The Hillhouse

Fallout

May 15, 2013May 15, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy Mind7 Comments

Just how on earth does everyone else do it? A busy week, food to prepare, laundry to wash, school projects to complete, calls to return… Never mind the added inconvenience of a toilet that no longer flushes, a severe lack of counter space on which to prepare said food – and homework assignments which continue throughout. Oh, and violin practice. Yeah, right. Seriously, how does everyone deal with all of this… life? The other day Elihu himself mused aloud “I wonder how families with five kids manage. How do they get everything done? Imagine five kids to feed, five kids doing homework and then actually getting all of them getting to bed!” I was impressed that he’d made such an observation. Not that his mother hasn’t encouraged such thinking – I’m a frequent self-mutterer, ever in search of that missing piece of information. Other households can’t be this chaotic, this cluttered and un-picked up, can they? Maybe. The other day, utterly exasperated with the barrage of crap all about me, I complained to my mother as I waved an arm toward the kitchen table which was piled high with the detritus of a life fully lived. “Is everyone’s house such a mess? I don’t remember things looking like this when I was growing up. Did they? Did I just forget?? I cannot believe life needs to be like this!” She was uncharacteristically unphased by my frustration. In a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone she told me that she thought that yes, other households probably did look like this. Then she added that that’s what life looks like. Still, I wonder. Really?

I like right angles and clean surfaces and find great joy in knowing that things have been put in their proper places, like with like. In fact, a tidy house gives me enormous pleasure. If you are familiar with the characteristics of the Zodiac signs, then you may know that this is a hallmark of the Taurus. A love of things beautiful, of home, of things comfortable. Stability and domestic peace are top priority for the bulls. I feel myself to be quite definitely Taurean by these standards. And when my home is a scattered mess of stuff, I simply can’t feel true peace. Now I realize that if it were indeed ‘true peace’ that I was experiencing, it would have no requirements and no conditions. If I were truly a woman of inner balance I suppose a sloppy house would not stand in the way of a contented soul. But sadly, I am quite linked to the state of objects around me, and as things are now, inner peace is a long way off.

Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how it is that other people live. What are they content to accept? To let go of? How differently might they tolerate the same conditions? As I wonder, I feel a persistent, low-grade guilt; I must be a wimp. I don’t even have a day job, yet I almost feel as if I can’t keep up. How do folks with friggin day jobs handle life? I wonder… does it help to have a partner? Once, years ago, I mused to my mother that I felt like a single mother. “All mothers are single mothers” she replied without the slightest bit of irony. Yeah, there’s just so much work to be done. But still, I can’t let it go… am I missing something? Sometimes I wonder how different things might be if I had a dishwasher. I cook each and every night. Takeout’s not a remote option on our budget (oh how very different from the last life I knew in which restaurants were part and parcel of daily life). And for some reason, cooking for two seems to involve just as many pans, dishes and utensils as does cooking for a bigger brood. Limited counter space means that things get quickly out of hand if not cleaned up promptly. But honestly, I just can’t find the energy to deal with it night after night. Thankfully, Elihu’s big animal report is done and I’ve learned all the music I need to for the eighth grade play, so our load’s a little lighter. Kind of. Got both a paycheck and food stamps today and so went shopping. Nothing sexy, just toilet paper, dishwashing liquid, bread, vegetables and such, but now there it all sits, taking up half my kitchen floor, waiting to be put away. Ich. Today I am pooped. Fell asleep during a rehearsal this afternoon, and frankly, I’m not sure where the energy to write this post is coming from (I enjoy it, maybe that’s part of it…). I just wish I could catch up. I was going to take a picture of the mess on my kitchen table but didn’t even have the energy for that. Hell, you probably know what a big mess looks like anyway. (Or do you?)

In my mind I’m going over the easiest dinner possible. How I can pull it off without washing anything, without moving anything or putting anything away. Then I’m thinking about bed. Oh how I want to go to bed now. But then there are chickens that need tending, chicks too. Elihu helps, yes, but in the end, it’s mommy that gits her done. As I write this in fact, he’s searching the house up and down for something. He can’t find it, but most likely I will. Thankfully, he understands I’m not feeling up to full mommy duty right now. He’s trying his best. And in a minute, after another moment of pause in my chair, I’ll pull myself together and do the same. I’ll bust it out. I’ll find his charger, I’ll make supper, I’ll put some things away. And then… finally… I can fallout.

Much of May

May 13, 2013May 13, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics2 Comments

Always too much to tell. A slower pace in the country? Occasionally, but not often. The first half of May has been very busy here. Rather than tell you all about it, I’m offering a photographic retrospective of the last two weeks. Hope you don’t mind – there are quite a few pics here…Starting with a surprise visit one morning by Phil on his tractor, who’d come by to plow our garden. He’s doing it for nothing. Just being a kind neighbor. I told him I felt guilty about his helping us like that, but he responded that Mr. Sessleman had done it for him once upon a time, he was just passin it on. Hope I too am able to pass on some helpful kindness one day.

