of the trip (he did) and that there would be at least a couple major wipeouts (there were), but I wanted him to learn that he could go the distance, learn to push hard and glide further than he had gone before. I also wanted to reinforce that he has to pay attention if he wants to avoid crashing his bike, but that if he does crash, it is not the end of the world.

Part of the problem I have with the Passion of Christ is that I can't imagine a loving father persecuting his son in such a way. But then if I believe that a scraped knee or a bruised arm is a worthwhile price for self-reliance, persistence and the will to get up and try again, then what is the worthwhile price for the salvation of the world?

I have a feeling this thread will run through my thoughts for some time in the coming weeks.

Fourth Day - Cover Letter

Not so much with the inspiration and contemplation today. I'm short on coffee, chocolate and sleep and it is beginning to show, especially after a half day of my least favorite activity. I am really tired of writing cover letters. Looking for full-time work for over two years now and just once I'd love to write a cover letter in my own words, saying exactly what is on my mind.

Dear Person-Who-Does-Not-Give-A-Crap:

Please find my resume enclosed for you to doodle on, that is, if you bother to print it out. The most important point I can make about my qualifications is that I do not suck. I know you'd like to see an airtight resume and a perfect transcript, but I don't have those things. All I can say is that when it comes to doing the work, I get it done. I have no doubt that your "preferred qualifications" include 10 years of experience, a stint in the peace corps and perfect pitch, but for the money you are paying, you should feel lucky to find someone without a criminal record.  Consider this, no one is more willing to take your crap than a forty-one year old coming off her longest stint of unemployment since that dry season between babysitting jobs in junior high. Throw in a family to support and it's highly likely that someone in my demographic will scrub your toilets on their lunch hour in order to keep a job. That twenty-something you think will work for 20k a year is going to steal your office supplies and make out with the FedEx guy and then quit six months in when she decides to go to graduate school in eco-design.

I could take a paragraph to illustrate how my skills and personality mesh perfectly with your corporate goals, but it seems a waste when your mission statement is probably a load of manure that would be unrecognizable to anyone who actually works for you. How about if you hire me, I won't call you on your BS if you don't call me on mine? We can pretend you have a global vision for the future and that my lunch was only half an hour. See? Win-win.

In closing, I'd like to thank you for your time,  as in, I'm sure that in the time it took you to read this letter, you have already determined that you will be closing this position, covering it in-house or giving the job to your cousin's boyfriend.

Sincerely,

Dramamama

PS: I can start by the first of next month.

Third Day - Personal Statement

Today I had to try and write yet another "personal statement" to update my various application files spread across the internet. I like to think of it as my little cyber battalion advancing the war against my unemployment. Instead I think I ended up writing a "personal screed" but I'm hoping to salvage some of it for an appropriate purpose. Until such time, it will serve as today's entry--I'm officially out of introspection.

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When it comes to teaching, one phrase has remained my guide for over twenty years, whether the students are a group of campers,  teenage voice students or a workshop full of aspiring professionals. It is simply this, tell the story. Whether it is a song, a play, a piece of literature or a historical document, there is always a story to be told and that story is rendered significant by the understanding of its teller. As a teacher in the performing arts, my skill set requires a broad understanding of literature, history, language and physical techniques to express the material in music, movement and spoken word.  So much time is spent on the details of a performance, putting up a production or presenting a concert that it is easy to lose sight of the fundamental reason why we do these things. We are here to tell the story.

As a teacher, my goal is twofold. My obvious objective is to give my students the skills they need; learning to speak clearly or move with intention and parsing a piece of literature or a historical document for meaning and subtext. My most important job, however, is to connect them, intellectually and emotionally with the stories that their skills are being honed to serve. While this is important in the professional sphere, it is elemental in education. In arts education, the goal is to transform the performers themselves, as much if not more than the audience.

I believe it is this transformational aspect of the performing arts that elevates it from the elective to the essential in the school environment and indeed it is why I am so driven to make this transition from teaching privately to being part of an educational community.  Recently I was involved in a project that was a collaboration between an upper school history department, a local playwright and a combined cast of students and faculty. Five teens from Florida and one Chinese exchange student took on the challenge of echoing the voices of Japanese Americans incarcerated following the attack on Pearl Harbor. For some this was their first exposure to this chapter in history, for others their first experience in a theatrical production. They all made a tremendous journey, culminating in that lightbulb moment when a student connects words and facts with empathy. In the end they realized that their “characters” were young people just like themselves. With no more tools than a darkened room, lighted music stands, a projection screen and the clothes from their own closets, they drew the audience in and told the story.

Will any of these students go on to be professional actors? Probably not. Will they all retain a new understanding of this event in American history? Absolutely. The performing arts bridge the gap between understanding and empathy, creating a level of comprehension that goes beyond mere recall. Ultimately, it is this understanding that is the foundation for not just the development of minds but of character. In creating an empathetic connection with something outside their experience, a performer will eventually come to the realization that they are not just telling a character's story, but also their own. In the end, the goal is not simply to tell the story but to tell the story of the world and to realize in the telling that each of us has a place within it.

