tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16773536385331041142024-03-21T02:39:28.480-07:00Her Suburban LifeM K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-28596545199307367722014-10-29T10:42:00.000-07:002014-10-29T10:42:27.136-07:00Remember the Bad Times Too<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Just a little note that all the tests came back fine. I am dealing with negotiating some food issues and that will take a little time. I wrote this little piece when I was waiting on results and yea, maybe I'm not so good at waiting. And my mind wanders. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even as I await the results of the test that will tell me if I will die early, I fight falling into cliche. Quickly the things I’ve dreamt of peacefully slip away. The African safari, spending an extended time on a Hawaiian beach, the many books and stories I want to write….. they quietly retreat and I don’t even feel sad for them. These were things to fill my life after the main act. My husband and children were always all I ever wanted. And I got them. The End.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am glad I know my path. I am glad I won’t grow old alone- that has always been a fear. I will leave this world when it is largest for me. I feel a relief to know that I wasn’t lazy or worthless the last few months. The illness justifies all I’ve felt. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I don’t want my children to remember me like this. It will get worse, but I don’t even want you to think back to now and think this is what your mother was like. I hate the fatigue that has taken over my life and prevented me from being the Mother I am in my mind. I need you to know all the things I wanted to be for you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You won’t remember but Sally was a tiny baby and the older two were two and four years old and we were driving down the road and I saw the biggest turtle I have ever seen slowly making his way across the road. I made Daddy stop the car and I got you out to watch the turtle on his long slow journey across the road. Daddy was worried about traffic and safety, which is good - but I wanted you to witness the beauty and awe of this magnificent creature crossing the road. I wanted to always have time to slow down and wonder in awe with you. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted you to remember the spring day it had been raining all day and we walked with umbrellas and raced leaves in the curbs on the streets. I want you to remember all the hours we spent swimming at the beach. I want you to remember bike rides. I want you to remember snuggling in the morning before the day starts. I want you to remember how we can just sit and laugh and laugh. And I definitely want you to remember that I can still do a cartwheel. I love the way Sally brags about that to her friends and their mothers. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even if its impossible to remember all the conversations we’ve had, I want you to remember that we had conversations. We talked about hard things. All the times I’ve talked with you about your questions related to sex and your bodies - that was not easy for me. But I made myself do it. I would rather you ask me than ask the kids at school. That cool relaxed attitude I have? I am white knuckled on the inside…. but I don’t want you to know that. When you ask from the bottom of your heart why people don’t want gays and lesbians to be able to marry if it doesn’t even affect them…. it breaks my heart as you learn of the intolerance in this world, but it makes me proud that you are thinking about it. And when you want to buy condoms and open them to see what is in there? I calmly say, go ahead. While I’m dying inside. Not only because of the discomfort, but because how can you be old enough to ask? And I thank God for my little one who saves me from being so old when she says that those (condoms) are for removing the hair from unwanted places on your body. And I thank God for her big sister who told her this, trying to protect her little mind. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want you to remember the feel of these conversations, because I always want you to have them. Stay open. Connect. Ask the hard questions. Try to find the answers, even though they don’t always come. I’m sorry I don’t know how mankind started. I don’t know which theory is correct. And yes, if Adam and Eve were the first couple, their kids would have had to reproduce together. And I’m so glad you would be overwhelmed if you were picked to be the first man on earth. That is a perspective I hadn’t entertained before. And never ever lose that empathy that allows you to think of things from perspectives other than your own.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want you to remember our sunset picnics on the beach in Sanibel. I want you to remember the mountains of Tennessee. I want you to remember the intense stifling wet heat of Louisiana and Mississippi. I want you to remember skiing on the mountains in Colorado. But don’t lose sight of all the gifts close to where you are. Find the beautiful places close to your home, wherever that may be. Get fresh air; its always healing. Turn off the screens. Know yourself. Deeply. You will change. That is good. Learn how to soothe yourself. You will need it. Play music - it is the only activity that engages your entire brain at one time. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remember the games we played. The fires we built. The hours we sweated and cried over homework. Remember when I tried being the Tiger Mom? Ha. Remember the time Daddy and me toilet papered your rooms for April Fools Day. Remember sneaking in my room and sleeping on the floor next to me. I secretly loved that. Remember when you were sick and throwing up all night - how we talked and snuggled and how I held your back and I washed your face with a cold wash cloth. Don’t remember it because it makes me look good but remember it so you can do that for your child. </span></div>
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M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-1498072731820731682013-09-05T09:34:00.000-07:002013-09-05T09:34:43.024-07:00Sunbeams <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If you were in a small group of people you knew casually and, as an icebreaker activity, you were asked to arrange yourselves in a line in order of your birthdays without talking, how would you respond? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I know there are many responses to things like this. I personally love this sort of thing. There is a specific task to be done in a finite amount of time without the drain of small talk. My daughter was asked to do this and I’m not sure of her response or how she felt about it. But I do know that it wasn’t easy for her. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She was telling me about it matter of factly, not with any negatively charged emotions. Maybe, just maybe, she is learning to accept herself without judgement at an astonishingly young age. Maybe she is just accustomed to things being challenging and she was being her regular persistent self. Maybe she was sitting back watching and trying to become invisible, or trying to figure out her approach. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You see, she is dyslexic. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">An immediate response might be, “Well, that doesn’t have anything to do with reading.” And that is a correct statement. But dyslexia, I’m learning, is so much more than that. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have found it difficult trying to write about our journey with dyslexia because it is so all encompassing. And frankly, it wasn’t a journey I would have chosen. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We live in a mostly wooded area and, at certain times, the sun will shine at a certain angle and these beautiful streaks of light will shoot through. Even amongst our busy lives, these streaks will stop all of five us and we just stare in awe. Either mesmerized by the beauty or trying to figure out how it happens, the light pierces us in ways we can’t explain.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is sometimes how I feel about dyslexia. It’s always there and we just live our lives and accommodate it when we need to. But, every now and then, I recognize something so beautiful, so different, so engaging, so magnificent that it stops me in my tracks. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We don’t often think about how we think. Or how our world is organized. Names of the months or names of the days of the week are actually quite arbitrary. We could call Monday “abacus” and it would still mean the same thing. It would still be the first day of the school or work week, the day after a family day or the day after a day of rest or the day after Church. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is an insight into how my daughter thinks. Her thinking is not linear; she thinks in three (or more) dimensions. She thinks in ideas and feelings and colors and smells. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Trying to memorize anything without context is an exercise in futility for her. She is 13 and can not tell you the order of the months of the year. The closest approximation she can give you is the seasons. Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall. And these compartmentalized nomenclatures are probably just a bridge to communicate with the rest of us who have everything so ordered. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If asked what are the first three months of the year, her thinking may go something like this: My brothers birthday, sledding outside, beautiful snow, white, red, Valentines Day, fondue, Florida, smell of the ocean. And this is only if she has to put words to her thoughts. She thinks in ideas, in actions she has done or will do. She thinks in shades, pictures, emotions and scents. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She not only thinks from left to right and right to left, but up and down and down and up and diagonally. When she was younger, I might say we were going to play with Elise on Tuesday. Tuesday meant nothing to her so she would clarify, “Is that swimming day or dance day?” Or find another way to describe the day. If I answered dance day then she may need to clarify further, “Is that the dance day Daddy is coming home or the next one?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Her being my starter child, I thought this was normal, if I even thought of it at all. When she asked to go to the green and white grocery store with grapes I knew exactly what she was talking about because it was the color of their sign and their logo had grapes. Again, either I didn’t think about it or thought it was normal. But the next day when we went to the store with my three year old, who was almost five years younger, she questioned, “I didn’t know we were going to Lunds.” We just thought it was quaint that she already knew the name of the store. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even now, at 13 and two weeks into her new tennis season and new coach, she doesn’t know his name. She knows his mannerisms, his quirks, she knows who he really likes and who he is still unsure about. She knows if he is off, ie: didn’t have enough lunch or maybe the heat is getting to him. Without being in her mind, I can only guesstimate much of this. But I think it frustrates her to have to encapsulate a person or a location or a month into only a name.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So when the students were using their fingers to count the months of the year to communicate with each other silently and trying to figure out birthdays, she was at a complete loss. She couldn’t tell you August was the 8th month if she was allowed to talk to the other kids, much less in silent gestures. I think someone finally just asked her birthday and put her in the line. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Unfortunately, she must live in our world where things have to be named and days and months have to be ordered. Sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously she is learning to change the way she sees things. I know she must do this but it is a double edged sword. When I get a glimpse into the sunbeams of her inner self, I secretly hope that she never, ever will learn the names of the months in order. </span></div>