(This is earliest May – note how few leaves are on the trees, then compare to similar shots just a week later)

I like this shot – tractor, Elihu, goose, all in motion…

Elihu runs down the driveway after the tractor

May 3rd, the fourth graders dance around the May pole while singing (in harmony parts!) and weaving very intricate designs with the colored ribbons. This is a rite of passage for fourth graders at the Waldorf School.

Elihu and Dierdre bow to each other before the dance

Grandma and Grandpa were able to join us…

My mom remembers dancing around the May pole when she was in fourth grade, too!

A nice looking group, these wonderful fourth graders.

Goofburgers!

Elihu enjoys a little picnic with his grandparents

We take a look at the weaving job

Lovely up close

Then Elihu helps carry it off…

Now for a quick family picture…

Before zipping off to catch a duck…

Notice Elihu, to the right…

No bait used – nothing but extreme motivation and a finely-honed technique

Duck time

A fine end to May day!

…and a fine start to our Merck Forest field trip as Elihu chases a turkey vulture across a field…

Visiting pastured sheep, Elihu dashes off in hopes of seeing birds…

The view was gorgeous. All I can think of is how much labor was involved in clear cutting the old growth forests and making them into farmland – at this elevation and nearly three hundred years ago, no less. Boggles the mind.

We visited pigs that lived out in the woods. !

Kids feeding kids.

Too cute!

Now to see the beautiful draft horse

The class sang a song about horses (in a round!) as they admired her

Ben found a B on the horse’s side

Elihu and I head up the hill to the barns in search of swallows

Bingo! Such striking markings and color

What’s this? A pigeon’s nest…

With eggs! Hope mom comes back soon to brood… think we scared her off

We watch the horse get hitched up to her gear. They really do farm with the horses here at Merck Forest.

On the trail to the car everyone fills the ‘elevator’ tree

Nora and I are having mint chocolate chip! This girl’s amazing – she used a balled up piece of tin foil from lunch to make a baseball, and found some sticks… within minutes she’d started a full-on baseball game.

We’re at the local Battenkill Dairy – our ice cream was made right on the premises. All of it. !

Ah, the apple trees…

And the flowering Quince, too

Look who’s returned one week later to till! Thank you Phil!!!

While Phil works, Elihu picks violets..

and picks…

and then makes ‘Violet Angels’ in them…

Next on the agenda, some Cinnamon fiddleheads from our woods for supper. They’re fuzzier than Ostrich ferns (and slightly more toxic) and take a lot of prep. Mainly why they don’t work well in restaurants.

Cleaned and washed

Boiled, next to be sautéed in butter

We actually really liked them.

Onto the Saratoga City Ballet’s Spring production of Alice in Wonderland. That’s our friend Freya in the middle…

and this is our friend Mahogany

Here’s the only boy in the whole group. He is good. !

Love the en pointe thing. So much harder than it appears.

All three Waldorf kids afterwards. Mahogany and Freya are in seventh grade.

We went out for ice cream after the show (Atkins diet took a week off) and it was positively snowing white apple blossoms!

So pretty

A few hours later and it’s our annual birthday dinner at the Wishing Well!

In short order Elihu was playing along with the pianist in the bar

Elihu’s very favorite dish of all: Frogs’ Legs. ! (I think he’s playing drums on the table with their little leg bones. !)

Yeeps. I’m trying them too. And they’re actually very delicious. And no, not really like chicken.

The pic above our table (Saratoga is a racing town.) This is pretty incredible, huh?

Happy 60th birthday to us!

Thanks for singing!

Yay! A picture of the two of us taken by someone other than me. !

The Wishing Well is an old-world joint. Lots of wood, mounted moose heads and such.

Elihu gets a good-night smooch from owner Brenda Lee (with whom I’d sung ‘Exactly Like You’ earlier in the evening – when I requested it and the pianist had – gasp – never heard of it.)

Good-bye WW – see you next year! (We love the place, but must note that our fiddleheads were better than theirs and that the escargot was not good. Wine not cooked off, not enough salt or butter, and gritty. We’re very forgiving, but it was a lot of money for a not so spectacular dinner. But it was fun to actually hear a person playing the piano. Plus I have learned that I cannot casually drink a martini these days. I got fairly loaded on nearly nothing. Times are a changin’.)

