pause

oh friends, real life is calling my name a little more loudly these days,

so I'm taking a pause from this little space.

feel free to email me: jennilincoln(at)yahoo(dot)com

spring

under the cover of wind and rain, 

spring creeps into Seattle

This is kind of how I feel, hope (cling to) as I trudge beneath the heaviness that is divorce.  Somewhere in me is spring, again.  Somewhere in me is new life, spark, spirit, and a happy future.  I'm not feeling that eager bloom today.  Today I merely covet a seed under dark skies.

head massage

There's scarcely any positive human touch in my life these days - being without a partner.  I do give my son lots of hugs, high-fives, snuggles, and tickles.  It's especially sweet when he gives affection back in his own way.

the least angry Angry Bird

the missing tooth

He pulled it out at school!

And here it is:

our current favorite

Little N watches this movie over and over these days.  Mommy loves this scene best:

being silly

Angry Birds Toons

Hello Kitty!

fun with wrapping paper!

Little N's (re)New(ed) Room

Ever since L moved out, Little N has been sleeping in my room.  We made a nest for him next to my bed.  It's a clutter of pillows, afghans, plush pals, and random toys (beside my own clutter of afghans, pillows, and pjs).  Each night we'd chat, maybe have a story, or I'd simply listen to him talk to himself, processing the events of his day out loud.  It was nice to be together that way every evening.  But it's been 5 months of having a roommate and now that Little N is 6 (SIX!) it seemed time for him to move back into his own room.   

Our beloved Miss A had the idea to brighten up Little N's room with twinkle lights on the ceiling!  I climbed up on a chair and she handed me tacks as we spun a spiral of light together.  It's beautiful.  Miss A also thought we might make the bed more of a nest by tucking it up against the corner of the wall.  Then we piled up the pillows and blankets that coziness requires.

Little N came home from his dad's to this terrific surprise.  He loves his "new" room!  He immediately wanted me to lower the window blinds so that just the little lights brightened the space.  He set to work arranging furniture and had me drag his little red table back in from the living room.  Then we played being neighbors, he in his "home" and me in mine - our separate rooms with doors closed for knocking on - and made visits to each other's personal spaces.    

I wasn't sure how the first night was going to go.  Would he actually sleep in his room alone?  We read some books and chatted.  I scratched his back.  Then he snuggled down into his new nest.  He slept soundly through the night and it took great effort to rouse him in the morning.  Success.    

now we are six!

Happy Birthday to my Little N.

He's got this!

the final smoke

I smoked my final cigarette today.

Not just the last one in the pack. The last cigarette of my life!  I made sure to enjoy it.  I sat on a rock by the library and just inhaled, exhaled, watched the smoke circle and dance and the ash flutter in the wind.  As health damaging habits go - it was lovely.

I'm working with the recent recognition that my emotions reside in my body.  I need to check in with my body to perceive what I'm feeling and where it is in my body.  Smoking masks some of that, robbing me not only of physical vitality but emotional vitality as well.  I'm bored, sad, tired, stressed, angry, I need to smoke - no!  I need to sit with the feeling a minute.  Locate it in my body.  Jot it down. Carry it gently.  Notice if it brings any other news with it.

Some people smoke to lose weight or maintain a slender size.  But I wonder if quitting smoking might help in my efforts to lose weight.  I'm an emotional eater, just like I'm an emotional smoker, which means I use these devices of food and cigarettes to not feel what I'm feeling.  Maybe eliminating one of these methods can start to open me up to how I feel and I can find some other way/s to experience and express the emotions.  It's going to take vigilance and some sort of strategy, new tools and practices, habits and behaviors to live in my body and in my feelings.  (Thank goodness there's a therapy appointment scheduled for this week….)

the joy of duct tape

Mima and I re-cushioned and reupholstered this chair a la blue-flowered 

duck tape

I wish I had a "before" photo of the raggedy old thing but it consisted of 

peeling black vinyl and spewed yellowed stuffing.

