educational priorities ~ a mamafesto ~ 2020 remix

Posted on August 16, 2020 by marybethrew

Quinn recently attended a six-day online Dinosaur Discoveries camp and at the end earned the “Most Likely to Become Everyone’s Favorite College Professor” award. It launched a great conversation between Quinn and I about how online learning does not necessarily have to mean pushing a bunch of “submit” buttons to enable the instructors to assess his learning accomplishments. The instructors provided materials for him to immerse himself in, trusted that he was absorbing them, and then detected his absorption of said materials through conversations, group discussions, and other contributions (voluntarily written and presented). No grading or testing occurred. And yet, both Quinn and I felt the instructors had somehow managed to glean a lot about who he is as a learner and an individual simply through six days of connecting with him over meaningful curriculum, meaningful because it was chosen intentionally by Quinn. As for the assessment of Quinn’s likelihood of becoming everyone’s favorite college professor, Quinn said, “I think it’s extremely accurate.”

In 2012, I sat down and wrote out my priorities for Quinn’s education, a valuable and worthwhile exercise that received a lot of positive feedback at that time, and that I have returned to at times when I’ve felt a need to check the calibration of my compass concerning Quinn’s education. Each time I’ve returned, I’ve been pleasantly surprised how well that list concerning my going-into-kindergarten five-year-old still fit, say, when he was transitioning from second grade at our living school to third grade in the public school, or when he was moving from there up into the middle school. These transition points pushed me to revisit my priorities for Quinn’s education more than the years in between, but when I did so, I found that what I valued for him at the beginning of his school years are the things I still value, and each time, it has helped me orient my efforts in advocating for his learning needs in each context in ways that aligned with those values.

2020 is a different year in every way, and it is exceptionally different in terms of how education is being and will be carried out. Quinn finished seventh grade pushing buttons on a computer screen, disconnected from his teachers and peers, isolating himself at his dad’s house in the woods. However, for the month it took for the school to transition into distance learning mode, he had a fresh chance to direct his own learning, and it was an oasis between the overscheduled school year to that point, and the button-pushing specter of school on a laptop that limped across the finish line. As we envision what his eighth grade year will be like, his last year before high school, it has been on my mind to revisit the priority list yet again. (Click here to read the original post.) With years of additional insights into how Quinn learns, I decided it would be a good time to do a fresh rewrite, although once again my revisit reconfirmed that everything on the list still resonates for me. The first priority, however, is the one that stopped me in my tracks this time: “Safety- A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer.” This cannot possibly be assured this coming school year with any physical presence in the school building. Though the language of that priority once centered around booster seats and sunscreen, the language of school safety has grotesquely mutated into how we can carry out active-shooter drills during a pandemic. Safety will always remain priority number one, and hence, this year will look very different from other recent years while Quinn has attended public school.

Still, I wanted to write this 2020 version from a place of naming what we want to move towards, vs. what we want to move away from. This is how I approached it in 2012 when I was feeling a visceral aversion to Quinn attending public school while he still needed quite a lot of social emotional support a good portion of the time. At that time, I tried to hone in on articulating the goals I have for his learning environment rather than just describing the outcomes I wanted to avoid; instead of focusing on how likely a differently-wired kindergartener is to be misunderstood in public school, I focused on working towards an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole child is nourished. In 2020 I want to focus less on COVID-19 risk and more on crafting the best learning options for him given the circumstances. Still striving for an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole person is nourished. The long-term goal is still and always a thriving lifelong learner.

Many things have changed in eight years, but so much has stayed the same. Most of what changed in this list is an organization of the original 12 separate items into 3 categories they seemed to gather into naturally: safety, connection, and self-direction. A disclaimer I would attach to this and all posts of mine: this is a description of my own values and is intended only as a means of articulating them for myself; if they resonate for you, that is a pleasant outcome we can enjoy, and if they do not, feel free not to let them slow you down as you scroll on by.

~Educational Priorities~

As Quinn’s mama my priorities for his educational experience are to surround him with nurturing environments and people and to protect and feed his love of learning. While I do not distinguish between learning and the rest of life, as I believe the two are inextricably linked, I will do my best to list my priorities for how I believe Quinn can best be supported so that he may thrive as a lifelong learner. I believe this will be achieved by prioritizing:

1. Safety

A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer. As drastically different as the content of this paragraph may be in 2020 than it was in 2012, the first sentence is the same first sentence. Physical needs must be met before learning needs can be fully realized. At Our Living School, we repeated a mantra concerning safety, “Our bodies are safe, our thoughts are safe, our feelings are safe, our work is safe,” and this is still a useful list.

Physical safety: Quinn’s physical safety is secured in his learning environment to enable him to focus on learning. The physical safety of educators must also be paramount. The presence of my learner in a school is possible only when teacher health and safety, and the health and safety of the families of those teachers, and the health and safety of other students and their families, can be ensured.

Mental safety: Quinn is in an environment where he can express his thoughts freely and knows his learning needs will be respected and supported.

Emotional safety: Quinn is able to feel, express, and care for his feelings.

Work safety: Whether it is what he was building out of blocks at five, or a research project he is getting ready to present at thirteen, the integrity of Quinn’s work will be honored.

2.Connection

I believe that a positive learning environment for Quinn will flourish when it grows from strong roots of connection and belonging. Several of the 2012 priorities focused on specific connections; between student and teacher, parent and teacher, student and peers, student and others of all ages. In 2020 I can see that these one-to-one connections are impossible to extricate from the web of community surrounding a learner, and while these individual bonds may stand out from the web when highlighting learning priorities, they all perform their roles in the best ways when the whole web is strong and stable. Strong connections will help Quinn develop empathy and compassion, and a realistic understanding of others’ realities. They will also help him self-reflect through relationship with others, and to continue to build healthy relationship skills.

Student-teacher connection: A bond between student and teacher ensures priority #1 through open communication and positive regard of one another. From connection flows the sense of nurturing, unconditional positive regard, and feeling of equal dignity that all humans deserve and require in order to do their best learning. I believe safety and equity for all other students is necessary for Quinn to experience the benefits of a connection to any teacher. If he can see that his peers of all identities and abilities are all being treated with that positive regard, then he will be able to trust that lighthouse when its beam is directed towards him.

Student-teacher-parent connection: Open channels of communication among those involved in Quinn’s learning endeavors allow for his strengths and areas needing extra support to be known so that all involved are attuned to his unique learning style. Parental involvement in learning is ongoing and meaningful.

Student-peer connection: The stronger the connections between Quinn and his learning community, the greater sense of belonging he will experience. Quinn feels ownership of his school as a place that is Home to him, with a positive sense of caring for his fellow students, who in turn care for him as part of their community. Values are instilled by the teachers towards this end, and extend outward to include his greater community, in which his school is an active participant. These values of community care are best realized by distance learning in 2020, protecting all learners and teachers, and finding creative ways to still foster belonging. Peer connections may take the form of online paleontology discussions and online D&D gaming sessions this year.

Connection to others of all ages: Quinn is connected with older teens and young adults who have skills he has yet to acquire to look up to, admire, and imitate, and kids who are younger, to keep things infused with imagination and wonder. He has involvement with people of all ages from the surrounding community, because the real world is a place where people of all ages interact, to everyone’s great good fortune. In 2020 we’ll have less in person interaction to be sure, but this will be good to keep in mind as a guiding principle, that while peer interactions are very important to developing teens, interactions with others of all ages matter as well, even if they have to be emails and video calls for a time. Grammy and Grampy, Mario and Luigi, I’m looking at you!

3. Self-Direction (trust)

The rest of the 2012 priorities group themselves comfortably under this heading. In 2012 I wrote about a whole-child approach, an emergent curriculum, a Yes environment with emphasis on play, developing an internal moral compass, and nurturing an intrinsic motivation to learn. In conversation with my teen about what works and does not work about schooling for him, we keep circling back to the need for choice. I want to strive towards a learning situation that prioritizes self-direction for the learner. (The heading contains parenthetical trust, because this path requires a large amount of it on the part of a parent supporting the self-directed learning journey of their youth.)

Whole-child or whole-teen approach: In my worldview, children come into the world as fully intact beings, destined to grow into their innate competence, as well as prosocial beings whose default desire is to cooperate, belong, and get along. Other worldviews exist in which children are born deficient or damaged, needing to be filled with knowledge and morals through a hierarchical top-down approach. My worldview encourages deep trust in the child’s inevitable trajectory towards competence, while the opposing one often requires proof through standardized testing or other means that they have reached competence.

