self portrait Saturday: the end of the summer

on the cusp

I am a number of things that a (nice, good, attractive...) woman is not supposed to be.

I am: fat, greying, short haired, divorcing, single mom, spiritual seeker, mentally ill.

Tomorrow, I turn 39.  I am aging. 

I am surprised at my own surprise when I tell you it's all ok. Some part of me still believes the old rules about what a woman should and shouldn't be or do.  But nothing bad is happening as a result or in connection with any of those qualities I currently inhabit. They are things that I've chosen and I live well in these choices. Entering my fortieth year, I am making some more choices about what to continue and what to change.  I'm happy to pause a minute and notice where I am today.  Happy and ok.

learning how to be friends

gratitude Sunday: his sleeplessness

peeking into his room I discover he is, again, not sleeping

instead he is building a farm (see the tractor) narrating his work

and singing little made up tunes as he goes

on these odd, freshly alone, nights, he is my good company

even as I tell him, "get back in bed!"

self portrait Saturday: transitions

Morning coffee before the storm

This is the weekend of big changes for our little family.  L has been piecemeal moving his stuff over to the new place.  I've been working around him to rearrange furniture, assemble a new shelving, clean and generally remake this home in my own image.  Our different styles are highlighted during this process.  Him - a piece at a time, slapdash, chucked into plastic bins, remainders lingering in every room.  Me - eager for all of his accoutrements to be out and the space and time entirely mine for a fresh clean arrangement.

But it reflects the process of separating, doesn't it.  It is a gradual releasing, reclaiming, renaming and remembering.  None of it happens quickly.  The past is not gone and laid down rather it's here present in the present, which wriggles and twitches eager to be its own, while the future alternates between gleaming gold and bleak shadows.  I don't know what's real.  Other than all of it.  Other than to move through with what needs done today.  Other than expressing and engaging what feels true right now.

Little N is struggling, I think.  He asks where his dad is and why dad is there.  He's had a couple major meltdown tantrums, not specific to the changes but maybe wrought of the tension and transition he feels.  Both tantrums occurred while both his father and I were present.  When it's just me and Little N things go more smoothly.  He seems to take some comfort in me.  (Maybe his dad feels the same way when they are one on one as well.)

new shelves with our books, music, and toys.

& the long forbidden basket of blankets finally regains a place in the living room

Mommy has her own workspace for her chores and her creativity

tidied home altar

But at the end of this long day, I come back to this blog and can contentedly say, "we're ok."  My home is becoming my own, well, mine and Little N's.  We are falling into our own rhythms together.  It's a little bumpy right now and that's ok.  It's a lot of work to be the only parent around to play with, and to help, and to make sure he eats, and to hold the discipline line and get a break from it all too.  Once school starts later this week (another transition!) we'll have a more consistent pattern and that will help to smooth some of the bumps.  In the meantime, we are getting used to sharing this home, our space, just the two of us, and I think we like it.  

Little N is going to be just fine.

gratitude Sunday

sunflowers chosen by Little N

self portrait Saturday: out & about

Mommy got out today!

L watched Little N all afternoon so that I could have some time do whatever I wanted.  At first I planned to go to a movie.  But then I remembered that this was the first day of Tibet Fest 2013.  One of the Dharma School teachers had told me about it as the monastery is for Tibetan Buddhists. Curious, and settled on the fact that movies happen every weekend, I decided to go check it out.

At first I was kind of underwhelmed.  Tibet Fest was just a bunch of booths with same stuff that gets sold at every kind of Fest.  Silver jewelry.  Woven bags.  Flowy skirts.  But I took second look with the intention to learn something.  What was truly Tibetan about Tibet Fest?

The main stage is where all the action was. Tibetan folks and their friends watched the singers and dancers in traditional dress and playing traditional instruments.  A couple little children danced at the back of the audience.  To the left of the stage I found the booth for the Tibetan Association of Washington, where they had a couple of booklets about Tibet and a program for Tibet Fest.

In the mix of booths, I also found one raising support for the Tibetan Buddhist nuns (Tibetan Nuns Project) and another selling books for children.  Upstairs there was a room showing Tibetan films, mainly documentaries.  On my way out I passed a stand selling Tibetan drinks and cookies, so I bought a cookie for the trip home.

Overall a good outing for a mommy who rarely gets to explore her world, never mind the world at large, on her own these days.

gratitude Sunday: Dharma school

Little N with a few of the outdoor Buddhas.  All decorated with beads, flowers, and bits of nature.

