My Half Out of the Middle, and other crimes

"So, are you still sleeping on the same side of the bed, or have you moved to the middle?" 

Sometimes, it takes a 20+ year old movie to get me thinking about how I'm living my life right now.

Last Sunday afternoon, right after church, I declared, "I need a nap.", and I went upstairs, shut the door, turned on my laptop and watched,  When Harry Met Sally   for the first time, all the way through, without interruption.  (If you've lived under a rock even longer than I have, and have no idea what this movie is about, click here for a synopsis.)  When Harry and Sally are still in their "friends" stage, while they are each still grieving the break-ups of their relationships with their respective partners, Harry asks Sally, 

"So, are you still sleeping on the same side of the bed, or have you moved to the middle?" 

And Sally says that she's moved to the middle.  Harry agonizes that he's still sleeping on his original side of the bed, and that he feels weird if even his leg moves across the middle line.  

Until very recently, I was just like Harry, sleeping only on "my" side.  In fact, I hadn't even been un-making that side of the bed.  Don't ask me why.  It was just instinctive.  That had been Andre's side of the bed. It never occurred to me to claim it.  

And no, this isn't really a meditation on my bedroom.  As usual, it's another instance of something small, something mundane and concrete that gets me thinking about something bigger.  Interestingly, in my eagerness to re-decorate and change the master bedroom in the days and weeks right after Andre's death, I knew I had to make changes that would interrupt the constant re-runs of the horror movie in my head or I'd never be able to sleep in the room again, but I was also rather worried that somehow, I was making the room "too" mine, doing too many things according to only my tastes, and feeling like I should be deferring to someone, even though I knew that Andre was gone. 

About a week ago, I had a dream that has stayed with me.  Andre was in it, as he sometimes is, and that, in itself, is usually upsetting.  This one, though was memorably upsetting because of what he was doing.  He was, with the help of the husband of one of my dear friends, filling-up my house with junk; Andre's junk, computer parts and bits of household hardware, boxes of old textbooks, childhood tchotckes, car-parts, the very junk that I have spent months clearing out, throwing out, donating, boxing-up, trying to sell-off!  And the other man was helping Andre fill-up my house with this crap by BUYING more of it on the internet and having it shipped to my house.  In this dream, I felt powerless to stop them.  It was just the way it had always been:  it just wasn't my choice about what came in, what was spent, and where the stuff piled up.  

 I'm not an expert when it comes to interpreting dreams, but this one felt like it was sending a clear message:  It's time to stop letting Andre, or my memories of Andre, or any other person, fill up MY house, my heart, the house of my spirit, with unwanted "stuff". 

 Not only am I free to sprawl across any part of my king-sized bed (notice I said "my", not "our") that I want, I am also free to begin choosing what stays and what goes from my life, regardless of what the "rules" used to be.

Recently, I challenged an old rule that went something like this:

All house-fixes related to aesthetics are simply TOO impossible and cannot be accomplished without weeks or months of "thinking about it",multiple discussions of why it just can't be done, and then, perhaps a martyrdom operation in which the original single-item task turns into multiple, complicated processes with 100-year-engineering built in, along with several trips to the hardware store, and possibly one to the emergency room, and no further aesthetic input allowed.

In violation of that rule, one afternoon, I looked at my front entryway, and decided that although I'd been told that it was "impossible" to have a small lamp and a small table in the entryway because we HAD to keep a really ugly 1930's vanity there, AND there was simply NO WAY that an extension cord could be tacked along a baseboard to an outlet on another wall... too complicated, too impossible... it was time to have that entry the way I wanted.

•  one trip to the thrift shop to donate the ugly mirrored vanity, 
• one trip to the hardware store for a couple of needed items, 
• one trip to TJMaxx for a lamp, 
• a little time spent crawling along the baseboard with some cable tacks and double-sided tape... and voila!  rule broken.  No trips to the emergency room.  No martyrdom, and nothing bolted to the wall with 80-lb capacity molly bolts, centered precisely using four kinds of levels... RULE BROKEN

And shortly after that, I decided that I was fed up with having nothing but salvage-area computers with antiquated software that couldn't stream Netflix or use Skype or stream Pandora, so I broke this rule:

Under NO circumstances are new computers to be purchased.  New computers are full of suspicious things like versions of Windows that are younger than our oldest child, and possibly have things like webcams and disc-burners built in.  This can't be good.  Boneyard computers, frankensteined from parts and pieces, and loaded with versions of software that can't be purchased or supported anywhere are the only options. 

You see, in order for me to have been able to watch When Harry Met Sally in the quiet of MY room, it required that I have a new laptop, not one constructed from bits and pieces, not running a bootlegged copy of an out-dated operating system... Yup, I actually bought myself a new computer 2 weeks ago, but it took two weeks to realize why I was feeling haunted by doing so.  I'd broken a rule.  You see how it starts?  I break a rule by buying myself a computer, unassisted by an "expert", I watch a movie I never could have sneaked time for in my old life, I hear a question that gets me thinking, and before you know it, the rules are being broken all over the place, and I'm writing about it to an audience of who knows who.  Who knows where it will stop.  Oh, and I bought the computer with a portion of the proceeds of the sale of one of Andre's guns. (Yet another rule broken.)  How's that for a trade?  A bit of paranoia and death sold-off to a collector in Tennessee, in exchange for a bit of life and laughter that I purchased for myself.