I like a phrase coined by Marji Zintz that says, “attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts.” Giving kids the benefit of the doubt in their intentions and abilities empowers them to grow into their competence.

Whole-child or whole-teen approaches to learning must acknowledge the following: Academics, while held at high priority, do not eclipse other important lessons. Some of the lessons/skills I value most, in no particular order, are:

social/emotional skills
healthy bodies
mindfulness practices
self-confidence
compassion
writing
relationship skills
empathy
communication
movement
sustainability
fine art
creative writing
world culture
cooking
sports
drama
reading
conflict resolution
scientific reasoning
practical life skills (everything from gardening to making things to voting)
being a citizen in a democracy
critical thinking
math
social justice
music
community-mindedness

Many of Quinn’s skills will be honed at home, e.g. woodworking with dada or sewing with mama, and at private (dance/music/art/sports/karate) lessons or through outside-of-school classes, so I apply this concept to Life in General as well as educational goals.)

binary hand-counting in the wilderness

Self-directed learning: I referred to this as emergent curriculum in 2012, while in 2020 the term self-direction feels more resonant for the same set of ideals around choice, maybe because it emphasizes his agency in bringing about what emerges. Quinn is able to learn what he is drawn to, and the purpose of teacher guidance is to help him create meaning for himself about what he learns. He is able to approach each component of academics as he is ready for it, in a way that he can absorb it efficiently because it’s meaningful to him. He has the freedom to opt in or out of lessons he feels compelled or uncompelled by, and there is plenty of enriching material for him to engage with and be challenged. Further, the lessons offered are set at a level that is most likely to compel him, given that they are based on his/the student body’s emerging interests/intrigues/questions/thoughts/votes. He sets his own balance of autonomous learning time to cooperative group learning. Quinn’s preparations for his life/career goals (college, trades, conservatory, world travel or whatever they may be) are in his own hands and he is confident in his ability to craft his own educational curriculum, one that will land him squarely where he desires to be, wearing a set of wings to take him far beyond.

Consent: As mama of a young man, I see it as one of my most important roles in his learning to make sure he is aware and competent around the concept of consent. By honoring Quinn’s integrity, boundaries, and self-direction in his learning, I am modeling consent. If Quinn’s stance on a given subject or learning objective is no, it means no. Often choice is seen as something a teacher “allows” a learner, but that still creates a top-down dynamic which, instead of preserving choices, in fact limits them; if one of the available options is not “no”, the choice is not freely chosen. There is an illusion of choice that is created when someone says, “I will let you choose” but then the power rests with the person “letting,” not with the person doing the choosing. Forcing someone to learn, to press the “submit” button, is one way that consent is overridden in young people routinely, and I strongly suspect it contributes to a culture where consent is undervalued. Where students experience teaching as something to be done to them, they learn not to honor their own signals, but instead become resigned to others’ demands on them. Instead, by being clear on his boundaries, Quinn is learning where he ends and other people begin, and not just knowing about it in theory, but practicing and embodying consent.

Yes Environment: Yes means yes! A Yes Environment means that opportunities, space and materials are available to him whenever he takes initiative to express and explore. When he reveals an interest, the tools and materials he needs to follow that line of inquiry appear in a timely manner so he can continue and take it as far as he wants, until he is satiated. If he is engrossed in dinosaurs today (/this week/this decade), books and activities (games, videos, camps, virtual museum tours, ecology simulations…) show up in following days based on that theme and are strewn in his path for him to gobble up. His teacher’s role is to observe what is sparking his interest and tend the flame, requiring an individualized approach and attentive observation. This is best achieved in small class sizes where curriculum can flex and adapt. Instead of “no” stance on deviations, a “how can we…?” approach is the default. A Yes environment also provides structured and unstructured time and space to play. Play is of extreme importance to learning, and not separate from learning. Play is learning. Beyond K-12, Quinn is encouraged and supported in his life goals and help is always available to guide him in the right direction to meet them.

Internal Moral Compass: Quinn gets to grapple with right and wrong based on his own inner knowing, as he practices and calibrates his internal compass. He receives lots of guidance, information, and suggestions to help him navigate territory that is new for him, but never force, coercion or bribery, rewards or punishments. In areas including but not limited to consent, it is increasingly important for him to make morally right choices when nobody is around to police him or direct him in the right decision. He will do that if he has been exercising this muscle all along and his moral compass is well-calibrated and strong.

Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: His desire to learn comes from within, and that is honored in a way that maintains its integrity within rather than pulling it outside of him and replacing it with an external stimulus. Rewards and punishments are avoided in order to protect this intrinsic motivation to learn. Self-reflection around daily experiences, triumphs and disappointments will hold more meaning than grades, test scores, diagnoses, labels.

It is my belief that by prioritizing these values in Quinn’s education, Quinn will be set up to lead a fulfilling life. He will know himself well, always having been aligned with his own internal motivators, conscience, and self-knowledge. He will have confidence that he can achieve whatever he sets out to do, and will have obtained skills and knowledge that are required for that journey. He will know what it is like to be surrounded by supportive, encouraging people, and will recognize them in society. He will be attracted to workplaces with inclusive atmospheres and friendships featuring positive regard and nurturing. He will be unwilling to tolerate injustice because of his intimate experience of participating in a compassionate, justice-promoting community. He will know how to be respectful as well as to live in a way that inspires respect. He will know how to be flexible, how to think critically and creatively, and how to navigate real world situations because the real world is the place he will always have dwelled. He will be fully competent in making choices, as self-direction has been a key component of his entire educational experience- he will know that life is made up of choices, and he will be empowered to make them. These approaches to Quinn’s education will produce a strong, capable, caring, well-rounded, enthusiastic, empowered, joyful human being.

~summer shorts~ reclaiming

Posted on July 28, 2020 by marybethrew

Have you seen me lately? is the title of one of my depression songs. I hardly ever listen to the Counting Crows anymore, but the feeling that I have gone missing lately is a little bit accurate.

When I go missing, when I need to retrieve myself, the ocean is where I go. During a pandemic, it may mean going to the ocean at 6:30 am on a Monday, and it may mean going less frequently, but the ocean is still where I go to collect myself and bring myself back. Here I am, standing, kneeling beside the crowded tidepools of my inner world. There beside them, soaking in the brine, is the end of a long strand of mended rope. I pick it back up in my hand, ready to start adding to the storyline, twisting new strands, threading on new beads and seashells, eventually stringing more cranberries and popcorn once it is a little less soggy.

How does it happen that I would ever set this rope down? I know better. I repeat to myself like a mantra why I write. I repeat it enough that others know it, can paraphrase it. The fragmentation that once characterized my inner experience was the result of mental health crisis – major depression brought on mostly by emotional abuse (gone), but also a little bit predisposition (still there). Fragmentation, a broken storyline, allowed me to lie to myself, disconnect from myself, betray myself, something I remain committed to never do again. Writing is my best tool to maintain a cohesive storyline, to integrate the various pieces of myself into one narrative that I can keep my grip on, so that I can see the connections between one segment and another, so that I can tell if I am being true to who I am and so that I can tell if I am deviating from my truth or forgetting crucial pieces of the story.

Too much slack in the line is a different problem from fragmentation, but tangles are not conducive to okayness either. Winds will blow on me, waves will continue to endlessly pass, and if I am not doing the steady, dynamic tending this line of mine requires, it can become knotted and snarled. These posts piling up behind the scenes, where I keep second guessing myself and saving to drafts, need to start being eased out before they accumulate further. Like the sheet that controls the business end of the sail, my line works to keep me on course, to keep the wind coming across my sails in the most efficient way to maintain forward progress, to keep me from capsizing, to keep the sails full not flogging, to keep me from wallowing in the doldrums.

There is a certain amount of tension required to keep ahold of myself, in other words. The danger is there to become too tense, to hold on rigidly, which can also rock the boat. When my shoulders start to reach my ears, my hands are clenched, and I am holding my breath too often, I need to loosen my grip, inhale, exhale, and observe what the ocean is doing. Take stock, adjust course.