This has been our wonderful month of May so far…

Dream Tears

May 10, 2013May 10, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary1 Comment

Guess I’m still workin it out. Every now and again I’ll wake up in the night, racked with sobbing. It’s the physicality of it that wakes me, and I always stop and spend a few minutes trying to piece together the events of the dream that led up to it. In the ‘beginning’, that is to say within the first few months of my ex’s news, I’d find myself waking in tears several times a week. In the years that followed, it only happened every other month or so. This past year it’s happened only a handful of times, so even in my groggy state I was rather surprised at it. Even more surprised to remember the situation surrounding it. Last night was a brand new theme; usually it was me begging him not to go, or being surprised once again at his news, but this time it was quite the opposite; I had just told Fareed I couldn’t marry him. Everything was in place for our ‘second’ marriage; somehow he’d left the anonymous other woman he’d been with, somehow things were all set to begin again. His uncle had even come to my house to discuss some plans… But I couldn’t. I remember it being the hardest decision I had ever made. In some ways I could think of no greater relief than to be reunited with this person with whom I’d shared so many years of my life. His company was agreeable, he was an intelligent person, we shared a common knowledge of things musical; there were a lot of reasons to make him the simple, easy answer for a life partner. But something in me knew, and finally I had the balls to face it. And in the eleventh hour, I informed him, his parents (and his uncle), that I was not going forward with the plans. This dream was long and involved, and as I lay there trying to calm my breathing, reconstructing the events of the dream, I surprised myself at the number of details I was able to recall. Fascinating. I had been the one to end things this time, not him. Guess deep down I needed to reclaim the power I must have felt I lost in being the partner ‘left’. The right decision, but a tough one, and it still involved enough conflict to break my heart once again.

A friend suggested on my recent birthday that I look back over my old posts so that I might fully appreciate where I am today. Sometimes – most times, I think – distance from life events is required to formulate perspective on what’s happened. Understanding and insight cannot be rushed, they are organic and need to grow and evolve before their ultimate lesson can be recognized. My friend’s idea was a good and fitting one for such a landmark birthday, and it reminded me of an experience I had back in the beginning of this blog regarding perspective… I recall writing the very first post here, entitled “Snowflakes”, and in it saying something about knowing that things had happened as they were supposed to; that my situation had actually served me well in some ways. Immediately upon writing it, it occurred to me that although I was certain it was true, it didn’t feel true yet. I wondered if I might edit it out – because honestly, my heart hadn’t caught up to the platitude. But some two and a half years later, I finally feel it. Makes me wonder how my current experiences will resonate with the me two years down the line. Funny how some things can’t be rushed. They just need to happen on their own timeline, no matter how much you wish things would hurry up and resolve themselves.

Some five years later, it comforts me to learn that my sleeping self is still tending to its healing. Woulda thought that was all history, a done deal by now. But apparently not. Guess that’s what dreams and tears are for.

Flip Side

May 8, 2013November 16, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Pics5 Comments

Made it to the other side. I am now one of those ‘other’ people on the planet who walk around ‘being older’, as if they were completely unaware of it! Naw, I suppose they’re aware. But what’s a person to do but march along the mortal path, make mistakes, learn the best one can… and grow older? Today, as I sit to create the quickest of posts, I have hit a particular grouping of keys which has just inverted the image on my monitor. !! Being a no-nonsense woman of action (and 50 years experience!) I simply picked the silly thing up and turned it upside down on my desk. And so there it will stay until I have some time to figure out how to ‘right’ it. Literally. But for now I will accept this as a metaphor for the second half of my life: it aint gonna be like the first half. Some shit’s gonna change. My world is gonna get turned on its rear… (and in a good way, I proclaim!) But until that time…

I’m here tonight to very quickly share some pictures from my birthday yesterday. It was a warm, breezy day, full of sunshine and without one single cloud in the sky. From my duties as recess monitor at my son’s school to a birthday gift to myself of an oil change and car vacuuming, some chicken smooching, a surprise visit from my childhood friend Sherry and her daughter Katy, and then a lovely birthday dinner with mom, dad and Elihu – complete with surprise new gas grill on the porch! – the day was about as perfect as a day could be. Let the photos commence…

My final portrait as a woman in her forties, thanks Elihu. Hey – I was pregnant with him in this same bathrobe!

A birthday tradition; I dig up perrennials from abandoned farms. How wonderful to share the beauty of these pink daffodils once enjoyed by old-time farmers Mr. and Mrs. Meunch, both now many decades gone. But their garden lives on here at the Hillhouse!

The girls are always close by to greet us

Elihu almost always has to get a proper smooching in before school

I just LOVE this fourth grade class. They’re making a fort. Lots of great ideas in this ambitious project.

They fight, yeah, but they work together really well too!

Dierdre’s got her own window!

Ok, one crazy shot allowed.

Sherry’s 50th is the 16th. We’re next door neighbors and have known each other since we were 4. !! Sherry remembers all the crazy stuff we did together in the high school and college years. I don’t. I have to ask her to tell me the stories. !

We brought our own balloons – it was just lively enough

So few of us together, must you stick out your tounge, young man?

Mom was hell bent on actually lighting fifty candles. She did it!!!

No mean feat blowing em all out!

Elihu says goodnight to grandpa

We’re not sad or mad in this pic, just tired… plus the flash is hard on Elihu’s eyes. Goodnight all!

Thank you all for a wonderful day! We felt your love and good thoughts coming in from all over.

Sending you hugs and kisses right back. May each one of us know the love of friends and family on their birthday. !

