December 19, 2011

Running safely

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I’m not a terribly big fan of running outside. Blinding sun, cat calls, stray dogs, and hills–the treadmill can be a savior for those who only wish to be outdoorsy, like me. (Seriously, I got too incidentally tan this last summer. Yuck!) And, safety is a concern, too. Luckily there’s no way any of the creepies in my ‘hood can run faster than I can. Whew! But at the park with those crazy hills? Well, running in the park makes me think of that terrible episode of Little House on the Prairie where a man in a mask creeped out of the woods and assaulted that girl whose father thought her a harlot because of the bountiful bosom he forced her to bind…then Albert took responsibility for her baby over Pa’s dead body…

Anyway, yeah, so because of safety concerns, I’ve been thinking about getting a dog to run with. When I shared these thoughts with my mom–86 the Little House drama–she did say she doesn’t like me going out there, and that she’s a firm believer in treadmills.

I can’t imagine never going out there to experience my world, but there are things I won’t do. Flying is one of those things. When I gave up flying, I was told that I shouldn’t let fear stop me from living. I haven’t resumed flying for the newer fear of being that guy in Alanis Morrisette’s Ironic, but giving up running seems…impossible. I love it. I don’t do it as much as I’d like, but I can’t not run for longer than 2 weeks. I NEED it.

Apples to Oranges

I like running like my mom likes smoking, but I have to hand it to her–she’s far more dedicated to her nicotine addiction than I am to the road. Mom likes to unwind in the middle of her workday by having a yogurt and a few smokes in her car in a random parking lot. For safety, if something looks weird, she will drive away, much like I will turn and run away from creepy white vans without lettering, a beefcake wandering in the park without purpose…or, a spider spinning a web near my treadmill. (See why I need a dog? Damn spiders.)

Is chain smoking safer than running outdoors? Whether I get a stab in the park or a blood clot to the heart, I have a 100% chance of experiencing death. Does risk even matter?

I think I’ll keep on running, consider that dog, and make plans for a faraway vacation–far enough away from now, just in case.

 

December 6, 2011

JCPS teacher asks for race cards

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It’d be a mistake to assume that every customer in a high-end salon is a high-end sort of customer.

Saturday, I revisited the salon where I first cut my hair in September for an overdue trim. There, I enjoyed gawking at the stylists and colorists in their super-trendy clothes and amazing hair and makeup, feeling inspired to take care of my appearance a little more than I do–although I probably won’t.

My stylist and I were talking about our kids–her first-grader and my kindergartener–which, in Louisville, naturally leads to discussion about our interesting school system.

Enter client to the right: Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) Kindergarten teacher

Stylist and I each received lectures from JCPS Kindergarten teacher specifically about how Louisville’s poor students don’t stand a chance because their parents don’t earn enough money. For her, money directly equalled parental involvement.

Just in case you want to know, as per JCPS Kindergarten teacher, “a doctor’s child WILL go to college and he’ll probably become a doctor”, and a poor child whose “mother is on welfare WILL grow up to live on welfare” and they do so poorly at school “because they move every few months.” White meet Black, puns intended…just wait.

She continued, “You have no idea what happens in these classrooms.”

Then, she asked us, “What are your numbers?”

Now, I’m a bit naive about certain things; I didn’t know what numbers she was asking for, but my stylist knew. She immediately listed the numbers of children of every race she could name. Her daughter was 1 of 5 white kids in her class. At “Hispanic, or whatever” JCPS Kindergarten teacher stopped my stylist, “Oh, no, no, no, in our schools Hispanics are considered white. As far as JCPS is concerned, there are Blacks and Other. Now, how many Blacks and how many Other do you have?”

This led to more talk of poor children, and how they don’t have books, and they watch TV all day long. And how mothers who “put the cart before the horse” and have children without a partner to whom they are married will fail their children.

Hm…I know cart-fulls of great kids being pushed by horses.

I was in that fancy salon, paying more for a haircut than I should, knowing that perhaps my kids (who want for nothing) may get less for Christmas because I decided to do a little something for myself; knowing that my kids sometimes watch TV because I’m too tired to play with blocks or read a book; knowing that my JCPS Kindergartener goes to school every day and gets more screen time than she’d get at home!

