paper dragons
December 1, 2015 § Leave a comment
So much of parenting is an illusion of control, boundaries we map around unpredictable chaos in an effort to guard against harm. Rules and decisions, values and expectations aligned to insure safety. Sometimes danger is costumed in a camouflage of our only experience of normal.
I’ve spoken gently over the years about the impossible heartache that accompanies parenting children in an abusive familial setting; mental illness and emotional abuse, alcoholism and narcissist manipulations. It is an experience that reads like fiction, a harm you cannot contrive to predict and a threat you cannot battle for the insidiousness of its destruction.
Day to day there is an uncertain hesitance under the burden of such illness. You clear safe places to relax your guard against small intrusions, while accepting the eventuality of harm. Years pass creating a legacy of disconnect; volumes of memories set to a soundtrack of unkindness.
When your children no longer ask for the complicated company of these relatives, you honor their happiness with space enough to guard against further harm. Then, as illness is oft to do, it appears in the midst of peace in search of something to consume; misery feeds greedily on the happiness of others. When it is not invited to the feast, it crafts paper dragons, extravagant gifts and cards lined with cash, to beg attention in place of emotion.
Except, empty endearments etched onto paper do little to outspeak the memory of unkind words. Bribes of indulgences cannot bridge the vastness of empty relationships. The dragons tumble into the space between old memories and new happiness, slayed by the hand that crafted them.
We are, finally, at peace.
failing forward
November 24, 2015 § 4 Comments
The past week has been a whirlwind of emotions. An unhappy argument that lead to an honest unraveling. Tiny earthquakes of the spirit.
Sad and angry, I pulled away from the places I normally find comfort and looked inward more closely for strength. My vision obscured by a new foothold, I saw myself in choices that reflected places of need that demanded change.
For all my many blessings and joy, there was room for more. A word I previously chose to name the year.
How far had I fallen in my distraction that this word was lost in my daily attention? Suddenly alert and eager, this word was like manna to an achy spirit.
I drew myself closely to the table and began demanding more, of and for, myself.
I had become stagnant in my self-care. Deferring choices to a status quo and squandering the preciousness of each moment with hesitation. Fully awake in this reality I dared to engage chance.
It was this day that I hurriedly scribbled a resume and cover letter into reality, tempting fate to challenge my intentions. A change that I had come to fear became a lifeline to a forgotten self.
I immediately reached out for necessary references and let loved one’s stand beside me in my action, honoring the fragility of this new possibility with transparency of intention.
Then, just when the busyness of my normal weekday routines dared me to sweep momentum beneath distractions, I bought an interview outfit and challenged fate to call me.
I started looking at those around me less as dependents of my attention and more as capable caretakers. I began conversations with my children that outlined places where they might mature into acts of greater support.
I even embraced small gestures of whimsy, signing up for a frivolous message from an uncertain Universe so that I would have a happy message to begin my day. A playful plan for the mornings I would need encouragement.
It was in this same mindset that I acted on an idea a friend shared; a link to network with other writers. Here, again, I enlisted chance with determination; recognizing that if I could leap into change to be of service to others, then I could also demand a space of passion for myself.
For the past week, each day has begun with yes. I have moved toward every affirmation with a stubborn, blind love.
Then, today, rejection came. A polite form letter informing me that another candidate was awarded the opportunity I sought for myself. I could tell you that this moment undermined my confidence, that I doubted my ability and curled inward. It is what I might have felt only a week ago, but no is not so painful when the work is not intimately tied to self.
More importantly, failure is intricately linked to success; we cannot learn, grow, evolve without uncomfortable risk. I failed in this early endeavor, but I succeeded in moving past anxiety, fear, and doubt to make that first uncertain step towards change.
I don’t know what comes next, I only know I’m tired of standing still. I want to dance the little girl open-armed twirls of my heart song.
change & peace
November 23, 2015 § Leave a comment
It is a season of mending broken traditions
with intentions threaded in joy;
a time of celebrations and tenderness for our blessings.
It is a meal shared over memories;
days lightened by laughter.
It is a time of change and peace;
new milestones and old favorites.
It is a place of comfort and cheer;
family born of friendship.
Thanks and giving.
blank space
November 20, 2015 § 5 Comments
Life disrupts our assumptions at the most peculiar moments, splitting our expectations into places of wondering. Previously at peace with the patterns of my day, I find myself caught in a new momentum; looking beyond the predictable toward something uncertain.
For fifteen years my identity has been structured around my purpose at home. It has been a comfortable, well-cherished, experience; one I hadn’t envisioned for myself before the day it became my own. The girl who tumbled into motherhood was previously a curious student and free spirit, unbound by domesticity with a passion for a different calling.
Those early years I pushed against the leisure of a simpler experience. I chaffed against the loss of academia and the misplaced dream of a professional experience. I couldn’t fathom the challenges waiting in want of a student; the calling of a greater lesson in the unpredictable gifts motherhood invited.
Over the years I’ve watched friends leave careers for homemaking, celebrating their new adventure with the same enthusiasm I congratulate other friends’ promotions or independent pursuits; cherishing the brave souls who tempt fate with a leap of confidence toward a heart song. All the while I wondered at the misplaced certainty that used to guide my sense of self.
It was enough to be my children’s mother and a mediocre homemaker, a part-time daydreamer with an anonymous outlet for writing, until an unhappy interruption challenged the direction of my dreams.