M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-10805936127786611692013-08-28T07:58:00.000-07:002013-08-28T07:58:11.869-07:00Dear Teachers<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;">Well, here they are. My babies. Now you get them more waking hours than I do. And you get the fun hours, not when they are tired and crabby (for the most part.) And you get them separately, away from their siblings, where there will be no bickering, punching, or kicking amongst the three. Lucky you.<br /><br />Lets just put this out there from the start: None of them will be your star students. I tried really hard to do some of the things you asked us to do for the summer. It started well enough but gradually went down hill as the summer progressed. Since they all have reading disorders, none of them like to read. I hate saying that, but I’m gradually accepting this truth. I made them all sit down and read as much as I could this summer. I saw them holding the books. One or more of them may or may not have been hiding some electronic device behind the covers of the book. But my seventh grader read both of the books she was required to read and she did the written summary for one of them.<br /><br />I bought them each a grade level appropriate math workbook. I might be able to return those and buy you each a coffee. But we took a big road trip and we each estimated how many miles we would drive in each segment, and we calculated the differences in each guess and we talked about our reasoning for each guess. We watched the gas prices and tried to figure out how much each day cost in gas. We also made a game of guessing how much each meal cost on the road. We may or may not have opted for ice cream for dinner because that was the best option financially. (ahem).<br /><br />We also played the license plate game and found all the states except Delaware, New Hampshire and West Virginia. We talked about the capitols of all the states and talked a little about what states were close to other states. A friend of mine made a copy of the map of the United States and had her kids find the states on the map. I wish I had thought of that but I didn’t. Then they would understand there really is no state called Idakota. But I think its kinda cute she thinks that. She will learn soon enough.<br /><br />They were actually quiet and awed when in the presence of moose. They were within reach of a buffalo, but I wouldn’t let them touch it. They wondered for days what it would have felt like. They became eagle eyes and could spot a goat on a little ledge on the side of a mountain. They summited a mountain and knew what it was like to be on top of the world. Two of them loved it, but one didn’t and learned that, for now, she felt safer hugged by the valley.<br /><br />They may not be super enthused to be back at school, but they are tan and sun kissed blond and healthy and had smiles on their faces this morning. They were outside every day this summer, but they also vegged in front of the TV many afternoons. They all took actual showers for the occasion..... in our house, not in the lake. We spent time on the lake and at many sports. We spent more time than ever together as a family since Daddy was out of work this summer. I hope they remember it as a good one.<br /><br />We will do our best in school this year but it wont be perfect. We know you want them to learn so much and you just can’t do it all in school. I know you don’t know how to respond to me when I say my kids may not always complete their homework. Please try to understand we still want to spend quality time with them. And they are playing some sports, which we think is good for them. But if they tell me they want to go fishing or play outside with friends or lay on the grass and watch the stars..... we will probably say go for it. Especially while the weather is still nice. We also think its important they get enough sleep. Since they already spend 7 1/2 hours doing school work, we are trying to help them learn balance in their lives. Don’t worry - they will learn accountability and responsibility. We believe in that-- but we have lots of values we are trying to teach them while they are young and there just aren’t enough hours in the day.<br /><br />Finally, one of our biggest goals is to help them find their passions. Most of the time, they will all do exactly what you ask of them. If you ask them to read for so many minutes or so many pages, they will probably do it. And they will stop right at that minute or right at that page. They have dyslexia and don’t enjoy reading; it is really, really hard for them. I would love to see them loving something they are doing; something where they lose track of time and pages and exactly what is assigned. Chaucer spent three years on and off trying to write to infinity. While this may have seemed ridiculous and we could tell him over and over it wasn’t possible, I remember when you gave him extra credit and excused him from his regular homework for him to work on this ridiculous task. Did you understand what you were doing? That he was learning to find and explore and be passionate about something? How did you understand his fascinating relationship with numbers and space? I love how you supported him like that.<br /><br />So, here they are, with all their imperfections. I give them to you with a prayer, a bit of a sigh and a few tears. I’m excited to see what they are like when you give them back to me next June.</span>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-48747236634587450772013-06-28T09:50:00.000-07:002013-06-28T09:50:09.225-07:00One Breakfast, Every Breakfast<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I always try to look back and see how it started. For some reason, I think I can look back and find a point where something could have been different. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is not a lifetime story, but an every day, at least once a day story. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today, I heard Steve and Sally chatting in the kitchen while I was getting dressed in my bathroom. Soon after, I hear the bickering that includes Chaucer. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s often the girls screams that get to me. Although I know deep down that they are struggling like Steve and I are struggling. What do I do when he walks by and hits me? I know its not hard; it doesn’t hurt. It is aggravating and annoying, not abusive. What do I do when he snatches my cereal bowl? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With us parents, he isn’t as physical. It’s directed elsewhere. Kicking the counter as he sits on the stool. We try to ignore it. But he does it louder and faster and louder and faster and LOUDER AND FASTER AND </span><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">LOUDER AND FASTER </span><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;">AND LOUDER AND FASTER </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">until we can’t ignore it and ask him to stop. And he will stop because I don’t think he really wants to be doing it. And he really isn’t trying to be annoying. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After he has stopped for about a minute, he will start tapping his cereal bowl with his spoon. First he taps the bowl, then the counter, then the cereal box. We are trying to ignore it, because it really isn’t that bad, and we don’t want to constantly be negative. But then it gets to be louder and faster and he’s tapping more things and wiggling his body and he just can’t stop and the milk ends up spilled all over the counter. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So there is fussing about that and telling him to JUST BE STILL. He is up because the milk is on the chair and walking around the room eating bites. We tell him to sit down and he sits down but forgets thirty seconds later and is trying to eat part of his breakfast while he is walking the top of the back of the couch as if on a high wire. He hasn’t eaten much, he is barely at an acceptable weight and soon his medicine will kick in. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The medicine that will calm him. The medicine that will help him control his body. The ironical (is that a word) medicine that is a stimulant, yet slows our boy to a normal speed. The medicine that we fret about giving him, wondering what the long term affects will be. The medicine that makes him not hungry. The medicine that makes him go all day without eating.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">His attention deficit disorder also makes him not able to read his body signals, which affects everything from eating to running to talking. So at some point, our happy boy turns instantly into a starving, crabby, not functioning human being because he hasn’t had anything to eat. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With his medicine, he is successful at home and at school. He doesn’t get yelled at, fussed at, and most interactions are positive and he is able to be the person he wants to be for about 6-8 hours. He has dyslexia, and school is not his strong suit, so this medicine is nearly a miracle in this sense. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He is very physical, and very athletic. His medicine slows him down, makes his reactions slower. This is not a bonus in the sports arena. Except it helps him focus, and stay in the game. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He doesn’t like his medicine. Not because of how it makes him feel, but because he knows we don’t like to give it to him. He knows we are torn; we wish he didn’t need it. He wants us to be proud of him. He wants to please us. He senses that it is a bad thing to need this medicine. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At a conference we attended yesterday, my eyes welled with tears at what my child is going through. He wants to feel normal. He wants to settle down. He wants to do well. He doesn’t want to have a million negative interactions. From what I understand, the serotonin (I think) needs to get from cell to cell to help us make good decisions, to help our brain function fully, to help us concentrate. In the ADHD brain, the serotonin can not make this transfer. That is why stimulants help. They stimulate the chemicals in the brain to make this transfer from cell to cell faster, which in turns make them able to make better judgements and stay focused. He literally needs stimulating to slow down. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So when he is jumping, or kicking his foot on the counter, or tapping things, or chanting...... he is literally trying to jump start his body. He is not trying to be annoying. He doesn’t understand what is going on. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, back to him now not sitting at breakfast. He has had several admonitions already and he hasn’t been up 15 minutes. He is upset and says he doesn’t want to eat. This happens many mornings. His Dad is telling him he needs to eat. He is a very little guy, and we know he wont eat the rest of the day. They get into power struggles nearly every morning. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If we give him his medicine before breakfast, he won’t eat at all. The alternative is these struggles every morning. For several months, we had him sit at the table by himself to eat breakfast, away from the girls. This seemed to work better for everyone, until I was talking with him one night in bed and he told me how much it hurts him not to be able to just sit and have breakfast with his family before he goes to school. He feels punished and isolated. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I often feel like a terrible parent who can’t control her kids. I have tried so many things. Somehow I need to change my attitude. I need to accept we have a different family and are fighting different challenges than most. I am embarrassed that we can’t sit down and have a meal even though our kids are 12, 10, and 8. I need to let go of what others think. Almost every meal is a struggle and a negative, barking experience. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My husband and I went to a talk on ADHD and executive function. They talked a lot about the make up of the brain and the things that didn't happen with ADHD - like self talk, and the synapses that didn't transfer from one cell to the other to help make less impulsive decisions and that adhd brains had normal feelings but not normal responses and other stuff like this. What we really wanted to know was how to keep Chaucer from dropping his dirty socks on his sisters breakfast plates and how to make sure he had shoes on by the time he got to school and how to teach him the difference between his backpack and a garbage can and how to walk past another person without trying to trip them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I tried to google ADHD and always get descriptions and symptoms or technical brainy information. Today I was searching for anecdotal experiences that might sooth my aching heart. I couldn’t find any, so I sat down to write one of my own. I am having trouble closing this out. There is no redemption here, no solutions. Just an ever present desire to help my family and my children. I take a minute to breathe deeply and show gratitude for our family. These challenges are better than walking through the world alone.</span></div>
M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-78036774588128118932013-06-11T10:27:00.001-07:002013-06-11T10:27:18.280-07:00Searching for a Balance of Truth and Hope<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.adesignsovast.com/2013/06/its-not-all-shiny/#comments">Lindsey</a> wrote an interesting, heartfelt essay about perceptions, misconceptions, and assumptions. Some comments were supportive, others enlightening. One stood out to me. It said something along the lines of why would we want to read about all the grueling crap (her words were more eloquent than this) - we already have this in our lives and don’t need to read more - its neither lovely nor inspiring to read. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I remember a discussion years ago about Billy Joel’s song “Goodnight Saigon.” It never became a big hit in the United States or England, despite the powerful emotions it evoked. They were painful, too much of a harsh reality. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In a writing class, the teacher gave some advice to a classmate. “You have had some bad things happen to you, but you can’t vomit on your readers. They have had bad things happen to them as well. You must provide some sort of resolution or they will leave.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A therapist once told me that those that have harmed you must have a way out. There always has to be a way for them to make amends to you, just as there has to be a way for you to make amends to those you hurt. There must be a way to move forward or everyone is stuck.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We all need hope. We all need balance, and are constantly searching for it. We choose who we read. I try to choose writers that offer the right balance of truth and hope and light for me.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Herein lies one of the paradoxes in most writing: You can not tell the whole truth if you want to get to the real truth. I consider truth to be infinite. Truth is relative and multi dimensional. In the written word, it is about the writer and the reader and their own previous experiences. I can write the sky is a beautiful blue that is a replica of my daughters eyes. You may look at the sky and realize its the color of your fathers eyes and may take you down a road of wonderful memories. I have chosen the truthful path of a pleasant connection I have made. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Just because I didn’t tell you that the blue is also the color of the water that a dear friend drowned in a few years ago doesn’t mean it isn’t there and I didn’t think about it. I might tell you about it later, and I might not. Short essay writing, blog posts, even books are just parts of the story. That is all they can ever be. </span></div>