Mid Century Mama

May 5, 2013March 28, 2022 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy Mind4 Comments

Folks that know me – or knew me in the life that preceded this current one – will know me to be a most enthusiastic fan of all things mid century. I cherish the Eames chair in my living room (although I admit it’s a vinyl knockoff – but it’s still gorgeous), and I lament the loss of that stunning, five level ranch home in South Evanston that some may remember from those once-famous Christmas parties. I still have a few mid century things in my life, and in fact I’ve created a rather pleasant look in my home here by mixing early American with modern pieces. What I have satisfies my desire for beauty – it still ‘scratches the itch’, as my ex and I used to say. But day after tomorrow, mid century will come to mean something entirely different in my world. Finally, after much ambivalent anticipation I myself will be ‘mid century’.

Honestly, that’s not a big deal. The bulk of my friends are already past that landmark. I’ve done enough rumination on it to be able to move on. Or have I? Ok. So maybe it is a big deal. There are still a couple of things on my mind at the doorstep of this birthday: I’m alive, many of my dear friends are not. My parents are alive, many of my friend’s parents are not. I’m healthy, many of my friends are not. I have my beloved son with me every day. Many parents do not have their children with them. So – there’s the half-full glass take on it. And that’s my overall, bottom-line assessment of this landmark. However, in the spirit of complete honesty, I feel the need to vent just a teeny bit (I am secure in the knowledge that I am putting a voice to the feelings of many in this forthcoming mini-rant…)

Here goes: Not happy with the funky neck skin (which literally seemed to appear over goddam night just a few months ago), nor the crazy new chin hairs (some white!), nor the now full-time creases around my eyes, nor the deeper lines from my nose to my mouth (when acting in high school plays I’d pencil in these lines to appear older – the way I look now!), nor the way the arthritis in my hands is causing the joints to become grotesquely oversized, nor the strange way in which the skin on my thighs and butt is more crinkly than seems fitting for my age, nor the way I just can’t lose those last ten pounds, nor the way I now need readers – and no longer can I blow off the regular glasses when heading out…

While not a one of these things came on all at once, and certainly no one thing just up and happened in my fiftieth year specifically, I can say that I didn’t really notice any of this age-related activity in my forty-eighth year. I can honestly say that a whole bunch of stuff really came to the fore just this past year. All of a sudden I had a head of silver when just a year ago it was hardly noticeable. My neck? Just fine and dandy – til recently. I’m sure all these changes happened incrementally, but they seemed to hit a critical mass of sorts this past year. When in my mid forties I still felt I looked pretty good, and felt good, too – I didn’t really see what all this talk about aging was about. Overall, my forties were fine (except for a little divorce-related weight gain). But all of a sudden I really feel that I look my age. The jig is up, the charade is over, the cards are on the table. So I’d better quit my bitchin and proceed with a little class and composure. I don’t need to go on and on about the disappointments of growing old when Nora Ephron, bless her soul, so eloquently expressed all of her aging-related predicaments in “I Feel Bad About My Neck”. If you’re a peer of mine or older, read it. She brings such humor and humanity to the experience.

I remember a moment once, when a new awareness washed over me – clarity and perspective came to me in a flash. I can remember being in my bedroom in my beloved Evanston home, looking through the branches of our backyard tree towards the afternoon sun… I was contemplating what it meant to be turning 42… I considered that if I had a life expectancy of 84, that I was now halfway there. That I was, more accurately, on the downslope of my life: I had passed all those years of youth, and before me was nothing but the process of aging… In that moment I realized that I’d had a general sense of hope and expectancy that had been me all my life and which had been driving me forward… to that next moment of satisfaction, then the next one, and then the next… yet where was the destination? What was that ultimate, one experience that I still ‘hoped’ for? Cold fear grabbed my chest – had I been on a fruitless, vain search for something I’d never find? Or had I already found it – and didn’t know that I’d found it? I’d enjoyed my life – all of it, as best I could, I’d always been aware of my good fortune, and yet, there was always a tiny nudging from inside to move toward something not yet achieved… As endless as the process had always seemed, a certain end was, in fact, coming. To me.

In that moment, I understood – in a way that even evades me now – that I was going to die. Not sure how else to explain it. But I got it for a second. I also got that nothing was to be taken for granted, I got that I was somehow not exempt; that I too, if all went well, would one day be an old woman. That’s mighty hard to truly get when your skin is smooth, your joints flexible, your eyesight perfect… but I got it. For a few moments I think I not only came to know that I was going to be old one day, but in some way I made peace with it. But then life overtook me, vanity returned, the sense of being somehow immune to fate – all of that settled back in and had me forgetting again; living as if things would always be thus.

But these days, now that the physical evidence is mounting, I am beginning to learn a little humility. But man, I’m not very good at it. Yet. My aim is to age with humor and dignity. I need to do this well, if for no other reason than as an example for my son. I’ve got to find a way to sink into this new body without that nagging sense of sorrow and loss. I know I enjoyed my youth – I surely did. So I have no regrets – and that should free me up to really embrace this new chapter. It’s liberating not to care so much about the trappings of vanity. I like that my priorities have changed. I’m looking forward to learning things now in a way I never had the time or interest to before. So while I might continue to bitch and moan about stuff, truly I’m coming from the half-full place. Just might not always behave like it. As I’ve said before, it’s a balancing act.

