color of kindness
October 18, 2014 § 10 Comments
I did the thing I do not do. This morning I shared a message of advocacy in a social media forum that asks friends and acquaintances to exercise kindness and patience for children with special needs in anticipation of Halloween.
It felt natural to share and yet I was unsettled after doing so. I wonder if participating in this cycle of advocacy perpetuates a mentality of other that divides us too much by our differences rather than dwelling in a place of sameness?
I can see myself so clearly in a pattern of good intentions that sometimes undermines goals of acceptance with an emphasis on diversity. Allow me to lend a little background.
Years ago, when my son was first diagnosed with special needs, my husband and I gifted ourselves a year of privacy to process our emotions and educate ourselves before we moved into a position of public advocacy. The expectation of sharing his diagnosis was born of a responsibility to honor our son’s differences openly and honestly, removing the threat of stigma or shame.
Our vehicle for communication was a well-known national charity. This marked the only time we raised money to support a cause directly associated with our son’s needs. We gathered messages of well-wishes and generous contributions in an effort to offer our son a visual demonstration of love and support that he might feel empowered by the army of kindness that celebrated a community of ability.
We were no different before we acknowledged our son’s needs than we were after the fundraiser, in fact we were very much the same family we were before our son’s diagnosis.
That last sentence is perhaps the most important statement of advocacy I could make. Our lives, the action of living is greater than our labels, still we choose our words mindful of their ability to both empower and limit. We align ourselves with diagnoses openly while intentionally advocating privately in ways that allow our family to be greater than a singular cause.
So why the discomfort over my social media message? In identifying causes for kindness I am left wondering when kindness became a cause, something we attribute to tolerance over acceptance.
Is there a color for kindness?
care
October 16, 2014 § 6 Comments
More often than in my youth I find myself moving in a routine way, only to acquire an unwelcome tightness; small, inconsequential aches that slow my pace temporarily and draw my attention to uncomfortable, inconvenient limits. Each time these aches occur I find myself overwhelmed by a clarity of gratitude for my general good health with promises to better care for the body that will accompany me into old age; looking further than the present discomfort.
Similarly, I sometimes find myself caught in an unexpected unhappiness in the comfort of a relationship. Moments where I speak or act with such blindness of familiarity that I create a tenderness of insensitivity. Suddenly joy is bound by harm that restricts care in a moment of need with a crisis of selfishness. I scrape together words more mindful of their weight anxious to invite clarity and gratitude, care and consciousness to the language of love that informs compassion and commitment. Again, I look into the present more mindful of days to come.
Both aches are unseen, born of thoughtless, unexceptional gestures. I turn my body too quickly or speak without thought, creating a sudden awareness for a blind spot in my assumptions and a tenderness for care. Today I am thinking of little acts of love and patience that inform kindness in mind, body, and spirit for self and others. Days past and days to come.
this
October 15, 2014 § 8 Comments
This morning I woke with fragments of recent days stuck to my smile like sleep clouding my thoughts with remnants of dreams.
The profile of my children’s gaze as they watched theater performers, their brows pinched in thought.
The weight of my daughter’s cheek nestled against my shoulder as we slipped off our dress shoes and curled into a restaurant booth.
My husband and son, their shoulders bent in mischievous conspiracy as they nudged each other in restless silliness.
Red leafs peaking from beneath damp, earth colored foliage like freckles against the sidewalk.
Sparkling bubbles in a wine glass, pirouetting playfully in a tireless ballet of effervescence.
Tiny moments, so brief they could be lost in the space of a blink, clinging to my consciousness and reminding me of this.
ghost letters
October 9, 2014 § 4 Comments
I sometimes whisper a remembering I do not tempt with sound least I conjure ghosts I dare not wake. Trespassing thoughts that intrude upon the tender places of memory.
Like letters drafted, but never sent, I write these knowings in a language of silence. Beautiful pieces of a past scattered across the fullness of the present, pregnant with good fortune.
I wonder if our children know we are all storytellers made of love. Whispers on the wind.
caution & care
October 8, 2014 § 4 Comments
This morning, paused at a familiar intersection, I noted the flashing red light of a broken stop light cautioning drivers to allow for cross traffic. The pattern of light communicated a singular message to drivers from each corner of the same place, changing the rhythm of expectation. As I replaced the car in front of me in waiting, I noted a green light abruptly challenging the current of assumptions, interrupting the slow progress of forced politeness with new permission. To my left a driver had yet to note the change and moved into harm’s way while behind me another driver impatiently advanced. Trapped between other’s confusion and my own caution, I thought of the serendipitous paths of so many strangers crossing in a perfect accident of intention each day.
I wonder, how many times have I missed the person exercising caution who needed a moment’s patience, or misjudged the anxious individual rushing across my path? How many times have I reacted to assumptions without first understanding a message of need or request for care? How many times have I moved blindly through routine, missing a change in the patterns around me?