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M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-83152012872254985812013-06-03T09:00:00.000-07:002013-06-03T09:00:38.927-07:00No Lost Irony<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The irony is not lost on me of my latest consequence to my almost 13 year old daughter. The end of the year middle school celebration is a trip to Valley Fair, an amusement park full of rides and all other sorts of stimulation in which no one over the age of 20 should be subjected. My daughter does not want to go. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I know, I know. Some kids don’t like that sort of thing. They are nervous in groups or it could get overwhelming. Some kids don’t have that sort of stamina. And blah, blah, blah other reasons. My kid IS NOT one of those. She is very social, has tons of stamina, and has always needed less sleep than anyone I know. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But something happened this year. She stopped wanting to do group things, whether they were school sponsored or not. It took a little while for us first time parents of a pre teenager to figure it out. And by figure it out, I mean to take notice of it. She did a few things, but for the most part she stayed home. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She is a complicated being and refuses to fit in any box that might help us understand her better. Although she is social and energetic, she often sits on the edge and watches. She loves being in range of the action, loves to feel the buzz. But she likes to scope it out, watch others, get a good feel for whats going on in the fray. I must remember that she has always been like this. She didn’t walk until she was 16 months old, but when she did she stood up and walked across the room and never fell. At her earliest Easter egg hunt, she stood and watched all the kids gather eggs rather then get eggs herself. When she was learning to ski, her favorite part was hanging out in the lodge and watching everyone around her. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I must remember that she was in the same small campus with the same few kids for seven years and middle school is a new routine, new kids, new campus. So, she has probably just been following her normal mode of operation as she gets acclimated to middle school. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She is also an extrovert that has an incredible amount of energy that is not easily harnessed. This means that as a young child, she never played with toys but would rather us sit and juggle for her. Her energy is more emotional than physical. She loves to be engaged with people ALL THE TIME. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When they were little and home all day, we would often do different activities together, like go to a park or go to a zoo or a museum. When we came home, my other two children and myself would need to decompress, doing our own quiet thing. My oldest was never able to do this. She would be so energized by the outside world that when we came home, she had twice as much energy as before. She would go from me, and then to each of the other kids ready to do another major endeavor - write a play, make an obstacle course, wash cars, have a home art show. And we wanted to sit and read or have a quiet snack on the deck and watch how the leaves fell from the tree. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Friday night, I took her to a friends dance recital that was amazing. It was two hours of incredible dancing with loud, electrified music. She wanted to stay afterwards and hand deliver six roses to each of her six friends in the show. She wanted to congratulate them and inhale the after show excitement. They were all going out for ice cream afterwards and I just didn’t have the energy. She was disappointed but handled it well and thanked me for taking her. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I came home to melt into facebook or mindless internet surfing while she started cooking a full dinner at ten pm. She kept asking and wanting to review each piece and I had to pay attention to every move she wanted to try to emulate. I always feel bad about these moments because I don’t want to deflate her. I try to find the energy. Finally I asked her, “Do you know what introverts and extroverts are?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She replied, “Yea. Introverts are bad. And extroverts are good.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I smile and wonder if I even have the strength to go there. I try. “Well, no. Extroverts love going out to events and get energized by all the activity and people around them. It makes them want to do more. Introverts can go and enjoy it, but they are recharged by coming home and being quiet and alone. Thats what gives them more energy.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She replies, “Like I said. Extroverts are better. Of course those things give me energy. And excite me. Why would anyone want to be alone after something like that?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I didn’t expect her to get it, but I thought an introduction was appropriate. I just told her the two were different and neither was better. I asked her just to start noticing the difference. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">School is out this week and I am not ready. Several life changes have taken over the last month and I am not as prepared or, sadly, as excited as I usually am for summer. Yesterday, she needed so much and was so full of energy that it almost brought me to tears wondering how I was going to handle it this summer. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, yesterday, she could not entertain herself for longer than 10 minutes without needing me. And then, when I couldn’t or wouldn’t oblige, the typical mouthiness of a preteen started to take over. After several warnings, I issued my judgement:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You will go to Valley Fair on Tuesday with the school. I need that last day of energy gathering before the launch into summer.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, no, the irony of my child’s consequence of being forced to go on an all day, end of the year fun celebration to an amusement park is not lost on me. </span></div>
M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-61960097414687450532013-05-06T07:54:00.001-07:002013-05-06T07:54:41.737-07:00It's Not Fair<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Earlier this week, a group of boys chose to play a </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: line-through;">stupid</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> game that some ten year old boys might play. It’s called “pantsing” in which one tries to pull down the pants of another. Several kids did it, several kids got “pants-ed”. My son happened to pants a child who, while actively participating, got very upset that it happened to him. He told his mother, who told the school. The end result was my son having to miss an end of the year all day school trip and stay behind with the associate director of the school. One other child also had to stay behind. The others involved did not have to stay behind or have any consequences. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I agreed that he should have punished. This was a very safe place for him to learn the lesson that actions have consequences. I did not agree that he was the only one to suffer the consequences because all the boys were playing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“It’s not fair,” I said to the director. A woman I admire and have known and trusted for years, she could not hold back her disbelief that this 42 year old woman was using the words of a first grader. So she took an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and filled the page with these words: KNOWING WHEN TO STOP.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son was waiting outside because I didn’t want him to focus on the not fair part. I wanted him to focus on his actions and only he is responsible for them; and another child was hurt and embarrassed by his actions. The director asked that we be silent as she delivered his consequences. He walked in and sat in the hot seat, read her piece of paper, and kept his eyes down as she explained that he was getting consequences because he didn’t stop. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I left the school in a hurry because I was angry, frustrated, sad, and couldn’t get over the fact that IT WASN’T FAIR. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Over those three exhausting days, I had some very rich conversations with my husband, friends and son. I called friends whose opinions I respect and literally cut and pasted some of these conversations back to my son. I saw my son open, learn, evolve in front of my eyes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I first asked my son about it, he responded, “But Nathan told me to do it.” I got to reiterate my regular mantra that “You, and only you are responsible for your actions.” This actually wasn’t that rich of a conversation because it was more like my regular preaching and him putting up with it. I still have hope that one day it will seep in and register. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But it was an opener. He asked, “Would you have called the school if I had my pants pulled down?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I pause and think before I slowly answer. “No. But I would call the school if you were really hurt and feeling unsafe and thats why Mike’s mother called. I would have asked you more questions so I could understand the circumstances. Once I understood that boys were all playing a game and laughing and having fun and then you got upset because it happened to you, I would tell you that now you know not to play that game. I would give you a hug and tell you that I am so sorry you got embarrassed, but I would point out that was part of the game you chose to engage in. I would ask you to think about this the next time a situation like this arose.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My son then said, “Mike always does that. He always plays and then when he doesn’t like it or he gets tagged or something doesn’t go his way, he goes and tells and we get in trouble. That’s why no one wants to play with him.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I refocused the discussion on his choices. “Do you understand that one of your classmates was hurt, humiliated, and embarrassed because of your actions?” My son just wasn’t able to go there yet. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Mom, it was a game. It happened to Nathan and Jake and Tom. They didn’t cry. They laughed. Mike (the victim) even laughed so hard when it happened to them. The only reason it didn’t happen to me is because I was wearing tight pants.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I tried a different lesson. “So you still don’t know how it felt to have your pants pulled down. You don’t know what it feels like. Every person is sensitive to different things. These were his feelings. Yes, he was involved. Yes, it was his actions that put him there. But he also had valid feelings that he may not have been expecting. We all have our touchpoints and they need to be respected.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The ease of these many conversations ebbed and flowed over the three days. Some topics were easier than others. I was angry about the consequences and angry about how this child and mother and the school handled it. I was trying to teach my son that people handled situations differently, yet I was mad they wouldn’t handle like I would. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At one point, I realized the director was not going to change her position and the group would not be treated the same. I had to come to peace with it. I could not let it absorb me anymore. I decided to use her lesson. My son does get in the middle of things, and yes, he does need to learn when to stop. This is an issue for him. Painful and frustrating, but the truth. We had long talks about KNOWING WHEN TO STOP. That very night he took my daughters head bands and started shooting them like rubber bands at her. She asked him to “please stop” several times. I came up and gently reminded him that knowing when to stop is the lesson we are working on. He responded immediately and picked up the headbands. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My goal as a parent is not only to protect them, but to teach them to make the right choices when I am not around. He did not respond to his sisters requests, but when I used these words with him, it hit home immediately. I explained to try to remember these words and listen to others. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I tucked him in bed, he spoke of thinking about stopping. He was remorseful, but not saying much, but not wanting me to leave. I said I was thankful that the director took the time to write that down for us and explain that part. It will help you as you grow up. I spoke of a pack mentality and how we sometimes make decisions in a group that we wouldn’t necessarily make on our own. I talked about the challenges coming his way the next few years. I said there would be situations involving drinking and drugs and he could come back to this moment and remember his lesson about KNOWING WHEN TO STOP. I talked about listening to girls and being physical with them and he better KNOW WHEN TO STOP and listen to her words.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He said, “Mom, I just don’t understand why I have to stay back and the others don’t. It’s not fair.” Ahhhhh. My touchpoint. I had spoken with a friend earlier that day about this and I used her words. “Let’s try not to use the word fair. Fair is relative. Everyone has different ideas about what fair means. I will tell you this. If I was the director, I would not have made that decision. I would have had all the boys have a consequence. But I am not the director. She is and it is her decision to make and we have to abide by it because she is in charge.” He has not mentioned this again.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The next afternoon I picked him up from school and we headed out quickly. I was a little tired of all the deep conversations and the mood of the week, so I said, “Did you pants anyone today?” My very funny lighthearted boy seriously told me, “It isn’t funny, Mom.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He was clearly hurting so I needed to turn it back on and be present for him. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Here’s the deal, Mom. I feel really bad that Mike was embarrassed and hurt. I really do. And it doesn’t feel good that I was the reason he felt that way. But I am still mad. I am mad that I have to stay back and the others don’t. I am mad that he plays and then runs and tells. I am mad that I am taking all the blame. I wanted to apologize to him but I didn’t know if I could because I was mad.