My paternal grandma and my maternal great aunt both lived to be a hundred. So, if I’m to live as long as Bessie or Helen, then I’m right smack in the middle. And I’m ok with that. After all, I’m a mid century mama.

Abundance Invisible

May 3, 2013September 13, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Mommy Mind2 Comments

I suppose one might say Elihu and I are as poor as church mice. On a purely practical level I guess we are. But lately – or more specifically, yesterday – with the sudden and dramatic influx of readers here, I am made aware of the subtle and often unseen nature of abundance. Nothing feels much different today, as I sit in the chair in my bedroom, bed still unmade, morning dishes still unwashed, writing on my ancient little Mac. But of course, things are different. Had no idea how the freshly pressed thing worked, how on earth anyone’s blog got mentioned on it (if it had to do with pure stats alone I was never going to see myself featured) but overnight I’ve become rather acutely aware of what it is and how it serves. Once again, my life is full full full, albeit in ways that aren’t always apparent in everyday life. I feel so much less alone this morning – Elihu too (he couldn’t stop giggling to learn about our sudden spike in readers) and I feel less like a woman muttering to herself, and more like a person with an offering to make. And that’s certainly got value; we as humans all know what it is to feel unimportant or unseen. It feels good to know that we’ve got new friends, and that we might be offering a little joy here on this sometimes incredibly difficult and tedious planet. But that’s enough on that, I don’t want to start taking myself too seriously. ! The challenge now becomes to continue to do what I’ve been doing for the past two years without censorship; without letting my voice or content be influenced by anything other than what’s going on right here and now. With that said, on to more thoughts on abundance…

The other day, after coming home from the grocery store and laying out all of our goods on the table, I sat back in awe as I tried to fully understand the bounty. “Abbondanza!” I said, over and over again, as much for myself as for making the point to my son that what we saw before us what truly a manifestation of abundance and good fortune. “Imagine one hundred years ago” Elihu mused, “this would be impossible – to them this would be unbelievable!” Yeah, my kid gets it. And how happy I am to have a kid that does. It is pretty spectacular, this bonanza before us, although we’ve become virtually desensitized to such things in our modern, Western world. (If you’re reading this it probably goes without saying you’re likely a member of this privileged club.) Products from all over the world sit on our tiny kitchen table. The lettuce we think virtually nothing of comes from California, some three thousand miles away. Our grapes come from another hemisphere even! I pause to try and imagine the labor involved… it’s not possible. From growers to pickers to drivers of machinery to the designers of said machinery to the folks who unboxed it and placed it on the shelves here in our town… it boggles the mind. It’s why we say grace, why our prayers of thanks in this household are not so much to a creator God as they are offerings of thanks to all our fellow human beings who have toiled – probably without thanks or appreciation for their toil – in order to make our lifestyle possible.

While I may never see the day when I get fully caught up on my electric bill, nor know an era in which I make it through a winter without running out of heating oil, by the grace of some amazing power I have never known what it is go hungry (I suppose if I did pay those other bills I might know it!). I don’t take that lightly. Sometimes, when I claim the income from a new piano student on the Food Stamps re-certification form and they reduce our monthly assistance to little more than $100 a month, sometimes when I find myself enraged that I must choose either food or heat – I have to make an effort to stop myself, and to remember that things aren’t so bad as they might appear on paper. I have to take a breath and step back. Self pity is a demon to fight, and sometimes it’s a challenge to shake myself out of its seduction. A quick look around, a short inventory of the things I do have, and I can quiet the upset… Yes, things are tight, but what do I have? I have a gorgeous baby grand piano in my home – I have a harpsichord too! I live on a stunning piece of property, my son miraculously goes to the most nurturing, supportive school and is joyful every day of his life, my parents are both still alive and live just next door. And let’s not forget, I’m down two dress sizes now, too. ! Things really aren’t so bad. Ok, so I might not make a solid living teaching and playing piano, and I may never get fully caught up on our bills, but our overall quality of life is rather good all things considered, and my son is a very happy and thriving child. Really now, what could be ultimately more important than those two things?

Honestly, we’re able to survive because of my mother. When we run out of cash on hand, when our larder is empty, when I haven’t the gas to drive into town, she always gives us a little something to help us get by. (She quit her job recently, so that sort of help might not be so easy for her going forward. One more thing that lingers in the back of my mind as I assess our future.) Lately, she’s been keen on helping us with some infrastructure fixes. Like replacing the porch roof or insulating the attic. These things will make a huge difference in the liveability of the place, and they’re projects I could never ever take on myself. Yet they are unseen. The new porch is not an upgrade, it’s the same porch. Only now it has a ceiling that doesn’t leak. The attic will just hold in the heat a bit better (which ought to put an end to the oil running out too soon! A major plus.) Nothing in these improvements shows to the eye – but they’re things that must be done at some point. Guess mom wants to know it’s been taken care of before she’s ‘gone’. (Too blunt? Mech, it’s getting that way these days. !) They’re important projects, but as there’s no appearance of an upgrade it doesn’t look like anything’s been done. Although our house is still a tiny little ranch with thin windows and ancient fixtures, at least the roof doesn’t leak, and next winter we’ll be toasty. Abundance here too.