The dream (well, waking it up from it, anyway), my realization that I could indeed  "take my half out of the middle" of my king-sized bed, my adventures in decorating, and my heedless foray into the trackless jungles of Windows 8 are all wobbly-kneed moments of realizing over and over, and sometimes with tears, that I am freer than I realize.

And I am definitely wobbly: just like the day after Andre's memorial service when I removed my wedding rings, just like the day I spent with a dear friend, cleaning out Andre's clothes closet and emptying his dresser.  I'm free, but I'm unused to being this free, and it's a little scary and a little lonely.  There are times when I am holding in one hand the memory of how awful it was to live in the prison that was my marriage, and weighing it against strange comfort of the predictable, if confining and painful security of my previous life.  It's in those moments, I feel like that character from another movie, The Shawshank Redemption, the character who simply can't handle freedom after being in prison for so long, and eventually returns. I think there have been some times lately when I've wished for a way to return.  

I won't return, though, not to that life, and I know that eventually I will learn to live here on the outside, and learn to revel in my freedom.

For now, I'll start with moving ALL the pillow shams, and turning down the WHOLE edge of the covers, and climbing into the middle of my king-sized bed.

To sleep, perchance to dream... I'm hoping the dreams get better from here.

Raise the seat. Aim for a central point just ahead of you.

I learned something recently from a guy I know.

Wait... that didn't sound quite right, did it?  

Really, this is not a blog entry about that.  

But I did momentarily capture the attention of your inner 5-year -old, didn't I?  (Or, for some folks, their inner 18-year-old... ) 

(Now kindly re-direct your inner kindergartener to something more appropriate, while consoling your inner teenager, that there will be some mention of long legs coming up... oh, and a brief bondage joke.  You have been warned. ) 

Ahem... back to those life lessons. 

I'm referring, of course, to what I have learned recently about riding my bike.  And while I was riding my bike today, I got to thinking about how those lessons could be applied in the rest of my life.  

Lesson 1- Raise the seat

Ok, this one I did NOT learn from a guy, (aren't you relieved?)  but it is something I discovered today on my ride.  I'm 5'10" and most of my height is in my legs.  I was the kid with the high-waters throughout most of my childhood.  And now I refer to my summer collection of "cropped pants" when I can't find the extra-long jeans for my 36-inch inseam. After struggling along with a much-too-short bike for a couple of years, I'd given myself the gift of a right-sized bike last Spring, when I needed to cross-train for my first half-marathon.  But I had never considered whether the height of the seat was properly adjusted to give me enough power in each pedal stroke.  Today, it suddenly occurred to me to raise the seat a couple of inches, and... voila !  More power ! 

I'm thinking that there's a metaphor I need to consider: when I'm feeling like I'm just not making any headway, I need to consider extending myself a bit more, stretching a little beyond my current comfort zone, if I want to experience my full power.  

Lesson 2: Aim for a central point just ahead of you.

This lesson was the one that actually got me thinking about how what I learn on my bike applies to my life.  And it's the one I learned from a guy. :-) 

I had a conversation, a couple of weeks ago, with a friend who is a competitive cyclist, and a pretty helpful guy when it comes to advice.  We were talking about that wobbly feeling that you get when you have to somehow thread yourself and the bike through a narrow place on a ride: gates, a tight overtake-and-pass, or riding in a group. Take a look at the photo above and notice those poles at the end of the crosswalk.  All along my ride on the bike trails around here, I have to ride through those gateways.  Sure, they don't look all that narrow, until, as a newbie cyclist, I try to ride through one, and I find myself feeling wobbly and having to slow way down, which makes me even more wobbly, which can lead to crashing into one of the poles.  They are a kind of Island of the Sirens for a casual cyclist like me: the poles have a kind of magnetic pull, and a swerve to either side can bring me to destruction, or at least bruises and embarrassment.  

And my friend's advice was to aim for a central point, ahead of you, just beyond the narrow place.  I tried it today for the first time, during my 22-mile ride along the Contra Costa Canal Trail.

And it worked !  As I approached the gateway, I chose a specific leaf, pebble, or even a dark spot on the pavement, a few feet past the gateway, and I maintained speed and sailed right through, again and again, gate after gate.  It didn't work as well when I just told myself to "look past the gate".  It seemed like I needed a specific, visible point to aim for.

In my life these days, my own magnetic, crash-inducing, poles-on -the-trail Sirens are guilt, grief, self-doubt, and a kind of paralyzing depression that makes me a lousy mom and a real drag as a friend.  Each time I get "ambushed" either by a holiday, or some kind of family milestone, or something that reminds me of the difference between my life now and where I wish it was, I find myself wobbling dangerously close to these monsters.  (If you've forgotten the story of Odysseus and the Sirens since your junior high school English class, click on the blue text, and you can grab a quick About.com fix.)

So... what to do?  In the story, Odysseus had his crew put wax in their ears and then lash him to the mast while they sailed past the rock where the Sirens were.  But you know, if I'm going to have a bunch of sailors tie me up, it had better be for something way, way more fun than simply ignoring me while we sail past some old rock.  (Of course, I'm kidding... my mom reads this blog...and so do my pastors.) 