You can sail forward even when the wind is close to your bow, but there is a reason why they call it “beating to windward.” Heading into the oncoming wind and seas (usually they are coming from a related direction to one another, though not always) can feel like a beating. The motion of the vessel is more jarring, the force of the impact coming down from the crest of each swell causes the whole hull to shudder and the rigging to vibrate, and the ship is heeled over at quite an angle. The ship must be tacked much more frequently to maintain course, an act which by its very nature strains every line and piece of hardware, every tired seam and joint. Changing direction frequently just to keep going forward is exhausting, and you must ensure the coffee pot is lashed in the galley, the deck gear all stowed.

Still, it is while sailing to windward that I have most often encountered dolphins riding the bow wake. It is also only in the dark of night that the bow wake glows with bioluminescence. Remembering my study of the word “streamlined” a couple of years ago, I recall my conclusion that the status of the flow around me has less to do with turbulence in my life, than what shape I present to the flow; that if I present less resistance to the flow, I have a more streamlined experience. Salmon use the energy of the current to propel themselves upstream; adversity is not a direct line to crisis, in fact it can be a force of energy that is harnessed for good.

I feel as though, right now, I am swimming upstream against a strong current, or sailing into a strong wind. I am okay, but I am on watch for signs of slipping down the current too far towards the waterfall’s edge, or letting the wind get around behind the wrong side of my sails. I am okay, but I am swimming hard with nothing in reserve, I am beating to windward and taking a beating. I am okay, but I am only okay because I know firsthand the consequences of slipping downstream, of capsizing.

At market one recent Saturday, a lovely woman handed me a bundle of braided sweetgrass. She grows it herself, and she said she wanted to give it to me because I inspire her. I am using it to smudge this space and reclaim it, to clear out any traces of energy that would keep me quiet, that would turn down my voice, that would ask me to be smaller, less than fully me.

~thankful thursday~ three little birds

Posted on May 15, 2020 by marybethrew

Saturday 5-2

It seems like everywhere I turn the talk is of fear; of fears we feel, of fears we reject, of fears we perceive or reject in others. I want to check in with myself and see whether I am making decisions based on fear, but I am still feeling solid that I am making decisions based on information and knowledge, especially inner knowing. I have plenty of fear coming at me on all sides, but the way I think of bravery is that it isn’t the absence of fear, but the willingness to engage with the depths of what is. I am grateful for the ability to revisit my own words a few fathoms back along the unbroken line I keep stringing along to not lose myself, and remember what I said early on about being able to live with the decisions I make now, and that metric still feels right for me. I am grateful for the clarity.

The purple and blue baby quilt on my lap, handmade by my Mom for my baby shower so many years ago now, has butterfly fabric all around the border. Another visual reminder of the internal knowing, the compass within.

I let lots of time go by in between bringing up with Quinn when he will come back. He still says he is staying there longer…. “for now.” The last time I said, “if that means I don’t see you until you’re fifteen that’s a little hard for me,” and he said, “I know.”

I am grateful for the two little yellow birds were flying around the bayou salmonberry patch and the hummingbird who visited and flew just about right up to us (we think he is the juvenile we watched getting fed). They might just be three little birds, but they remind me that every little thing is gonna be alright. That doesn’t mean it will be easy or that there won’t be fearful things. It means this too shall pass.

Sunday 5-3

First swallowtail butterfly spotted in the yard!!! Today I am grateful for a nice long talk with mom while I weeded the patch of yard by the honeysuckle. Beautiful sun. Light on things. Yellow birds in the bayou.

Monday 5-4

Today I am grateful for robin hatchlings! I was outside taking pictures of our blooming lilacs when one of the parent robins landed and I heard Peep! Peep! Peep! And there they were! Three little birds! An auspicious birthday – May the fourth be with them.

I had settled into my lawn chair a little while later with my camera and my laptop to multitask, and a parent bird landed with another worm. It eyed me, stuffed the worm down a throat, and then stared at me, hard. I stopped my camera clicking and sat very still. It leaned forward into the nest again, grabbed something, and flew off.

Oh no! Did it take one of the babies? Is it moving them because I’m here? Is it because of the neighbor’s brush pile burn? Are they moving their babies up wind? Is it the deer repellent Rich sprayed yesterday to stop the buttheads from eating my columbine blossoms?

I continued to watch, convinced it was me. I was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Mom came back with a worm. Three little birds strained to be fed first… wait, one wasn’t gone?

She fed, stared, left.

Dad. Three babies. Fed, stared, left.

They’re still here.

Next time mom came in, she pulled a black object that I could tell was smaller than a baby bird, maybe it was spit-up or poop, and she removed it from the nest when she left.

That must be what I saw.

This pandemic is a house of mirrors, making things seem one way and then another. Making me check whether my instincts are faulty, whether I am removing my child based on a false sense of danger. But no, the danger is not false, and the metric of being able to live with the decisions is still in play. Keep taking it one day at a time.

5-5

My purple asparagus crowns are starting to grow where they were hastily heeled in. I finally order the compost I need to build up the bed where they will be planted.

I am grateful for a beautiful day with lots of outside time, sweating as I weeded, moving my nursery area around (slug intervention). An evening walk and homemade pizza with sausage from the farm and a yummy stout aged in a whiskey barrel. In bed before 9.

Quinn doesn’t want the pressure of thinking he might carry covid from one house to the next. I wonder if he would feel a sense of relief of having the weight of deciding taken off his shoulders. If one of us got sick, the responsibility would not be on him. But that’s not really how I’ve parented him. He is aware of his own inner knowing. So aware that he cannot be distracted from it.

Wednesday 5-6

Today I am back on day 16 of the abundance meditations: today I will remember to be grateful.

My three yards of compost were delivered and I feel grateful for how working with soil helps me get grounded.

Quinn emailed me before bedtime to see if I want to do an extra one hour video call on mother’s day. The wording woke up some deeper fears. Rich researched what the plandemic video was all about. It was not a good time of day for me to overhear it, so I walked outside to check if my makeshift cover for the asparagus bed was still intact. I sat in the Adirondack chair in the gloaming. A chirping bird flew overhead, and as I looked up, I saw that it was chasing a much bigger bird, also flying over, but silently. An owl! It flew straight into our woods and landed. A shadow soaring silently through the shadows. Boy am I peering into the shadows right now. I felt like I was getting a grip today. Got some spreadsheet work done, listened to Brene and Sue Monk Kidd and Jen Hatmaker, and Glennon reading Untamed, planted asparagus, had chili in the crock pot and cornbread baked by the time Rich got home. The day started out with gratitude doodled in rainbow colors in my journal. But I cannot lie. It is ending with a gaping hole in my heart that I am not sure how to reckon with.

The moon came up over the ridge when Rich came outside to find me. He got to see one swoop of an owl through the trees as well, under the full super moon we didn’t even realize would be rising tonight.

Thursday 5-7

Tomorrow it will be eight weeks since I’ve had Quinn home.

Since I had said that thing about not seeing Quinn until he is fifteen, he talked about the concept of dividing that amount of time up into 2 or 4 or 8 chunks of time. I said, “fractions. You’re doing math to it.” A phrase Vi Hart uses is to “do math to it” or “do algebra/calculus to it”. He said, “I do math to it when I get nervous.”

His face. His precious face and the way his lip curved when he said that. Vulnerability. (Still so grateful for video calls.)

It is not resolved but I am not letting myself dwell on it. I am trying to focus on gratitude for how much integrity my kid has that he wants to prioritize long term goals like us all living past this pandemic, and how he is able to recognize that doing numbers is a defense mechanism… the awareness he has. It’s kind of blowing my mind.

Friday 5-8

The robin babies are gone, fledged already. I believe I miscalculated and they actually hatched earlier than the 4^th. Now I am seriously empty nesting, bereft of my son and my robin nestlings as I head into mother’s day weekend. I thought I had more time with them. I don’t know why I thought that.

Today I will remember to be grateful for the time I’ve had.

~thankful thursday~ integrating

Posted on May 1, 2020 by marybethrew

This post contains two weeks of mingled timeline/gratitude reflections and gets me closer to posting in real time. I’m going to stop trying to label what is gratitude and which pieces are included for timeline purposes… in keeping with the integration theme.

Saturday 4-11 Got our taxes done with days to spare! Winning!

Easter Saturday reflections were shared about how when we are inside the story, living it, we may feel like it is ending, not knowing renewal is on its way. A good reminder not to write the ending of one’s story in the middle of the dark night of despair.

Easter Sunday 4-12

I show up for hangouts with Quinn ten minutes early. I let him end the call before I do, every single time.

Prime rib date night!

Monday 4-13

We witnessed hummingbird Mama feeding her newly fledged baby on our bayou walk!

