my parents were, at best, neglectful. i think i'm almost over it. a little. maybe. it was their own circumstance, i've concluded, not any malicious defect. as i get older i've discovered i increasingly muster a lot of empathy about the difficulty of balancing me, marriage, and my role as mom. i can see how hard it really is.
and discovering that i am a fantastic parent, despite the indifferent example of my own parents, has certainly helped.
but what i did not expect to discover is how fantastic of a grandmother my own mom would become.
no, it didn't happen right away - as M has become more interactive in all ways, mom has blossomed as well. she is attentive and caring toward M, sometimes to a fault (one more piece frequently becomes 7 more pieces ...). mom nurtures M's interests and encourages her learning (i had no idea she was so gifted at teaching about language and spelling!). mom will spend hours upon hours playing with toys with M, no matter the frenetic shifts of toddler focus - from legos, to barn, to dolls, to cars, to mr potato head, all in a matter of sometimes minutes.
a lot of these are the base requirements of a grandparent. but having personally endured her almost total lack of the base requirements of being a parent, i admit my hopes weren't high. and my expectation early on of her certain failure, when M was tiny ... well, i see now how i and my poisonous proscribed reactions were absolutely part of problems we did have. but as i've grown into a confident mom, and she's grown into a doting grandparent, we've been made the better by the shared maturity of our roles. i'm indescribably thankful for this.
and even moreso today, which is my mom's birthday - always a celebratory occasion, even as her years have crept up to 69, but made more bittersweet this year with the recently confirmed return of her non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. looking forward, mom's coming year may well bring many unpleasant treatment choices, and may limit the kind of intensive play with M to which they've both become accustomed. it may be the beginning of a goodbye. it won't be easy for any of us, i think.
selfishly, i've already begun mourning that our second child may never really know grandma kathy, a thought that fills me with sadness for myself and for yet-to-be little J or S. mom and i don't talk about this. i think we both know it's one possible truth too painful for us to approach together. we just go on, as we've learned to do ...
Friday, July 17, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
thinking about the body
i've never seen such beautiful bodies than at the beach in Florida this June.
not the rippling-muscled, well-toned, firm bodies of [insert any vapid beach movie/TV show here] - i mean the diversity of people with every shape, contour, and size of body. every body.
all of us lacking all self-consciousness as we enjoyed the sea and sand.
the very old Middle Eastern men collecting shells, the charming Russian family and their bright beach umbrella, the disheveled couples chasing joyful young children, the svelte and stylish teenagers making out in the surf, the pale, round Midwestern tourists loping along the shore in tennis shoes ... in this company, my body, spreading out here and there on my beach chair, was just another of so many shapes, and perfect exactly as it is - mom belly, lopsided breasts, flabby arms and all!
not the rippling-muscled, well-toned, firm bodies of [insert any vapid beach movie/TV show here] - i mean the diversity of people with every shape, contour, and size of body. every body.
all of us lacking all self-consciousness as we enjoyed the sea and sand.
the very old Middle Eastern men collecting shells, the charming Russian family and their bright beach umbrella, the disheveled couples chasing joyful young children, the svelte and stylish teenagers making out in the surf, the pale, round Midwestern tourists loping along the shore in tennis shoes ... in this company, my body, spreading out here and there on my beach chair, was just another of so many shapes, and perfect exactly as it is - mom belly, lopsided breasts, flabby arms and all!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
comforts of home
i like putting the baby to bed and taking a hard cider to the basement for late-night laundry.
i like the cardinals and bluejays who visit the backyard every morning.
i like showering by candlelight just before bed.
i like putting clean dishes away in orderly stacks.
i like the golden glow of my white oak floors in morning sunlight.
i like the patterns of shadow from the Japanese honeysuckle on the shades in the nursery at M's naptime.
i like our humming refrigerator's constant rhthym.
i like dusting lamps and picture frames.
i like giving drinks to cheery green houseplants.
i like the eager forsythia that i trimmed incorrectly.
i like to lounge in the Adirondack chairs out back in the sunshine on warm days.
i like snuggling down in bed with a warm husband, and a cat to keep my feet toasty.
i like my furniture.
i like the colors of the walls in every light and every season.
i like home. it's where i feel most safe and tranquil.
i will miss this house someday.
i like the cardinals and bluejays who visit the backyard every morning.
i like showering by candlelight just before bed.
i like putting clean dishes away in orderly stacks.
i like the golden glow of my white oak floors in morning sunlight.
i like the patterns of shadow from the Japanese honeysuckle on the shades in the nursery at M's naptime.
i like our humming refrigerator's constant rhthym.
i like dusting lamps and picture frames.
i like giving drinks to cheery green houseplants.
i like the eager forsythia that i trimmed incorrectly.
i like to lounge in the Adirondack chairs out back in the sunshine on warm days.
i like snuggling down in bed with a warm husband, and a cat to keep my feet toasty.
i like my furniture.
i like the colors of the walls in every light and every season.
i like home. it's where i feel most safe and tranquil.
i will miss this house someday.