But I CAN "aim for a central point" ahead of me. 

If an emotional "narrow gate" on the calendar is looming, and I feel myself getting wobbly, and I'm pulled toward a crash, I can stay aware of those "poles", but keep moving toward a specific, visible point, just beyond that gate.  I have a feeling that the whole "just think of your future" thing isn't going to work.  It's too vague, and frankly, there are too many future scenarios that are not at all cheery, if my mind chooses to go that way.  Instead, I need to identify the possible upcoming narrow spots, and then find or plan a specific event, preferably something involving doing for others, extending myself (see Lesson #1), that will occur just past the opening of the narrow place I have to travel through.   

March... no problems that I see...April / Easter... I think that one's pretty well covered.  A celebration of the victory of life over death, of resurrection, renewal, redemption... I think that one won't involve too much Andre-loaded wobbling. 

May... a bit more challenging.  That one is going to require some spotting of specific pebbles on the pavement.  I've got a birthday in the month, and then there's what would have been our 19th wedding anniversary, a week later, on the 28th.  I've got a bit of time to spot those pebbles, I guess.  One possible "pebble"  might be my half-marathon run with the American Brain Tumor Team Breakthrough, on June 16.  (If you click on the blue text, it will take you right to my fundraising page.  How's that for shameless self-promotion?  It's for a good cause, though.)

June...maybe I'll still be running off the high of the half marathon for part of the month, but I'll need a pebble to steer for as I approach my eldest son's birthday on the 25th.  

July brings us to the one-year mark, and it might take more than steering toward a pebble to keep me from wobbling.  But that's where my amazing friends come in.  Somehow, I'll get through it... or maybe somebody will round up a crew of sailors to do that lashing-to-the-mast thing...No, wait...I didn't say that, did I?  (No worries, Mom, I really am kidding...) 

Hebrews 12:1-2 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

I'm thinking that will make a pretty good-sized pebble, in addition to any of the other ones I might need to line up.  

Roses and Ashes

When I was an unathletic, chubby, awkward 3rd grader, there was only one boy in my class who DIDN'T call me fat, didn't try to trip me in the hallways, and even laughed with me over things that we both found funny.  So, when Valentine's Day that year came around, and we all put our little hand-addressed Valentines in the pink and red paper-covered distribution box in Mrs. Dolcetti's classroom, the only boy who got a Valentine from me was Donnie S.  I found out, years later, that the gesture was a bright spot for a lonely little boy who was going through a rough patch himself at the time.

Years later, when we bumped into each other at a summer resort where I was working, between sophomore and junior years of college, Don (no longer "Donnie") greeted me with "Val!! You were the only person who sent me a Valentine when we were in 3rd grade!  I'll never forget that."  Many years after that, at our 30th high school class reunion, my 3rd-grade buddy reminded me, yet again, of that Valentine's Day so long ago.  Funny how some gestures take on a life of their own.

Over the years, I've found myself desperately wishing that someone special would, just once, make a little effort, with no hinting from me, and surprise me with a rose, or a poem, or a card... something a little romantic, something that showed a little thought for me.

And as I've gotten to know the men in my life: a couple of boyfriends and then my husband, I've realized that I need to have some compassion for the way guys feel this time of year.  I've come to understand that Valentine's Day, in that Hallmark card/Kay Jewelers/1-800-Flowers frame is a pretty intimidating thing for them: high expectations, unfamiliar "stuff", and the looming possibility of screwing it up.

Of course, it's not the "stuff" that I was wishing for, it was that sense of being thought of, valued, loved.

During my years with Andre, I learned to just roll with whatever happened or didn't happen that day.

There were many "oops, I forgot" years, a few last-minute dashes to the store at 10 p.m on the 14th, and one year when I was presented with an Alan Jackson CD....yup.  And then there's the story that's still told among the sales staff at a local lingerie boutique.  It seems that one February, Andre decided that I needed a few lacy nothings and went into Sarah's Bare Necessities to find them.  He told the sales clerk my size and had her pick out a few things to show him on the hangers.   He then took the items one by one, and threw them on the floor, nodding approvingly.  When the woman demanded to know what he was doing, he reportedly grinned his rascally grin and quipped,  "Oh, I just want to know what it's going to look like once I get it home."   To his credit, it does reflect some degree of thought and effort.  It was one of the better years.  Another year, it was clear that his wait-til-the-last-minute strategy made the search for "just the right card" a little challenging.  I got a card that year from the Hispanic collection, entirely in Spanish.  And it was actually a pretty romantic card.  My Spanish is pretty good.  Since Andre's command of the language began and ended with the Taco Bell menu , I don't think he chose the card for its message, but for the fact that it had what appeared to be sentences of some kind of text, some pictures of roses, and a decided lack of Tweety Bird or Power Rangers on it. (See above, re: "possibility of screwing up")  Again, looking back, I'd give him points for at least trying.

And today, it's the 13th of the month (Andre died on July 13), and tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I'm feeling a little fragile.  If there ever were a day to make sure that there's kleenex around every corner, it's been today.  There won't be any romantic gestures for me tomorrow, or even any failed attempts at one.  I could give in to feeling sorry for myself.  In fact, there have been moments all day when I have done just that.  (Investment tip: Kleenex Corporation is a buy and hold stock for a while.)