Tuesday 4-14

The 21 day abundance challenge I’ve been participating in concluded today. The meditation pieces were lovely, and the reminders were timely, synchronous even. The emails read a little bit like a chain letter, a tumbleweed that had gathered various bias-laden “assignments” in their travels. I felt grateful to not be taking that class for a grade, but also very grateful to have it in the front of my consciousness just how much choice I have in how I perceive what is going on around me, and how much power I have over my own inner experience.

Hummingbirds in the salmonberries above the trout lilies where I worked. Chickadees and sunshine.

Another hummingbird feeding encounter! I’m starting to think it won’t just be a once-in-a-lifetime thing after all.

While I was making tuna noodle casserole, a robin caught my eye- nesting in the hazelnut outside my kitchen window!

Wednesday 4-15-20

I feel like I’ve returned to some sense of tenuous stability. Daily visits with Quinn are part of the routine. I’m keeping busy with work – I have to sort of force myself to start on it in the mornings but eventually gain momentum and by the end of the day I’ve accomplished something. I even made real dinners the last two nights and am feeling more on top of my kitchen game.

Lots of good stay home date nights.

Friday we are having Local Ocean crab soup and fish and chips. Working in fisheries and married to a guy who welds up fishing boats, it feels good to support fishermen who aren’t able to sell their catch right now. It also feels so much better to walk up to a window and grab a bag/box than it does to go inside stores for food. I am back to being a customer of the farm and getting their VSA box every other week with add-ons like garden burgers and Italian sausage and salsa and two dozen eggs… all stuff from them or other local farms so it’s easy to want to support it and then those are more things I don’t need to buy in a store.

“Distance learning for all” starts officially today.

Thursday 4-16

I decided to sign up for the farm’s CSA program – I did it for a few years before I started working for them. I may very well be working in some capacity this outdoor market season as well, but since I still have more questions than answers about that (I do know the market will not be open in its normal capacity or timing), I’m considering this a purchase of veggie insurance. If I don’t need it, someone will, and if I do, I’ll be grateful to have it. I also placed an order with my favorite herbalist, Lovejoy Botanicals, who is offering no-contact porch pickup ordering for locals.

We went for a long, meandering bayou/backyard walk after rich got home. Hummingbirds feeding their babies!!! Three times, because three is the magic number.

Friday 4-17

Had a great phone call with Lau about not explaining ourselves.

Saturday 4-18

I have seen the words “tone deaf” in print a few times in the past week used metaphorically, referring to the way an offhand remark likening quarantine to prison would sound to someone who has actually done time, or how it would seem to make light of the use of bandanas as a mask and act like we have joined a gang when people of color have legitimate safety concerns about being seen in such a way by law enforcement, or how gripes about spending so much time with our children must fall on the ears of parents who have lost children. There is some uptick in empathy, with many more opportunities available for people to embrace the concept.

We have been watching installments of Star Wars each night this week. Tonight during The Empire Strikes Back I was reminded of this quote that I love: “luminous beings are we; not this crude matter.” I think what Yoda was saying was that we are capable of making our own light. A beneficial thought to return to on this gray day; I spend time editing photos of hummingbirds flashing their color out of the shadows.

Quinn remembered a passage he was reading that he wanted to read to me in the Parrot’s Lament, because it was about dolphins. I listen to him leaf through pages, the clock ticking away minutes, while I look at the top of his bowed head and he looks for the passage. A google-eternity later, he ultimately doesn’t end up reading it aloud, but after he finds it, explains to me about how there are dolphins who help a certain group of humans collaborate by chasing fish towards the nets, and how both the fishing nets and the dolphins bellies end up full of fish through the collaborative effort.

I rode with Rich to deliver a new lawnmower to my outlaw mom. I love his love for his mom.

Sunday 4-19

It’s possible that I am not opening back up my book right now to write because it concerns a time period when I was separated from Quinn. It’s possible that it is also a compelling reason that I should open it and write.

I ordered some used books from Powell’s and one of them was with Quinn in mind. So today, I started reading aloud to him Zero: the biography of a dangerous idea by Charles Siefe.

Mom and I did our very first video call! While I was talking to her, Rich was outside building me a cold frame for the next plant nursery stage after the seedlings outgrow the skylight. Such love. I stood leaning on him next to the newly blooming cherry blossoms and we watched a young hummingbird whose green feathers flashed teal, almost blue in color, especially against the blue sky.

An evening of popcorn and Return of the Jedi.

Monday 4-20

Camp boss spotted me some eggs until I get my next farm eggs, and we stood outside by her new garden beds and caught up in the sun.

That paragon of productivity Vi hart’s next piece emerged entitled how we reopen and it feels more sane and reasoned than the rest of what is out there to be read on the subject.

With Star Wars completed, we’ve moved on to Fellowship of the Ring – Gandalf speaking to the moth, and the moth going to the light; more imagery reminding us what to do when hope seems lost. Another reminder not to write the ending prematurely.

Tuesday 4-21

My to-do lists are a study in integrating the whole self. Traditionally my work lists all stay on the post-it notes on my office desk, while my home life sticky notes are on my kitchen counter, and never the twain shall meet. Pandemic sticky notes, on the other hand:

Graph ecotox egg and larval respiration data by treatment

Make tortillas

Re-analyze the ocean acidification egg respiration in units of respiration per egg instead of wet weight (units still nmol?).

Plant dahlia bulbs

Have Quinn look up formula for volume of an icosahedron

laundry

Social distancing logistics re: experiment on tagged P cod in swim tunnels

Make granola

Revisit Arctic cod larval foraging data

Id yellow bird Townsend’s warbler

Sourdough starter?

Wednesday 4-22

100 monthaversary!!! Glacier memories. Husband showing me the photos of glacier being snow-plowed right now – fifteen feet accumulation in places. I prefer the summer scenes!

Quinn had a tough emotional afternoon. He could not bring himself to do schoolwork for the classes that come out on Wednesday, because, “we’re in the middle of a pandemic, not that anyone has noticed.” He had a lot of feelings to work through. I reminded him that he needs to prioritize self-care right now. That YES, we are in the middle of a pandemic and sometimes we won’t feel good enough to do our work. I told him I feel like that sometimes, too. I told him that I know his teachers are putting the work out in increments hoping that you will have some good moments between now and all the way to next Wednesday when today’s assigned work is due. I told him I have to do my own work when I find myself in the good moments. I said I completely supported him not doing any work this afternoon.

He told me that sometimes he has to just sit there and contemplate the pandemic.

I could tell he felt better about it all, marginally, that I wasn’t asking him to be okay when he was not okay.

Thursday 4-23

Had a short-breath anxiety attack right as we went to bed last night. Rich tried to talk me through breathing, then rubbed my back until it calmed down. After I woke around 3am I didn’t really fall back to asleep fully, but at least I was calm. Restful albeit not sleeping. I do not know what triggered that.

Fresh lemon balm tea – it finally dawned on me I have a ton of it growing right outside my front door, as my stockpile of favorite teas dwindles. Lemon balm has been a good plant friend to me in other times marked by fear and grief.

During my half-awake time I was steeping in images and ideas that combine the two storylines of separation for Quinn and I, which sounds bad but it wasn’t, it was more of a way of integrating myself right now, maybe a self-imposed writing prompt. Integrity, as Brene says, is matching my insides with my outsides.

What feels integrated today is to not try to work my day job – I will attend virtual lab meeting but spend today boosting self-care and hitting my reset button in any way that I can. I’ve reached some sort of limit, and also I have a million hours of comp time from this February that I am not really going to need for a road trip in June, I don’t think.

As I was getting ready to post thankful thursday, I went back and re-watched Glennon’s talk about not protecting our kids from pain. I had missed, or hadn’t needed to hear at the time, or hadn’t realized I needed to hear, what she says about friendship in that talk. It applies to our kids’ pain as well, because she talks about how our friend who is grieving doesn’t need us to provide fixes, just connection (definitely not the “‘it’s darkest before the dawn” platitudes). Our kids need connection, too, not fixes, and I had internalized that on my first listen. I realized part of why I’m not feeling like talking to anyone right now is that I’m effing grieving not having Quinn… and I can’t deal with any questions about it or any problem solving about it. But it occurred to me that I am not able to talk to people about what’s going on with Quinn right now because there is no space for me to just be in grief about it. I get it, I want to fix it, and make a way for him to come home seem like a better choice than what we’re doing. Believe it or not, I have already asked myself allllll the questions! I have no answers, only more questions. and now I am just sad. It’s just not a better choice right now. I have been BESIDE MYSELF thinking of him, of how we can safely reunite again. Of how “this can’t just go on forever.” It sucks. It hurts. It’s probably why I couldn’t breathe last night. I have not tucked him in to sleep at night since March 13^th.