Monday, March 2, 2009
small view
when my day turns out just so and i am given the gift of a peaceful hour in the kitchen after dinner, i wash dishes and meditate with the warmth of the water and the scrubbing of the plates and bowls and cups. i stare out the window, which is situated over the sink, overlooking the expanse of our remarkably secluded city backyard, through the tall trees of the neighborhood, toward the west.
as the sun sets in every season, i have enjoyed elaborate compositions of cloud and color, watched winged things - both bats and birds - take to the open air, and seen squirrels scurry across utility lines, tree branches to garage roofs and back. these sights are constants, though in every season, a different early evening landscape appears - winter's icy grey crispness against shimmering silver and pink clouds; the visible dewy softness of new green grass under glassy skies in spring; the thick indigo blanket of summer's humid dusk, full with cricket song; and fall's rough textures and ochre hues under elaborate branches of bare trees.
i lived in a townhouse for some time with a view over the kitchen sink of only the wall's fake brick veneer, painted white and peeling. to get any green at all i would have to crane my neck, when washing dishes, to look through the back screen door to the private, shaded courtyard beyond. a large maple stood sentry just outside my back porch, and despite being downtown, raccoons and possums came to visit there more often than i expected. the courtyard was my island of nature among a sea of city asphalt, and my upstairs office overlooked it as well - a treehouse view, up in the maple boughs, which i loved and appreciated daily. but not over that kitchen sink! ... i might have hung a landscape painting if the walls had not been stubborn concrete and prone to crumbling.
my parent's kitchen window overlooks a wild quince bush, and beyond it a gratuitous strip of grass between houses, then a large old magnolia tree near a main road. even now, my mother gives me the weekly activity report from this narrow corridor - the bush seemed alive with one hundred tiny birds today; a rabbit came to nibble on the peonies and stayed quite awhile; the magnolia is blossoming and its heavy blooms are weighing the branches down. i have a lot of memories of my parents washing dishes together - one of their very, very few cooperative efforts - and, in each, i see in my mind's eye one or the other of them staring out that window as they talk, mom washing, dad drying, taking what peace they could from that small view.
as the sun sets in every season, i have enjoyed elaborate compositions of cloud and color, watched winged things - both bats and birds - take to the open air, and seen squirrels scurry across utility lines, tree branches to garage roofs and back. these sights are constants, though in every season, a different early evening landscape appears - winter's icy grey crispness against shimmering silver and pink clouds; the visible dewy softness of new green grass under glassy skies in spring; the thick indigo blanket of summer's humid dusk, full with cricket song; and fall's rough textures and ochre hues under elaborate branches of bare trees.
i lived in a townhouse for some time with a view over the kitchen sink of only the wall's fake brick veneer, painted white and peeling. to get any green at all i would have to crane my neck, when washing dishes, to look through the back screen door to the private, shaded courtyard beyond. a large maple stood sentry just outside my back porch, and despite being downtown, raccoons and possums came to visit there more often than i expected. the courtyard was my island of nature among a sea of city asphalt, and my upstairs office overlooked it as well - a treehouse view, up in the maple boughs, which i loved and appreciated daily. but not over that kitchen sink! ... i might have hung a landscape painting if the walls had not been stubborn concrete and prone to crumbling.
my parent's kitchen window overlooks a wild quince bush, and beyond it a gratuitous strip of grass between houses, then a large old magnolia tree near a main road. even now, my mother gives me the weekly activity report from this narrow corridor - the bush seemed alive with one hundred tiny birds today; a rabbit came to nibble on the peonies and stayed quite awhile; the magnolia is blossoming and its heavy blooms are weighing the branches down. i have a lot of memories of my parents washing dishes together - one of their very, very few cooperative efforts - and, in each, i see in my mind's eye one or the other of them staring out that window as they talk, mom washing, dad drying, taking what peace they could from that small view.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
demotivated
i finished my master's degree.
now i have some time on my hands.
what to do, what to do?
my creative ideas know no bounds.
my physical motivation, however, knows many.
