puzzling!

do you read signs?  i often think i do.  i want to be done with that though.  really really done.   in the name of sanity.  k?  k.

i'd like to pay attention.  but not believe the stories that float by.  they are often so uncreative, these stories in my mind,  it's a joke anyways, how uncreative i actually am with the stories....  

 

on my birthday, the year i was pregnant with max, some friends had a party on my birthday.  david made me an ice cream cake.  i had been morning sick for three months.  it was about as bad as it gets without being hospitalized.  i was in the doctor's once, though,  and got an iv for fluids.  but not the hospital.  until we were in the hospital in a big way for his birth.  on my birthday, though, as david brought the cake out, with the lights dimmed, the candles lit, and tons of friends singing happy birthday, the cake slips off the tray and went all over the carpet floor.  the first thing i heard was a friend who was going to naropa at the time say, 'oh, how auspicious.'  i reframed it all in that moment and just went with those words, for the most part.   but i still worried quietly inside for a long time afterward, about what it meant.  looking back, it's hard not to wonder if that foretold of the baby's birth.  the baby who had to fight for his life before he was even born, because of a scary umbilical cord accident.  the baby who walked away, miraculously,  with the scars of cerebral palsy and hearing loss, a weakened immune system, and other stuff, but whatever.  he god damn fucking lived through that hell.  he is magic.  he is a full on light in this world.  full on.  but it was a messy scary wounding experience and birth, then a slow physical and spiritual healing and recovery.  i venture to say we are recovering.  i guess we always will be, and that is a blessing.  recovery.

side note:  there is another recovery, i am venturing to say, that is happening.  our turkey seems to be perking up a bit.   so nice to see.  so so sweet.   he is hungry now.  but very very wobbly on his feet.  hardly any strength.  not sure what his future holds, but i've had the blessing of nurturing his sweet soul this past week like a baby bird fallen from the nest, and it has been lovely to be with him.  i look in his eyes.  he looks in mine.  i encourage him when he eats.  or when he lets me finally get that pink penicillin down his throat.  or when he drinks. or when he stands up.  what if he doesn't gain enough strength back to walk on his own again though?  don't know.   all i know is now. now he is a love and he was hungry this morning and it was beautiful.  i am blessed to know him.  and i have lost my appetite for turkey meat.  i usually eat it a few times a week on sandwiches. not this week.  

back to the signs thing:

so this year.  well, last year.  december 2011.  on my birthday, the first thing i did upon waking, was go to the bathroom.  to pee.  the first contact i have is with our cat spicy.  i look at her butt.  not because i like cat butts.  but because it she is bleeding there. i wipe her up, and then call the vet.  and inside i worry.  for her.  and for me.  it's my birthday!  what does it mean?

WHAT DOES ALL THE BAD SCARY SHIT MEAN?  especially when it happens on my birthday, or some other special day...like new years day.

i could make a list of all the recent 'bad' shit...but i don't want to bring us all down.  instead.....

i just want to forget the idea of reading signs.  if a sign is to be read, it will be blatantly obvious.  that's what i've been told.  it won't be up for interpretation.  it will be exactly what it is.  my cat's bloody butt was just a random irritation from some random crap she ate.  my birthday cake falling on the floor was just david losing his grip on the tray or tripping or whatever it was.   the sign i was to read about my baby boy was when i stopped feeling him move in my womb.  that was clear.  check that out.  that's how it works.  clear sign.  nothing to wonder about.  go to the doctor.  

if i believe in signs, that means i beat myself up when i can't pay good enough attention to be reading them properly all the time.  that is not gonna work for me.  no more.  

 once on a plane, kind of soon after 9/11,  i saw a couple dudes in the back of the plane with us, that looked sketchy to me.  i paid attention to them, like it might save my life if i did.  i can't even remember what the specific signs were that i saw, but i became convinced that plane was going down, and they had a code, and i heard the numbers 911 somehow get communicated between them.  i thought i did.  ha!  i am crazy.

once max dropped a tooth that had fallen out in our driveway, with a million other baby tooth sized rocks.  i read into that.  it wasn't good.

once on another birthday, i found the best ever quilt at a thrift store.  that was an amazing sign!!  but i don't know what it was a sign for.  just my awesomeness i guess.