Peeling back another layer, I don’t feel like I’m even entitled to grieve because he’s not really gone and I’m not really denied seeing him, and this is by choice, so it shouldn’t hurt. All the ways we minimize or downplay how we’re really experiencing grief because, well, I have friends who really have lost children so this isn’t that bad, and I’m not in a war zone and I still have my job and and and and (Brene’s “comparative grief” podcast was also part of getting me to this realization, just listened to that the other day). Just… yeah actually, this sucks and if I can’t even be with myself about it, how can I be with other people about it, or let them be with me?

Friday 4-24

As anticipated, Paleontology camp has been canceled, however, online camps are being invented and implemented.

I’m feeling some serious overwhelm/underfunctioning going on. I’m taking another comp day and will start work again Monday (other than again, one meeting today). I napped but then the sun came out so I ended up gardening for the afternoon, aside from my two Quinn calls.

I can tell Rich is worrying about me. He didn’t go in until 7:30 today (still sounds early but 6:30 has been his start time lately) because he was taking time to rub my back before work. I mean I’m mostly ok, it’s just punctuated by certain moments. But even in the ok times I am definitely doing a lot of jaw clenching and storing tension in my muscles and breath holding…. every time I scan my situation I’m doing at least one of those.

I was a sobbing mess while I did some writing/processing yesterday, but it was probably good to get it out of my system. I’m trying to continue processing it because it’s still a lot of why I’m sort of stuck at the moment. I’m coming to that realization and trying to unstick myself. I think I needed down time. Maybe I should just believe myself that I’m actually feeling what I’m feeling.

This morning I went online grocery shopping and I am supposed to be scheduled to pick up around 5. I really could not deal with the store, but it is time to restock.

I’m going back through the meditations from the challenge and at the mention of “the field of all possibilities” I picture the hayfield that in my dreams I have seen covered in both fireflies and filled with an ocean of whales; the fireflies are each of the unlimited stories to write. “Through the law of pure potentiality, I can create anything, anytime, anywhere,” and I repeat the mantra, trusting that it’s not time to write the ending of the story yet. The fireflies are an infinite supply of story beginnings, each its own point of light.

archive update ~ quinn age 3 ~ haul away on the one unbroken line

Posted on December 5, 2018 by marybethrew

over time, i have filled in gaps in my blog, and the final frontier that has been awaiting its day is the time between quinn’s third and fourth birthdays. i established the blog just after he turned 3, but was not posting thorough updates again until just before he turned 4, when i posted the first ~a month of unschool~ post, which technically covers “quinn’s forty-seventh month.”

in the spirit of honoring my story and attending to its integrity as one unbroken line, i have recently revisited that time period in my off-blog archives in an attempt to weave a splice joining the two dangling ends of the line. whereas the age 1 and 2 update posts filled themselves in relatively easily via mostly unedited text grabbed from emails to lau and piles of toddler photos, turning 3 was a time that i could just tell i needed to spend some more time and energy unpacking. i was attempting to define some independence for myself, and my parenting journey was particularly dramatic around that time. turbulence on many levels may be what has kept me from grappling with this chunk of my storyline up until now, but i have been rewarded for summoning the courage. the twinkling sapphires i am unearthing from the larger pockets of darker stuff reveal more wealth than i remembered. i am allowing myself to savor the quickly typed emails and simmer them down into their essence this time around (read: i tried to bridle the verbosity). i allowed myself to write from both perspectives, to acknowledge the time and distance from which i am gazing upon the artifacts, but allowing them to glimmer for themselves as well.

i back-dated each individual post, so they are less likely to turn up in your current blog reader feeds or emails (though if you did catch them, let me know through what venue? i’m curious…). here is a compilation of links to those ten posts comprising the splice in the line, one snapshot and text excerpt per post to hint at what you’ll find there. in case anyone is up for another blog binge-fest!

i feel a deep sigh of relief, gratitude and contentment to have this gap filled.

quinn’s thirty-seventh month (february 23, 2010-march 23, 2010) into the heathers of the waters

“three was a time of still needing to figuratively crawl back inside the womb and reconnect with mama regularly, interspersed with bouts of shoving off the mama dock and paddling the canoe of his person purposefully away with equally great frequency and intensity.”

quinn’s thirty-eighth month (march 23, 2010-april 23, 2010) long, long ago, in the great days of the grass sidewalks

“during that trip, quinn just kept walking and walking, an impressive distance for such a small hiker. he was filled to the brim with enthusiasm, fueled by easter eggs and the promise of treasures along every stretch of sand. on one of our beach hikes he told me, ‘those two seagulls are having a bath! i’m amazed by it!'”

quinn’s thirty-ninth month (april 23, 2010-may 23, 2010) melody, harmony, rhythm

“on mother’s day, we cuddled in bed, then after a lazy bagel and granola breakfast we played a game of soccer-on-the-stairs, risking life and limb to toss the ball up and down, quinn at the top, me at the bottom. he would laugh hysterically every time the ball made it past him and hit the washing machine, making a gong sound. an audio recording of his laugh reverberates across the years that have elapsed, reminding me in one more sensory modality of just how much he has grown. his voice plays a deeper music now, and is on the very cusp of plummeting yet another octave, accompanied by the background refrain of time whooshing past.”

quinn’s fortieth month (may 23, 2010-june 23, 2010) rebirth

“the recollections from this month that don’t read like a report on our saturdays at the farmer’s market, read instead like a menu of the food i prepared from our first csa boxes, our garden, and the wild.”

quinn’s forty-first month (june 23, 2010-july 23, 2010) now i’m free!

“this was the month i was establishing this blog, this glass bowl into which i began attempting to place some small portion of the petals as they fell, realizing even then that this, too, is all going to pass away, but knowing that it will always be worthwhile to cup a petal in one’s hand and contemplate it for a time.”

quinn’s forty-second month (july 23, 2010-august 23, 2010) blackberry blueberry peaches

“pancakes from scratch, sweetened with honey and applesauce. (another beginning whose future importance i can now see vividly through the wide-angle lens of time, from this point onward, not only did pancakes earn the favorite breakfast title and become a staple in his diet, but other loved ones have been folded into our lives to whom we refer as pancakes, based on our sunday pancake tradition and their sweetness.)”

quinn’s forty-third month (august 23, 2010-september 23, 2010) untamed wildness

“i would find ropes and strings secured to all manner of objects throughout the house. in one image a string was tied to the step stool, with one of his toy boats tied to the other end. as much as i celebrated him becoming himself, i hoped he would remain this tightly secured to me as he grew.”

quinn’s forty-fourth month (september 23, 2010-october 23, 2010) storm season

“storm clouds were gathering in the mama realm as well. the mountain of my ideals promised of a rain shadow, but i was still climbing up the other side where the moisture piled up, sliding back down in each deluge, unable to bridge the disconnect between what i believed i ought to do, and what i was actually doing.”

quinn’s forty-fifth month (october 23, 2010-november 23, 2010) hard-won

“dried plant skeletons withered in the fog of the autumn marsh. blackberry vines had turned a deep merlot, surrounded by brown of every shade. there was still so much green, only now with ecru lace (dried angelica) and beaded silk (spiderwebs collecting droplets of fog) woven throughout. the change of season kept me mindful that all things pass, and that winter storms would come and scour the landscape, scrubbing it bare and making space for new growth come spring.”

quinn’s forty-sixth month (november 23, 2010-december 23, 2010) stirring the pensieve