But today is also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a season of reflection and repentance that leads up to Easter.  This evening, I'm wearing on my forehead a reminder of a gesture of love that was planned before I was even a twinkle in my parent's eyes.  Tonight, I participated in a service that reminds us that the love of God begins with a declaration that we are beloved creations, created in the image of our creator, declared, "very good" ... and that with our free will, we have the capability, indeed the propensity to screw up, AND that our screw-ups are forgiven: now, tomorrow, next year, and on and on forever.

Tonight's service included the writing of short anonymous confessions on little pieces of paper and tucking them into the "stones" of a replica of the Wailing Wall (I love the creative worship team at my church--never the same thing twice)  and the imposition of ashes --the burned and ground-up remains of last Palm Sunday's palm branches--on our foreheads, in the shape of a cross, a reminder of the length to which God goes to prove how loved we are.  As I struggle with my inevitable guilt--over Andre's death, over feeling relieved that the nightmare of life with him is done, guilt over moving on, guilt over not being the 100% wonderful mom I should be... it's a great relief to be given time to write down the worst of it, fold it up on a little slip of paper, and let go of it, and to do so in the community of people who have supported me every step of this journey, people who translate God's love into gestures of love that are far too real, far too thoughtful to have ever come from a card store or a florist stand.

In a frame that is way, way bigger than Hallmark, Kay Jewelers, or 1-800-flowers could ever be, I think I've received my love note for this year.  It's just not the red/pink/sparkly one I might have been wishing for.  But, once I dry my eyes, re-apply the mascara, and get over my self-pitying self, it really is way more than enough.

Oh, and I actually did get surprised with a rose today.

Even though I pruned my rose bushes mercilessly in preparation for the winter, months ago, I guess Somebody  knew I'd need one rose, right about now.  I found this one on the bush this morning, and brought it inside before the cold air at night zaps it.

Yup, I think I'll get through the day ok.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.    John 13:34

The Art of Living with "CRAFT"

I've been fretting lately... well, more than fretting...try, "obsessing" and "apologizing ad nauseam" about how my short-term memory is just trashed.  If it isn't written down, and even sometimes when it is, I'll forget whatever I just promised to remember.  I look at even the simplest form to fill out and my mind goes blank. I survey the piled-high jumble in the room that was once my husband's office and sanctum sanctorum, intending to get started on the cleaning-out, and I freeze, and close the door.

It's been over 6 months, after all, and I keep thinking I should be farther along than this.

My experts tell me that my foggy brain is actually normal for this part of the journey, that my mind still just has too much noise in it;  noise generated by grief and post-traumatic stress, to be able to keep thoughts organized, to remember that there's a form I'm supposed to fill out for the Kindergarten book sale, and another one to update for the Middle School ministries, and one for the high school Band Boosters, and there's some carrots in the fridge that I'd meant to make into a shredded salad, and a 40lk that I need to start the rollover on, and the dog hasn't been out to pee for HOURS... and did I forget that I put the kettle on to boil to make a french press of coffee?

And it seems like I've forgotten how to cook.  No, really.  Most of the time, I simply can't face the prospect of cooking, but lately, when I've tried, the end result is not as good as I've usually been able to produce in the past.  And often, lately, it's downright awful.  It's as if I can't stay focused on any one task long enough to avoid making mistakes.  So, I'm letting my older kids work on their kitchen skills, and nobody's starving. I've stopped asking "what can I bring?" when I'm invited to a party.  That used to be an excuse to show-off my cooking creativity.  But now I just breezily offer, "how about I bring some drinks?"

But as seems to be the case so often, in this blessed life of mine, filled with wise, generous, loving, and hilarious people, I've gotten some help from a friend.  This friend has given me a very handy label to hang on my condition, a diagnosis.  And you know, don't you, that once you have a diagnosis for those annoying symptoms, you can relax and focus on treatment.

Last Sunday afternoon, I was sitting on Dave and Kelley's cozy couch, savoring a plate of Dave's amazing red beans and Carolina-style pulled pork, watching the 49'ers get whupped by the Ravens, and silently giving thanks that I'd re-connected recently (well, 2 years ago, when we bumped into each other in the lobby of Davies Symphony Hall) with yet another of my college friends who now lives in the Bay Area.  Given my current status as a failure in the kitchen, I was especially appreciative of Dave's culinary gifts (and post-college chef-training).  Seriously, those beans were a work of art... I remarked that the kids and I hadn't eaten this well in weeks, because I'd forgotten how to cook, and forgotten a bunch of other things... I started in on my obsessive litany of what my unreliable brain couldn't do.

And Dave stopped me.

"It's called 'CRAFT', dear, 'Can't Remember A Fucking Thing'.  We all have it now.  It's part of being old",  he said

And now I have a diagnosis.  I have CRAFT.

And since I can't remember a f*cking thing, it's time to accept the diagnosis and start working on the treatment.