i am okay with feeling lucky and all the good signs.  but i am not okay with all the bad ones making me feel unlucky.  it's a roller coaster throughout the days if i read the world like this.

if i get a parking ticket, it means i need to pay the meter better.  a speeding ticket, i need to chill out!   if i find a great thing thrifting, it's cuz someone else just gave it and i was blessed to be there when it was put out.  now see, this is where i am so confused.  i am reading about  blessings, and how many we are showered with, and how we receive far less than we are given, cuz we just don't know how to receive them, like we are not in the frame of mind to receive them, or we are too afraid.  but if there are blessings, than there are non~blessings too right?  well whatever there is, i don't want to read into it.  i want to flow. i want to say thanks for the blessings, and i want to give them as often as possible, just by being myself, and when the bad shit happens, i want to pay attention and learn if i need to learn, and not project it out into the future of our lives.  i want to fearlessly face the bad shit.  goal.  not possible really, but that's the goal.  to simply stay awake and notice the blessings, and know they are for the moment, and the bad shit, that's for the moment too.  not for the future.

aaaaargh.  i've been blessed in this past half hour with some sweet music on the waves here at two spoons.   i've been un~blessed with a headache today.  but none of this means anything about the future.  if i go out and step in dog shit now, it doesn't mean anything except that there is a jerk out there scattering poop all over the world and not cleaning it up.  and he needs a ticket.  if i have a horrid day, a string of bad things all in a row, it just means, that was a crap day.  if i flow and feel blessed one day, and feel good, i hope to be fully in the moment so i can drink in that yumminess.

oh my god.  this whole thing is GIVING me this head ache.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?  what are the blessings?  why do some things feel so un~blessing like?  if the blessings are always available, what does it mean when i can't find them?  someone turn off my head!!!  ok.  i got it.  turning head off.  going to go to joanne's and buy some vogue patterns that are on sale and on top of sale i have my 30% off coupon.  turning head off.  i'll ponder this stuff again.  i am onto something.  i've made some progress.  i can feel that i have.  i really don't feel like i'm gonna read bad shit happening as a sign that i'm doomed anymore.  and when i feel obviously blessed, i'm gonna smile and take it in.  and pass it on.  bless.  be less.  ??????  bmore.  baltimore??

what about when i see my favorite numbers on the license plate in front of me?  what does that mean?  

what about when i see 666?  

come in, come on.  turning off head.  i am not into this game anymore!

what about stuff like this?

are they pieces to a puzzle?

no.

no.

no.

whatever.  just working this junk out.

and randomly, 

here's my new favorite cheesy 80s song redone as a folk song

and here are the lyrics, cause i like to sing along:

Oh, thinkin' about all our younger years
There was only you and me
We were young and wild and free
Now nothin' can take you away from me
We've been down that road before
But that's over now
You keep me comin' back for more

[Chorus]
Baby you're all that I want
When you're lyin' here in my arms
I'm findin' it hard to believe
We're in heaven
And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn't too hard to see
We're in heaven

Oh, once in your life you find someone
Who will turn your world around
lift you up when you're feelin' down
now, nothin' could change what you mean to me

 there's lots that I could say
But just hold me now
love will light the way

[Chorus]

I've been waitin' for so long
For somethin' to arrive
For love to come along

 our dreams are comin' true
Through the good times and the bad

 I'll be standin' there by you

[Chorus]

(bryan adams)