“by this magical age of three, many of the most quinn-ish aspects of quinn-ness had emerged and i was starting to observe and take notice of them. the blog has been a bit like dumbledore’s pensieve in which i have been able to store memories, and at various times revisit them, swirl them around, and discover connections among the memories and the present days’ events, coming to understand both more fully. i find it incredibly fitting that the memories in the pensieve seem very much alive, as though pulsating with bioluminescence.”

~~~

best served with tea and small oranges!

aunt margie

Posted on June 27, 2017 by marybethrew

in a few short weeks, rich and i will be married, and the timing of my great aunt margie passing away just recently on june 14th feels like it coincides in some way. aunt margie is the matriarch of a great big family; her 2 daughters and 8 grandchildren gave their grammy many great grandchildren (if i use my fingers and toes, i estimate 18), and as of last count, 8 great great grandchildren in her 95 year lifetime.

but beyond that, aunt margie was a second mother to my own mom (pictured above), when my own grandparents were preoccupied with poppy’s health. my mom spent many summers traveling around to national parks with aunt margie and uncle george, attending what all the family fondly refers to as the “george buirkle school of combat camping” and passing on so much wonderful outdoors and camping knowledge to my brothers and me. one of the reasons rich and i have chosen glacier national park for our honeymoon is because my mom always said it was her favorite park that she visited with aunt margie and uncle george. though they always came back to the adirondacks, and hence that is where the whole extended family has always spent some portion of the summer.

among the horde of cousins in this large family, there is a consensus, whether spoken or unspoken, that what you want in life is a marriage like the one between aunt margie and uncle george (or if you’re their direct descendents, grammy and pop). we generation x-ers all attended their 50^th wedding anniversary as kids and teens, and i know i am not the only kid in the family who was deeply influenced by the impressive duration of their relationship, the observable affection, and the palpable mutual adoration between the two of them. their connection was what you wanted to strive for in life. not everyone finds it, but they certainly did, and they provided such a wonderful example for us, of how we are meant to treat our significant others in this lifetime. their love for each other overflowed blessings onto each one of us.

aunt margie treated everyone like they mattered deeply to her; it’s just who she was. no matter how many score of cousins were running around, she made me feel like i was the complete center of her attention, for as long as i could stand to tell her about myself and my life. i have a vivid memory of sitting in lawn chairs on the dock, little cousins in life jackets swinging around dripping perch on the ends of fishing lines, and aunt margie focused intently on my high school highs and lows while the rest of the chaos orbited around us. i know this is how it was for each and every one of us kids. you were the focus of her undivided attention, and the act of her caring about the insignificant goings on in your child or teenage life left such a profound impact on me, on all of us. i will never forget the feel of her hands holding mine, the kindness of her eyes, the sound of her sweet voice praying over me and sharing wisdom, feeling filled to the brim after she poured her love into me.

celebrating her life should be the province of not only her family, but all the people who know anyone whose life she touched. while you may never have met her, the person you know who was loved by aunt margie is a better and kinder person for having been near her, and you are benefiting from it whether you know it or not.

the substantial number of her descendants notwithstanding, aunt margie had a far wider circle of influence in her community beyond her relatives. she spent many years volunteering as a pregnancy counselor, and i am sure there is no way to count how many young womens’ and childrens’ lives in which she made a tremendous positive difference, again because of her steadfast presence.

when we were wee little children, and aunt margie and uncle george would visit us on the farm, we received the extra special treat of having bedtime stories told by aunt margie. her bedtime stories always involved leprechauns. she had hungarian roots, but never mind that. her irish accent was impeccable and her stories were magical and always involved each of us children in some manner. patrick begorabegora and maureen mcgroodigoodie, no bigger than our thumbs, captivated our imaginations as they rode around behind our ears, and i remember some of those stories to this day. when i went to kindergarten, my mom sewed lace onto the pocket of my jumper so maureen would have a way to watch what was going on at school, by peeking out through the little eyelets. i will always cherish this one story in aunt margie’s handwriting, which i have saved since i was about 6 years old. while i do believe that her integrity rubbed off on all of us, i will also admit that i would unabashedly lie about having a sore throat so i could stay home and see them off the morning after a visit, if it was a school day. i would not willingly miss one minute of time with her.

i will always be able to picture them in the upstairs apartment at camp 815 on pork bay of saranac lake, and then when we got older, at benchmark over on fish creek. i will always remember aunt margie riding up front in uncle george’s boat, with their dog heidi or heidi too. the boat was quite literally labeled “pop’s boat”, and was the site of many of our very first lessons on driving a boat, under his supervision. the george buirkle school of combat camping was still taking recruits when i was a kid, and we were proud to enlist. we learned to canoe on long day trips to follensby clear pond or floodwood pond, with uncle george and aunt margie in the lead of a long train of family members, two or three to a canoe, weaving through the lily pads.

815

back at one cabin or another, we’d sit around a table playing games; 99 or uno or chicken foot, and aunt margie would always want to be dealt in. she taught us many of the games, in fact. she was so good at being there in the present moment. she always seemed to be available to painstakingly fry up any child’s proud catch of a 9-inch sunny or perch, and made the best brownies and chocolate chip cookies in all the land.

one of my cousins said in her remembrance of aunt margie, “she was the best person i’ve ever known.” this is how i feel, and it’s not an overstatement. nor does it feel like i’m insulting any of the other wonderful people in my life, say, for example, my wonderful mom, because i know that mom pretty much feels the same way. we are all profoundly sad, yet all of us have known for all of our lives that she had her affairs in order and was ready to meet her maker, more ready than anyone i’ve ever really known. we are also all drawing comfort from the idea of aunt margie reuniting with her love, uncle george, 22 years and 2 days after his passing. that number will stick with me, because for rich and i, the 22^nd is our day.

their song was stardust, sung by hoagy carmichael. however, you can’t talk about songs and aunt margie and uncle george in the same breath without mentioning how great thou art. it was always uncle george’s favorite, and it makes sense, given how they lived every moment of their lives glorying in “awesome wonder [at] the world thy hands have made.” nature was their church, every bit as much as a building with four walls. i don’t know that they ever said this to me, it was simply what i observed, watching them marvel at the simple wonders in the natural world; a hummingbird at the feeder, a beaver dam, a great blue heron, sunset on saranac lake. it is one of the many things i fell in love with in rich, because he and i can sit around and do the same thing. he had me at, “i was up early to cut firewood and got to see a beautiful sunrise…”

“when through the woods and forest glades i wander

and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;

when i look down from lofty mountain grandeur

and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze

then sings my soul….”

i also think of them on evenings when i pour him a drink, or he pours one for me, because that was a ritual aunt margie and uncle george practiced as well, always serving each other with gladness and receiving from one another in gratitude. i feel they would love rich and welcome him as their great nephew-in-law. i hope i can be the wife of noble character to him that aunt margie was to uncle george.

from proverbs 31:

10 A wife of noble character who can find?

She is worth far more than rubies.

11 Her husband has full confidence in her

and lacks nothing of value.

12 She brings him good, not harm,

all the days of her life.

13 She selects wool and flax

and works with eager hands.

14 She is like the merchant ships,

bringing her food from afar.

15 She gets up while it is still night;

she provides food for her family

and portions for her female servants.

16 She considers a field and buys it;

out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

17 She sets about her work vigorously;

her arms are strong for her tasks.

18 She sees that her trading is profitable,

and her lamp does not go out at night.

19 In her hand she holds the distaff

and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

20 She opens her arms to the poor

and extends her hands to the needy.

21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;

for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

22 She makes coverings for her bed;

she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,

where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

24 She makes linen garments and sells them,

and supplies the merchants with sashes.

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;

she can laugh at the days to come.

26 She speaks with wisdom,

and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

27 She watches over the affairs of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

28 Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

29 “Many women do noble things,

but you surpass them all.”

30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,

and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

as i’ve spent several sessions trying to articulate these reflections, i’ve also spontaneously burst into tears a number of times, which is why it has taken me quite a few days to get this written. i have to thank my cousins and their facebook posts for some of those spontaneous cries (and for some of these wonderful photos i have borrowed). my brothers and i have predicted out loud to each other that this would be a hard time in our lives, losing her. i’m wondering now if part of it has to do with losing my nana so young (i was only 4) and aunt margie taking on the role in our lives as the repository for all maternal grandmotherly energy. i know that as a 4 year old, i probably did not manage to work through it all at the time, and i suspect there is ungrieved nana grief that is still making its way up and out, as grief will do when the spigot is opened.