I also am a believer of a sort of ‘like with like’ phenomenon that seems to occur in life. Some folks really live by this law of attraction, and while it does resonate with me, I am still hard-pressed to live by its rules as the true LOA followers endeavor to do. I just haven’t mustered the discipline to shush the constant poverty chatter in my brain. I sometimes wonder if it’s why I can’t seem to just get up and over this hump… then my reality meter kicks in and I consider the idea that folks just plain don’t need piano teachers like they do plumbers or insurance salesmen. I guess. Yet still I can’t help but wonder, if I threw caution and known reality out the window and simply envisioned a truly abundant life – as in thought about it day in and day out, lived as if it already was so, what might happen? I try to imagine not only becoming caught up on my electric bill, but not even concerned about future such bills. I have heard it said that possibilities are limited only by our beliefs. Again, sounds good. Sounds like we might have some control over our lives, it gives one hope. Yet I struggle to integrate it into my life. Am I settling? Am I convincing myself that what I have is good enough? Sometimes I’m fairly sure that I’m settling. That I haven’t invested enough energy into imagining things as I’d like them to be. It seems I might be holding myself back with the ‘poor-me’, ‘if only’ talk. But then other times I have a truly perfect day, and I think I’m way ahead and none of that stuff matters at all…

Today was such a day. A full-on sunshiney Spring day in the one of the most beautiful city parks I know, the whole Waldorf school in attendance at their annual May day celebration in which the fourth grade (of which Elihu is a part) experiences a rite of passage and dances around the May pole weaving intricate patterns with the ribbons in the style of schoolchildren from a bygone era. We were able to get grandma and grandpa out in the fresh air too. Such good fortune; it was an important day for Elihu and they were there to share in it. After the festivities Elihu and I remained in the park where he chased ducks (as he always does) and he caught two right off the bat – with no bait, just his swiftness and cunning! We stayed there for hours, and after a bit took a walk up to Broadway, where we visited a very high-end chocolate shop. After a rare treat there, we returned to the car by way of the local hippie shop. We passed nearly an hour there admiring rocks and crystals and chatting with the dredlocked girls who worked there. We made some egg deliveries, then returned to the park. We realized that we hadn’t eaten in hours, and so as a final chapter in our grand day, we decided we’d eat out. Had the best chicken in the world at Hattie’s, grooved to some classic R&B as we ate, then made our way home (organ trio for the ride back.) When we got to the train tracks the gates were going down – and wouldn’t ya know, it was our good friend Mike at the wheel! We honked, and he leaned way out the window, smiling and waving. (He really did look like something from a children’s storybook, his elbow out the window, that striped engineer’s cap on his head.) That was a hoot. We rode home with the sun and warm wind streaming through the open windows, and we were happy.

We got home and Elihu, although he’d said he was getting tired, found a burst of energy and took off running after the birds. So far, a good chase hasn’t lost its appeal. Good thing. It buys me a minute to sit and catch up on my thoughts. As I begin to wrap up the post, he calls me. He wants me to watch him climb the apple tree. So I join him. We pick violets which we’re happy to discover now carpet our lawn. We inspect the garden and find some perennials returning. Things feel so good. Simple, but so very good. We’ve even got leftovers for another fine dinner tomorrow, too. Seriously, what else do we need? Our lives are full and we are happy.

So for now I’ll settle for the idea that when we’re happy and grateful, even more things that make us happy and grateful will find their way to us. We’ll walk that fine line, falling off every now and then, throwing little temper tantrums and feeling sorry when things aren’t as we think they should be, but then we’ll shake it off. We’ll get up, look around us, take another inventory of our lives and begin again. The evidence of an abundant life might not always appear as we think it should, but we have everything we need to live. Some times not as much as we’d like of one thing, sometimes a true abundance of another, yet always just enough.

Senza Sonno

May 2, 2013May 2, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal...2 Comments

It’s back. Only now I can’t even get to sleep much less stay asleep. The recent loss of my father’s voice on my answering machine is a low-fi backdrop to a constant stream of worries that plays relentlessly through my head… And each night it seems we get to bed later and later… Phone calls, unexpected visits from friends, desperate final games on the DS before bedtime, more dishes to wash than it seems we could have possibly used just to make dinner for the two of us… various things thwart our plans to retire at a sensible hour. And the later the hour, the more stressed we both are about hurrying up and falling asleep. It took Elihu close to an hour before I heard his breathing shift. He tossed and turned until past 10… Me, I napped for an hour but am back up again, wide awake and awaiting the effects of one of my few precious remaining sleeping pills. I try to go without any pharmaceutical assistance – I really do, but it seems no matter how much I may yawn during the day and yearn for my bed, I cannot depart this waking consciousness on my own… I awake tired each morning after just an hour or two of true sleep. And as I embark on a long, full day, I look forward to little landmarks to keep me going, culminating in that glorious relief my bed will bring…. yet it when I finally get there…. there aint no relief waiting for me.