a place

 a place for me.  a place for us.  a place for them.  but for now, i  am needing to see it as a place for me.  it used to be that a group of ladies gathered here.  a group of men still do.  that group was born out of a preschool.  a preschool where a dad asked all the other dads in the community of that school if they'd like to join together in a dad's group.  a handful did.  and they've been meeting for years now.  in that space there...our studio space.  that dad and i were talking once, and we both agreed it would be neat if the wives/partners of all those dads met as a group.  for so many reasons.  for community.  for healing.  you know.  i asked them if they were interested. all but one woman was.  so we came together.  and i reached out to two other women whose partners were not in the dad's group already, but were in my semi-daily life.  they both joined in.  those ladies and i met together for over two years.  it was so cool.  we grew and stretched and cried and shook and laughed and loved.  blah blah blah.  eventually, both of those extra two women's husbands joined the dad's group.   and then another man joined the dad's group, invited by my husband, cuz he was a new neighbor, and it was a kind thing to do, invite him.  then one day, another mom from the preschool asked me if she could join the womens' group. i thought for sure.   i told the group another mom wanted to join.  they said no.  they turned her away.  a woman in need.  in the community.  someone had an issue with her, and instead of choosing to work it out, just said 'no, i don't want her in this group.'  that was rough for me and that woman.  then the newest member of the dads' group, the neighbor, his wife asked me if she could join the women's group.  i brought the question to them, thinking, this is a no brainer.  her husband is in the dad's group.  of course she can come.   they said no again.  they didn't even know this woman, and they said no, again.  this time, because one just didn't want to be exposed to a new person.  i understand the discomfort of meeting new people, but oh my.  turning people away is intense.   you know there are two sides to every story.  and i am not going into all details here.  but this is my side.  i find it shocking that the women in that group made a vote like that.  twice.   so i came to feel that if they really felt this way, that closed and unwilling to work with themselves and these other women, that i couldn't stay in the group in my integrity.  i told them.  and they still said no, we're not opening it to those women.  they told me they hoped i could find what i was looking for  in another group someday.  SHOCKING.  sad.  so i left.  i am not as angry as i was.  but i am still weirded out and shocked when i put it down and realize they all really stood by those decisions.  i feel ok.  i feel in integrity.  i feel lonely.   i also may feel that i am better than them, which is not a good feeling.  i don't want to feel better than others.  i'm working through that so that i can be in even more integrity with moving through these emotions.  i am not better.  i simply have different standards i guess.  almost like believing in a different religion perhaps.

i am not better than them.  i am not better than them.  i have my opinions, they have theirs.  they spoke up for themselves.  i spoke up for myself.  i am in a clearer space without having to feel like i am swallowing my unsaid words.  or without feeling like i am in a group of people who can't hear me, or just don't want what i want.   they are in a clearer space without me provoking them to open up.  and i am not better.  i want to believe that.

but....  i don't.

i am right!!!!

and....

they suck!

i just want to say that.

they suck!!!!!!

ok.  i'm done now with that story.  i read recently in my book that is channeled from the pleadians, that when we tell our wounded stories over and over and over  again, it is not helpful, that it actually makes us feel stuck.  it's wound worshiping.   they said we can tell them once, twice, maybe three times, and then to move on.  i say, of course, that it all depends on what kind of ear we are telling our stories to, that determines if we feel freer afterwards, or like we just want to find a better ear to tell it to.  and it depends on the story, and how deeply it fucked us up.   but writing our stories out, writing. it. out., that has so often been helpful to me.  i feel better now.  i do.  and now i somehow have to find forgiveness.  i am still working on that part.  i really want to forgive and not feel like running the other way when i see one of these women now.  i want to stand right in their presence, in my presence, and be fine.  but it's hard to be fine with someone who hurt you.  it's hard.  it's doable, but it's pretty hard.  so i'm doing some hard work here.  yippee!  i'm serious!  yippee!  david's dad said yippee a lot.  alright. now, all of a sudden,  i actually feel ready to see one of them and be real and not kill or cry or hide,  but be real and one with my feelings at the same time.

that space.  that place though.  i am wanting to reclaim it.  i have some stuff to make.  and some yoga to do.  and dancing.  and reading.  we are putting in some new lights.  the lights have been nonexistent in that space for as long as we've lived there.  just a couple floor lamps.  new lights.  i remember when we had to have the roof on the house rebuilt.  i was so glad.  the metaphor of a new fresh roof over our heads, taking away the old rotting one, was so powerful for me.  now, i am excited for the metaphor of new lights.  new lights in my creative space.  i am into that.

what do i want to make?  i have a desire to make the kids some quilts.  and myself a dress or two.  the girls sweaters are almost done.  so close to done i am getting panicky.  finishing a project as large as this was, for me it was large, my first knit sweaters (!),  is scary for some reason.  remember that goal i had of finishing them by nov. 1st?  hmm.  funny.  this knitting has become like some kind of security blanket.  ha.  that is funny.  but they do cover my lap like a blanket now when i knit on them.   i'm already planning the blog post for them.  wondering what words can go with these sweaters?  they haven't come to me yet.  no theme in mind.  maybe no words want to be with them.  but it's funny that i'm already trying to write it in my mind.  i pulled the steamer out of the shed, knowing it will be time to block them soon.   aaaaaaaa.  so strange this feeling of finishing.