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“What do you mean, you didn’t know if you could?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Well, would it still be sincere? If I have mad feelings while I’m saying I’m sorry. Can I have both of those feelings at the same time?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My eyes became an instant dam. It took everything to hold back the tears. How was he able to verbalize this? I finally said, “ Yes. I think you can hold both feelings at the same time. As a matter of fact, you just helped me to understand my feelings. That is exactly how I feel.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I was driving him to school today, to spend the day with the director while all his classmates attended the field trip, these were my words: “Here is my assessment of the week: I think a group of boys was playing a silly game, and boys will be boys. I don’t think it was as big of a deal as its turned out to be. I think we are lucky that we got to learn some good lessons and have good discussions. We cried tears together and we got mad together and at each other. You got to learn about knowing when to stop and will always have that lesson in your toolbox.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And finally I said:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You are my son and I love you deeply. I love your personality. I love how happy and carefree you are. I love your boundless energy and your endless enthusiasm. I envy the way you can instantly join any group and have so many sets of friends. With that personality comes its challenges. You will be impulsive. You made a mistake. You will make more mistakes. Forgive yourself. I love how you are able to admit your culpability, make amends and move on. Your integrity is inspiring. I love how you engage in life and I would not trade your personality for anything. I know it will be a tough day for you and I’m sorry. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He gave me a hug before he walked into school and said, “It won’t be that bad, Mom. I love you.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And all of a sudden, I realized that IT’S NOT FAIR. None of the others had the opportunity to learn such lessons this week. None of the others had so many rich conversations. No one else got to stop time and watch and experience both the magic and the searing pain of the deepening of their child’s soul before their very eyes. Yes indeed, IT’S NOT FAIR. </span></div>
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M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-84570862962512008922012-12-10T11:06:00.000-08:002012-12-10T11:12:23.636-08:00The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen<br />
I first heard of this book a few weeks back on an NPR show about books with a sense of place, books that make you want to go somewhere. As I often do when I listen to shows like this, I made a long list of books I wanted to read. Why I chose this one? I really can't say. Perhaps I was being a bit smug as I read the reviews. Some of the reviews expressed frustration that it was slow, that there wasn't much action, that the title of the book was so misleading because he never even saw the snow leopard. The smugness I describe comes from thinking that I hadn't even read the book, but I knew these readers were missing the point. More probably, they weren't ready for the book, and perhaps, definitely even, I was.<br />
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There really aren't words for the beautifully descriptive writing that fills this book. I don't think this would have been possible without his scientific/nature background. He knows so many different plants and flora, and animals. His relationship with light and dark and how that affects every day, every moment is enlightening. His attention to detail and his ability to communicate what he sees and feels is nothing short of a miracle. Rather than finish with a feeling of knowing the entire region he traveled around, I felt in touch with very specific steps he took; one step in one thousand. I felt this over and over.<br />
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I have rarely loved poetry. I attribute this to a lack of patience mostly, but in my less confident moments, I can attribute to an unfeeling self or a less than average intellectual capacity for the medium. Or perhaps never the right teacher. This is not technically a poetry book. I would describe it as a poetic memoir. I had gone through a phase of needing to read fast paced books, and I had read 4 or 5 in a row, very uncommon for me. So I knew I was ready to slow down, and could absorb at least part of what the book had to offer. I did read it slowly, sometimes only a page or two a night. There were insights, quotes to remember with every reading and I never lost patience with the book. Often, I start these books but don't have the patience to finish. I put them aside, and eventually pick them up later. As with almost every book I read, I hate it to end. So I stop reading and start another book, and get really into the next book. And then I go back and finish, replete with the knowledge that when I am sad the book is over, I have another one already started. Well, I really couldn't do that with this book; I couldn't stand to be away from it long enough to get involved in another book.<br />
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Some of the reviews on Goodreads give nothing but quotes. This approach works very well with The Snow Leopard. I have perused these this morning and will continue to do so. One can turn to practically any page for a good quote, or lesson for living.<br />
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There is a lesson, a moment, a connection on literally every page of this book. I can't begin in a quick review to illuminate my learnings. I will settle for an example from the end of the book, since I just finished it last night. Towards the end of his journey, he has several descriptions of, not mood swings exactly, but of being aware, content, able to fully realize his learnings of his physical and mental pilgrimage. And then the next day, or even the next moment, falling right back into his former thinking and ways - discontent and frustration. This expression, this truth, was a monumental discovery and validation for me. Often I am so hard on myself for not recognizing or living in a way that I have strived towards, and I spend so much time beating myself up about making these mistakes after I know better. The next time this happens, I will refer to one of these passages towards the end - I'll finish with one example.<br />
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"A change is taking place, some painful growth, as in a snake during the shedding of it's skin-dull, irritable, without appetite, dragging about the stale shreds of a former life, near blinded by the old dead scale on the new eye. It is difficult to adjust because I do not know who is adjusting; I am no longer that old person, and not yet the new."M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-91426871552947231392012-05-03T12:21:00.000-07:002012-05-03T12:21:11.938-07:00Dear Soccer Coaches<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have not been able to get Tuesday night out of my mind. With a couple of days behind me, I am still troubled.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I contacted you about the conflicts with the dance and soccer schedule ahead of time. Dance is a year long activity that she has been working on since last September. Her recital is June 9, which accounts for 10 total days of conflicts with soccer. We attempted to work with you and each of her dance teachers to see what the best approach would be. Your response was: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I completely understand that all these girls have other commitments, but playing time is based on attendance and effort. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If she can get to practices by 7:45 that would be great! </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Please let me share with you what Chloe’s day looked like on Tuesday. She set her alarm and got up at 4:30 am so that she could work on her schoolwork because she knew she had a busy night and wanted to make the effort to get to soccer, per your comment about effort above. We did not know she set her alarm - it was done on her own. She is in the middle of her yearly exams at school this week. She has a severe dyslexia, among other learning differences, that makes school and exams much more difficult for her than for her school mates. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I picked her up at 3:30 to go straight to her tutor, which she has to have for above learning issues. When I picked her up at 5, I had her dinner ready and she ate part of it in the car while she changed into her dance clothes. She danced from 5:30- 7:30. I picked her up at dance, 2 minutes from our house, to drive the 20 minutes up to soccer practice. (I thought I could get there in 15.) She ate the rest of her dinner while she changed into her soccer gear and talked about how proud of her the coaches would be because she made such a huge effort to get to practice. She had me drop her as close as possible, and ran all the way to where you were practicing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“YOU ARE REALLY LATE. TAKE A LAP” is the greeting she got in front of her entire team and parents. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Chloe is not an over scheduled child. She does dance and soccer. That’s it. It just so happens that there are 10 days in the entire year where the two overlap. She has looked forward to this soccer season all winter. She was at the dome for winter training every week since January 2. Each week, she was hoping to meet the new coaches because they kept being told we will get the coaches soon. She has been at all the practices this spring with the exception of one when she was sick - including the ones in the rain when not many girls showed up. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is an 11 year old girls team. It is not college, high school, or even an elite team. She will probably never play in college as you did. But she will put in more effort than most. And give more energy than most. And she started this season with extreme enthusiasm and commitment. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When the parents were told that we were getting coaches that had never coached before, I WAS NOT one of the parents complaining. I said, “sometimes it’s good to have the new young ones because they have new ideas and are usually energetic and are not set in their ways.” I said this understanding that you had plenty of experience as a player, and understanding that you would learn as the season goes. Additionally, I understood that you didn’t have children of your own, and would not have that insight to help guide you. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so I write this letter with the utmost respect. The girls are thrilled you are here. They are excited for a new season. They think it is really cool that you have played so much and really look up to you. They want to please you, and want to do good for you. You are a role model now. Please try to remember that these girls are eleven and have a lot going on in their lives. There are school pressures and social pressures, family pressures and extra curricular pressures. They are absolutely committed and excited to learn what you have to teach them. If you start to think they aren’t committed or you are frustrated with them, please take a minute to remember the day Chloe had and the effort she put in to get there.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Thank you.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-25135675986991643332012-04-24T08:38:00.000-07:002012-04-24T08:38:03.321-07:00The Power of No Words<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is said words are power. Words can do anything, make anything happen. There are so many of them. How to arrange them, pick them, put them in the right order is always the conundrum. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Every now and then, people will say the right thing in an impossible situation. Most of the time, people stumble over their words. Or use words they know won’t help but are most commonly called upon when one must acknowledge an unfortunate turn of events. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I’m sorry,” or “How can I help?” or some other grouping of words that can, in no way, ease the pain or express the depths of our feelings. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I was 20, I had my tonsils removed. I had been sick for a year, and finally the decision was made. A tonsillectomy on a child is a day or two of being down, but on a 20 year old, with no complications, we were told two weeks. I laid on my mother’s couch for a week. Unexpectedly, my Daddy showed up. He sat in the uncomfortable rocking chair next to the couch as I tried to be polite. I guess I fell back asleep. For the next week, my mother either was out or retreated to her bedroom - to give us space I guess. My Daddy rotated between the uncomfortable rocker or under my feet at the end of the couch for the entire week. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And here’s the catch: I don’t remember him saying ten words the entire week. He would show up, ask how I was doing that day and if I needed anything. I never needed anything because my mother was doing all that work. Instead of leaving, he would then read, or watch TV, or nap, or just sit. All day. Every day. Sometime in the afternoon, he would kiss me goodbye, and tell me he would see me in the morning. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then I started watching him. He is not a touchy-feely man or very expressive. He avoids conflict, probably because he doesn’t have much patience and can be short tempered. But the way he can sit in silence is an extraordinary gift. He holds pain for people, if only for short periods of time. He can sit with the sick or the elderly, and click on a baseball game, and say, “I’ll bet you five bucks the Braves win.” Even though I would bet he has never watched a complete game in his life, being that watching sports bores him. In turning on that game and sitting there, he is taking the cancer away or lessening the loss of a loved one for just an afternoon. He allows people to retreat to a happier place ever so briefly. He has the rare ability to just BE with them. Few or no words are spoken. