truth & trust
September 27, 2015 § 2 Comments
Over the past week my husband and I have navigated complicated conversations with legal counsel. It has been emotionally exhausting, this necessary madness, as we protect ourselves against false accusations and unethical manipulations of those we endeavored to honor as family.
For years I’ve attempted to speak in generalities out of respect for the privacy of those I felt a burden of obligation, to preserve whatever legacy of belonging I might will my children in the absence of memories. This week I buried whatever hope remained.
Phone calls from family friends cautioning threats and legal counsel advising us in our employment against personal accusations. Words and deeds that cannot be so quietly swept among the skeletons we guard.
I understand the illness that has fed the spiral into such demonstrations of contempt and gestures of control, but even tolerance and empathy cannot sustain so many assaults against truth.
It would be easy to name each lie, to shame those who act with little regard for truth. I’m choosing instead to trust right over wrong; holding the written evidence of others’ untruths for a different legacy. Stealing myself for peace and preserving integrity against those who trespass love in the name of family.
Truth is a patient witness, trust a tender guide.
ups & downs
September 24, 2015 § Leave a comment
If I were on a high this afternoon from last night’s homework endeavor, I was soon to discover the balance of the Universe in a humbling exercise in helplessness. My mind contentedly and completely absorbed with my daughter’s confidence, I wasn’t anticipating the sad eyes that met mine at the end-of-day dismissal; the slow walk to my car or the heavy sigh into a chin up, crocodile tears heartbreak.
My daughter’s new school organizes a service club that empowers children to serve as ambassadors to other new students. It is a position my daughter coveted for the chance to translate her experiences this fall for the benefit of other new students in the year to come. From the moment her application came home, she was already outlining how she might help; cataloguing her expertise and projecting purpose.
For the past week she’s talked herself into certainty with the same confidence that lead her to assign herself a more challenging math assignment. Today’s form letter declining her application was a humbling disappointment.
There were, however, a few beautiful moments I want to salvage from the loss.
To my daughter,
The sweetest part of your disappointment today was your sensitivity to language. That you felt “crushing” news was worthy of a more personal communication says something of your respect for others and sense of empathy. I hope you always recognize the value in handwritten notes and direct conversations.
You cried openly, allowing yourself to indulge in an honest acknowledgment of a difficult loss, but you also accepted as a new student those teachers or administrators who made the final selection did not know you well enough to judge your character or ability. Here you resisted the temptation to let failure define you.
These may seem like small observations, but they acknowledge an awareness beyond your years. In a moment of disappointment you weren’t pointing fingers or placing blame, but rather using the experience to grow. Learning in a way you might not have if you had found an easier success.
There’s something else. I owe you an apology; I didn’t have enough faith in your strength.
When you applied, I was tempted to stack the deck; to beg someone to offer you a safe place to shine. I knew you would be an ideal ambassador and I felt confident the experience would help you navigate your transition to a new community. I didn’t, but I dearly wanted to.
Your father and I agreed that helping you in this way would be cheating and, worse, would undermine any certainty that you could have earned this accomplishment independent of my meddling good intentions. This afternoon I was tempted again to fix your disappointment, to orchestrate success with a last minute interference.
It is so much easier watching you smile, than standing helplessly while you hurt. There was nothing to do but listen as you sounded out your emotions.
Know this: you would have been a wonderful ambassador, but you are an exceptional individual. I’m sorry for your disappointment, but I’m so proud of your heart. I hope you dream a new goal with the same courage.
Love, Mom
choosing confidence
September 24, 2015 § 2 Comments
Last night my daughter proudly brandished her homework. Eye’s ablaze she waved her math worksheet in the air, declaring: “We got to choose our homework, Mom. Guess what I chose?”
There were two worksheets available, one for children still mastering a skill and another for those who needed a challenge. One choice offered comfort, another offered struggle. She chose the challenge; confidently and passionately, eagerly and fearlessly.