I’ve shared my love of sleep before. I no longer find shame or embarrassment in my need for a good eight or nine hours of the blessed stuff. I’ve come to believe my body needs it. I feel refreshed and ready when I’ve had a good long night’s sleep. I can go a day or two on scant nighttime naps, but by day three I’m not happy. And tomorrow morning will be such a day. I’d fix it if I could, I’d call a doc friend and ask as humbly as I could for some help, only even if she does help me out, I still can’t afford the full-on, mainstream price tag of the sleeping pills without benefit of insurance. Why do I even mention this? I came to learn recently that my Medicaid has lapsed. Not good. Not even sure how it happened. I’m usually on top of that stuff… (Makes me wonder if they’ll cover my colonoscopy from a while back. Ich. One more thing to stew over while I’m busy not sleeping.)

Not much to do now, think the little pill is fuzzing me down now. That’s better. Maybe now I can drift away. Only four hours left… Here comes the game of the sleepless night; the constant readjusting of one’s justifications – I can do it on three hours if I have to… it’ll be ok… it’s just one more day… how hard could it be?… ok, I’ve got just over two hours. That’s better than nothing, right?

Yes, I’m getting the heavy lids. Thank God! Shoulda just done this hours ago. Better late than never. Better ‘con‘ than ‘senza’. !

Heartbreak of Delete

April 30, 2013May 20, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Divorce Diary, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind67 Comments

It really wasn’t his fault. I’d asked Elihu to go and get the phone by hitting the find button on the phone base. He hit what looked to him like the page button. Yeah, it does kinda look like it. The little icon of the phone and the icon of the garbage can are very similar in shape. Once again I learned something about his eyesight when he told me that he could barely tell the difference between them. Even though he sees fairly well up close, these buttons were virtually indistinguishable from each other. And so, with one touch Elihu erased two voice messages from my father that I’d kept on the phone for months. They were the last times dad was able to call me on his own. The last time I heard him call me ‘sweetie boopis’, a term of affection he’d used for mom and me ever since I can remember. Dad no longer called me this. Dad no longer even called. With mom now retired and home all the time he had no need to call me during the day anymore. In fact, dad had ceased calling me altogether sometime over this past fall. I’d noticed it, and so had saved the two messages from dad on my machine. And having downloaded many hundreds of photographs over the weekend, I’d actually put it on this week’s to-do list to archive those two precious messages. But in one split second they were deleted without any warning. The timing was more than ironic, the poignancy of the loss so acute, that when I learned what Elihu had just done, I lost it.

I’m usually good about small traumas. I don’t freak out over things as I certainly might have ten years ago. After having my husband tell me about his other children and his choice to leave our marriage – after news like that all else fairly pales. Nothing has ever come close. But this loss hurt. As I sobbed into my hands and rocked in disbelief, not caring if Elihu himself hurt or not, I realized why it grieved me so. Because dad had turned a corner sometime over the past few months, and I had so very little of his old self documented. Nothing recorded, no videos, few photographs. I’d been so busy living my own life until now that I’d taken the mundane for granted. Those voice messages had still sounded like the dad I knew. They were a window into a time that I realized with great reluctance was now gone. Over the past few months dad has become almost childlike – but it didn’t really hit me until I saw him at the party. He was definitely changed. Due partly to the natural progression of whatever age-related disease he has (dementia or Alzheimer’s – jury’s still out) and partly as a result of my mother’s incessant expression of control. She babies him like crazy, stealing away whatever little power he might still have over his own life. I know she may think she’s doing it for his benefit (that is if she’s even aware of her behavior), but I can say that since she’s retired recently dad’s gotten worse – and much, much faster than ever before. Take away someone’s motivation for initiative and you rob him of a basic human need. I know she can never see it, but even my young son can. We don’t like to visit their house for too long, not just because of Elihu’s cat allergies (it’s a five cat household) but also because mom is quick to react negatively (she even takes personal offense at Elihu’s allergic reaction to her cats; she’s often convinced he’s overreacting), and she’s quick to tell others what they should do and or how they should be doing it. It’s exhausting to be in mom’s household too long, and I know even my father in his declining powers is aware of it. Fighting her need to be in charge is difficult even for a vigorous and healthy person; naturally dad in his state can only acquiesce to her dominant nature.