This was our second week a Dharma school and we still love it.  It's a class for children but they welcome parents to remain as well.  So far it's been super basic instruction to Buddhism necessary for guests (newcomers?) like me and Little N.  There were about 12 kids today and about 10 last week, so it's a healthy class size even in summer.  We learned to Take Refuge, which is a series of prayer gestures and prostration.  We practiced some simple meditation.  Listened to several jatakas, which are parables the Buddha told about kindness.  We learned to be calm, respectful, kind, compassionate. During one chant the children join the adults in the Shrine room upstairs.  It's a clumsy lovely thing of children making prostrations down the center aisle to sit in a special section at the front of the room and chant with the adults and monks.  Then as the children leave they are each given a piece of candy.

spinning the prayer wheels, releasing thousands of prayers

Dharma school is held in a multi-purpose room that also leads to the kitchen and the Dharma Shop. The room is dimly lit and cool. You can hear the chanting of the adults in the Shrine room above us. We sit in a circle on a plush rug.   Incense occasionally wafts through on the air.  And it's a busy room!  People passing through from the Shrine room, the clanks and clatter of folks in the kitchen preparing tea and treats for after service, the doorbell chiming, and intermittent conversations in English and other languages.  I have to practice to remain focused and calm in the midst of all the distractions.

showing off his new mala

One of the Dharma school teachers made a point of telling me that this monastery loves children.  She was raised Buddhist and carefully looked for a place to raise her children in the tradition as well.  Her three kids sit in the circle with me and Little N and the others.  Her youngest fidgets and acts up and makes Little N laugh.  We shush them back into quietness and sitting cross-legged.  I hover and manage Little N, as I slowly learn that it's ok for him to be a child here.  He is welcome here.

my new mala

My Christian family members likely won't be excited to learn that I'm bringing Little N to Dharma school.  That I'm essentially rooting his spiritual foundation in Buddhism.  I've tried bringing him to Christian churches and he just cried and fretted and hated it.  And allow me to own that my insides cry and fret and hate a lot of what goes on in a lot of Christianity.  But I needed and wanted to find some place and community and tradition in which to teach and connect Little N with reverence and values and good folks.  Something about our neighborhood Tibetan Buddhist monastery resonates with him.

Something about the newness of me to it makes it work for me too.  I have no baggage about the Buddha and his followers.  I have no preconceived notions about Buddhism nor Tibet.  It's all brand new for me.  That's fresh and bright and amazing.  I'm learning alongside my son.  Parent enough to gauge that what we are learning is what I want for him - kindness, compassion, respect.  Novice enough to share in his delight and awe.

My only worry or caution about this essay into Buddhism, is that we don't turn out to be some kind of religious tourists.  I want to be respectful and sincere.  I want to share in what the monks are offering and find a way to give back, a way to convey our gratitude to them.  I want to be part of the community that they have planted here.

self portrait Saturday: upright

It's enough just to stay upright,

upright in every way,

And pour your love into your children,

til there's nothing left to say.

- Ani Difranco

  

I want to live upright.  These recent weeks of listing and limping along has set me eager for an upright life.  To me that means something about self care and the discipline to hold to that course.  I'm feeling better in the last 48 hours and I'm optimistic that I'm back on track.  My head and my heart have cleared some.  I'm eating nutritiously, have set down the cigarettes, am playing with my son, and pausing for a moment's gratitude and good will.

Of course today, a good day when the doom and gloom has just passed on, upright means more than how I care for me.  It encompasses the big values of environmental stewardship, social justice, advocacy for my son and others on the spectrum, global socio-economic awareness, etc... But let's not call back the clouds of doom and gloom.  Let's start with this good day.  Little N and I composted and recycled.  We ate mostly vegetarian.  We wore second hand clothes.  Yet, we weren't perfect or pure or holy.  I drove the station wagon across town adding to a variety of forms of pollution.  We played in a wading pool that could be considered a waste of water.  And right now our freshly laundered clothes are spinning around in our dryer, rather than being hung out to dry on a line somewhere.