For years my daughter has struggled to catch up to her peers, to sit among them as an equal academically. Here, in our new home, she is racing towards a new expectation of learning with a deeper understanding of self; a greater appreciation for error and earned accomplishment.
She’s taking chances and making mistakes; accepting the risk of error at the cost of success. There’s something remarkable about watching your child race recklessly toward the harder path. Last night there was a fierceness in the posture of her pencil and the angle of her attention.
Life does not always offer a choice in our challenges, but we are ever able to meet each uncertainty with a spirit of confidence.
Sweet Girl, I’m a student of your wisdom, a champion of your courage. Love, Mom
endings & beginnings
September 23, 2015 § Leave a comment
We made this move for a better life, to break the pattern of abusive behaviors that cycled through generations of family. Greed, narcissism, and substance abuse rattled around a closet of disheveled secrets. We honored the cost of these unhappy truths with tolerance and familial obligation; countless holidays and unexceptional calendar days marred by unwelcome guests.
Sixteen years we deferred our joy to the whim of our elders. We made excuses for poor behavior until our children outgrew our explanations; until no amount of love could mend a legacy of illness. The lessons we had fashioned for our children were not of tolerance, but of enabling over self-worth.
Somewhere along the way our empathy for the toxic spiral into manic behavior had betrayed a greater responsibility to a message of mutual respect. In our home everyone has the right to be loved and the responsibility to act with accountability. Period.
These boundaries have become red flags of aggression, a challenge to those who cannot yet see the tragedy of their behavior or hear our plea for peace. Aggressively we have been pelted with financial and emotional manipulations. It is a sad tragedy that has informed a new ending.
It is also a beginning. We carry the scars of the past with a tender mindfulness for the mistakes we dare not recreate for our children; a future informed by hope, a greater consciousness for a cycle that ends at the place we left.
what if
September 22, 2015 § 3 Comments
Today, after school, my son was struggling with anxiety over a classroom exercise. Worried about potential failure he began designing the image of his demise with thoughtful statements of inability. Articulately he outlined the likelihood of error.
Then, his little sister interrupted his thoughts with a simpler possibility: What if tomorrow is your lucky day and nothing goes wrong?
It’s a funny thing the way our minds invite the worst before we court luck. Tonight I’m thinking of the places where I anticipate failure and where I might exercise greater expectation of success.
blame & burden
September 22, 2015 § Leave a comment
I try to allow for a personal frailty in error when I speak in decisive judgments, to invite humility to each certainty. When someone I love is tethered to someone I do not respect, I look for the fault in my conviction; to search beyond the harm for the individual. I want to believe we are all greater than our mistakes.
Today I realized someone I admire is tethered to someone I cannot seem to forgive for an unkindness against my child. It is an old wound, one irrelevant for the distance in time and space from the moment of injury. Still I have carried my judgment without space for the possibility of their remorse.
We do the best we can in each moment with the skills and patience at our disposal. Today I’m wondering if the greater tragedy is to limit our faith in other’s to the boundaries of our experiences. I’m looking for space to trust; to see the complexities of another’s error in the light of a kinder judgment.
farm & home
September 19, 2015 § Leave a comment
In seeking out furniture, hardware, and lighting elements for our home, I’ve noticed a trend towards farmhouse decor; rustic elements contrasted against a more urban setting. A space weathered by the elements that perseveres against storms and drought. Materials that sustain over time with a craftsmanship that speaks to care. Intentionally imperfect pieces that allow for signs of wear.
Barn doors, reclaimed wood, salvaged hardware all claim a passion for stories and history, a value in repurpose over more disposable investments. I want to anchor my home in the same dreams and determination that these pieces acknowledge and inspire with thoughtful nods to a quieter appreciation for beauty in resilience and hope.