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the last months of my father’s father’s life, the Alzheimers had made my grandfather paranoid and anxious. My Daddy drove the hour to his parents house several days a week to do his thing - just be with them. I was with him once and I was sitting in my grandparents now quiet living room with my Daddy and my grandmother and my grandfather. My grandfather was upset about the kids hiding in the trees in the front yard. My grandmother kept admonishing him that there were no kids out there. The kids had been gone for years. I was in silent shock at seeing this person who used to be my grandfather act like this. This was the conversation for an indeterminable amount of time. My Daddy wasn’t saying anything. He was reading a paper or somethi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">ng regular that shouldn’t have been happening because we should have been trying to do something for my grandparents, something to help both of them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, my Daddy got up, folded the paper, and walked outside without saying a word. “What the fuck?” was all my 20 something brain could come up with. “Don’t leave me here with them like this. I am scared.” But I was still frozen solid, words failing me. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So I sat in the living room listening to my grandfather worry about the imaginary kids safety or learning that these kids were scoping out his house to rob him blind in the night. I listened to my grandmother tell him there were no kids - sometimes gently and lovingly, other times exhausted and exasperated. This is how it was with him - we had to tell him things over and over and over. I might as well have not been there - words were failing me. I didn’t know what to say or do. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After awhile, my Daddy came back inside. He told my grandfather that he had talked to the kids and the kid’s parents. Everythin</span>g was ok. They were just playing and there to keep them company. My grandmother and I just watched in awe as my grandfather finally starting settling down. </div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was so ready to blow out of there at that point. I was exhausted, frightened and needed to go. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But my Daddy picked up his book and settled in on the couch, saying nothing. </span></div>
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<a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2012/04/24/just-write-32-with-momaloms-5-for-5/"><img alt="" border="0" class="size-full wp-image-7541 alignright" height="150" src="http://momalom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/just-write-button.jpg" title="just-write-button" width="150" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-9455163945276611932012-04-23T08:45:00.000-07:002012-04-23T08:45:32.981-07:00Take Back My Family - Spring Update<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last summer, I decided to<a href="http://hersuburbanlife.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am-taking-back-my-family.html#comment-form"> Take Back My Family</a>. I had an aha moment and decided to make grand, sweeping changes. We went gung-ho with the changes in the fall. We cut back on kids activities and many social engagements. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Those were the biggest things. We were so tired. And those big changes enabled us to indulge in things like...washing clothes, cleaning our house, going on date nights. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our kids were not as excited about our efforts, and staying home to wash clothes and clean house wasn’t exactly an easy sell. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Articulating some of our changes is difficult. Yes, they helped more with the housework. They took on new responsibilities. Helping with laundry, cleaning, cooking, and yard work was not something they bragged about to their friends. Taking responsibility for things at home also helped them take responsibility for things at school. My ADHD son almost always completes his homework and turns it in without reminders, and that wasn’t even one of our goals. We were only hoping he would get it done, expecting to offer huge support and reminders for him. Just recently, my eleven year old daughter prepared breakfast for our family of five all by herself -- perfectly scrambled eggs, baked cinnamon rolls, and cut up fruit. We were shuffling them through their activities, then shuffling them at home - eat, bathe, homework, sleep. They had no sense of personal or family responsibility. They wanted it more than they knew, even though they couldn’t articulate it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They also had more time to play with friends. We had their friends over most weekends last fall. We had bonfires most weekends. They were so dirty. And tired. But it was a different kind of tired. They were not exhausted from constant running. They were tired from fresh air and playing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Another unexpected change is all the talking. We talk all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. We talk about friends and social issues at school. We talk about books and the news. We talk about ethical dilemmas. We talk about making problems smaller, not bigger. We talk about music, videos, sports, how shells are made.....we have so much more time to talk. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We eat better. We eat out more than I’d like. My younger kids will eat almost any plain vegetable I put in front of them. For example, broccoli or asparagus or artichokes or brussel sprouts or salad, as long as they aren’t mixed together or, God forbid, have any sort of sauce or dressing. My older daughter is grumpy if there isn’t a healthy option - like if I order a pizza without a salad. They will only drink smoothies at home now because I don’t add sugar and now they don’t like the taste of commercial sugar laden smoothies. Their foods of choice are still chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, pizza, and white pasta though. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I learned to ask for help. My husband travels most weeks and I am not working now, so I was everything - mother, chef, tutor, Boy Scout troop leader, Girl Scout troop leader, maid, shopper, costume maker, doctor, nurse.....etc. I was doing a poor job at everything. I asked him for help. And he helped! We are working together now on many things. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We did not do many of the changes I wanted to do. We didn’t take weekends away as I wanted. We didn’t do family yoga. Our house is still rarely clean, although it is better. We are still busy with many activities. We did not drop off the grid completely. I am still not able to rejoin many of the evening activities that I used to enjoy for myself - book clubs, nights out with friends, service projects - because of the unique learning needs of my kids, and they need me at night. I have started going out with friends on some weekends and leaving the kids home with Steve. He enjoys being home after traveling so much during the week and I like getting out. Win-win. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It isn’t perfect. It never will be. But it is better. Way better. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-29181295431517352452012-04-05T09:56:00.000-07:002012-04-05T09:56:44.692-07:00Only a Desire for Connection<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.adesignsovast.com/2012/04/an-introvert-in-an-extroverts-world/">Lindsey</a> and<a href="http://privilegeofparenting.com/2012/03/28/calling-some-quiet-shy-and-highly-sensitive-humans/"> Bruce</a> posted on introversion. I celebrate their writings and am thankful to know myself a little bit better today than I did yesterday. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am never able to explain most of my inner workings to anyone, including my husband and even myself. But I can feel these fissures. And I know them viscerally if not intellectually. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I can not explain to my daughter why watching the Kardashians is such a waste of time. I can not put into words why I can not stand to watch things like this, or Real Housewives. When I tell her that I didn’t even watch this crap when I was her age, she responded with “of course you didn’t.” I heard only the words. I absolutely did not hear, “Please don’t remind me of the embarrassment that I don’t have a mother who is not cool ANYMORE, but I have a mother who never, ever experienced being cool.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have never been able to talk pop culture. I don’t know the names of actors and their movies and their boyfriends of the day. I don’t know the right brands of clothes or shoes or make up to purchase. When conversation turns to this, I am quiet. Not only am I bored, but I feel so uncool. And then I shame myself and ask why I can’t know this stuff. For God’s sake, it isn’t rocket science. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, I also can’t talk on the other extreme. I can’t pull poets names out of the air or stream endlessly about philosophers or ancient Greek or polymers or symbiotic relationships. (It was a stretch just to come up with these words). Or rocket science. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are other conversations that are hard for me. Sports. I know about the NCAA Basketball tournament in March. My husband’s family does a pool so I play. I usually come in dead last. I pick my teams by where I would most like to visit. Or places I have been. I always forget if the New York Giants are a football team or baseball. I don’t know the difference between an umpire or a referee. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I also generally don’t talk politics. I can almost always see both (or several) sides and can be swayed easily. I don’t trust much of it, and I find that when people want to talk politics, they just want to thrust their beliefs on you, making for a shallow one sided conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Recently at a cocktail party, I was talking to someone about the lost art of diagramming sentences, and how kids aren’t able to understand how words work together anymore. How the relationship between a verb and an adverb and a noun and an adjective help make cohesive sentences so that one can better understand and articulate their thoughts and beliefs. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My friend put her hand on my wrist and looked me in the eye and said, “This is boring me. I need to get a drink.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I laughed because it was funny, and of course I understood this was not an exciting topic to most people. I did not stand there alone and beat myself up saying, “Why? Why? Why do I do this?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What I didn’t do was consider this interaction from an introvert’s point of view. One of the comments on Lindsey’s post declared, “I love being able to connect with others, but not on a superficial level.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I don’t remember what led to my diatribe on the structure of sentences, but there was some connection. It didn’t start with someone saying, “Hey, can you believe that housewife from New York just paid $5,000 for hair extensions?” Even if I don’t like it or am uninterested, I do have enough social skills and awareness not to respond to that remarkable insight by proclaiming the benefits of knowing adverbs intimately. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Perhaps the conversation was concerning a current 5th grade project or someone said their senior was having a hard time completing his essay for a college entrance application. I was simply enjoying the people, and making a connection about something that creates passion within me. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Is wanting to connect on a deeper level solely the domain of the introverted? I doubt it. And I’m not even convinced talking about sentence structure isn’t just a different part of the shallow end. Just a less crowded part of the shallow end perhaps. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Being overwhelmed and overstimulated by too many ideas and too many people is most definitely the familiar terroir of my internal landscape. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I like parties and gatherings and connecting with others. Often, the anxiety that I feel ahead of time is never felt at the actual event. But sometimes it is. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And on those nights, I just excuse myself early, go home and curl up in my bed with </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. </span></div>