(My taxes pay for my daughter’s education that includes watching Dora the Explorer.)

JCPS Kindergarten teacher struck me as a racist bigot. In a school system of unconstitutionally forced integration where kids rarely attend their neighborhood schools because of their race, and where JCPS Kindergarten teacher’s own upper-middle class classroom will always be full of children from depressed socioeconomic backgrounds, she’s in a position to have a positive effect on children who may need extra from a teacher, whether they get extra at home or not. I sensed that she’s given up on her students, except for the Others.

Our family doesn’t have much extra, but we do well enough for me to indulge on a spendy haircut on rare occasion. My children watch TV. We also make art. And, we play hard. We imagine and do silly things all day long. And, my Kindergartener is a top performer at school. In our home, money doesn’t equal success, and I will never teach them that it does. If I had more money, I couldn’t be more involved than I already am, but they might just have more stuff. (Who needs more stuff?) I happen to believe my child is equal to all of her peers, and I’ve told her that. There are great parents of all socioeconomic backgrounds. There are some dirt-poor awesome parents. There are some very rich asshole parents who buy their kids’ love, and throw money at problems. After 30 years of teaching, jaded JCPS Kindergarten teacher should be able to see the good in the grey areas.

 

November 15, 2011

I saw her. Or, I saw who I imagined ‘it’ to be.

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For the last week and a half, I’ve been working on processing a dream. It’s left me sort of bewildered, because I never imagined I’d have a dream about the baby I lost as an adult.

Is it okay to keep talking about this? You know, my 3-year-old miscarriage? I’ve made peace with it, but it still affects me. And, frankly, I don’t think enough women talk about it. Those of us who’ve been through it–I will not call myself a survivor–know the love we have for these babies we’ve lost, even if it’s lost on everyone else.

So, onto the dream.

I saw her. (Her? I just know.)

I’d been searching and looking, and found her living in the city with friends. She was beautiful, but surprisingly didn’t resemble my now 5-year-old daughter. She was tall, thinner than I ever remember being, with thick, long, brown hair. Somehow, I knew she was mine.

(Maybe my kids are watching Tangled too much.)

Okay, so I was kind of stalking her, but my concern felt natural, confident, like a mother feels when she’s doing something for her child. I convinced her friends to tell me where she was living, and they offered that she was seeing a counselor. At some point I was finally able to talk with her. We were in a crowded waiting room, sort of Beetlejuice-esque only without people missing limbs, or smoking out of slitted throats. It was more of a crowded DMV-kind of scene with molded plastic chairs of varying colors fixed to structures attached to the floor, people sitting, people standing, and just waiting.

We’d just met, but were chatting casually as if I’d raised her–as if we’d always known each other. I asked to join her at her appointment. That’s when she told me that she was seeing a counselor to deal with my leaving her.

But, did I leave her? Sometimes I feel like I did. It wasn’t until after my D&C that I learned I had a right to my ‘pregnancy tissue’. In the twelfth week of pregnancy, my baby was bio-hazardous medical waste bound for an incinerator. (The thought makes me sick.) Just 8 more weeks and there would have been an induced birth, and a funeral, or at least a memorial, but in the first trimester, a loss is garbage.

But, did I leave her? I hope not.

Did she leave me? I don’t know. Sometimes things just don’t work out.

Now, to send the memo to my subconscious mind. (Or, it’s time to get deeper sleep.)

Wow! What a dream. I’m in an advanced place in the processing of my lost baby. She’s an adult, at least in my mind, and the next step after stalking her and joining her for counseling has got to be letting her go. I imagine it will be a moment–the kind that sticks, begs for tears, and leaves room for imagination, like the end of a really great novel.

I’m just about ready.

 

November 3, 2011

Changes, part 2: Zen-free

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When I wrote the post called Changes, I had no idea what was coming. I can’t officially announce what’s ahead–not just yet. Except, I can say that we’re carefully planning a new future. The significance is that it’s going to change my life (our lives!), entirely. It will be filled with the kinds of opportunity that I haven’t had in years (and passed up)–2006 called and wants its 20-something naiveté back–and in some ways have never had. At least, not since squeezing forth rugrats.

