secret keepers
March 18, 2015 § 4 Comments
We bought my husband’s childhood home, begrudgingly; overpaying at the expense of our pride. It was a decision layered with gestures of false generosity and cautious hope, like the wedding we did not want, we acquiesced to parental requests in an effort to please. Our home, our wedding, and the years of silence all payment for a peace that never came.
My husband could not live among his memories; truths that are not mine to share but read a sad tragedy, an impossible fiction of reality. He moved doors and ripped out dry wall, tore up the floors and built new walls; still the secrets reside like scars hidden in fresh coats of paint. No amount of windows or light can disperse the ghosts who haunt our joy; flesh and blood they move among new boundaries with old demons.
We build a life around these secrets, with the wisdom of a professional who guards these truths and family friends who stand witness to old harms and new, releasing us from the burden of someone else’s unhappiness. They stand witnesses to the past we do not name out of respect for those we love but cannot live with. Guardians of the past, the secret keepers who remember even as we struggle to forget.
blarney
March 17, 2015 § 4 Comments
Years ago, when my daughter was young enough to be passionately invested in a pristine pair of starched white socks, I accidentally washed them into an unexpected shade of green. Eager to distract my daughter’s disappointment, I suggested it may have been a leprechaun up to a bit of mischief for St. Patrick’s Day.
This morning my daughter began her search for evidence of shenanigans. A silly sabotage to favorite socks has inspired a series of traditions that are now hallmarks of our holidays with a promise of playful pageantry. Easter bunny “accidents” on the stairway, a curious confectionary mess, and April Fool’s meals made into mistaken menus, savory turned sweet and once visa versa.
Today, as I shuffle green pencils in place of our trusty yellow number 2’s, I am thinking of the sweetness of these early years; playful accidents of good fortune that permit us all to linger a little longer in poppycock and blarney.
the things we keep
March 16, 2015 § 4 Comments
There is a delicate balance to mothering children to love a family member who is abusive in their mental illness; to teach the innocent to love unconditionally what they recognize as wrong and experience as hurtful.
We accept injury often as inseparable from the individual’s identity. It is less a matter of forgiving and more a narrative of acceptance for the inescapable truth we cannot edit with a fallacy of make-believe.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
In motherhood I perpetually make excuses for familial unkindness, a trick of distraction to keep my children safely outside the line of harm while near enough to the madness that they might learn forgiveness and empathy; to claim their heritage honestly without shame. I am cautious to whisper my worries in privacy; to never speak ill, accuse or criticize in a manner that might offer judgment or blame to my children’s ears as we stand witness to the spiraling decent into cruelty.
In time the truth is not so easily hid. My children have heard hate in its native tongue, each small harm hardening the tender places of vulnerability against trust. There is no magic I can conjure to change what is and I am exhausted by the burden of untruths we bear in the name of love.
reading & retirement
March 14, 2015 § 3 Comments
Five years ago our daughter couldn’t read. Despite our best efforts and expensive programs she was slipping further behind her peers academically and her self-esteem was drowning in the shame of self-awareness. In a procedural pairing with a Reading to Intervention school program our daughter began to navigate her struggle to literacy with a hope that became the cornerstone of every set back.
One woman, a quiet spoken, kindhearted soul created a safe space for our daughter to succeed among her errors. The work of reading became an adventure and along the way we fell in love with the educator whose lessons tethered our lives with stories long after our daughter graduated from her company.
This is our daughter’s last year of elementary school and our friend’s last year guiding struggling readers through the emotions and mechanics of reading challenges. It is an impossible and inevitable truth of change and yet, I cannot imagine our lives without this woman. We are better versions of ourselves for the smile that makes us all sit up a little straighter in our efforts.
When I shared with our daughter her former teacher would soon retire, there was an immediate shock that quickly spiraled into grief, wide eyes with tears that threatened to spill unchecked. That’s impossible! Who would they ever get to replace her? What about all the other kids that won’t ever get to work with her? Then, a stubborn nod of her head. She must be moving to another school to help other kids.
This is my wish for so many of the irreplaceable educators who have shared our path, that you know the boundless love of the children whose lives are better for the lessons that extend beyond the school day. Thank you.
measures & meanings
March 12, 2015 § Leave a comment
Yesterday report cards came home from my daughter’s elementary school. Normally I mark the date with a simple reminder, an understated annotation on the calendar that prompts me to shake off traces of my childhood anxieties so that I will not accidentally infuse the language of my children’s learning with a legacy of my father’s impossible expectations. Unhurried and collectively, as a family, we gauge these measures of mastery for markers of growth and areas of concern as opportunities for improvement; assigning value and extracting meaning.
I want both my children to seek room to grow with the same ease they enjoy success; to never tire of learning with a natural, self-driven curiosity for knowledge; to question and claim the process of learning as their own. It is an imperfect, ongoing dialogue.
To my daughter,
You came home yesterday eager to rush through your report card. I had forgotten the day and so you retrieved your papers without waiting for your father or me to accompany you. Scanning the rows of neatly typed standards I watched your smile slip from your face, while darker emotions simmered quietly beneath a steady gaze.
You contested subpar grades with a determined confidence that argued your accomplishment as passionately as you disclaimed success that had come too easily. Raking through the form you couldn’t find the image of self that you sought.
I moved aside, patiently cautious not to coddle your frustration or ease the sting of disappointment. Your body curled against your pride until you were bent in to a tight ball of defensiveness. You wondered when you might be “enough” and I stepped gently into your fears offering light.