that place.  i love that place.  that studio.  and i miss it.  i seem to go over there only to water plants once a week.  i want to figure out how to go over there more.  how to start the next project. the quilts project.   the next phase that i am feeling i am on the heels of.  i may be wrong.  but i am feeling it out.  and i do eventually want company again.   i am feeling so isolated and lonely these days.  i've been asked to do stuff with friends, and none of it feels quite right for me right now.  for some reason or another.  so i just sit with my self.  my good old self.  my good old grungy grubby lonely self.  it seems to be what i need most of all, in this week, and probably the next few.  feel a little pain, and then i'm thinking i will grow a bloom.  or two or three.  just sitting and feeling the pain right now is oddly what i am drawn to do, even though almost all of me wants to run from it.  the lonely blues.  appropriate, right?  who doesn't feel lonely sometimes.  but boy is that flower a gorgeous thing.   i have some amazing friends.  and we hardly ever see each other.  getting schedules to align is too hard.  i do have a date to tea and a movie tomorrow night with a friend.  that will be fun, most likely.  if one of us doesn't cancel.

now all of a sudden i feel like looking at winter pictures.  or the actual winter outside these walls.  and inside these walls.  the winter in my soul right now.  winter winter.  splinter splinter.

and speaking of places.  look at this cutie home, of one of my best high school friend's.  dang.  it makes me laugh at how different our homes are in some ways.  but i was inspired by hers.  pretty awesome details.  those old trophies painted white.  i keep thinking about those.  

brief pause

well.  i just cried and cried in the principals office at max's school.  i felt like a blithering overtaxed worried mom.  she told me i was very articulate.  she must say that to all the crying moms who come to her.






ok.  brief pause.....








so, i went through some old photos.  they all look so beautiful to me.  i have this ability to forget the stress of the past and just see the beauty.  why can't i do that with the present as masterfully as i do with the past?  can you?  if so, can you tell me how?

ahhh, last summer....



i danced on the patio, while the girls peeled carrots that zhi's class had harvested from a farm filed trip.







high summer photos in deep winter is very soothing to me right now.



 i feel like i'm supposed to thrifting right now.  i have a little over an hour till i begin the pick up from school routine.  alright then.  i'm gonna go thrifting.  i'll report back.......


::

hmmmm, four days later.

thrifting was cool.  a little bit of an altered space.  i got two long sleeve shirts.  two long pants.   and a vintage dr. doolittle.   i want to do a hemming session soon. i have about three pants that have needed hemming for a long long time.

our turkey was attacked by some predator last thursday night.  through the fence the animal reached in and wrecked the living hell out of our sweet boy.  he was perched very near the fence and was reachable.  it is so so sad.  i just forced antibiotics down his throat.  i don't think he's going to make it.  shit.  shit.  shit.   max just told me his brother uses electrical fencing so this doesn't happen.  max is smart.  and so is his brother.  (imaginary as far as i can tell, but somehow he is very very real.  he actually has two brothers. he talks about them all the time.  )

oh turkey boy.  i am so sorry.  somehow it feels like it was our fault.  we chose to have you as a pet and ...........  we are going to reinforce the fencing to make the wire openings even smaller.  shit.

i am not going to cry at the school today.  that is a goal.  i will not got into a fight with max about his glasses because david and i decided to let it be his decision for now.  he chooses to wear his hearing aids, 98% of the time he chooses to.  i am going to count that as a blessing.  and let the glasses be easy for a while.  his vision is still 20/20.   the glasses help with a prism thing and a slight magnification to ease the effort on his eyes.  it's possible he knows what's best here.  ???  we are either in our wisdom, or in our weakness with this decision.  not sure.

praying and blessing is my work right now.  this year is only 23 days old and i could freak on how intense and hard and scary it has been.  i have freaked.  praying and blessing.  reading the books i've been lent.  praying and knitting.  and cleaning.  and showering.  i've showered so much lately. and cleaned little corners of annoying stuff that i hadn't dealt with in a long time.  weird stuff.