But, all I can do for now is be vague and tell you I have something special to reach for, which is also the beginning of an end. But, every new thing is, right?

It’s such a bittersweet life. This is my zen-free zone.

 

October 20, 2011

Unclaimed baggage, and 5-year-old boyfriends

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I feel like I have something to say today, but I don’t know what it is. Or, maybe I know what it is, but I’m not sure how to say it. What’s the matter with me lately?

Three years ago today I had a D&C for a missed miscarriage.

Normally, I’d like to have some quiet time to reflect on the end of the biggest loss of my life, except my oldest child has been having some behavioral problems at school. The problems didn’t begin until the day after her first (and gleaming) parent/teacher conference, where I was praised in her presence (that last part being key) for all we’ve taught her before school, our involvement in her education and well being, and where she learned that she’s the top performing student in the class. It’s been all down hill at school and at home since she learned from her teacher that I’m actually an amazing mother. Yes, the earth came crashing down on her shoulders and her Kindy plight is that Mom and Teacher are on the same team. Whoa.

And, my 5-year-old has a boyfriend, but she’s competing with her first-marking-period bully for her boyfriend, even though he’s mean to her. He’s 6 years old, you see; he’s the older, Kindergarten bad boy, and probably rides a Big Wheel. From what I can tell, he’s an asshole. Yes, I just called a child an asshole, and I’d do it again.

I’ve been considering homeschooling my daughter, for several reasons, up to and including our school system biting the big one. When half the kids in the class don’t know half the alphabet, there’s a serious parental failure happening.

Is my child regressing to fit in? Maybe. She called me a “fat, big mama” tonight. Fat is not a word we’ve ever used in our house, and I’m not overweight.

Every day she’s in kindergarten homeschooling becomes more desirable, for her sake. But, what about my sake?

I follow Mayim Bialik on Facebook and occasionally read her blog. What an amazing mother. I don’tcare about her acting on that so-not-funny geek show, but as a scientist and mother, she blows my mind. I want to be just like her. I want to be totally present for my kids. I want a career, too. She homeschools, and I can’t imagine how she manages it all. I send my kid to kindy and can’t even get everyone’s underwear put away. Am I doing something wrong?

Maybe I’m still too distracted by my own unclaimed baggage. With the absence of extended family in our family life, I’ve had next to no time to myself in over 5 years. My 2-year-old still doesn’t sleep through the night. I have 2 very bright, exceptional, and high maintenance children. I’m invisible, but necessary. And, I have loss I’ve yet to fully process.

How can I be here without being allowed to be? I want to educate my children as fully as I can, because as a parent, I owe it to them. But, where do I fit in beyond these four walls? Maybe I don’t. I’ve said before that college didn’t prepare me for staying home with children. But, it hasn’t done much for a career, either. My bachelor’s degree earned me my most expensive coffee mug. So, that’s somethin’.

If I could have one day to process something… I’d like some time to replace inappropriately stolen moments, like at 7:00 am when I was trying to pee and both kids were unloading legos from a toy dump truck at my feet. (How dare I pee?) It’d be lovely just to enjoy that moment of my kids playing, in the dark, with my pajama bottoms around my ankles. But, it sucks. And, I’d bet Mayim Bialik deals with it, too. Except, she gets to go to work and contribute to something, even if it’s my parents’ weeknight entertainment on the boob tube with nerd jokes.

Where was I? Oh, loss. I’ll sleep on it. There’s nothing else to say.

 

October 15, 2011

Driving with the windows down

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The best day of the whole year is the first day in spring when I can drive with the windows down. The smell of the air, the wind whipping through the car, and heft of my foot bearing down on the pedal a bit recklessly. It’s a sensual and fleeting moment of complete freedom, inevitably cut short by someone driving 10 mph under the speed limit on a perfectly dry and windy road.

The ruin is emphasized by messy hair unsuitable for public integration and official business.

My kids have been watching Disney’s Tangled lately, a lot. However subconsciously, I realized I was my own Mother Gothel, holding onto all this hair like holding onto youth, which matters less the older I get. Eugene did Rapunzel the biggest favor of her life by freeing her of all that hair, and I ended up doing the same for myself, unloading 18 inches of unnecessary bodily waste that wasn’t doing me any favors.