Because that's just how my life is these days.  I yield to some of the conveniences of contemporary life and culture the same way that I yield to passing storms of hard feelings.  I expect that I won't be "upright in every way."  I think, I hope, that's where we lean on grace.  The grace of good friends who email me with encouraging words and acceptance of where I'm at.  The grace of city-wide collection systems that make doing the right thing (compost, recycling) convenient.  The grace of divine (?) forgiveness, of self (?) forgiveness, for all the time when "inconvenient" or "culturally inappropriate" renders doing the right thing "impossible" and left undone.  The grace of clarity and retrospect to try again or simply to call on grace and apologize to whoever is paying attention for where I'm still not quite upright.

self portrait Saturday: hard feelings

The hard feelings have settled in. Not hard feelings in the sense of vindictiveness or judgment between me and L.  But hard feelings in terms of feelings that are hard to accept, hard to sit with, feelings that are hard for me to let myself feel. Worry. Doubt. Sadness. Loss. Grief. Anger. Disappointment.  I twist and distract myself away from them.  I overeat.  I smoke.  I make smalltalk.  My mind jumps around and I fidget. 

And then I notice that I've drifted from the very me I want to be.  The very me that much of this divorce and transition is for.  Why make these changes other than to be and to give Little N two whole, engaged, loving individuals for parents - even if they cannot live together.  What I mean is, I want to be wholly me, wholly engaged, with my values and emotions and all of me present and participating in this life.  I want the same for L and for Little N.  As a couple, right now L and I are holding each other back.  And when I refuse and resist my own feelings I am holding myself back.

So while Little N played at the park last night I sat on the grass and journaled.  I tried to recognize each of the hard feelings and give a little attention to how they felt.  I feel sad - to break up our little pod, to have failed in marriage, to shake up Little N's world.  I feel afraid - what if I can't make it on my own,  what if I suck as a single mom.  I feel lonely - I don't have a partner, my friends and family are far away.  It was an uncomfortable exercise.

The hard feelings and the happy hopeful feelings are all equally true.  I am all of them.  They are all due the time and attention to be felt.  And in feeling all of them I am more true, more whole and engaged, more me.  That's what Little N and I both need me to be.

gratitude Sunday: this is August

I have been dreading August.  The long limbo month before L moves out, N starts school, "our place" becomes "my home," and I invoke new habits and values and patterns for my home.  Then I made a list (which quickly became three lists) of all the things that need to get done before those changes can happen and suddenly August was more boon than bane.  Rather than hovering in limbo, waiting, passive, there's a lot that I can (must, need, want to) do.  That actually feels better to me.

While a lot of the "to do lists" are seemingly endless forms (hello divorce) and phone calls & emails (hiya kindergarten at a new school) there's plenty that I can do in our home these days.  Little N and I have started composting.  He loves checking into our little bucket of stinky scraps and trucking them down to the big bin in the garage.  We've also started making smoothies in our brand new blender.  Little N would like us to start using strawberries.  I'm intent on getting him to brush his teeth twice a day, instead of our standard evening cleaning.  And Dharma school (a story for another time) for both of us starts at the Buddhist monastery next Sunday.  Good healthful changes with no delay.

There's good in our life that remains unchanged.  Little N and I continue to soak up sun at the beach and around town all weekend long.  We are still bonding in a way, and in ways that we didn't when he was an infant and I was under the long dark spell of postpartum depression.  Bonding happens again and again, through care and good habits and simple time together.  We have our own rhythm now.  I love that.  I realize, writing this, that I'm bonded through the same kinds of things - care, habits, time - with his dad.  Little N does come from a family of love.  The details and dynamics have shifted in major ways over the years for me and L.  But we share a bond, mostly around our life with Little N, and that bond is still important and deserves to have significant influence in how our family proceeds.  For all of this and more, I am grateful for this August.

self portrait Saturday: family time

What the heck does it mean to put Little N first in the midst of a divorce?  

I barely know and I'm clinging to every little clue that my brain can assemble.  

We had a Family Meeting on Monday night and told Little N that Mommy and Daddy were going to live in separate homes.  Daddy will be moving out to a new place.  Little N got it and got excited about having a new home.  Two homes!  This is great!  So far so good, I think, and hope.  But I wonder what it will be like when Daddy moves out in another month, and has a roommate, and Little N is camping out on the floor of Daddy's room.  He might really get into it.  He might refuse to settle down and demand to come home to his own bed.

Another piece of our plan for putting Little N first is Family Time.  Regular outings or events, in addition to holidays and birthdays, where we get together all three of us.  This has started even now, when we are all in the same home, because we are so infrequently doing the same thing together.  We don't even eat together.  We've been a disjointed family for a while now.  The differences between L and I just seeped into everything.  But we want Little N to know he comes from and is part of people that love him.  He has a pod.  We are with him and on his side, no matter what else.