 david and i feel like we want to release control over how we've parenting.  we aren't sure how really, but we are agreeing, that our parents gave us a lot a lot of room to be who we were, to fuck off, and there was something essential in that.  balance of course.  we are just looking for more.  tuning into where we are to the far right.

yes on ani difrancos new album.  a lot of people say, yeah, i listened to her in the 90s or when i was in my 20s, or whatever.  if you want to know what i think, she is as good as ever, if not better.  we got tickets with friends to her show here in march.  yippee.  daivd's dad said yippee a lot.   it's been two weeks since he left.  we are shaken.  it's just hard core to die.  that's what i feel.  all us moms and babies, and dads too, know it's very hard core to be born.  and of course this is all very obvious.  but this is where i say very obvious things.  it is outrageously hard core to die.    max told me his pawpaw has been working with god.  and that god gave him a job.  that he's doing the same job he did here on earth, with god now, for all the people who are with god.  pawpaw was an economist.  a legendary economist in health care.  he made it so all people regardless of socioeconomic status, could get the same quality health care in maryland.  or he did his best to see to it that they did.  maryland has a healthcare system unlike any other state in the US because of pawpaw.   i told david how max told me about pawpaw having his job again with god, and david said, geez, i can't believe we still have to deal with health care financing with god.  right.  i guess we might.  according to max.  and i bet hal is whipping that place into righteous shape, though.

living is hard core.  evolving is too.  and so is ani's new cd.  ok.  i think we are going to try and get to the library to find a book on drawing cartoon faces for max.  his teacher gave me the idea.  i'd been trying to help him draw horses, with a step by step book on drawing them, but it was too hard and he hated it.  cartoon faces is such a good idea.

we will put turkey out of his misery tomorrow if there's no improvement.  david will.  holy crap.

is anyone else having an intense new year?

my grandfather's blessings.  it's bringing me back to a place where my mind, and heart, can feel peace, when i make a conscious effort to try.  crying is the best.  it really really is.  and if i must, i will cry to whoever is in front of me.  if it's the principal again, ok.  it's really ok.  when my tears come in seemingly horrid places, it is ok.

love.

there is an animal theme

olive's name is flista this afternoon.  her baby's name is tablisa.  (tuh-bleesa).  she works at a necklace store.  this guy comes into her store all the time and annoys her.  his name is jeek gluss.  he is so annoying.  his sister is so annoying.  his mother is annoying.  his father is annoying.  she had to leave her job at this store because of these people.  she just had to get away from them.  what they did that was annoying, was that they would come up to her all day and ask her get them things and do things for them.  she just couldn't take it anymore.  

she has a new job now.  she goes to school and studies, and she gets money for it.  the name of her school is called 'great.'  and her teacher's name is ms. beatles.  

what we did on sunday....

boxed ourselves up.

box box!

adding the white for the belly fur was my favorite part i think.....

hers i predict was the tail. 

girl time felting.  it's a serious amount of work.  olive isn't so into it.  when zhi and i are in the right mood, we are!  

these came from these kits, that their mimi grandma gave them.  

we have a lot of kangaroo energy happening around here.  

he has a plastic one.  he loves those plastic animals.  they've pretty much always been his favorite toy.  animals.  the plastic ones.  

stretch break.  

 i have one on my hat...

i like the wooden animals.  this mama and joey pair we've had for a long time now.  they are on our mantle at the moments.  with a dark beer.  hmmm.  in a glass that once belonged to david's dad's parents.  then belonged to david's parents.  and now, belong to the kangaroo family.   we've had them for a long time, but i'm all sentimental in a newly fresh way now.  ouch.  but kind-of good.  yes.  definitely good.  uuuuugh.  heart.  heart break.  begin again.  

i've been lent some really nice books in the past few days.  such nice people in this world.  1 on grief.  one on a woman's relationship with her grandfather, even after death.  one on daily coyote.  i got my free martha stewart subscription in the mail yesterday.  for buying a new singer iron, it came with that.  it kind-of relaxes me sometimes to stare at the clean homes in her magazines.  aaaah.  a daydream is nice.  ha.  we've been watching some funny shows.  the life and times of tim.  bored to death.  the office  again.  sometimes arrested development.  .....