nana and aunt margie around 1942

nana as aunt margie’s maid of honor, 1942

i imagine the loss of both of them as a little bit inextricable, and when i cry, the tears are for our whole grandparent generation, of whom she was the last remaining to us. nana was aunt margie’s maid of honor when aunt margie and uncle george were married, and then nana and poppy got married on the the same day (september 14th) several years later. since my own memories of nana were few, aunt margie acted as a storehouse of memories of her. i always felt i was being given back pieces of her as little gifts throughout the years whenever they’d tell me how much i resemble anne, or tell stories about her.

as aunt margie laughs at the days to come and crosses over, her children, grandchildren, great and great great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and mere great nieces arise and call her blessed.

one unbroken line

Posted on June 11, 2015 by marybethrew

“first you go under

then coming up gives you the bends

and when you break the surface

all you can see is your friends

so you grab your purple crayon

and flesh out the picture behind

and finally the whole world is made of

one unbroken line

one unbroken line”

-ani difranco red letter year

i went under about 10 years ago this coming fall. i have alluded to that period of time in my life before, but i don’t think i have come right out and said what happened to me. it’s not a time i like to dwell on, but throughout my healing process, i have had a growing realization of how important that time was, and how important it is to my integrity for me to own it, to include it as part of my ongoing personal narrative, to acknowledge that it got that bad, to remember why i committed to never again sacrificing my integrity for anyone else. part of why i blog is to help me curate my personal narrative, to keep track of myself in an ongoing unbroken line that is my story, my understanding of who i am. at first it was a research endeavor, an archaeology dig back into my journals and emails to figure out how the pieces all fit, and i will admit to actually entering key life events into a spreadsheet that i could perform data sorts upon. (card carrying nerd. you can laugh. i do.) now the ongoing note-taking it has evolved into is essentially a maintenance strategy to keep my story intact and refuse to let it fragment as it once did.

in 2005, i was so broken down by emotional abuse that i was starting to dissociate from myself. you have to leave yourself briefly when you lash out in ways that aren’t true to who you are. i was awful to friends, because i was forced to prove my loyalty to my relationship by adopting someone else’s opinions and inflicting them on people who had been good to me. i became increasingly isolated and debilitated, and had trouble with basic tasks, to say nothing of the way i was floundering in my master’s degree program. i started to lash out at the abuser, becoming abusive myself out of sheer desperation. i blocked out seemingly unforgettable moments, such as him lighting my mattress on fire while i was lying on it, and only retrieved those memories years later from journal entries i had shared with no one. he cut phone cords while i talked to the very few remnants of support i had left, he cut my houseplants. my daily experience had so eroded away at me that i began to scratch and kick, and even brandish knives back at the other participant in the suffering.

unable to bear myself anymore, i pondered dying, i wished to die, i craved a way out as concise as death. i wanted it to be all over. i contemplated whether i could pull it off. i despaired that i might not be able to. i was tortured by sleep deprivation and the emotional abuse hit new plateaus of awfulness. i couldn’t bear who i had become, what was “happening to me” (because i did not believe or perceive at the time that i bore any responsibility for the circumstances i was in, nor that i had any choice in exiting the scenario) until one day i walked out the door with a bottle of pills in my hand.

he called the police. they drove up to me and asked if i was carrying pills. i said yes. they asked if i planned to use them and i said i didn’t know.

my answers did not inspire enough confidence in them to let me keep walking, so they put handcuffs on me and drove me to the county mental health inpatient facility.

i spent the night in a chair in the intake area at the county facility. as soon as i was there i was begging to leave. not a pretty place. out of the frying pan and into the fire.

i was transferred to where the other overwhelmed grad students go to have inpatient mental health care, and 48 hours after i was cuffed and stuffed, i was home sweet home. but a home in which i couldn’t rest my weary bones. a home in which i lived in constant survival mode. a home in which i found myself longing for home.

i had committed to a treatment plan in order to be discharged. i had committed to weekly counseling. i think my 48 hours as an inpatient shook me awake.

i followed through on the plan. my counselor was great. she helped me make a self care plan. she listened to me say “he… he… he….” then reminded me, “think about youuuuuu!!!” she got me into a psychiatrist who wrote me a prescription that really helped me balance out my chemistry. she encouraged me to go to al-anon meetings. i went faithfully. i went from one yoga class per week to four or five. i was planting seeds in pots, making cups of tea, eating fresh fruits and veggies, taking baths, remembering other little things i had forgotten i liked to do for myself, and little by little, those self care actions turned into actually caring about myself again. new neural pathways opened up, and i followed them more and more. i moved out of the apartment.

over time, i realized those police officers and inpatient personnel did not do anything to me, though at the time i felt very wronged. over time, i realized that i had been unable to recognize my actions as a loud and clear call for help, and i was fortunate my call was heard and responded to by people just doing their jobs.

as time passed, i learned a lot about what was going on in my brain at the time. speaking scientifically, there were neural pathways i was over-utilizing and they held me in a downward spiral. speaking spiritually, i learned how impoverished i had allowed my soul to become. i have read books like trauma and recovery, by judith herman, which helped me to understand the mechanisms by which trauma triggers a brain to fragment, and how fragmentation is essential, at first, to survival in the face of real threat, but also allows distortion to become the chief way a traumatized individual handles information, even in situations where one is not threatened. i learned how it was possible to overcome this non-adaptive strategy (non-adaptive once one has emerged from survival mode), and i learned why i wanted to: distortion is lying, to oneself, and to others, whereas i had always thought of myself as an honest person. i slowly came to be able to articulate that by committing to “never going back there” i meant “to always maintain my integrity.” i read books like the four agreements, and lots of others, that helped me put my finger on what integrity even meant to me. be impeccable with your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; always do your best.

omitting definitions related to calculus and desegregation, here is how webster defines integrity:

integrity 1. the quality or state of being complete; unbroken condition; wholeness; entirety 2. the quality or state of being unimpaired; perfect condition; soundness 3. the quality or state of being of sound moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity.

integrate 1. to make whole or complete by adding or bringing together parts 2. to put or bring (parts) together into a whole; unify 3. to give or indicate the whole, sum, or total of 6. Psychol. to cause to undergo integration; to become integrated.

integration 1. an integrating or being integrated 3. Psychol. the organization of various traits, feelings, attitudes, etc., into one harmonious personality.

as i delved into my research on myself, i strove to leave no stone unturned. i found that judging my choices and being hard on myself didn’t help. it turned out, i needed to be gentle with myself. when i was able to extend myself some compassion, i had an easier time remaining present, instead of dissociating any time the going got tough. yet, i found that i needed to know what had happened, so there could be no further denial. just the facts, without judgment. i waded through old journals and emails, and inserted the fragments of my life story into their places, until the thread was once again whole and continuous, integrated. integrated, integrity.

i let go of the relationship that kept me poised having to choose between it and my integrity. more ani: “i looked up to see integrity finally won over desire.” this did not happen overnight, oh no. domestic abuse, to paraphrase something a friend recently said, is so ongoing you start to not notice your new normal is so bad. it takes time to undo all of that and make a new good normal for yourself. i kept showing up for myself, stayed honest with myself, got more counseling even after several moves and having a baby had made life more complicated. i chose interpretations of my circumstances that felt empowering, that celebrated my strength and resilience in the face of adversity, over interpretations that dwelled on negatives or encouraged self-pity.

there was retaliation in the aftermath. it didn’t go along with someone else’e plan that i was getting so healthy. the aftermath subsided. my integrity held.

year eleven came along, and all the “beyond your wildest dreams” stuff they used to talk about at al-anon? turns out it’s really real.

now i have a man who validates and supports my whole being and loves all of me, containing my feelings by refusing to allow my self-loathing neural pathways to open back up. this is truer to the core of how i see myself (a person of integrity) than any desire to have my self-loathing “validated” in the ways an abusive partner would “validate” it, by encouraging that self-loathing and feeding that monster.

“darling, you will not find

in the well into which you fall

what i keep for you on the heights:

a bouquet of dewy jasmines,

a kiss deeper than your abyss.”

-pablo neruda, except from his poem the well, from the captain’s verses

new lessons have come my way. new opportunities to use what i have learned, or to try to share my experience with friends whose circumstances remind me of mine 10 years ago when i was hospitalized, or 9 years ago when i gave it one more try “for the baby”, or 8 years ago when i was hiding the atm card underneath said sleeping baby to try to keep some money in the account for bills instead of just beer, or 7 years ago when i got hit and walked out with my one year old, or a little over 3 years ago, when i stopped paying my ex’s rent, or whenever ago. i have new appreciation for what i struggled through, because it gives me street cred with people who might otherwise have no use for my suggestions. because it’s true, if you haven’t been through it, it is probably impossible to understand why someone would (and probably will, for a long time) stay. my past connects me not only to myself, to who i was, who i am, and how i got from point a to point b, but also connects me to others in a web that just continues to enhance my life as it expands outward.