The most challenging for me is the most subtle and perhaps the most influential.  I need to be careful about how I talk about L, how I think about him, and the attitude I bear about him.  I wonder if that will get easier when he and I are in separate homes and out of each others' space.  Right now, I feel like I'm stretching out of the confines we built, one way or another, in order to live together peacefully - the constructs of compromise, of habit, of ignoring the differences, of tamping down irritation, of underestimating the gaps between us.  And it's good to stretch and to own those things that have so long endured belittling and lack of attention.  But I need to do it mindful of how that bears on Little N.  I don't get to show my irritation.  I don't get to pull further away.  I must speak and express myself with respect, complete attention, and gentle body language.  I don't need to lie, but my truth must be compassionate.

This is all so unknown and impossible to predict.  We do our homework and make our plans and step into them, still mostly blind.  Yielding to our love of our son, to a gradual understanding of what he needs from us in order to make what is right for Mom & Dad also right for him.

gratitude Sunday: these two together

That's our Beloved Miss A and Little N together back in December 2012.  Probably neither one of them likes this photo but I love it.  Today when we got back from her place, after saying goodbye to her for the next month as she'll be traveling Back East and Beyond, Little N demanded to see a photo of her.  "I like her!  I want to see her!"  I recalled this image and pulled it up onto the screen.  He settled down.

 "You can call me," she says, as we make our goodbyes.  She'll be with family and old friends and thousands of miles away and I can't imagine interrupting all that with my concerns.  But she offered it and she meant it.

When she returns things should be in full swing.  L moving out.  Little N getting ready for kindergarten.  Me taking time off to settle into new habits and a new way of life.  Her bringing back all her memories and feelings from her trip.  I have no idea, today, where our lives will really be in a month.  But I'm looking forward to seeing these two together again.  Might be time for a new photo.

self portrait Saturday: entering the changes

"We never see things changing, we only see them ending"

-Slide, Ani DiFranco

I'm very much practicing a vision that sees things are changing, not ending.  Composting my relationship with L so that some new fertile earth can develop to help us grow up Little N.  Imagining a new home life for me and the kiddo.  Asking questions about what I'll need to support me, to support our family, in all kinds ways, after L moves out.  Recognizing sources of kindness, company, and love that I hadn't previously perceived.  Concerned about all the steps and the questions to be resolved.  Grieving, already, the unified pod that our little family once was.  Excited for a new beginning.  

In classic Jenni fashion, I'm marking this time with symbols.  I've replaced my wedding rings with a large Moonstone ring.  It was a gift to myself that I picked up when I started taking my therapy and treatment for depression more sincerely and seriously.  Only now has it found a home on my left hand.  And I've shaved my head.  I love how it feels though I understand that it can be startling to look at.  It's a fresh start.  (Plus... L never likes it when I cut my hair short.  Now I can do it without anyone's grumbles.)

Maybe the best part of this transition period is feeling freer.  As the habits, compromises, and justifications that L and I have settled into, long cemented around us, start to crack and we each move a little more freely, they crumble a little looser.  I perceive my own senses and sensibilities again, like limbs tingling awake after long inactivity.  I remember myself.  I am renewed.  (I love how it feels though I understand that it can be startling to look at.)

self portrait Saturday: the "D" word

L and I have decided to divorce. 

It's hardly a surprise to folks that really know us.  We've been struggling over what to do with our relationship for the last two years.  Then, the "D" word was an "or else."  Now, it's a settled calm. 

I thought the hard part was achieving a shared decision in shared timing.  But there's a lot that's hard about divorcing.  A great heap of decisions looms before us to sift through and settle.  There are conclusions to be reached together before stepping into lives apart.  That's a challenge, as we in many ways already live separate lives, with separate values, friendships, interests, and points of view.

But it's a hopeful time too.  Of relief and peace and new beginnings.  Of honesty and living lives that are more open and true to who we each are.  Of recognizing what we share - both of us in love with Little N and committed to his happiness.

So I find myself in a mixed season of crisp brown endings and tender green beginnings all intermingled.  My mixed emotions rush and hiccup and pause and flow.  Facades fade and fumble.  So it's also a whole rich vibrant season of truth and reality.  And that gives me the courage, the peace, and the energy to continue on this new and unfamiliar path.

gratitude Sunday: suppertime seriousness

The real seriousness is that Little N had started on a food jag, such that he was subsisting on yogurt and M&Ms.  Not exactly fuel for growing big, strong, and smart.  So we were thrilled to get him to eat his old mushy favorites - pasta with green bean puree, spaghetti sauce, and apple sauce.  The cake... was for me.