I won’t pretend a lifestyle that isn’t genuine, but I think there is something comforting in the weight of these elements. An elegance in unruffled attention and purposeful details. Something I sometimes overlook in clean lines and vacant surfaces.
lost words
September 18, 2015 § Leave a comment
There have been days a word eludes me, I feel the shape of its meaning and the taste of its letters on my tongue, but there is no sound. It has become, perhaps, my greatest fear; the loss of words that have so long been my companions.
I wonder in these moments of panicked clarity at what I might not say; if words like memories can disappear, might I lose myself in their silence?
Then, as if one fear invites another, I begin to sound out forgotten memories for the texture of my past. Years and words like sharp consonants and long vowels giving shape to self in defiance of silence.
what I knew, when
September 16, 2015 § Leave a comment
Today, in a wonderfully open conversation with a high school psychologist, I was asked when I first knew that something was wrong with my now fifteen year old son.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t.
Other’s asked me questions, a few raised concerns, but I was never worried. So many of the behaviors that were red flags to strangers, were my only experience of normal.
It wasn’t until the summer between Kindergarten and First Grade that my husband and I understood there was an explanation for some of the inconsistencies between our son and his peers. We assimilated the new information into our language, recognizing our son would need to master certain challenges to better navigate his educational experience successfully, but we never saw our son with a lens other than love.
I didn’t know ten years ago that something was wrong. All these years later I still think it is more likely that well-intentioned adults are misguided in their assumptions than my son is in his behavior.
The young man who sometimes struggles with spontaneous dancing and poorly timed sarcasm, who rushes to share his ideas and forgets to plan ahead is also empathetic and loyal; he is fearless and uninhibited in his curiosity and passion.
Someone once told me something was wrong. Years after my son’s diagnosis I know that the greater wrong would be to remake a child into someone else’s idea of normal.
What did I know, when?
I know that if we speak of differences as problems, trouble, something to be fixed or devalued we lose sight of the complicated blessings of imperfect experiences. From the beginning I knew my son only as himself, someone who makes my days better for the differences that are our normal.
I think it is important to note that in response to my answer the school psychologist not only respected my perspective, but agreed. This mindset of appreciation over tolerance is essential, in my opinion, to valuing differences as abilities over handicaps.
self & style
September 16, 2015 § 2 Comments
I fall in and out of love with borrowed ideas. Blessed with friends who are naturally brazen in their creative exploration of self, I tend to get lost in second-hand inspiration born of their fearlessness. I envy them their everyday bravery from the security of my neutral color palettes.
When we moved, I promised myself to challenge my preferences and play with unfamiliar accents. I pledged to make mistakes and take chances with color. A creature of habit, I found myself turning to online inspiration for a color by numbers approach to shading in the blank spaces of my home.
Each picture was a study in a stubborn resistance to change. Mismatched table sets seemed to invite the assumption of wear with trendy antiquing techniques, neutrals in contrast over color. Even my virtual pin board guarded old favorites with passive aggressive attempts at change; someone else’s other in shades of self.
Not unlike days of dog-eared catalogues from high-end home goods companies, I was browsing an ideal over individualism. I wanted the sense of casual elegance without the challenge of struggling with the risk of error, but I was already circling a larger truth.
Then my husband and I began shopping for a table. As we sounded out likes and dislikes, sifted through ideas and shared our needs, we began piecing together an ideal that was completely unexpected and entirely familiar.
We drifted from table to table, chair to chair, like fairy tales guest testing unfamiliar pieces of furniture for a sense of comfort that hinted at self, I began leaning towards a few surprising certainties that inform a sense of style.
Solid wood and clean lines, feminine curves and textures; I want pieces that will weather our daily lives with strength and grace. A table that my children will play on as naturally as they might unpack unused pieces of china for a special occasion. I want something that will hold the lines of stories in every scratch and dent for years to come.
Preferences that I previously disregarded as safe are no less beautiful for the joy or comfort they provide. I may never be trendy or bold, but I’m finding a different kind of wonderful as I learn that sometimes the bravest choice is recognizing self in personal style.
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