(un)dressed
October 4, 2014 § 2 Comments
I harbor a genuine admiration for a beautiful expression of style, an appreciative recognition of an artistically authentic statement of personality in the fabric of individual fashion. I admire other women’s ability to infuse self with eclectic articles of clothing that underscore a quieter confidence or curious expression of creativity. For some the physical becomes an extension of something intangible, an outward representation of an internal awareness.
Lately I have been struggling to piece together a wardrobe. The act itself feels almost ridiculous in its self-importance. However, the material value of the endeavor is far less significant than the personal cost of undressing old insecurities.
It is a dirty secret I carry beneath the carefully contrived and often uncomfortable efforts at dressing, the layers of unkindness for the body I live in. I hide behind threadbare t-shirts and unassuming forms that belie a hyper sensitivity with a false air of detachment. Other times I escape beneath more formally intentional ensembles that mask vulnerability with invisibility.
As my favorite jeans were recently retired for time well served and my t-shirts and sweaters have become exhausted with overuse, I am facing the self I cannot escape in the harsh light of uncertainty in unforgiving dressing room mirrors. There are no paper doll costumes to dress the secrets of old harm. The choices are too many when you are lost within your own skin.
I want to feel beautiful and strong, comfortable and self-assured; to move between activities unbound by old insecurities and informed with an elegance of confidence. It is a raw and vulnerable experience, undressing old wounds while building an image of self.
faith
October 3, 2014 § 2 Comments
Yesterday I held my breath, pensive in a moment of doubt. I labored over broken pieces of confidence trying to capture a picture that might promise the reassurance of easier days to come. Too close to the sharp corners of an experience I had to move outside the moment, releasing myself of the burden of tidying what could not be so neatly swept into place. Hope felt too fragile to bear the weight of so many uncertainties and so I balanced myself with a quieter strength; faith in self, faith in the goodness of others, and appreciation for the experiences that shape life lessons and invite change.
Today is a season of possibility.
empty fullness
October 2, 2014 § Leave a comment
There is a hollow aching. Days and times when the fullness of a worry empties the joyful places, spilling the beautiful pieces of our spirit. The recklessness of unforeseen harm scatters our thoughts and disorients our energy until we crash into an exhaustion that begs care. Slowly and thoughtfully, with tenderness for our doubts, we gather joy and fear into the wholeness of our understanding in search of strength. It is a delicate rebuilding, as we replenish within what we must then generously share.
to my son
September 30, 2014 § 6 Comments
When you were first born the moments between your birth and our introductions were an impossibility of hurried anticipation. You were so long a part of me that I felt unfamiliar alone, the cradle of my arms vast and hollow in your absence. When at last I could marvel over the perfection of your familiarity I squandered endless moments memorizing the lines of your emotions, unguarded in your innocence.
I still look to the shape of your posture and the melody of your gait for the truth of your experiences. I do this with your sister, too, but I learned this language with you. Even now, as you preserve thoughts and dreams for yourself, I read the untold worry and barely contained enthusiasm in a language you do not know you speak.
There is an often stubborn angle to your shoulders, an amusing indignation reminiscent of your toddler self, assured and undeterred in your persistence. You wear love with the unguarded bright eyes of newborn devotion that boasts loudly and unapologetically of loyalty. Humor and harm are more fleeting sentiments, sketched in dimples and furrowed brows that punctuate the truth of your tenderness.
I think of our first day on so many end of school days, waiting for a delayed hello as I wonder at the story behind the swing of your limbs and marvel, still, at the miracle of love that we cannot name and yet read so fluently without language.
Love you.
Mom
finding finish
September 29, 2014 § 5 Comments
Yesterday my daughter participated in her first 5k. The day began with a celebratory spirit and heightened anticipation, friends fell in and out of animated conversations as the crowd waited eagerly on the cusp of a fluid, infectious energy.
As a family we cheered from the sidewalks of our neighborhood, marking our daughter’s path as she wound her way through Sunday morning sunshine. When at last she rounded the corner to our home in the final lap, she tossed herself heavily onto our driveway and planted her hands and feet flat against the familiar surface. Red faced and aching, she listed the tender places of her body ready to remove herself from the day’s event.
It was a moment so familiar to the experience of mothering; reaching for a child mindful of a fall, eyes and heart spotting dangers they cannot see as they leap. To let my daughter walk away from finishing would undermine her beginning, leaving too much room for remorse and messages of inability. Instead I reached out for a hand that accepted my own and we walked toward the end together.
To my daughter,
Your distance was shy of finishing, but I was measuring a different span; the space between giving up and persisting. Beginning something new is as important as finding your way to finishing something difficult. Soon the sore muscles will subside, but you will remember the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a commitment. Each ending builds courage for our next beginning.
Love you.
Mom
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