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<br />M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-25695720546942779202012-04-04T07:05:00.000-07:002012-04-04T07:07:11.682-07:00Spring Cleaning and Fairies<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We were spring cleaning over the kids second week of spring break. Spring cleaning like we have never done. My youngest daughter is six and I finally was able to give away their little tunnels they used to crawl through and their toddler rocking chair (although not without tears rolling down my face as I cleaned and dusted it for its new owner.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The only way I can clean like this is to enter a zone, a zone where all I do is focus on the project, fast and furious. I try my best not to feel anything or take walks down memory lane. I become as close to a robot as humanly possible. In the middle of my zone, loading pages of artwork into the recycle bin without focusing on the fact that I will NEVER get little art like this again, my 11 year old daughter, who is closer to 12 now, comes in my room with a stack of papers she is ready to toss. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Mom, I need to know, once and for all, are fairies real?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Out of my zone, thrust back to my life, instantly, unexpectedly, and nowhere to go. With my hands in the cookie jar, my jaw hit the floor, and I was, maybe for the first time, speechless. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">She was holding all the letters that her own fairy, Fiona, had been writing to her for years. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">With a rare exception, I have hated Fiona all these years. I hated having to be Fiona. When Chloe was in Kindergarden, some evil mother had written to her daughter one night claiming to be a fairy, her own special fairy. In all fairness, I doubt this mother knew how her spark would burden me for years. But many nights, wiped out from the exhaustion of three young kids, I had to remember to sneak in and write made up stories from Fiona. I also had to learn how to make fairy dust, and come up with reasons why she didn’t come every night, or why she couldn’t be photographed. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I now understand these white collar criminals who are finally caught and exposed when they say it all started with just a little shifting of money, and eventually morphed into them stealing billions. I have experienced the slippery slope. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Why would another kid get a special fairy and my kid didn’t? How could I explain that to my five year old? From an early age, they always understood that different families have different rules. Why, oh why, couldn’t I apply this concept in the fairy situation? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Well, clearly, I didn’t think it through. Of course I didn’t. All the Kindergarden girls had a special fairy, I had a three year old son, and a year old baby, and a husband that traveled all week. If I tell her the fairy notes were written by the girls‘ mothers, the other mothers would hate me and then she might figure out the easter bunny, tooth fairy, and Santa Claus were all made up, and holidays would be ruined and their childhood destroyed. So, I scribbled a note after emptying the diaper genie and here I am right where I deserve to be. After years of lying to my daughter, impersonating some invented fairy, in the middle of my almost impossible zone of cleaning, with my jaw on the floor while my daughter grasps all the letters and demands the truth. Now. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">After the initial shock, I did what any self respecting mother who has pretended to be a fairy in our woods for years would do. I told her if she ripped up those letters and threw them away, that Fiona would be in great danger. The bad gremlins would know immediately and go after Fiona first and then the rest of the fairies. All of the fairies would turn on Fiona and she would be cast from the forest and be a homeless fairy and spend the rest of her life searching for a place she could call home. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I didn’t really do that, but in that instant, I thought about it. I asked if we could talk about it later, and she said there was nothing to talk about. DID YOU, OR DID YOU NOT, WRITE THESE LETTERS? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I got my angry voice on and said we needed to table it for later. I instructed her to keep the letters. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">For the letters are magical and not only contain history and knowledge, but special powers that reveal themselves only when the time is right. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-393988306496004342012-03-12T08:48:00.000-07:002012-03-12T08:48:53.420-07:00A Reminder from my Daughter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOej22fOdMVLzIP7_TIj1ifIYfMmw0khtts2gWhBr8C-v0dWUjB9IRI1Azdkkxf1I6H0Bpvm3D5Z3XYdw4oTkqpguOH-CpAASKU-U3TbAw-LUWvgvZBj8o-661XCgYOYqhXUvz5wzb3I/s1600/chloe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOej22fOdMVLzIP7_TIj1ifIYfMmw0khtts2gWhBr8C-v0dWUjB9IRI1Azdkkxf1I6H0Bpvm3D5Z3XYdw4oTkqpguOH-CpAASKU-U3TbAw-LUWvgvZBj8o-661XCgYOYqhXUvz5wzb3I/s320/chloe.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Some things that make me laugh are sometimes hard to put into words, but I will try. When do our children turn into real people, ones that we MIGHT hang out with by choice, because they are funny or enjoyable? </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sometimes people think my kids are funny because of what I post on facebook or the stories I tell, but those are different because I post most of those as coping mechanisms because thats just how they are. They aren't trying to be funny. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This morning as we were passing the neighbors house, the for sale sign was lying on the ground. Sally thought this was very dramatic and a very big deal. I said, "It's not that big of a deal. It could have not been nailed down hard enough, or it could have loosened with the melting of the snow, or a car could have hit it, or the wind could have blown it down. No big deal." </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And Chloe muttered, "Or it could have been the Big Bad Wolf coming around blowing it down." And she gave me a look that, all at once said: " I could have said this louder and made Sally scared but I am saying it under my breath because I think it's kind of funny and you might too. And don't worry, Mom, as I enter these teen age years, even though I am not always available and sometimes crabby for no reason, I really love you and we will always be tight. This stuff is normal, Mom. Don’t worry. I Love you.”</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yep, I’m pretty sure thats what the look said. </span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-69588837595129479732012-03-09T03:35:00.003-08:002012-03-09T03:35:00.363-08:00Make it Shine<div class="statusUnit" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px;"><div class="tlTxFe" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!</div><div class="tlTxFe" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
– Naomi Shihab Nye, writer</div></div><div class="clearfix" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; zoom: 1;"><div class="fbTimelineUFI uiCommentContainer" style="margin-bottom: -12px; margin-left: -12px; margin-top: -12px; padding-top: 3px; position: relative; top: 12px; width: 403px;"><form action="https://www.facebook.com/ajax/ufi/modify1.php" class="live_10150576340606666_131325686911214 commentable_item autoexpand_mode" data-live="{"seq":21215530}" method="post" rel="async" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="fbTimelineFeedbackHeader"></div></form></div></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-33146512537360510362012-03-08T09:33:00.000-08:002012-03-08T09:33:06.957-08:00Coming Around Again<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5oCrb7muoSNZUiG9ENCkninpCTigT2G2YcYWnVrsVahmRV9E2gLIJm1nMT-FXEMa36ytBeQpnqpM2tDZqMoSx_0vY_0w5FNCIqqeALTzbLkJTJj1K_xckvm4FtGVcU3rh0o9IRokg8s/s1600/IMG_2711.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5oCrb7muoSNZUiG9ENCkninpCTigT2G2YcYWnVrsVahmRV9E2gLIJm1nMT-FXEMa36ytBeQpnqpM2tDZqMoSx_0vY_0w5FNCIqqeALTzbLkJTJj1K_xckvm4FtGVcU3rh0o9IRokg8s/s320/IMG_2711.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Lindsey recently <a href="http://www.adesignsovast.com/2012/03/womanly-beauty/">wrote a post about our bodies and how to pass on healthy attitudes about our bodies to our children</a>. A <a href="http://fillingintheblanks.com/">brave and very wise woman</a> responded and shared how she gains weight when things aren’t going well and what to learn from that. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The last two years have been fraught with changes for me - some external that you might be able to see or I could easily explain. Most of them internal, some of them I can verbalize, but most of them I can’t. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the last few weeks, the stars aligned in a nasty way. I couldn’t shake a cold, I couldn’t finish anything, my husband was traveling a ton, and varied from being crabby and distant when he was home. Everyone was annoying me and it scared me that I didn’t like anyone or anything anymore. Everything became a weird dream in which everything was amplified. My children would never get through needing help with their homework because of their disabilities, my house will never, ever be clean or organized until the kids moved out and then it would get clean and perfect and I would die of lonliness on the spot when I realized they would never be back for good. I could never possibly be a good wife, good mother, good daughter, good friend, and failed miserably at all of these. I was an overweight failure who couldn’t write, couldn’t finish anything, and had no friends and we would never have enough money to pay our bills. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I read<a href="http://universalgrit.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/some-thoughts-on-depression/"> this post about depression</a>, I ceded that I might be depressed. And maybe I was, but I think it was more, and less than depression. There were some things that I had been unintentionally stuffing deep down, and it came a time that there was no more room in there to keep it down. And then I started to pay attention, and this stuffing was actually causing pressure; it became too much of an effort to keep it in. I could literally feel the tears behind my eyes all the time, but they were stuck there behind my eyes, unable to break through. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And then, of course, there came a point where it had to release. I was very scared of the release, of who would be hurt now because I could no longer hold it. Trying to describe it, I keep coming up with gross images that I don’t want associated with this time and piece. So I think I will go with a child losing a tooth. At first, it is almost imperceptible, but something is changing. Then you realize that there will be a change, and you are given time to grapple with it. There is a huge build up, and you simply can’t ignore it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And then the tooth comes out with lots of blood purging out and leaves an empty hole. Then you realize that the bleeding has stopped, and there is a nice new open space, making room for new growth. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And it’s really fun to rub around on that spot, wondering what will come. Sometimes you may think about the old tooth, or think about the scary feelings associated with losing it. Or the new space may feel a little vulnerable. But mostly, it feels open and full of possibilities. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-74914371399654628272012-02-29T09:25:00.001-08:002012-02-29T09:25:28.908-08:00Fog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZg3huZkF3yNax769XkpOrlrNj5iYbpiRETV64sYmpo48ksanhQYHYZR8cBwsbyCbRzTJsq6s7BjYvsgjyaNXhJdKucAVJeA8qEx7QA3ixarpt1hAPmA148PuuB0_GxNUGWRVP5I6RVnQ/s1600/IMG_4182.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZg3huZkF3yNax769XkpOrlrNj5iYbpiRETV64sYmpo48ksanhQYHYZR8cBwsbyCbRzTJsq6s7BjYvsgjyaNXhJdKucAVJeA8qEx7QA3ixarpt1hAPmA148PuuB0_GxNUGWRVP5I6RVnQ/s320/IMG_4182.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We cross this bridge every day driving to school. It is a beautiful view any day you cross it, any season. Grays Bay is on the right, and the main lake is on the left. The bridge crosses to a narrow strip of land, where there is barely room for the two lane road to wind through the trees. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Many days the lake looks very different on each side of the bridge. The bay could be smooth, while the main lake shows the currents of the wind. The bay could be showing slight waves, while there are white caps just 30 yards away. Or the bay could be frozen, while the main lake is still open. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">On the particular day I snapped this picture, each side looked the same. That is, we couldn’t see any water on either side because the fog was so thick. It was a little eery, as there are very few foggy days on this particular bay. We knew the fog was temporary, that we would see our lake and the beautiful views again. We also understood that we couldn’t see everything that we normally see. Yet this fog was very, very real and I had to drive very carefully and focus on what was directly in front of me in order to get to school safely. I had to understand that anything in the periphery was almost certainly a skewed view. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Growing up near the swamps of Louisiana, I am no stranger to fog. They even have road signs that remind you that visibility is limited in the fog. But the sun also shines hot and bright down there and the fog rarely lasts. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Several years ago, we rented a house on an island off the coast of Maine and the fog set in for days. Having never experienced this, I thought I would go crazy. We literally hired a boat to take us to the mainland so we could drive inland for the day, and experience clear vision. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My life has been a bit foggy lately and I really wish I could hire someone to take me out of it. To remind me of the clarity that I have worked so hard to achieve. So that I can see everything as it is, rather than through the distorting haze of this heavy wet fog. </span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-2481536635178495682012-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:002012-02-24T08:52:22.384-08:00On Friends and Myself<div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have had so many ideas for books. For as long as I can remember, well, let’s say high school - ish, I have wanted to write a book, or group of stories, or letters to those who mean so much to me, and how they left their footprint on my life. I think the original idea was to write letters to these people. My written words, more than my spoken words, have always been more indicative of how I feel. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I think the idea morphed into a book once I started losing loved ones, and along with that, the realization there would be no more memories with certain ones, or certain times. I thought the relationship ended there, so I could summarize it, or even complete the story. But then I realized, for those who have traversed my heart, the story never ends. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My memoir started out as a tribute to turning forty. It started before I realized forty was old, or at least middle aged. Of course, I had heard others moan about it, but I never felt it, and thought I never would. A sigh and a chuckle as I write this - maybe thats the beauty of youth. We never think we will. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Anyway, my memoir started before I had to be sure my legs were crossed before I coughed. I wanted to do something grand to mark the occasion. Grand to me has often been different than grand to others. One thing led to another, as things do, and I started focusing my writing and efforts on truly knowing who I was and what I stood for. I felt it was essential to define myself, to truly know myself, who I had been before marriage and kids, what was still the same and what had changed, before I decided what I wanted to do next. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Part of my journey to know myself has been to explore my relationships and friendships. And I have discovered that I would rather try to catch a raccoon with my bare hands than look at this. This has been such an unexpected road block, such a painful process that I know I have only barely started. I start and stop, paralyzed into inaction. I can’t tell you how long it has taken to write this paragraph, because all of a sudden, knowing how much protein was in the white of an egg became paramountly more important, and I had to google that and read several articles on that intense topic. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wrote a piece, a good piece, on my first friends, my neighborhood friends. A week or two or a month later, it doesn’t really matter - the next time I sat down to continue, was the first time I encountered this block, this pain. I couldn’t look at what friends I had at the next stage. We had moved to a new house, and in the picture in mind, my Dad moved out, then back in, then my mom moved out, and there were other houses to visit and extended time with grandparents - things that clouded my search for friends, among other things. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The next few years were rife with moves and school changes and emotionally unstable parents, and perhaps I missed a window on how to learn to engage, to trust, to even conceptually understand that people could or would last longer than a few months. I never had the experiences to learn that people would disappoint and anger me, and that I also would disappoint and anger people, but that relationships can sustain those disturbances. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I can write those words now, and theoretically understand the concept, but I feel like a fake. I don’t necessarily believe it. As a matter of fact, I get so scared when I even get the whiff of a negative feeling for any friend. If someone is annoying me, I don’t tell them. I just put it off as I am tired or not in a good place. If someone has treated me unfairly, I won’t tell them. I just tell myself that it’s no big deal. I try to ignore it. I am scared to address the issue, scared it will cause the friendship to end.</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the end, sometimes, I realize now, that I push the friendship to the limits and it has no choice but to end. I keep burying my feelings, the demands of these friends, the disappointments...... and it eventually comes to a head and I dance with my righteous anger of all they have done to me. And all the while, they never knew a thing, never had an inkling that I felt hurt, mistreated, taken advantage of... because I kept doing whatever they asked, saying it’s no problem, being the one who could take on everyone’s problems. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And there are other scenarios. I have put people on pedestals. I think they are wonderful in every way. And slowly, I realize they are not who I thought they were - how could they be? No one is perfect. My friend who is so bubbly and outgoing and has so much energy. The one who organizes tons of gatherings and showed up at my door with flowers when my dog died? When I discovered her darker moods, the razor sharp tongue that could leave me bleeding? I have no tools, no experiences to weather this. I don’t have the lens to see whether this is something that I can accept and continue the friendship. I certainly can’t talk to her about it. My walls go up, I will not be hurt, and the door closes. But, boy, do I miss her smiles, the connection, the long upbeat conversations.</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I won’t even go into the scenarios where I wonder why in the world they would want to be friends with me. Just wait until they know the real me. This is fodder for my soul. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am thrilled that my circles are again widening. Outside of the western suburbs, and on the web. I am putting no one on pedestals, and proceeding with caution.</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have a long road of self exploration ahead. Hopefully, at the end of this road, <a href="http://www.adesignsovast.com/2012/02/first-impressions-and-fertile-friend-making-periods/">Lindsey’s post about friendships </a>won’t make me feel so lonely, or<a href="http://coffeesandcommutes.com/2012/02/making-choices/"> Christine making wise, thoughtful decisions for herself</a> won’t feel like someone is breaking up with me. </span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 13.0px Georgia; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-43707731562461232902012-02-07T03:00:00.000-08:002012-02-07T03:00:04.745-08:00Street Signs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEoqHjLms0WqmtgL_HXL3EZQA11hWGbydbdkQ9T9C4V8geHImuT56cCS_tq3viI9-XH6ZKJ-bFomOK-ivddEl36cUaWJxUwDpPFBlOtD3AfQ5t4PeSxCtZQAyiV_7pk6s_c6HV0CoblU/s1600/photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEoqHjLms0WqmtgL_HXL3EZQA11hWGbydbdkQ9T9C4V8geHImuT56cCS_tq3viI9-XH6ZKJ-bFomOK-ivddEl36cUaWJxUwDpPFBlOtD3AfQ5t4PeSxCtZQAyiV_7pk6s_c6HV0CoblU/s320/photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Sometimes I wish people could just wear street signs so everyone could better understand each other.M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-32608417353787433882012-02-06T09:56:00.000-08:002012-02-06T09:56:33.678-08:00A Process<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My favorite days are when I have an open morning and even better if there is nothing on the schedule until picking up the kids from school. And immensely better if I have worked out before coming to sit for hours. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I grab my latte and sit with my computer. Without a plan. I read blogs, and make lists, switching from window to window, going where my [thoughts] takes me. If I feel the need to connect, I will make a concerted effort to send emails, or comment on blogs or facebook. But usually, I will just read, jot notes on pressing things that come to mind, relaxing into a no pressure, reflective, quiet readying for my day period. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This may not be a quieting of the mind, but it is a slowing, a centering. Usually, over the period of 30-45 minutes, one of two things occurs. I land on a topic, or idea, and am able to focus and write for the morning. Or, I acknowledge that there are too many other things I need to do, and go to town crossing those off the list. Either way, I work straight through the morning and/or early afternoon and feel wonderful about whatever I have accomplished that day. I also have energy, confidence and enthusiasm that carry all through the evening with my family. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Without a doubt, though, the centering time, the time before I know what the day will bring, is the best time of my day. It is during this time, I hold hope and possibilities and dream as if I have 10 lifetimes ahead of me.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I can write the novel about my grandmother’s life. My memoir writes and twists and edits itself before my eyes. I plan trips to D.C. and Africa and Alaska and Mardi Gras and Northern MInnesota. I am holy, seeking more divinity, feeling God’s will metastisizing through my being. I plan weeks of healthy, wholesome meals that I am positive my family will eat. Feelings of undying love for my husband prevail, and avenues to keep things alive. I have beautiful, sweeping gardens that offer solace and retreat to my family. I envision plans and events for our kids, our school, our community that will generate unabounding excitement. My house is clean, all the clothes are washed, and all the chores are done. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then my cup feels lighter, and knowing my latte is coming to an end, I force myself to choose one thing. One thing that will make a difference. This is one of the hardest parts of my day. I look at all the choices, and know that most will not get done to the degree I desire. I have to make a strong and concerted effort to focus on what I have done, not what doesn’t get done, or I spiral into inaction. So I very deliberately take one step forward, and I write, or I plan a meal or two, or I pay some bills and I check in with the tutor. And I feel good about it. I remind myself, daily, that I can not do it all. And what I do is not only enough, but it is good. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And there will be another day and another latte and another moment when I have all those choices again. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-15704810189682953562012-02-04T09:31:00.000-08:002012-02-04T09:31:44.718-08:00The Fifth Dimension"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. For reality, you see, is something created by man to dignify his limitations." - Rod SerlingM K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-43429920425064502292012-01-30T09:04:00.000-08:002012-01-30T09:04:20.108-08:00All Nighter<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I ran a huge event on January 12 that went splendidly well. And then, many said predictably, I got really sick. I missed some social events that I was actually excited about. I don’t have as many social events since <a href="http://hersuburbanlife.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am-taking-back-my-family.html">taking back my family</a> last fall. I am making huge attempts not to schedule things that aren’t important to me. I spent a couple of entire days in bed, and parts of other days for over a week. Just as I was feeling better last Sunday night, when my husband and I had watched one show and were getting prepared for another, just before 10 p.m., my youngest daughter wakes up with the worst stomach virus in the history of the universe. Without getting too down and dirty with the details, suffice it to say our entire army of cleaning products were used, and we left windows open all night in January in Minnesota to fumigate. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I pulled an all nighter. She was sick at least twice an hour, we stopped counting at 10 times around 2 am. My youngest daughter is tough as nails, especially when it comes to stomach flus. She spent the better part of her first three years throwing up, and knew to run to the toilet to get sick by the time she was 18 months old. She is often stoic about stomach viruses, sometimes not even waking me up. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But this one was different. The night is somewhat of a blur, but the pattern is clear. She would writhe in pain, her body straightening and stiffening into a board. She would cry out sometimes in sharp cries, sometimes whimpering. I would rub her if she would let me, and she only let me when she had given up hope, when all of her was used up. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then, suddenly, she would bolt in the bathroom to be sick. After about 11, there was nothing left, and she became intimate with the word bile. All I could do was hold her hair back, rub her back, and watch. Watch her little abdomen roll uncontrollably, her shoulders following suit, her neck roll just enough to allow her blond head to crush against the back of the toilet. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then, the reprieve. We would lay in bed and wait for the next one. I would start to doze, and then I would hear something like this: “Mama, how come I didn’t know the word bile before now?” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I rolled from my side to my back with a little giggle. “I’m not sure Sals. I guess its just not that pretty of a word and it just hasn’t come up before.” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Quiet. Dark. With a crack of light from the bathroom, so we can find our way when the next battle comes. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Mama? I should have known that word. My stomach has always been sick.” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had made my husband go sleep in the office because he just can’t handle this. He goes nuts when he can not do anything to make it better. Her pain becomes his unbearable, unfixable pain that morphs into fear, betrayal, and anger. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Her questions and insights in the in between times became my anchor for the night. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I don’t understand the tuning of a violin. You tighten the string to tune it, and it gets loose again, usually because of the water in the air. But why does it just break at some point with no warning?” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I know it looks like things, or people, just break without warning. But there is always a warning, a sign, if you pay attention, and if you know what you are doing. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Why was I born last? Would I be the same person if was born before Chaucer or Chloe?” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When we noticed the sky turning from the darkest black, to a little lighter black, she noticed the shift and asked why. I explained that morning was coming soon. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Really? I thought the night was longer than the days in the winter.”</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is, honey.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Wow. That night flew by. You mean we did an all nighter? Yes! I can’t wait to tell Chloe and Chaucer I was the first one to do an all nighter.” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And as the sun edged its way through our blinds, I held my daughters hand, and we finally slept. </span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-85743403419341461412012-01-19T08:19:00.000-08:002012-01-19T08:19:49.785-08:00Blessings of a Bad Day<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am smart enough, or evolved enough to ask some questions. Serious questions like, when I am in tears over everything and every one is upsetting me..... “What time of the month is it?” or like now, when I am sick, “Is everything as bad as it seems, darker than usual, because I am sick and under the weather?” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I consider it progress that I ask the questions, even if I don’t answer them correctly. I was really looking forward to this quiet week after the crazy week I had last week. Honestly, I like both kinds of weeks - busy and full of action, and quiet non scheduled weeks. I know there is no perfect time, and it is probably better that it happened this week, but being sick has really thrown me off my game. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I actually love it when I am able to give in to sickness. Just say, we can’t do it. Whether its me or my kids, giving in, laying in front of the TV or in bed, canceling obligations, and just getting thorough it. Although I fight this, I often embrace it when I must. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But my world is weighing heavy on me now. Substance abuse problems tearing families apart. Families that are close to us, our children. Allegations of sexual abuse from families in our school. Nasty divorces, like you wouldn’t believe. Parents driving their kids under the influence. Adults acting like teenage girls. A suicide in my hometown. The heavy, heavy weight of teaching my kids to navigate this world and wondering if I can do it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Oh yea, and this cold. Which somehow seems harder than anything. Yesterday, nothing was going right, you know those days? Nothing big, but everything little. I woke up to a very troubling email, on an issue that is constant but sometimes demands more. I couldn’t write a thing... except a lengthy thank you letter for my event last week. Being sick, I am even less able to multi task than usual, and spent the better part of the early afternoon dealing with learning issues at school. Steve called from out of town and he was distressed that his meeting didn’t go well. Last night, I needed help disciplining my son, who is so, so sweet and kind but has to be held responsible for his actions, or inactions. I find it almost easier to fight my headstrong daughters than to help my son be responsible. I didn’t know what to do, so I told him I was taking all of his new fatheads off his wall. Well, that was a disaster and I ended up being the only one crying as he pulled them off his wall, saying “I’m really sorry, Mom. Please be careful, Mom.” I wasn’t angry or out of control, I was just trying to find something that might mean something to him. Also, trying to tune it, I broke my youngest daughter’s beloved violin, which she plays all the time. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was in tears when my husband arrived home from out of town exhausted, and he surprised me. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Do you want to go out? Take a drive somewhere? I’ll handle this.” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“No. I can’t. I feel so bad.”</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“OK. I’ll draw you a bath.” What? Who is this? I vaguely remember this man I dated, then married years ago.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“There is already a kid in my bathtub. Can’t go there.” </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“OK. Honey. Just get in bed and read. I’ll finish with the kids.” I can’t get in bed to read because my son’s brand new 6 foot fathead is laying on my bed. I just spent the last 30 minutes unsticking it because it rolled together when I took it off his wall and now I don’t know what to do with it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I get up to check on my older daughter who is in the bathtub. I walk in my bedroom and see that the huge football player fathead is not on my bed anymore, and I quickly see that my youngest daughter has tried to clean my bed off for me, but has gotten caught up in the fat head, which is stuck to itself and her, and she is trying to deal with it without letting me know. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I burst into tears with a wailing sound and plonk on my bed and hold my pounding head. My older daughter is calling from the bathtub, “What’s wrong, Mom?” And my younger daughter is silently trying to fight the sticky fathead herself. If I were in a different state, I would have taken a picture. My husband comes in and says, again, that he will fix it. He tells me to go downstairs and I do. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I play our old pinball machine with tears streaming down my face. The tears are from being sick, frustrated, challenged with the day. They are also from all the heavy things going on in families close to us. They are fear from what has happened to the life we imagined having, fear of losing the closeness with my husband. They are also, thankfully, tears of happiness and a little hope. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One by one, they come down. Chaucer says he is sorry and brings a picture he has made and offers to play with me. I tell him that I don’t know what to do with him. I am so proud of him. He is such a good, kind, nice boy that I am so proud of. I know you don’t mean to do the things you do. I know it is the attention deficit disorder, but you are still responsible for your actions. Mostly, I hug him and tell him how much I love him and he has tears in his eyes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sally comes down with a note apologizing for breaking the ornament and wrecking the fathead. I kiss her head and say thank you, but I know they were accidents and she was just trying to be helpful and supportive. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My husband comes down and tells me he beat the fathead and it is back on the wall perfectly. He says he will take the violin to get fixed. He is calm, and good with the kids. He says he has already stepped in and handled some of the issues at school. I am still crying, not sure why, but probably for all the reasons listed above. And because it feels like it has been so long since I was supported, and it feels so good to have them caring and helping in a loving manner. I haven’t felt this in so long.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I took a bath with candles and headed to bed, only to find a sweet letter written by my daughter. It was folded like a letter addressed to Mama Sweetgirl Countryman. I started crying again. Maybe some of the things I do sink in. Maybe they do matter. I wrote her letters most every day at camp with these salutations. Chloe Mama’s Baby Countryman, or Chloe Dancer Extraordinaire Countryman, or Chloe Wild Girl Countryman. She never said anything about it and I never asked. And now, six months later, she addresses it to me like that. She noticed. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She wrote how much she loved me. She also said she asked Chaucer if he was upset about the fatheads and he responded, “Yea. I guess. But I’m more upset to disappoint Mom and see her upset.” This fills me because she was taking care of her brother when I wasn’t able to, and it scares me because his heart is so fragile. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally she said, I’m glad you are writing now. I love having a mother that writes. It makes me proud. If you write a kids book, I will be the first to read it. Dont. Know. How. To. Write. How. This. Makes. Me. Feel. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have been working so hard, fighting really to find my place. I haven’t found it, and times are not always or often easy now. I miss my children terribly now that they are all gone all day. Too much around them is work, rather than relationship building. I struggle to find a new path for myself, and trying to redefine myself puts unexpected pressures on my marriage. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, I find myself thankful for that horrible day yesterday. I would not trade it. I was so depleted that I had to depend on my family. I had to let them be there for me. My husband was soft and kind and calm. My kids were amazing. Oh, what it is to feel. To feel pain and frustration, and sadness. And to feel love and support and kindness. And to know that not everything is wrong in the world. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Especially our little world. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-5303878217502026322012-01-06T03:00:00.000-08:002012-01-06T03:00:16.464-08:00Dear Husband<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sometimes, I question , as I’m certain you do, if I am the right woman for you. Your life would have been so different without my complexities. The terroir of my emotional landscape is as familiar to you as Mars. You don’t question like I do, and for God’s sake you value keeping the peace over speaking your mind. My softness often hides inside, under my quills, where the good it does is more elusive. You might have been served better with the opposite, soft on the outside, quills kept tucked safely away. I am much more than I do, and this lies in direct conflict to one of your most esteemed values and identifying trait of being a hard worker. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But, still waters run deep, and in my heart, I know you have a very deep well. You are my private iceberg. Only the tip can be seen; the majority of the mass is hidden, undiscovered, unknown, unreachable. One of your favorite quotes is, “I like a challenge.” You might say that about me, although I know I am, and our marriage is, harder than you ever thought it would be. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Many of the things I want from you, I now realize you want from me too. And I wish, more than anything, that I could give them to you. I think the reason I want them so badly from you, is that I don’t know how to give them..... to you, to me, to anyone. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The soft, calm, centered, artistic, playful soul beckons to me from somewhere, and I greedily want it. I get glimpses of it, and pounce, ravenous for what has been missing for so long. But, you see, a calm soul can’t live with ravenous, pounce, and greed. It may not be as elusive as trapping a moonbeam, but the challenge needs more tools than I have right now. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So, I unabashedly demand it of you. Unbeknownst to me, I am asking you for something I am seeking, perhaps for myself, perhaps for others. Something I have been exposed to, yet do not know intimately. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Welcome to my inner journey. My hidden softness can only be exported through the written word for now. It can’t be spoken yet; it gets distorted and torn and hardened when I try to speak my truth. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I know, in the subterfuge of your iceberg, you can comprehend, interpret, listen, feel, at least part of my pilgrimage to my center. I invite you, to understand my deepest and most private self, through my written word. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1677353638533104114.post-5674998851641680292012-01-05T10:41:00.000-08:002012-01-05T10:41:23.501-08:00A New Topic<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Women write about slowing down, trusting. They talk about time flying, and years passing. They write about motherhood and kids; oh, they write about their kids. They try to write about themselves, distinguish themselves from their kids. They write about nature, and details, and overcoming whatever has come their way. They write about books and arts and politics; they write of painful pasts. They write of their causes, they share their insights. They speak of friends and dreams they have. They write of health and change. They write of their sadness, their darkness, their depression. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s harder to find, or at least I haven’t found it yet, writing about marriage and the spousal relationship. I mean real writing, intimate, true. Or perhaps what I have always thought is true, no one feels or experiences the world as I do. I had talked myself out of that because I never dreamed of finding people and making connections with those who understand some of my struggles. I do understand the tenuous ground of writing about spouses, (or teens or parents or sisters...etc) but I yearn to understand and have someone identify with me on this level. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have an added advantage right now of having a few trusted readers, none of whom appear in my real life. Except for my mother. And I have another blog where I write about her. Kidding. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even though we have made major changes, our lives are still full and busy and, frankly, we are tired. I don’t take the time to talk to Steve about much of my journey, and when I do, it doesn’t come out like I want it to. Over the years, especially when tempers run short, I have written him letters so that I can let him know what’s going on. I wrote one to him a few days ago. Not only did it explain where I was coming from, but, as with most of my writing now, it led me to new places that were unexpected. I have done this the past few days, and I have taken to filing them in a folder I have dubbed, The Husband Series. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am not sure what will come of this, but I like it now. Parts of these letters are very personal, but I think parts of them may be more universal. The biggest surprise for me is what I am learning about myself. Writing to him has pushed me to look at some things in a new way. And as a disclosure, I may not give him all of the letters. And I certainly won’t share them all here. But I would be interested to hear what you think. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>M K Countrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09141040521677064340noreply@blogger.com2