My new hair is amazing! It’s the best cut I’ve ever had–thanks to paying half an arm for it–and it whips, flips, flies, and musses. It feels adventurous; I’m living life with the windows down.

My hair is free. And, I’m free. I’m free of all that silly hair.

 

October 14, 2011

November is brain dump month

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I once read a realtor’s home description that claimed the house for sale was a “diamond in the rocks.” I laughed for so long over the mangled cliche that I recall it often, applying it to silly things in my own life. For instance, a nugget of genius prose I might find if I were to be the shy author of a NaNoWriMo manuscript.

I’ve officially signed up for NaNoWriMo–that’s National Novel Writing Month. It’s my first year, and my first attempt at a large piece of fiction. I can’t say for certain why I’m doing it. It’s going to be a steaming dog pile, for sure, because I’m not a good liar, and ultimately fiction is like lying, sort of.

“Jeff walked his dog to the park” is as truthful as “The dog ate my homework.”
(Did you find that believable? I don’t know anyone named Jeff. You can fact check that on my Facebook page.)

I also tend to think good dialogue is done well by so few that it’s the reason I don’t read much fiction in the first place. I’m a nonfiction reader and writer. But, NaNo is about output more than it is anything else. If I manage to ‘win’ by hitting 50,000 words by November 30th, I might discover a special prize inside that I can eventually work with.

You know, maybe.

If not, I’ll have given my brain something to do, and my children a reason to climb me like a tree for ‘ignoring’ them for output.

 

October 4, 2011

Changes

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Oh, my poor, neglected blog.

I’m going through some changes this year. The baby in my son, now 2, has disappeared and we’re beginning the weaning process of “don’t ask; don’t refuse”. My daughter, 5, began kindergarten in August, and we’ve already had so many issues that I’ve considered homschooling, although not very seriously, because she loves her school.

Creatively, I seem to be empty, like a canyon. Deep, but full of nothin’. Or, full of too much space. Or, full of [shit]. I’m not sure yet, except that on every level, my family is changing. I’ve avoided writing about certain things out of fear, really. Or, out of hope that things might change; but, I’ve been fooling myself. I’ve discovered that I’ve hit rock bottom in the mental processing of these changes, and it’s time to accept them so I can move forward, or to hole up and die, which isn’t an option.

I’ve been afraid to publicly announce that my dad is dying. My dad is dying. There. I said it. My dad has Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), aka Lou Gehrig’s disease. If you don’t know anything about this disease, it’s always terminal, and its random victims are slowly paralyzed until death. Sounds morbid, but I can’t be anything but matter-of-fact about it; I don’t do euphemisms.

My brother, who used to read this blog, and maybe stalks me while pretending to be a hard ass, has written us off. I sent him a card recently. It was a stupid funny to make him laugh, and to beg him to reconsider his [tantrum] and rejoin our family. The ‘why?’ is still a mystery, since one (or 4) can’t solve problems without communication. I had more contact with my brother the year he was in Afghanistan than I’ve had in this past year. I lie awake at night, sometimes crying, worrying about my little brother, wishing he’d call, write, or open up his PTSD-shrunken heart. During the day when I think of what this is doing to our dying father, I wish I had what it takes to say ‘To hell with you!’, and go about my day. I can’t imagine how he does it. I can still hear my brother, 6 years old, singing Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It. Where’d he go?

With this post, I’m dumping, and declaring that I will soon be writing about topics that may upset my family. Writing is the only way I know to process and let go. My apologies in advance (i.e. To hell with you. I love you dearly.)

 

May 12, 2011

Milking the homestead, and lumbering in a skirt

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Debra Winger as Wonder Girl

Wednesday morning I scaled a fence in my pajamas to capture one of my chickens. Later that day, I walked out back in a skirt and cut lumber with a hand saw. To wrap up the day, I found myself in the tub for a quick dunk. In a moment of lathered haste, I found a lump under my armpit, and as my world cautiously spiraled to a halt as I became Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment, I gathered myself, massaged it a bit and was suddenly lactating the Niagara Falls, without the 1970s honeymoon.