i like the saying above - 'my future will be happy and productive' - because i feel it encompasses the kind of waiting i always do when it comes to that which i want to either have or accomplish. waiting for the right day, the right feeling, the right idea, the right circumstance, the right economy, the right accomplice, the right guidance, the right moon phase.
it's an elaborate form of procrastination, i've concluded - meant to take the control (and thus the blame for total inaction) out of my hands. the waiting has become so much a part of my life that i now feel fairly certain i'll be waiting for the most favorable this-or-that until the day i die!
worse, i realize i have legitimately 'inherited' this propensity (and slothfulness, honestly) from my parents, both of whom had great potential and zero confidence, zero motivation, and zero will. two bright people who barely flickered in the dark of their small worlds. i'm their daughter! i'm barely flickering ...
i had hoped this realization and knowledge of the root of my enduring demotivation would somehow spur me to ... action. something!!! no. i'm just as wayward as i ever was. maybe worse, actually, now that i'm so sold on non-obligation. what's the kind of thing that gets a person like me going again?
now i have some time on my hands.
what to do, what to do?
my creative ideas know no bounds.
my physical motivation, however, knows many.
i like the saying above - 'my future will be happy and productive' - because i feel it encompasses the kind of waiting i always do when it comes to that which i want to either have or accomplish. waiting for the right day, the right feeling, the right idea, the right circumstance, the right economy, the right accomplice, the right guidance, the right moon phase.
it's an elaborate form of procrastination, i've concluded - meant to take the control (and thus the blame for total inaction) out of my hands. the waiting has become so much a part of my life that i now feel fairly certain i'll be waiting for the most favorable this-or-that until the day i die!
worse, i realize i have legitimately 'inherited' this propensity (and slothfulness, honestly) from my parents, both of whom had great potential and zero confidence, zero motivation, and zero will. two bright people who barely flickered in the dark of their small worlds. i'm their daughter! i'm barely flickering ...
i had hoped this realization and knowledge of the root of my enduring demotivation would somehow spur me to ... action. something!!! no. i'm just as wayward as i ever was. maybe worse, actually, now that i'm so sold on non-obligation. what's the kind of thing that gets a person like me going again?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
obligation
possibly the most untenable of all emotional conditions for me is the crush of obligation.
in some cases, i make my own bed, as it were: i invite and seek obligation, in return for some spiritual, intellectual, or monetary reward for the work. we all do this regularly, as fair exchange for our state as social beings. it's the sticky part of cooperative enterprise. that's cool.
but other times, i am writhing beneath obligation that came on like a whip crack, a hard, painful snap against my otherwise laconic reality. i hate obligation. i hate being reminded of it. i hate the expectation. the recompense. the horrible, angry, buzzing have-to - of all kinds of things and relationships and efforts.
tonight's been a bad reminder of that prison. and i still don't like his friends.
in some cases, i make my own bed, as it were: i invite and seek obligation, in return for some spiritual, intellectual, or monetary reward for the work. we all do this regularly, as fair exchange for our state as social beings. it's the sticky part of cooperative enterprise. that's cool.
but other times, i am writhing beneath obligation that came on like a whip crack, a hard, painful snap against my otherwise laconic reality. i hate obligation. i hate being reminded of it. i hate the expectation. the recompense. the horrible, angry, buzzing have-to - of all kinds of things and relationships and efforts.
tonight's been a bad reminder of that prison. and i still don't like his friends.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
february
what is it about winter?
that makes my motivation go
sad and frigid, against the landscape
of snow and branches
broken by the weight of ice -
the precious price of January.
i can't summon the work needed
to start and do the work i need to do.
i'm down. i'm tired, and you may notice
i can' t hold my end of the conversation.
i'm worthless in this bitter cold.
it could be the frozen shelf of ground
that isn't melting,
that should be melting.
it's a glacier all around - slick and shiny
enough to see the sky.
it could be the wind that swings
the gate open and shut, whistling,
like a lost traveler, an adventurer inured
to cold and ice and and snow.
i don't know. i may never know.
but i hope to think more on this
from Gulfside soon.
that makes my motivation go
sad and frigid, against the landscape
of snow and branches
broken by the weight of ice -
the precious price of January.
i can't summon the work needed
to start and do the work i need to do.
i'm down. i'm tired, and you may notice
i can' t hold my end of the conversation.
i'm worthless in this bitter cold.
it could be the frozen shelf of ground
that isn't melting,
that should be melting.
it's a glacier all around - slick and shiny
enough to see the sky.
it could be the wind that swings
the gate open and shut, whistling,
like a lost traveler, an adventurer inured
to cold and ice and and snow.
i don't know. i may never know.
but i hope to think more on this
from Gulfside soon.
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