 While I do my healing work with my therapist, and perhaps do some investigation into better-living-through-chemistry, I've got to find a work-around.  I'm working on hiring a professional organizer to create some CRAFT-proof  paperwork-handling systems, so the bills get paid on time, and the tax-related documents are all findable at tax time... and she'll need to create a household chores rotation for the kids, so I can stop being the screaming meanie mom who assigns three different kids to load the dishwasher, about 3 minutes apart, and then watches the kids shrug and wait to see who's really going to end up scraping away Rhys' un-eaten macaroni and cheese.  It might put an end to the endless fights over whose turn it REALLY is to clean the kids' upstairs bathroom, affectionately (or is it "infection-ately" ?) dubbed, The Swamp.

So, I've been thinking lately about what I might want to do with my trembling wild-bunny mind, once the scramble to keep the paperwork, the wetwork, and the work that requires a rubber gloves, a strong stomach, and a big bottle of Kaboom, is managed.

And I've decided that for now that I'll keep writing, keep living in "The Now" (if you haven't read Eckardt Tolle's The Power of Now, get it, and devour it, please)  and I'll see what sense memories I can store, and see how long I can store them.

You see, when I'm old and really forgetful, it won't really matter so much that I failed to get the permission slips signed until the very last minute, or that the boys' long-sleeve white shirts for school chapel had to be sponged-off at the last minute, because I forgot to get that load of laundry done before Wednesday morning, or that I cooked the ham too long, or forgot the salt in the biscuit recipe. But I will want to remember:

*the plane-landing sound that my 6-year-old makes when he swoops in on me, suddenly, for a "hugga"

*my daughter's homemade cafe au lait, first thing in the morning, and her smile of accomplishment when she hands me a mug of it.

*the slow-growing spicy hotness of Dave's amazing red beans (like, seriously, Dave, publish the recipe or make a YouTube instructional video or something...), and the feeling of being cared-for that comes from someone else cooking for me and my kids.

*the French horn imitation of Canadian geese over Newhall Park as the sun rises during my early morning walks.

*the feel of cashmere and superwash merino yarn as it slides through my fingers when I knit

*the perfect cartoon-character parentheses formed by the corners of the smile of a certain blue-eyed friend

*the delightful, contagious, cackling laugh of another friend, a laugh that carries over the conversation of dozens of people.

*the eccentric street-theatre of my neighbor across the street, meticulously sweeping her sidewalk after dark every night, by the light of her handheld flashlight--and the barely suppressed laughter of a friend who sat with me in my front yard one autumn night, sipping wine and revelling in the strangeness of suburbia.

*the pride in my 10 year old's face as he shows me how he took the "guts" from a broken toy helicopter and turned it into a mobile weapons system to be mounted on the back of his remote-controlled toy monster truck.

*the happily repetitive plunk-plunk-plunka-plunk of my 14 year old, teaching himself to play acoustic bass in every spare minute he has.

I have faith that, eventually, my CRAFT symptoms will calm down, while I train a less-flighty part of my brain to handle the things that must get done.  But while Life has handed me this moment when I can't control my CRAFT, I've decided to focus on the Art, the here-this-moment-gone-the-next work of Art that is my life right now, a life that consists of an endless parade of "nows" that I may or may not remember, 5 minutes from now.

2Peter 3:8  "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day"

Hmm...With God,  a thousand years=one day, so if I do the math... that means (calculating furiously)...um...that's a lot of "now" s to live and enjoy, and God is with me, and keeping track of me, in every single one.  I guess I can relax a little and just live the moments as they pass.

...Now, what did I come into this room for again?  (That's called, theologically, "thinking about the hereafter", as in "what in the world did I come in here after?" ) 

Performing a backwards "Ariel" (apologies to Little Mermaid fans)

The "Laudate Dominum" movement of Mozart's "Solemn Vespers" is one of the loveliest pieces of music written for a soprano and chorus.  Its long, lyrical phrases climb through the warm part of the voice into the light, silvery part of the voice, and then return to earth.  It's a piece I fell in love with the first time I heard it.

And it's a piece I've only sung twice in public. The story of the first time I sang it, as an "oh, did you know you're doing the solo this morning?" surprise on a Sunday morning, is one that I regularly dust-off for laughs at dinner parties.  It's only funny because it's true, and because nearly every choir singer I know has had a nightmare that goes like that... kinda the singer's equivalent of the "giving-an-important-presentation-at-work-but-you-forgot-to-wear-pants" dream.

The second time I sang it in public was this past Sunday, for my beloved church congregation, who, I swear, would smile and tell me I was wonderful, even if I got up and sang "Jesus Loves Me" in whole notes, acappella, and flat.  This time, although it wasn't that bad, I am in a season where my voice is not exactly full of youthful, crystalline purity.  The seasonal coughing-bug, and the crying I've done lately (see my post on "sneaker waves"  ) have conspired, perhaps along with age, I don't know, to make my vocal folds a bit thicker and less responsive than they were even a year ago, and I can get away with far less in terms of mindless singing. It's a different voice right now, and it's all I have.  There's not much flash or dazzle to it, no effortless vocal spin.  It was a different feeling, singing with my ego stripped down to "this is all I have, and it will have to be enough", and then hearing that people were moved by it, liked it.

It was one of a number of moments lately, of finding my voice, and discovering that it has changed.