well.  

one last note.  max tonight, told me he wants me to go to law school like my sister.  i said, oh, well, wow.  not sure that's gonna happen, but why?  because i want you to be a policewoman, he says.  wow!!   i will enforce!  i've been enforcing with him today quite a bit, pretty intense policewoman i've been around these parts.  he's impressed i think!  wants me to be a professional. heh.

much

so we had to say bye for now, for this lifetime, to our beloved paternal pawpaw.  except the kids think he may come back as a cat, or a wallaby, or some creature and see us again perhaps.....

how to know.  there is no way.  that mountain is beautiful.  he was beautiful.  after we heard on the phone, that he had gone on, i walked out to the living room of our house.  we didn't have time to get back to him to say bye.  it became time, and that was it.  hard and fast.

i saw those cobwebs in the living room.

on a typical day,  a sight like that in this house would kind-of bum me out.  how interesting that those webs were all i could look at to find center.  i had just the day before had my window washing party, and washed the outside of the windows on this house.  i stopped at that, and said i'd do the insides another day.  i sat there, thinking of my father-in-law, and feeling such strange gratitude that i hadn't washed the inside of the windows. cuz if i had, i'd have cleaned off all those webs too.  a loss that was comforted so so much by webs.   webs.  spiders.  thanks you creatures of infinity.

missing an integral part of our family.  moving on without him feels so foreign and dare i say, wrong.  i would be psyched if he could come back.  i'm ready for the dreams where he does.  they happened a lot with my dad.  i feel like they will with hal too.



the jewish way of grieving and honoring dead and the bereaved amazed me each day we were in baltimore this past week.  i have been feeling a lot of gratitude for being shown their way.

david.  my david.  it is too much.  too much is just what it is.


shiva.  three days of shiva.  oh.  no words really.  and yet i press on these keys.  there's max up there talking to his pawpaw's brother.  max kind-of just up and adopted his great uncle this past week, tuning into how much he reminded him of his pawpaw.  max just ate that man up.  and it was reciprocal.  their connection soothed so many of our ailing hearts during those three days.



i don't know exactly how i feel about blogging this.  but when i go deep down, i feel it is necessary and good.....this isn't a part of life to be hidden.  we were wide open with our grief and process with our children.  it was hard and sad and max in particular jumped right on into the wailing pool with all of the bereaved adults in this family.  he needed that.  he really really did.

we are missing someone deeply.  and i know for me, my every other thought is consumed with his spirit right now.  tears just come and come.  and interestingly from the day he died, there has been an element of humor, woven throughout these days.  max started it unknowingly, asking if we could keep pawpaw's head.  in the freezer.  a friend reminded me of how helpful and healing a little humor mixed into the grief can be.  her words were a healing balm.  i saw max then as the wise one i know he is, but i sometimes forget he is.  the humor just kept seeping in here and there by many others.  it wasn't disrespectful.  it was real and present.  and the tears came right along with it.  we are stricken.  stricken in love and tears and laughter.  it feels like too much to say bye.  and too much is just what it is.





we have plans to go back to baltimore once again, in april.  this time for a batmitzvah.

it was a long time away from this blog for me.  i didn't intend that.  this year started with my boychild getting really sick.  on day one of this year.  pneumonia to be exact.  that took him and me both down.  him physically, me psychically and emotionally it seemed.  and then, just a few days after max started to breath steadily again, we realized pawpaw was preparing to leave much quicker than any of us thought.  i wonder if max was just tuning into that, and his body was beginning to grieve before any of us knew.  i feel that is probably the case.  i've learned that the lungs hold the grief, and release the grief.  aaaaaack.  so much intensity, somehow gracefully mixed with a little light humor, and love, and i still don't know what to say.

we are back in boulder, and the boys are snowboarding again today.  may max not be taken down with any respiratory ailments this time.  may us girls have a nice day at home doing whatever we want.  may we continue on our paths, with the memories of our beloved soothing our hearts and minds.

love.  so much god damn freaking love.

and more.  too much.  it's part of what we signed on for.  gulp.