halloween day

transform this sickness

magical children, transform this sickness into vibrant loving health. thank you sickness for this healing opportunity. thank you.

gratitude

today, i am being a little down on myself. i am not as creative and boisterous : marked by or expressive of exuberance and high spirits (from webster’s)

as i wish i was. i am not as productive. i am down. i’m going down. not really. but i’m just not as high as i wish i was.

i listened to alan watts yesterday, his lecture on mediation for beginners. this was my second time listening to it. he says meditation is a kind of ‘digging the present moment’. he relates it to dancing and music making. because he says when you are doing those actions, you are not trying to get anywhere else (past, future, or another geographical place). you are only enjoying the moment, making movements or sounds. he says that’s meditation. fuck!!! that’s what i say. finding a way to dig many of the moments i find myself in, is making me crazy with feelings of failure. i know i’m not walking through my day meditating, but that’s somehow the expectation i’ve put on myself. DISGUSTING expectation, H!! could you be any harder on yourself? well. i’m seeing that if i carved myself out some times throughout the day where i was able to ‘dig the present’, maybe i could carry that quality of ‘digging’ over into some of the other insanely challenging moments that inevitably do come find me.

whatever. there. i dug that letting go just now. i’m sick of being down on myself. moving ON.

here is something i’ve been wanting to explore in my writing. i’ve never really done this beyond doctor’s forms and questionnaires. my son has cp. cerebral palsy. mild mild mild cp, as far as cp can go. i take the deepest breath, acknowledging how much worse it could have been, and how unspeakably grateful i am that max is able to express himself as well and freely as he does. he can walk. run. jump. skip, not really. keep up with other kids, no. he came into this world with the most beautiful sense of self, though. and that light and boisterousness(! ) in him compliments perfectly, the ways he is slower, and different. he also has mild to moderate hearing loss. he wears hearing aids. he can hear pretty much the normal range of sounds with them on. without them, he can hear a lot, but not everything. he can hear most of what i say if we are in the same room. because we knew this from the beginning, and we focused on our speech being clear and audible for him since he was born, he speaks really well. he is my first born. he was tangled in his umbilical cord inside me, around his neck, to the point of causing him to stop moving. i noticed my baby was not moving. but not before he was injured. thank god for emergency cesareans, because max and i are both alive today. we have been together for over 8 years now, including his gestation. and i believe much longer, though, when i feel in my heart how close i feel to him. we’ve known each other forever, i feel. he is one of the most beautiful humans i’ve ever met. and one of the most annoying, at times, but i know for a fact that i can match him there with how annoying i can be. but just to be honest, and paint an accurate picture. he can drive me insane. but no more so than his father, or his sisters, or my mother, or the dudes that road rage on me when i stop to let someone cross the road WHO JUMPED OUT IN FRONT OF ME. just to normalize max a bit, everyone is annoying. he is not special in that way. he is pretty special in the way he walks with his right heel up. it’s as if he were wearing a high heel shoe on his right foot. we could just get him some high heels for that foot and call it fixed, just kidding, but instead we are going to put a cast on his right ankle and foot, and calf, and see if it will help to stretch his foot further down to the ground. and every week, we will take him to the caster, and have a tighter cast put on , to increase the stretch. for about 8 weeks we will do this. his leg muscle will get weaker, and it’s already weak. his skin may get funky under the cast. he will probably feel uncomfortable. he won’t be able to get his leg wet for 2 months. my baby boy has not come into an easy physical existence. we hope so badly that this will make it easier for him. he cannot use scissors naturally. kids at school make fun of him for not being able to cut like they do. he cannot keep up in chase and dodgeball, and gets tagged every time. they call him slow. he turns into the hulk when they do this. he is so awesome. i cry when i witness it. i tell the teacher to please watch for this so he is not being targeted. i stay at school with him longer now, hoping to protect him, like an overprotective momma. i try to not love the boys who tease him any less because of their behavior. i try not to look at them with scornful eyes. i speak up and tell them what i think of their teasing when i feel like it. i sit and help my boy cut out a skeleton for the day of the dead, and patiently guide him back to the line he’s trying to follow. i do an endless amount of dot to dot letter writing for him to trace, because writing is not coming naturally for him either. he goes to a little buddhist inspired, contemplative education based school, so it’s not like any of these actions that lack in compassion are slipping through the cracks. the teachers are wonderfully on it, and they love my son so much, i’ve seen them cry when expressing how much they love him. he is a wizard. he makes everyone’s world a better place, and these teachers are very aware of how precious he is.