Other than these kinds of domestic adventures, which in the emerging heat of nearly-summer, I’ve completely replaced the indoor bread making and meat roasting and am now faced with that heat-induced paranoia of what to feed everyone after I’ve been out working.

I’ve so far built 4 raised beds by my lonesome and hauled most of the new earth to fill them. I’m pooped. But with all this hard labor, I’ve worked out some frustrations that have been whispering in my ear from one of two shoulders–perhaps what’s been hiding out in that engorged milk duct. Two varieties of potatoes are planted, a fancy pole bean (all from Seed Savers Exchange), bell peppers, cucumbers, walla walla onions (from Natural Gardening Company), basil, and yet to go in are jalapeno plants, and 6 tomato transplants of 3 varieties (each tomato plant comes from Seed Savers).

I can’t forget the strawberries I have coming in, and the blossoms on my blackberry bushes. I’ve also secured a nice shady spot with a short raised bed for organic greens through the summer.

But, enough garden specifics. I’m feeling a little relieved. Maybe it’s the hard work. Maybe it’s that by 6 am the sun is peaking over the horizon enough that I couldn’t go back to sleep even if I were dead. I wake up with energy, and ideas. IDEAS. Lots of ideas…with two kids at home, and not enough time to do anything about them. Of course I mean those damn ideas.

With my kids getting older, and my daughter recently assigned to an elementary school, I feel desperate to plant some roots of my very own. I don’t want to live in Louisville, but I can’t keep waiting to leave, either. (Leaving is a few years off yet.) I haven’t contributed to Louisville.com in a couple of months, which is regretful, truly.

Suffering from burnout, taking a break was just the right thing to do.

As much as I’d like to make a comeback, truthfully I’m more excited about seeing my potato plants spring from under their heavy mulch, and the pole beans to climb up the cotton yarn I wrapped and knotted like an eight-legged predator around a bamboo teepee. And, I’m quite busy consoling a broody Australorp who’s pining to be a mama.

Who has time for work when there’s all this work to do?

Note: Contrary to popular opinion, that is the fabulous Linda Carter running alongside Ms. Debra Winger as Wonder Girl, although I did once have Wonder Woman Underoos.

 

April 10, 2011

The garden Mama built

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I hadn’t planned on doing it myself. I’m married, after all. However sexist, I’ve chosen my roles–I rear the kids and have summoned my culinary goddess within. I bake; I sew; I knit; I cloth diaper; I breastfeed… If it’s done in the house, then I do it… Unless it’s electrical, or folding laundry.

We decided to abandon our underproductive garden and install raised beds. My husband is so busy with full-time work, part-time classes, and building our privacy fence in his rare and fleeting spare time that I felt horrible about waiting around with the children for him to build our first raised bed.

So, I put on my garden gloves, sat through a quick tutorial on how to use the drill (and feeling girl shame for not already knowing), and I started cutting my lumber with a hand saw. Me. Even I can’t believe it.

Four of my 5 backyard chickens are named for all of my great-grandmothers. More than one of them were dynamic homesteaders (the grandmothers, I mean), and one of them especially could do anything. As I began drilling some pieces together, I was thinking about how I may have conjured a little Mabel (into what is now a very sore right shoulder), when lo and behold, Mabel the chicken ran over to see what I was up to.

(Total coincidence, but blog fodder nonetheless.)

The first bed is for our already established strawberry patch, which tends to get gobbed up with too much moisture and icky moisture-loving bugs–so much so that I loathe picking strawberries. The raised bed is now over the up-and-coming strawberry plants, some of which are beginning to flower, and I’ll be building up with some compost and top soil, moving some of the plants around, and mulching heavily. I picked up this handy dandy Rabbit Guard fencing to keep the chickens out of the strawberries until the plants stop producing.

Once my shoulder stops aching, I have 2 more raised beds to build, and to build up. Two certified organic potato varieties will be coming from Seed Savers Exchange, and onion starts from Natural Gardening Company, with the goal of growing enough to last us all of next winter and into the 2012 growing season.

I have built it. Now, I hope that plenty will come.

(Wow! I built something.)

 

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