Bright girl, this is the first year since Kindergarten that you have not been pulled from classroom work for a supplemental path. You are working among your peers after years of chasing after your place. I want you to stop here and absorb what this means, breathe in the strength of your resolve.
The arc of your progress is a breathtaking measure of persistence. Don’t allow your heart or head to be so closely bound to a shorthand for success that you lose sight of your worth. You were never less than enough.
Love, Mom
home
March 8, 2015 § 2 Comments
I am thinking this morning of the sounds of a home, the stretching and settling of the body not unlike the sounds of life from within. Friends whose company lends music and family that stretches patience with the crackle of strain. The gentle scratch of puppy paws across the grain of routine and the thunder of children’s footsteps chasing distraction. The crinkle of book bindings unfolding an adventure and the scrape of pencil and pen translating ideas onto paper with an easy haste. It is a harmony of movement and stillness that fills the corners of our day with a lyrical language of comfort; a heartbeat that counts off the day’s song.
light
March 6, 2015 § 4 Comments
It’s easy to journal the tender moments, uncomfortable to make permanent the difficult pieces of complicated experiences. I am a fractured woman, flawed in behaviors so deeply entrenched in the continuum of my experiences I struggle to claim change even as I aspire to wake up each day a better version of myself. Inconsistent and insecure I contradict myself in riddles of intention.
I don’t wear my awareness or apologies as clearly as defensiveness and joy, anger or disappointment. Even on the most complicated days I wear a mask of contentment to keep my dreams safe beneath the bravado of my pride. It is disingenuine to hide ourselves from the world, to sacrifice the fullness of our offerings by making ourselves small.
Here, where I so often celebrate my experiences of family and self, it feels both deceptively safe and frighteningly necessary to hold a light to the broken places of my story to better illuminate my faith in vulnerability. Today I am wondering at where I can invite light into my day, living more consciously unguarded; stretching myself to claim the space of trust.
spending time
March 5, 2015 § Leave a comment
There are moments of clarity that clatter against my distraction, scattering wishes that whisper to my spirit the uncomplicated wants so often outspoken in the dull din of expectations. Each day begins with lists of responsibilities that beg priority, minutes lost before I count the hours.
Yesterday the whispers felt louder, my receptiveness more vulnerable to suggestion; the balance of what I might gain in loosing time, immeasurable. Instead of looking to the day for permission to follow my heart, I leapt into action.
I took my son to lunch and we wandered directionless through a frivolous conversation about nothing in particular. I interrupted my husband’s day, surprising him with a spontaneous visit that let him know I see how hard he is working outside my line of sight. I set aside my daughter’s homework and played for a moment in the unchecked enthusiasm of her creativity.
No exceptional gestures or expensive indulgences, just a couple stolen moments for the little riches too often miscounted in my day.
wrist watch
March 3, 2015 § 4 Comments
This past Christmas my husband bought me a watch that could bear the brunt of my clumsy tendancies, weather my forgetfulness around water, and count the circles I tend to chase. I began to time my days by footsteps, nurturing movement more mindfully and measuring health with tidy markers of physical productivity.
Last week I shucked my new accessory and ceased to watch my wrist. I stopped measuring my footsteps and instead gauged my relief and worry, responsibilities and priorities against the sweeping arc of my daughter’s fever as she slept through entire days. Sensitive to light and sound the house was a tomb; stillness settled against our attention, blurring time with a void of activity.
Today was my daughter’s first day back to school and we all teetered between breakfast and school with efforts that felt calculated and forced; as if we were moving under water with heavy limbs. The minutes gained momentum as eagerness and caution cycled into a rusty routine.
I accompanied my daughter into the empty hallway before school, toting the weight of her books while she settled her bulky winter gear. It was only after I said goodbye that I recognized the tension of my own worries too long coiled against nervous stillness. Hurrying home I fished out the forgotten gadget and ran, pushing myself into a measure of strength that cleared my head and tired my limbs with a calmer energy.
I am not a runner or an athlete by any creative stretch of imagination, but this sense of self found in the flex and stretch of muscle and mind is a timely reminder of the value of counting self-care. The physical, mental, and emotional balance we so often overlook in tending to others, essential to the balance of home.
forty
March 2, 2015 § 2 Comments
Some days I scribble the word or sketch the number with the same curious fascination I once drew my husband’s family name, sounding out the word for reassurance and resonance. It seems at once amusing and impossible, a trick of deception that I might wake up months from now another version of myself. Names and numbers inconsequential mirrors of meaning.
Unlike birthdays past that welcomed the weighted freedom of driving or the privilege of participating in elections, this new milestone seems an elaborate illusion of make-believe. Like misfit toys or an island of lost boys I feel contentedly unqualified in my absent maturity with no desire to feign a more sensible expectation of adulthood.
There are no aspirations of accomplishment to mark the occasion; no destination that designates the culmination or commencement of adventure; no marathon that tempts my endurance or material possession that honors the accumulation of years. Not one for extravagant displays of celebration, I want to invite a childish enthusiasm to this occasion least I take myself too seriously and the blessing of good health for granted.
I am reminded of discarded notebooks crafted in the unknown in-between of college friendships on the cusp of marriage and motherhood; empty pages weighted with magazine cut-outs collaged into a subconscious map of dreams. I’m looking to the margins of my thoughts for an excuse to doodle the future into my consciousness with playful anticipation and personal significance. Collecting my wishes long before I have an excuse to circle candles on a cake.