i remember when he was tiny, and i was taking him to endless appointments for this and that, after he came home from his first two weeks at the children’s hospital. i remember feeling like i had it so bad. all these other moms with their new babies got to sit at home and nurse and bathe and eat and sleep, and only go to the doctor to see how big and fat their perfect baby had gotten. it was very hard for me to dig those moments of hearing tests, and heart monitoring, and nasal tube feeding lessons, and the breast pump intimacy, when all i wanted was what those other moms and babies had. but i knew i’d never trade MY baby, for another, if given the chance, and i reminded myself of this to get me through, and get back into the moment with him, so that he could feel met by me, and feel my fierce love and gratitude for his life. i was just tired. and a little (understatement) heartbroken at everything we had to endure together, that my baby needed so much help. but sometimes, now, and even then, i realize this.... he was helping me, us. he reminds me to slow down. he shows me how patient i can be. and that i can be even more patient. even more. he shows me the doorway to the other dimensions. he shows me that normal isn’t better. he reminds me to smile. he reminds me to listen and hear the softest sounds, and not take them for granted. he reminds me to speak with my confident clear voice, so that i can be heard, and understood. he makes me laugh. he brought horses into our lives. he brought so many beautiful healers into our lives. some we’ve gotten to know so well, and are now our close friends. through accompanying max on his healing journey, i’ve healed so so so much of my own traumatized self along side of him. i’ve gone down avenues he led me to, and done so much of my own work because of him. he shows us where to go to help him, and then we all benefit somehow. he is magical. he is a bright bright light. he is different, and he stands out. he knows how to stand out. he was born that way. i may not have to work like i think i do at helping him stand up to the world and its opinions of how he cuts or runs. i may actually need to study how he growls and smiles at the same time when he is teased in a way he doesn’t really like. i am so grateful for this boy’s miraculous life. he is my magical miracle. that’s what i used to call him when he was tiny. magical miracle max. uuuuugh. this has been a tearjerker writing session, and so helpful for me. my tiny first baby love. i LOVE you so much. i am here, and so excited and grateful for all the moments, both challenging and breezy we get to dig together. thank you little wizard hulk for choosing me to be your mom. it is the biggest honor. ever.

rebirth, blackness love

all that green called in some real green feelings. and it's not because i jinxed myself, either. i have some clarity on that now. i got so sick, but only because i needed to. it wasn't because i said anything about not being sick yet. i needed to get sick to be well. that's what i heard my favorite herbalist say this morning on the radio. brigitte mars. she said that was how native americans saw sickness, as an opportunity to get well, and even healthier. oooooo. this was a torrential sickness. mama's turn at turning her guts inside out was epic. sleeping by the toilet, with national geographic, reading about the incredible country of bhutan. followed by about 2 days of not being able to move an inch without severe headache and belly turning.

and then on the other jinxing front, david and i totally got into it monday night. and that's not because i jinxed us either. that's because we needed to get into it. we had a super important issue bubble up, and i am breathing easier and my shoulders are more relaxed since we gave it some light and fresh air. this little experiment on my fear of jinxing myself has been so enlightening. i don't feel afraid to say things are going well, for fear of them turning bad. i really see that things will get intense when it's time for things to get intense. not because i am happy. but because it's the balance, and the out of balance always seeks balance. at least in this universe. doesn't it?

black is so comforting to me these past few days. this horse, raven, is a love of mine. she's the one who had the secret baby (noone realized she was pregnant until 2 months before she had her baby last spring, who is now named secret.) yesterday she was so into her alfalfa. i was lucky to get her to look at me. the darkness of secrets....mmmm, sounds nice for some reason. the blackness of our iron teapot. the black tea inside. i love you black. now i am going to give some mama energy to my kids who are having a snow day from school. 2 feet of snow is on it's way. one has already come. so intense! so heavy. so white. i feel a white post possibly coming now. (and some cozy kids pants that are almost finished!)

and a little more green

cuz i can't seem to stop seeing it.

okay, now i'm choosing grey and black for anyone who wants to take that challenge with me. i'm not feeling depressing or anything. maybe more like, intense. and stormy.

color green

i read the game rules wrong, or more accurately, i didn't really read them. the challenge from bloom was to find purple. i missed that part, and looked for green cuz that's what she did. but i'm okay with that. because when i started looking, i had fun with what i found. i have never really done this before, looked for a particular color to photograph. after a while, i started noticing the color in places i normally wouldn't register it. such a cool reminder of how we find what we look for. and now that i'm on a roll, i just keep seeing it. i LOVE colors so much. all of them really. i might just go through the whole spectrum now.

red and randomness

while her brother and sister ride. she visits.


our new homemade pillow. it satisfied some owl cravings i was having. along with some corduroy cravings, and some red on the corners of course.
once again, it's dinner time. which means garlic, and this night, a little tequila. a girl's gotta get warmed up.
the song figure-outerer. it would take me a hundred years. and if i had that kind of time, fine. but i don't. so it's pretty dang nice to have him around. (and for other reasons too, of course.) we've been making a pretty good team lately. i'm scared to say that, cuz i do seem to jinx myself. but i don't believe in jinxing anymore. so i'm going for it. we're getting along!!!! can you believe it? is it possible to have peace in the marriage? oh man, i am really asking for a jinx, big time. come on you jinxy jerk. try to take me down! I DON'T BELIEVE IN YOU! i am allowed to say something is going well. it's okay. i know it is. (and i know the therapy doesn't hurt, too.)

but i will let you all know what happens here with this little experiment. i'm not scared. i'm not scared. i'm not scared. nope. focusing on my breathing. gonna pretend this never happened. tiptoeing away.....
moving on, i whisper.

she was sick. first he was. then she was. one night after the other. i've never washed so many sheets and towels in the middle of the night before. they're better now. the middle child seems to be warding it off (while she plays pick-up-sticks). as do the mom and dad. so far. and no, that is not gonna be jinxed either. especially because i said 'so far'. my mother-in-law taught me about the 'so far' trick.

here i am. late at night. with the red blanket. everyone asleep except me and the cats. hehe. the chocolate coursing through my veins is making me feel like i might need to jump and spin around. mmmmmm. going to go prowl around the house now and pretend i'm an owl-cat-woman........