Yesterday I tempted change with an exercise in chance, casting an invitation into the unknown; a resume hurriedly drafted with all the recklessness of childhood scribbles. Bold strokes with an unsharpened crayon crafting a colorful marker of change.
Today is a new day on a different path. An opportunity to awaken a second-chance at repurposing old dreams into something new. A blank space in want of a story.
thin ice
November 19, 2015 § 4 Comments
It has been one of those days, fractured nerves and heavy hearts; hollowed out places where emptiness fills the space of peace. Small wounds chase unhappy thoughts like seams of ice too thin under the weight of our presence.
Tired and disappointed, hurt and defensive, we tiptoe past worry toward distraction; hugging the shoulder of familiar ground with quiet apologies and small gestures of tenderness.
monday
November 16, 2015 § 2 Comments
Today dawned gray and damp, winter chill seeping into the morning air. In quiet rebellion of Monday’s burdens, we lingered beneath our bedding and fought off the minute hand with heavy eyelids.
Rain coats too thin for the cold and fall jackets ill-fitting the dampness, it is an uncomfortable in-between. Our shoes slosh with the inconvenience of persistent puddles and our hands tuck cautiously in determined resistance.
It is a day for heavy blankets and long books, old movies and afternoon naps. Except that my children can no longer hide from responsibilities beneath living room forts and make-believe adventures.
Instead we venture past the dampness toward daydreams of day’s end; their forms bent against routine and their minds clouded with remnants of sleep.
yielding
November 14, 2015 § Leave a comment
Heart to knees I bend my will against the noise of fear until silence lends me peace. Head down, arms long, I push against the weight of uncertainty with the strength of hope.
I yield to the light still visible in the darkness.
prompted
November 13, 2015 § Leave a comment
Playing at uncertain beginnings.
I carry your memory like marbles against my tongue, a weight that pushes against my thoughts even as it holds my words in silence. Your name is soundless in my mouth, a single memory among decades of stolen minutes. On a cold night, in a month I cannot remember and a town I have long since abandoned, we gathered near to where we first met.
or
Stranded in a hopeless acceptance of unhappy desperation, I sit anxiously in fear of loosing something I do not want. I have gathered my spirit into tidy fictions of credibility; lines of manipulated truths that presume qualifications for tasks I am ill equipped to perform. Whatever delusions of grandeur I posses are daydreams borrowed from storylines of another’s telling.
empty handed
November 13, 2015 § Leave a comment
I walked into the clothing boutique hoping to find a top; something comfortable and stylish, affordable and modest. I was feeling a little off-center and searching out encouragement. Self conscious, I moved through the racks of material with embarrassment; hugging the periphery of everyone’s attention for invisibility.
I was looking for borrowed confidence when I found an uncomfortable reflection of self in another’s image.
It happened as so many lessons do, in an unexpected conversation with a stranger. I had been dodging small talk, sticking to the perimeter of the store; just far enough from anyone in particular that I might browse without obligatory niceties. A determined greeter with leading questions engaged me until I was stuck in the middle of an introduction that would follow me through the afternoon like a forgotten tag.
On the surface there was nothing exceptional about the conversation. The stranger welcomed me to my new community with thoughtful advice on her own experiences as a veteran transplant. Dressed and coiffed, confident and extroverted she steamrolled my introverted insecurities unknowingly.
I extracted myself from the forced exchange after a determined handshake and polite measure of thanks, willing myself a righteous indignation for the sales woman’s glossy superiority. I cursed the way her confidence fed my doubts and rallied privately against her kindness.
Except the story in my head was no longer guided by the stranger’s happiness, it was frustrated with my selfishness. Damning myself for the delusion of inferiority.
Why must a stranger’s confidence be tempered by my insecurities? I was measuring myself against another and translating those inconsistencies into an evaluation of worth; wasting a less exhaustive celebration of differences for the thief of comparison.
I am allowed my tenderness as another is allowed their boldness.
I left the store empty-handed, but with a wealth of perspective.
We cannot buy confidence and we are not built up by the insecurities of other’s or quieter fears of self-doubt. I am not better than or less than another by comparison.
to my daughter
November 13, 2015 § Leave a comment
Last night was your first band concert in your new school. Perched high in the bleachers I surveyed your new gym, noting colorful differences to your previous experience. Gone was the elevated stage and behind the scenes preparations. Children visited across instruments in colorful interpretations of loosely outlined guides for attire.
There was a cautious cacophony of sound; families making their way to congested seats, younger children impatiently filling the waiting with restless wiggles, urgent shuffling of papers and easy banter. Then, you began a collective warm up and I was in awe of the singular sound 192 children created.
The hair on my neck bristled with the quiet perfection of a singular harmony.
There was something exquisite in the uniformity of sound juxtaposed against the kaleidoscope of individuality. The sharply contrasted colors of attire and the eloquent introductions from student guides who lead each performance.
I had expected to miss the consonance of black bottoms and crisply starched white shirts or the humor of a well-loved teacher’s wandering narratives and easy humor. Familiar is not always better.
There was a lovely humility in change. We stack our expectations against the joy of discovery.
You looked well placed in your company; prideful and poised. Dressed in your favorite color and settled into your space on the page, you became luminous among your companions. Serene in sound.
It is a new favorite memory, the image of you finding your way home.
Love, Mom