And it's not just my singing voice that I'm finding, and finding changed.  I have written already about "silencing" myself to keep the peace in my marriage to Andre, and about not stating clearly who I am, what I'm capable of, and what my boundaries are.  But lately, I'm finding that I have to somehow tune-up that voice as well.

Recently, I have been working on my "personal statement" , a kind of short autobiography that I need to write as part of my grad school application.  Since I like to write, it didn't really feel like work, until I dug into it and realized that I was going to have to advocate for myself, make some clear statements about who I am and what I am capable of.

And then it felt impossible.

A recent blow to my self-confidence, unrelated to singing or writing, had penetrated deeper than I had first thought, and my inner critic was completely in-charge. So, I automatically reverted to my least-offensive voice.  I softened and equivocated.  I filled each paragraph with "perhaps" and "possibly".  I understated things. I used tepid, weak verbs : "read" instead of "devoured", and "interested" instead of "fascinated", "most interested" instead of "I loved".   And I didn't even realize I had done it.  I sent it off to several friends for a read-through, and got the usual, wonderfully encouraging responses, but somebody was "listening" to it instead of just reading it, and he remarked, "this is not your usual voice; it's not the one I hear in your other writing", and he was right.  With that bit of feedback, and some specific suggestions from another friend about what, specifically, I was glossing-over and leaving-out, I re-wrote the essay.  I found my voice again. I'll be sending it out in a day or so.

With those two warm-ups, I had one more opportunity in recent days that required me to find my voice, admit how scared I was to use it, and then, feeling the fear, move forward anyway.

There's a person in my life who really has no right to be in my life.  This person is so unhealthy in her relating patterns that she is toxic, both to me and to my children.  It's been seven years since she was told to get out of our lives, but in that time, she had gotten used to contacting Andre and bargaining with him, trailing the promise of money, using guilt, playing innocent, whatever tactic appeared to work for a while.  Since Andre's death, this person has tried repeatedly to contact me, to contact the children, to find a way to insinuate herself into our lives, again using money and guilt.

And this week, I finally reached my "enough is enough" point.  I dread, dread, dread having ANYONE mad at me, unhappy with me, annoyed with me. I don't even like to have to flag down a waiter to ask for water. It's a weakness of mine.  I might look big and assertive and able to take care of myself, but I'm a wimp when it comes to standing up for myself.  It doesn't take much to get my Irish up on someone else's behalf (someday, I'll have to share my "I-punched-a-swim-coach" story... talk about misguided righteous indignation...) , but it's not at all the same when I have to face confronting someone on my own behalf.

But again, I'm learning that I have an incredible support system in place.  There are so many wonderful people who, for some reason, love me enough to cheer me on, offer suggestions both serious and outrageous, and hold me accountable to do what has to be done.  I drew on those suggestions and support, wrote out my "script", made my phone call, and somehow survived.

In story of The Little Mermaid, Ariel gave up her voice, in order to be loved.  I guess I'm doing a backwards Ariel these days.  (Try not to picture me doing a backwards arial--not with a cup of coffee in your hand, at least.  Keyboards are expensive :-)

 With the help of people who love me, I'm taking back my voice, and I'm learning to use it in new ways.

Psalm 96 begins, "Sing to the Lord a new song..."  

Ok.  I'll try.

Rip Van Winkle and the Sneaker Waves

No, that's not a new pop band on my kids' iPods, although I kinda wish it was...

As of last Sunday 1/13/13, we passed the six-month marker since Andre's death.  We're halfway through this first trip through the calendar, with all the ambush-filled dates of holidays, birthdays, and "firsts" of all kinds.  And right among the predictable grief waves connected to these significant dates, there's a "sneaker wave" of grief that hits when I least expect it, when the sun is shining and there's only a slight breeze, just like the actual sneaker waves that the weather folks warn us Northern Californians about:  you're playing on the beach, in a tidepool, sitting on a rock, and WHOOSH, one of these waves washes up and knocks everybody over, sometimes sweeping people away and drowning them.  The grief that has been washing up lately, unpredicted in many cases, has mixed with the everyday frustrations of life, until it's hard to tell what's grief and what's just the growing pains of life as I continue to move through the calendar.

In my most recent round of "consolidation" (doesn't that sound nicer than "shovelling-out"?), I re-discovered, in a specially-designed space in the console of my minivan, a forgotten stash of cassette-tapes.  (For those of you born after 1980, cassettes were an ancient, pre-MP3, pre-CD format for music...ask your parents.) .   It was mostly stuff from my life before I was Andre's wife, before I was the mom to the four Hedrick kids.  It was tapes of a Celtic folksinger named Ed Miller, The Austin Lounge Lizards, Tish Hinojosa, and the Paul Simon "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints" albums, along with an obscure skiffle band that played the campus quad at UT Austin back in the late 80's, Twang Twang Shock-a-Boom .  I think I must have stashed those tapes in the only place in my life that still had a cassette player, once it became clear that my days as a minivan-driving homeschooling mom had begun in earnest.  They hadn't been played in the car in a long time, although a few songs found their way, via iTunes, to my iPod running mix last year, in preparation for the half-marathon.