It’s been my own personal quest not to become as she is; not to try to assert myself into the outcome of every situation. And while it’s a work in progress, I have done a good job. But with this one tiny event – the erasing of those two precious messages – my anger rises and I begin not only to hurt, but to feel sorry for myself. To see myself as my mother sees herself; a martyr to life. I begin to think that I lost something because I didn’t take care of the task myself. I mutter to myself under my breath that if ‘I don’t do something myself it doesn’t get done right’. I fume, I cry, I throw something across the room. I know Elihu doesn’t deserve this, so I take my tantrum outside. What happened is sad, yes, but I also know there’s something bigger at the root of it than the loss of those recordings. What is it? I pace, I cry, I feel my heart positively breaking. Then it dawns on me. I know what’s bothering me, I do. I’m scared about losing my father. And I’m scared that when he’s gone I’ll have very little to remind me. Of his voice, his smile, his essence. I know it’s silly human sentimentality, and in the end sentimentality is only superficial, but nevertheless it’s in me to my core. What will I do when he goes? Other people’s parents die, I know. But what happens when mine do? Even mom, as tiring as she can be sometimes, she is still my mother. How on earth will I continue when she’s gone for good? How will I cope with this sorrow? Now whenever the phone rings from next door I think “Oh no, this is the call…”

When Elihu was little we read a book by Richard Scarry called “The Best Mistake Ever”. In the story Huckle’s mother gives him instructions to go to the store and buy a short list of things for the household. He forgets his list, but with the help of his friend Lowly Worm he reconstructs it the best he can from memory. Instead of oranges he gets orange soda, instead of potatoes he gets potato chips, instead of cream he gets ice cream. When he arrives home his mother is very upset about it until the doorbell rings and it’s his Aunt and cousin who’ve come by for a surprise visit. They all have an impromtu party with the things that Huckle and Lowly have brought back, and it’s agreed on by all that the party was thanks to ‘the best mistake ever’. What a wonderful idea. I just loved the story, and although I’d heard this concept before in other contexts, until I read that particular story I didn’t fully get that the potential for unforeseen possibilities lay in the wake of mistakes – small mistakes as well as the really big ones. Even my then four year old son got the metaphor and soon we were both making lemonade from lemons; always quick to cite minor mistakes as ‘the best mistake ever’. (When Fareed made his life-changing decision I immediately thought of this story. At first it was a very bitter pill, but now it seems to be so true. If it hadn’t been for that we would never have known the life we have now.) And so with this current little episode of heartbreak I try to apply the story, I try to imagine how I might turn this around. How I might use this small loss to serve us better, how I might learn something or experience something good that otherwise I might never have known. I didn’t sleep well last night because I just couldn’t get past the sting of the loss. But this morning I awoke with some inspiration.

Friday night dinners. We’ll invite ourselves over for supper once a week. I might never hear my father’s voice again on my answering machine, but I could still make some videos of him with Elihu. We could still ask him questions – he was still very capable of conversation, especially when it was about things from the past. Yesterday – even earlier in the same day – was not something dad could speak about with any true clarity, but if one were to ask him about years past, especially his youth, he always had something to say. I told mom about my idea and she agreed. Elihu did too (he needs to dope up pretty well to go over there. And as long as our stay is an hour or less we can put up with the cats and the control issues. !) So we Conants have a plan for our future Fridays. Perhaps we’ll even learn some new things about dad – all on account of that unexpected mistake. Maybe my heartbreak itself can be erased as easily as those recorded messages.

Elihu’s Tenth Birthday Pics

April 29, 2013May 14, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Elihu's Room, Mommy Mind, Pics2 Comments

What a fantastic day from start to finish. Gorgeous weather, dream-come-true birthday gifts, lots and lots going on all at once – music in the basement, a traveling trumpet, a worried goose, chickens underfoot, a trampoline and an old-timey car… and our wonderful friends and family to share it all with…

The birthday angel came!

WOW! The long-wished for Calypso remote-controlled glider!!

And the grown-up software for learning how to actually fly! OMG!!

Very proud owner of the Calypso

There’s a helicopter coming in for a landing just above the cake… (bad angle to see well)

The party gets started

Something’s happening in the incubator…

It’s somebody else’s birthday now, too!

Some boys sneaking away for a little DS time…

Alex and Paige on the hammock

Jessica and Matt enjoy the zero gravity chairs and the view

Time for cake!

Look who’s here! The youngest resident of Greenfield, baby Rachel – and her whole family!

Annabelle is a big sister twice…

Hayden announces the gifts with a fanfare

Look what Cora made for Elihu!

Cora and Sophia made these too!!

Lots going on at once…

And it looks like everyone’s having a good time

What a nice bunch of folks

Elihu with Grandpa, Mama and Grandma

This poor goose was very frustrated and tired with all the coming and going…

Things take a little longer, but that’s ok. The whole party actually picked up and moved to accomodate Dad when he arrived. So grateful to everyone for including him. He hasn’t been out in ages…

Bye neighbors! Nice to see all five of you…

Elihu and I have dinner by candlelight. Heather brought me some “Happy Birthing Day” flowers! So very kind of her.

Two very happy people at the end of a very lovely birthday.

At Ten and Two

April 27, 2013April 27, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Elihu's Room, Mommy Mind, Pics1 Comment

No time for much reflection now, it’s late and time for bed. I was poking around my old pics and found one of Elihu at two… then just moments ago we took one of him on the eve of his tenth birthday…

at two….

…and then ten.