I don't teach music and drama to create future performers or even future arts patrons. I teach the performing arts in the hope to have some small hand in creating future human beings of intelligence, imagination and compassion. Is there any job better than that?

The Second Day - Refiner's Fire

Ever since our major life change following Todd's layoff and the end of our lives as we knew them, I have slowly been crawling towards some kind of understanding, some kind of belief that we are on an upward trajectory, however minimally inclined. Then I have weeks like this one, where just when I feel positive about a new step taken, another opportunity to explore, a positive habit begun, then the wave comes to suck me under again. It can be external or of my own making, but it's real and it's there and again I am out to sea, without my bearings and without my breath.

Today's reading included this line in the closing prayer, "Hold me to the fire long enough to know myself truly. . ." and I thought, seriously, I think I have sufficient self-knowledge at this point, could we perhaps be done with this fire business?  I'm not sure what I really think about the idea of the refiner's fire. Does God truly test us, deliberately, to break us down to our most elemental structure? It seems a bit petty and small. Or is it that this is the nature of things in the creation and so we are not so much refined as eroded? And if it is part of the plan of God or nature that we be tested to our limits, does everyone experience this testing? Is it merely an illusion that some people live lives of relative ease while some face constant challenges? And if I knew the answers to those questions, would it make me any more wise or would I make different choices?

Probably not. So why contend with the questions? I suppose when bad things happen in life, we search for meaning, we want justification. We want a compact lesson delivered by a cucumber and tomato, preceded by a catchy jingle. The idea being that if we knew the WHY then everything would be fine. In fact, knowing the "why" of any unfortunate situation, presuming it even exists, is just as likely to make a situation worse rather than better. So often, the answer is a cosmic "because I said so" which as my four year old will tell you is about the least satisfying answer possible.

You cannot possibly know, until you have lived at the vulnerable edge of our society, due to financial hardship, job loss, illness or other polarizing life events, just how little it takes to send you off course. When you have no roots, the wind can blow you wherever it likes, and you have little to no defense against whatever comes. You cannot stand up for yourself when the ground beneath you is constantly shifting and for better or for ill, I seem to have become an expert in going where the wind takes me.

Perhaps this is what makes the fire preferable. Being shaped by the wind feels like nature's erosion. Indifferent, cruel and arbitrary forces work on my exposed form. A fire has purpose. Rather than mere wearing down and eventual decomposition, a fire transforms matter. There is no way to know while I am in the midst of the struggle whether I am being disintegrated or translated. My only choice is the choice of faith. I choose to hope for transformation in the fire.

Ash Wednesday

A year ago, I wrote these words:

This year, for the first time, I am attempting to observe Lent by fasting, or abstinence. This year I am abstaining from excuses. I am abstaining from fear. I am abstaining from all things that separate me from my own creative force and therefore the original Creative Force in whose image I am made. This is the plan. Every day I will write a page of something, just to write. If it embarrassingly ungrammatical, irksomely self-indulgent or just plain sucks, so be it.

It turned out to be an interesting experiment. I fell short of my self-imposed daily quota (working Holy Week as a musician tends to get fairly consuming as Easter approaches) but I did feel like I had made discoveries about myself and that I had pushed through some kind of barrier. So this year I’m trying to take it a step further, broadening the objective in hopes of broadening the impact of the outcome.

To start with, I’ve never identified with the idea of “giving something up” for Lent. It wasn’t part of my religious tradition and honestly it always seemed a little silly. (Give up chocolate for Lent? Honestly, I think chocolate brings me more in touch with the Divine.) While last year I focused on giving up fear or excuses, this year I want to make a positive step and focus on what to give for lent, rather than what to give up. I want to make this a time of contemplation and creativity, of action and hopefully a time of sharing and communication with my family and my community. A year later I am still at a crossroads, still at a personal crisis with no job, no career and no clear vision of the future. The one thing I have is a stronger belief in my own value and perhaps, an understanding that things will get better.

So here is the plan for this year.

One: Read something inspiring every day. It think many things are inspiring, but as my starting place I will be reading Walter Wangerin Jr.’s beautiful Lenten meditation, Reliving the Passion. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it and I’m looking forward to seeing it with new eyes. If you’re interested, each day’s entry is only 2 pages or so and it is available to download on Kindle for only $6.

Two: Write something honest every day. Same as last year, this doesn’t need to be deathless prose, I just need to be accountable for setting something down that isn’t a Facebook status or a grocery list. Different from last year, this may not always be a blog entry, although I will be using the blog again this year, both as a writing platform and as a way to log other activities and general thoughts on this process. As last year’s project resulted in more writing in my life on a regular basis, the day’s writing might be a blog entry, a poem, part of a story or play or even a Storybird or other collaborative endeavor.

Three: Make a positive choice every day. While it is not realistic for me to make goals to eat perfectly, exercise, exhibit charity and be the perfect mom and wife every day, I believe I can commit to at least once a day, taking one of those signpost moments and making the positive choice. I’ll try to expand on this idea later, but the underlying thought is to find self-empowerment in self-discipline. What better time to reflect on discipline than Lent?

That’s the plan. It’s ambitious. I may fall short. But in falling short I still will have accomplished something . Perhaps like last year, I will find Easter with a new heart and an expanded mind.