When I unearthed those music tapes, and started playing them on my rounds of errands,  it felt like I had opened a "time-capsule" of who I was before I began altering myself to fit my chosen role.  Playing those tapes, (and singing along, drumming on the steering wheel and "seat-dancing",  much to the chagrin of a certain teen and pre-teen), I was re-introduced to that person who ALWAYS sang in the car, a person who knew that Saturday mornings were made for morning shopping, and coffee out with a friend.  That person was an unabashed liberal, a cat-lover, a Shiner-Bock drinker, a fan of ethnic music of all kinds, an avid Spanish learner, a wearer of cute undies, a connaisseur of the art of harmless flirting, and an expert flash-mob dinner-party hostess. ( I once even turned an ironing board and a red bed-sheet into a Christmas buffet table in my tiny studio apartment, and felt no need to apologize... can you imagine?

It feels like an odd, RipVanWinkle awakening after 18 years of silencing and shrinking myself  into a kind of hyper-vigilant coma.  In that state, I was acutely aware of needing to keep things stable, of needing to buffer my husband from the world and the world from my husband, of needing to keep the kids out of my husband's cross-hairs... and to do that, I had to mostly anesthetize the silly, sensual, passionate, spontaneous side of myself for the soul-surgery required, that would make me capable of living within the confines of my role as Andre's keeper, and then later, my kids'safety buffer. I decided that it was pretty hazardous, and mostly futile to stick up for myself.  I learned to deaden and silence, to quickly accept blame, apologize, and work on the "fix".

In my non-expert opinion, the homeschooling mom-gig, even in ideal circumstances, calls for a certain necessary buttoning-down of the self.  There just wouldn't be hours in the day, and energy left in the body to lobby on behalf of a few causes, work on those samba knee/hip movements, phone a few friends for a potluck dinner party, try-on something cute from the clearance rack AND have the meatloaf on the table for 6 at 6, and get all the lesson planning done for the next day, while taking the kids through their various assignments at home while the kids are home all day.

And in my case, the to-do list also included  keeping the kids from triggering their Dad's rages, keeping them quiet while Andre' wandered around the house with a conference call phone on his head, cleaning up after his various snack-food-making sessions, and grabbing the remote to turn down the volume on Fox News when he'd left the room.  A few parts of me had to be chopped-off, or at least folded-away in order to fit in the box I had chosen to live in when I married Andre. ( Make no mistake: I chose the box, and I did my self-alteration to fit it.  I am not a victim.  I'm a person who made a series of mistakes, and I'm an unbelievably blessed person to be given now, under outrageously ugly circumstances, a second chance at life, both for me, and for my kids. )

With Andre's death has come a kind of un-planned-for, un-guided, un-buttoning of my boxed-in state.  The kids and I are actively in the process of calling-out non-functional (Ok, we do call it "crazy"..sorry. ) thinking when we spot it in our patterns of interacting.   Andre's pictures are gone from the walls, except in the kids' rooms where they have each chosen to keep a picture of their dad.  I've rearranged, and continue to re-arrange the furniture and decor.  I'm selling-off whatever I can of his money-pit hobbies.  And I'm beginning to let my heart out to play a little in the world of adult relationships, pitfalls and all.

And so, the sneaker waves of grief continue to roll in, and I'm doing my best not to let anybody get swept out and drowned in them.  Lately, I'm finding myself clinging to the rocks of my close friends, and trying to remember the other piece of advice we hear on the Northern coast--don't turn your back on the sea.  For me that means knowing and accepting that I can't predict when the waves will hit, but trying not to deaden this process of exploration and growth by living in fear of pain.

"For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and of power, and of self-discipline"
 2 Timothy1:7

Not even sneaker waves can wash that away.



 

Breaking trails through this year's snow

Maybe it's because I grew up in New England, playing on the neighbors' sledding hills in the winter, but I LOVE the snow.  

Given where I live now, it's easy to forget how much I love the snow, until I'm taken by surprise all over again by it.  It's a "do-I-laugh-or-cry?", breath-catching moment, like what happens when someone surprises me with a gift.  (That part is not very New England, I guess... I'm not nearly stoic enough to live there anymore.)   I got that feeling on Sunday morning, driving up Highway 50 toward Echo Summit, when my aging minivan rounded a bend just past Kyburz and we were suddenly in the midst of tall, snow-marshmallowed pines, with the morning sun showering sparkles on the breeze between them.  

This year's snow-play-day was another step in our journey through the calendar for the kids and me, a round of "first"s without Andre.  I've been warned that each "first" will be difficult.  But this one seemed surprisingly easy, mostly.  And we even had enough snowgear for my nearly-six-foot-tall son, who is, at age 14, now as tall as his father was.  Over the years, I had bought a stockpile of the good stuff: alpaca socks, insulated, waterproof gloves, polypropylene thermal underwear, a good down-filled coat, LLBean winter boots, for Andre, hoping to keep him comfortable on our adventures.  He usually rejected wearing them, for one reason or another, and was usually uncomfortable on our adventures.  This year, it was easy to divide up that stockpile between my older kids and me, and keep everybody warm. 