I recently picked up a day planner for this bright new year.  

I loved the layout inside but, ugh, the cover did not thrill me

duck tape to the rescue! 

charming, yes?  it pleases me to use it everyday.

mommy watch, mommy, mommy, mommy...

replenish

Little N goes to his dad's on Saturday afternoon and stays overnight, giving me time to catch up on all the things that are hard to do with a Little N claiming my attention.  Bills get paid, housework done, and little pockets of time for me to replenish me. A friend planted the thought in my mind about the grace mothers extend to themselves.  I think carving out time for our own replenishment, in the midst of competing demands from our littles, is one of the ways that we practice grace for ourselves as mothers. 

Why, yes, they do make coloring books for grown-ups. 

So I started doing some reading about self-care.  Seems there are three tiers to it.  The immediate needs of food, shelter, etc.  The pause and relaxation needs of my coloring books or a visit to the spa.  And the soul needs, perhaps my most neglected and the most deeply replenishing.

The busyness of my days is how I secure the first level needs of home and hearth for me and Little N.  The pauses come when he's over at his dad's place.  And the soul time?  I almost prefer housework to soul work these days; it's finite and achievable as opposed to the other thing.

But I've also been reading and thinking a lot about mothering as a spiritual practice.  About the unity of sacred and mundane.  And I think the difference between these two spheres and/or the sameness they share arises from the intention we bring to our mundane work of home and hearth and parenting and pause.

Can I retain calm with Little N when he ever-so-deliberately pees all over the floor?  Not super likely, but I'm working on it.  Can I maintain a focus-in-the-moment in the overwhelming heap of laundry to be folded?  Sometimes.  Can I release my mind from the trainload of concerns and emotions while filling in coloring pages?  Getting there, once I turn off the soothing distractions of Netflix.

I'm not sure why sitting with my soul is challenging to me right now.  But I do believe that if I bring the intention of soul work to my tasks and to my pauses they will be soulful.

ack! but now Little N is home and my pause is ended… can I practice soulful presence in the rest of the day's parenting?  :-)

dreams in storage… for 2014

I read somewhere that "excess weight is dreams in storage"

In the last 2-ish years I've gained a plump amount of weight that I'd like to shed.  So I'm approaching that weight loss from two angles - my heart and my body.  What dreams are ready to be realized?  What work am I ready to do for those dreams?  What work am I ready to do for my body to resume a healthy-for-me weight?  I'm using Leonie Dawson's 2014 Create Your Amazing Year: Life & Biz Edition Workbook to help me sift through the dreams and the work to achieve them.

Here are some of the dreams I'm working to realize in the coming year:

• Hosting half-day retreats for busy women.  
• This will be a joint venture with a good friend who is a Spiritual Director.  We've got lots of ideas!  Now to set them into motion.
• Experiencing my emotions in healthier ways.  
• As in, not overeating and smoking as a way to deal with how I feel.  Maybe journal them - even jotting a couple notes in my day-planner during a work day, taking a walk, going to the spa, talking about my feelings with the much-loved-therapist. 
• Practice healthful habits - that also promote weight loss.  
• So, eating nutritiously, not overeating, walking, jogging, yoga, tending my body with love, all kinds of good stuff that used to be my own good habits.
• Develop a good divorce and shared parenting with L.  
• We will begin drafting a Parenting Plan this evening.
• Resume writing.  
• Starting with a regular journalling practice and maybe changing how & how often I write here on the blog.

Maybe not so much the big public dreams of success and recognition but significant to me in terms of living a vibrant, positive, authentic life.  And each of these areas have contributed to my weight gain.  As I've slipped away from parts of who I am, and the good habits that embody them, I've turned to crummy habits like emotional eating and smoking and avoidance.  As I return again to who I am and how I want to express myself, I choose healthy habits to make even daily life a more true expression.  And there are the more public dreams, like writing and hosting retreats, where what I believe and how I live will be more visible.

self portrait Saturday: Mommy gets out!

geekalicious, right? 

I was just thinking that it's been ages since I've been to a play - and that getting out to artsy stuff was once a regular highlight of my nights.  Then our Beloved Miss A invited me to this:

10 Days to Happiness: One Woman's Hilariously Tortured Search for Enlightenment

The play itself was fairly predictable but getting out and doing something different was a real treat.  And our Beloved Miss A is always good company.

I've recognized, these days, that I'm angry and jealous that L gets to do what he wants he when he wants now that we're separated.  I'm the single mom and he's the renewed bachelor.  Which means more of my time is focused on parenting than on myself and my interests.  I'm not working out or developing my hobbies or getting out to artsy Seattle because I'm home with Little N.  So I arrange my outings for when Little N is with L or the beloved babysitter and I savor the experiences and relationships in the moments that I have.

It's not quantitatively fair.  But something qualitative is working for me.  I miss my boy when he's off with has dad, even though I simultaneously cherish the hours to clean the apartment, read, sit in front of  HULU, catch up on FB.   I show up and deeply value the time together with my friends for book group, or a supper date after work, or creating ritual.  The constraints on my time and attention is reinforcing the value of these moments of connection.  For that much, I can relax, experience some gratitude, and let my jealousy for L's new life fade, even a little bit, as I start to understand and embrace my new life.

jack-o-lantern

spa treatment

A friend has decided I need a mommy break and is treating me to a visit to Ladywell's.  It's a women's-only spa in my neighborhood.  I have no idea if I like to "spa" (is that a verb?) but I'm happy for a break and ready to try something different.  I hardly know how to just sit still these days.  Looking forward to relaxing in good company.  

stress

I am not myself.  I am over tired from nights of waking up and waking up again every couple hours.  Nothing in particular on mind just a feeling that bolts me alert for a moment.  I feel overwhelmed and defeated.  There's very little rest these days.

It's the stress of not-enough-money and no signs of more coming.  It's an amicable divorce gone tense and stilted.  It's full time caring for someone else, a little someone whom I love, that renders little time for caring for me in healthful, strengthening, soulful ways.  It's a stress that clouds the future until there isn't one, there's only today's challenges and fatigue.

My psychiatrist, whom I love, has added a sleep aid to my collection of meds.  I'm reluctant to take it.  I'm reluctant to add another prescription to my litany of daily medications.  I want to be healed, happy, and whole.  I want to be off of the meds and standing on my own.

I try to remember to treat myself and to talk to myself the way I would a much loved friend.  This is a phase of the divorce.  This is an adjustment to my daily life with Little N and now his beloved babysitter too.  The self care starts in my head where I must practice encouragement and patience.  There will again be hopes and dreams.  There still are bright funny friends to share my life with even if not as one partner.

And there is this bright funny little man, trying on our new life with me.  

gratitude Sunday: robot costumes

from this...

to this!

Historically, Little N does not like Halloween or costumes. We've never pushed the issue and let Halloween be about pumpkin carving.  This weekend, his dad suggested that there might be robot costumes.  That was very exciting!  And we found one!  A yellow Transformers costume.  Little N says it makes him very fast.

witching hour

every workday at 11am I'm jonesing for a cigarette

so today, again, I headed out to my stoop to compose myself over a cup of tea

it didn't work.

 between you, me & the butt can, I broke down had 1 cigarette

Which is to say, I'm addicted.  It tasted lousy but felt terrific.  My blood bubbled and sang within me. The world and my mood brightened.  I was ready to take on my job.  But this can't be true!  Such a bad habit gives such a good response.  I can't let this worst of my unhealthful habits resume.  

What I'm noticing:

A long time ago, I used to think that my body gave me good information and insights about myself, other people, spirit, my decisions...  I had a strong connection to my intuition and experienced that within my body.  But addictions of all sorts (including seemingly little things like sugar and nicotine) skew all that good information, twisting it into vibes and impulses that can't be trusted.  So here's another good reason to get clean of it all ~ I want to trust my body and the useful information that it can convey to me.