 It sounds awful somehow, to talk about things being "easier" for the kids and me, when we are not even 6 months past Andre's death, but that is the unvarnished truth.  It's the telling of that truth that's been problematic lately.  I catch myself wondering if it's really ok to be honest and say that I am doing rather well.  Is that a betrayal of Andre's memory?  Do people think I'm being disrespectful of the dead?  In the moments when I'm feeling defensive and judged, I  suppose I could go on chugging the "whine" of "people just don't understand", but that seems unproductive at best, and certainly unloving in many different directions. Whether or not people are judging me negatively as I emerge into my new life, is really not my concern, I guess.  Most likely, it's just my own defensive sense of wanting to do it all "right", that's sneaking up behind me and bopping me on the head (another chorus of "Little Rabbit Foo-Foo, anyone?  )  What's becoming clear to me, at a level deeper than intellectual assent, is that there is no clear template, no plowed trail through the snow, for how this process of simultaneous grief and healing is supposed to proceed.

On Sunday, after the kids and I got to our sledding hill, put on our warm gear, and took the first couple of runs down the groomed sledding runs, I decided to rent some snowshoes and take off into the woods (leaving the kids on the sledding hill, using the buddy-system that they are quite good at) for a walk through the quiet.    

As I walked along, my heart felt incredibly light, not like the heart of a mother of four fatherless kids, not like a middle-aged widow.  I felt playfully alive.  I texted a friend (yes, I know... leave the technology behind, silly woman!), and chuckled to myself about what a perfect day it was turning out to be.

I stomped along a little farther into the woods, experimenting with what it was like to follow the paths that other snowshoers had made, and comparing that to what it felt like to break my own trail through the snow, guessing at what might be under my feet in the deep snow:  was I walking close to solid ground or floating over the bent forms of smaller, buried trees?  Was that a boulder I just stepped over?  Would I continue to be able to walk along, with my feet only barely sinking, thanks to my snowshoes, or would I suddenly find myself buried up to my armpits? What might it feel like to lose my balance and topple over?  Would I be able to get up?  A couple of times, I passed other snowshoeing parties.  One man called out to me from the packed trail, "you know, it's easier over here".  Maybe it was, I don't know. 

Eventually, I found myself in a clearing, with the sounds of Hwy 50 and the muffled sounds of the sled-riders just a murmur.  In that peaceful cathedral of tall pines on that Sunday afternoon, I found myself thanking God for all the incredible blessings in my life: for my kids, for the beauty around me, for the quiet, for my health, for the many, many people I love; people who have shown their love for me in so many ways over the past months, for my plans to return to school, for God's provision for every single one of our needs over the past months of uncertainty... I was rejoicing.  

And then... BANG !!

It was just a tree-branch popping under the weight of snow, but there is a part of my brain that, given the right trigger, still can't be stopped from kidnapping me right back to that awful moment, that single gunshot, that ended Andre's life in front of me.  (By the way, did you know that mascara that says "waterproof" isn't actually waterproof when you're standing in the middle of the woods, alone, sobbing into your mittened hands?  I guess that kind of disclaimer doesn't fit on the tube...oh well. )  As the loops of horror-film replay ended, I heard a voice inside me realizing, "He left all this behind in that one awful moment!  How could he do that?"  and I felt buried under an avalanche of pity for my sad, angry, frightened, lost husband, a man so unable to receive the beauty of life, the love of a wife and kids, the devotion of friends, the mercy of God, that he chose to leave it all behind in a single, horrible moment.  And then came the guilt: how dare I stand in this beautiful place, thinking about how easy the season had been, compared to what I was told to expect, feeling joyful, warmed by the distant laughter of kids (including his kids) on the sledding hill, his alpaca socks on my feet, wearing a warm scarf given to me by a friend I would never have met while Andre was alive?  How dare I? What kind of widow am I? 

Again, thanks to technology, I was able to phone one of my many wonderful, "call anytime" friends for a  long-distance intervention, still standing out there in the snow among the pine trees, and I was finally able to pull myself together and trek back to the sled hill, my kids and my life at present.  

What that moment, and the conversation that followed, brought into focus for me is that I am mostly breaking trail through this season of my life and I can never be sure when I will trip over a hidden obstacle, or lose my balance and topple over.  True, there are others who have walked similar paths, walking their own way among the hidden obstacles out here in the woods of widowhood.  But their path is not my path.  

I am not completely alone, thank God.  I can reach out and share my small triumphs, and I can cry out for help when I'm lost.  For that, I am unshakeably grateful.  But I am finding that I can't really walk well along the paths that other people have travelled, at least not in this part of the journey.  I just have to keep walking the path where I am, accepting that I will likely run into sinkholes and boulders where I least expect them.  But snowshoes help keep me walking above most of it.  

In the writings of one of the Old Testament's minor prophets, Habakkuk, there is a verse that says:

 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.  Habakkuk 3:19  

I had to look up what "hind's feet" were.  They are the feet of a female deer, a hind.  The deer was known for being sure-footed, even in the high, unstable places. 

 Snowshoes, hinds' feet...different forms, same result.  

Time to get back on the path and keep walking, I guess.  It's a new year, you know.  
*************************************************************************************************************

Just in case you need a bit more snow imagery to carry around (especially my reader-friends in South Africa and Australia), here's a poem that truly LIVES in me... again, blame my New England roots. 

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
<sup>And miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep. 

-Robert Frost</sup>