new opportunities where i have to choose how to best maintain my integrity come along. i have less and less trouble identifying how it all fits into the one unbroken line of my narrative. i see more and more signs that say “yes” to me, that reinforce the positive choices i make, that affirm life and love and abundance. i recognize them sooner, sometimes even in the moment when i am looking at them, like the morning when an eagle flew along beside our car for about a quarter of a mile, in one unbroken line, as we drove into town. i have more and more success following my intuition, which is better and better calibrated to keeping my path unbroken, unfragmented, connected, intact, whole.

team quinn

Posted on February 22, 2013 by marybethrew

all in all, i think team quinn prevailed on wednesday. but i really think it would be great if all of the 20 or so people who were in that conference room on wednesday would join team quinn.

i am still trying to process what went on at this two hour meeting, which was called, it was stated, in order to “review quinn’s case plan” (whatever that is) even though part of me would rather be focusing on:

this last day of quinn being five

this day also marking 14 months of loving my man

celebrating quinn’s first tender weeks of reading his bob books

(catapult research underway)

still, i can honestly say there was potential good that may come of this meeting, even though it was tremendously arduous. once we got past the typed up lists from the other team, detailing their many bits of so-called evidence of me being a poor parent, once we got past the last ditch attempt of my coparent to dredge things from before quinn was even born in an attempt to garner support for his desire to have our dhs case delved into all over again (i took the high road and announced to the room that unless they wanted to hear a rebuttal, or a list of things my coparent did years ago that might cast him in a poor light, i would focus instead on quinn’s needs since it was my impression that was why we were all in that room), once we got past his therapist directly confronting me that i need to start working as hard on myself as quinn’s dad is working on himself, which was the one moment i did defend myself and confront her back on the fact that she knows absolutely nothing about my therapy history or how much work i have or have not been doing…

there was some apparent agreement, at least on the surface, about a few things having to do with quinn. topping the list is that everyone seems to agree that transitions are a sensitive time for quinn, and our parenting schedule was brought up. we have roughly a 2 day/2 day/3 day rotating schedule with almost as much time spent at coparent’s house as he spends at mine, and it was generally murmured that it seemed like it might keep him in a constant state of transition. while i agree with that, i also don’t think quinn is ready to be away from me for more than 3 days at a time. i also feel the awareness of quinn’s transition sensitivity makes it seem absurd that my coparent would want to drop quinn immediately in public school. (let’s do transitions twice a day instead of every other day!) our attempt at schooling (without parental support along for the ride) seems to me to have shown us that quinn might need a much more gradual transition to schooling away from a parent, and that he could also use a bit of extra support from a parent while he is making that transition, to help him navigate the social interactions.

some of the discussion focused on quinn’s teacher’s observations of (potentially) mild asperger’s characteristics in quinn, and what might be done in order to obtain funding to have an evaluation done using his state health insurance. the jury is out on whether we will be granted such funding, but we did learn that it is not out of the question, though it is a very recent thing and hasn’t been done more than a handful of times. it may not happen, if our current counselor does not feel there is a clinical need for this assessment, but at least it is on the table.

(birthday eve apple pie to share with friends)

his counselor spoke, describing quinn as extremely bright, using the example of his fine motor coordination being on a fifth grade level. she has noticed he is not always aware of the space he is occupying with respect to other people around him, and that sometimes he seems to be deep in his head and takes a while to answer questions. another positive step that has been taken (that i initiated a few weeks ago) is that his counselor has spoken with his teacher, and so i think at least she now has a better understanding of why an evaluation was something we wanted to consider. if nothing else, she put together that the behavior quinn was exhibiting at school that was problematic was more than once following an attempt on his part to gain a teacher’s attention and having to wait his turn. she could see why this would make sense, given he has always had mostly undivided attention from one of his parents at any given time.

it was not lost on anyone in the room that the best thing for quinn overall would be his parents having a better working relationship. there may be joint visits to the counselor in the next little while, something i cannot say i look forward to, but am open to trying.

i got two phone calls that evening, both letting me know i had handled myself very well, which was extremely validating, since that had been a concern going into the meeting. the first was from our child psych, the one who had called me to let me know about the meeting in the first place. the second call was from our case worker, who assured me the case is being closed out as unfounded, and that nothing said today changed her mind in any way. she said she had felt the need to call because even she felt uncomfortable in the room, and she said she couldn’t imagine how i must have felt. i thought it was a really nice gesture.

that afternoon, i went and met the little boy i am going to start nannying for soon. which is an odd juxtaposition, i guess, if you think about it. then yesterday i taught my first “all levels” yoga class all the way through (so far i have just been teaching the beginner class and segments of the all levels class) and i ended the class on this note:

this being human is a guest house.

every morning a new arrival.

a joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

welcome and entertain them all!

even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

he may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

the dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~rumi, the guest house

surrender

Posted on April 1, 2011 by marybethrew

we interrupt your regularly scheduled ~this moment~ because i can’t narrow it down to one picture and today, i’ve got words. 🙂

one of the things that has come home to me from various angles lately is a need in myself for surrender. it was a topic that stuck out to me in caroline myss’s book anatomy of the spirit where she discussed how the healing work of certain chakras is about surrendering to a higher power. letting go and trusting in a higher power was always a big topic in 12 step circles, and my days spent in al-anon are always going to be powerful influences for me, even though i am not currently engaged in the program. it was one gateway that led me back to focusing on healing myself, rather than continuing to deplete my energy railing against a situation i had no control over. in yoga classes i have absorbed the idea of finding the balance point between strength and surrender in each pose, and as with everything, learning this in my body has really helped me apply the concept in other areas of my life, moreso than learning the concept, you know, conceptually.

i think i somehow confused this form of surrender with the other version: the one with the waving white flag. the one that is more like succumb than surrender. subsiding, slumping, succumbing to an inevitable fate, total loss of control, being taken over by the surrounding chaos. to me, surrender is more of a realization of where myself ends and the rest of the universe begins. a realization of what i can do, a full embracing of doing those things, and a step back from the illusion of control over those other things.

right now, in this moment, i feel as though i am approaching that balance point and starting to understand surrender. i have done a lot of struggling with control, and my relationship with trying to obtain or maintain control. i never understood “letting go” and letting a higher power do things for me, i sort of had a fuzzy understanding that letting go doesn’t mean “do no more leg work”, but that didn’t get me to the point of grasping what it does mean. i still do the leg work. and i still make choices and discern which way to go, based on all the available information. then…

it’s the “then” part i am only just beginning to get. my “equilibrium” state used to be to do leg work, then continue to clench and feel stress and try to hold up the world with the tendons in my neck straining for all they’re worth, on high alert anticipating there being more i need to do, feeling twisted and wrung out by every piece of unsolicited advice and “should” and “have to” that comes my way… but now i do all the leg work and then… i rest. i have done what i could, and now i can be with what is. this is what is. it’s not perfect, it’s not a finished product, it’s just the here and now and the flow. it’s where i’ve arrived, based on where i’ve been and how far i’ve come. there’s no more to do, there is just “be”.

even as i feel i am grasping this concept, it is like water slipping through my fingers to try to articulate. in my tangible world right now, things are changing moment to moment, and each moment has high stress potential. coparent has been irrational and verbally caustic towards me, while remaining a devoted dada to quinn, and the reality of sharing parenting can feel like a cage. a sentence. a collar around my neck that i want to bite and scratch at, in order to get free of it. very difficult decisions are in front of me, some situations that are seemingly impossible to resolve, and the decisions evolve or evaporate or pop up suddenly, with contradicting input coming from every side. well-meaning advice and input can have the effect of adding to the tumult rather than comforting, if i am not centered to begin with, and able to deflect what i don’t need, match up what feels consistent with my beliefs, and keep walking with the knowledge that i’ve got this. if i didn’t know myself very well, i could easily have been swept away or engulfed by all this. and i’ve been, at other times, not very acquainted with myself at all. i’m so grateful that is no longer the case!

it would be easy for someone to succumb in the face of this stuff, rather than surrender. at the end of the day, i cannot get away from what is. i’ll be sharing parenting, and there’s no way around that. i do have all kinds of freedom though. lots and lots and lots of choice, an infinite amount really. it doesn’t mean things will go “my way” and it doesn’t free me of having to deal with a person i find to be very trying. but i can walk through it with integrity, then look back and see myself for who i am, and drink in the truth that everything i need, i have.

surrender is not giving in, and losing oneself. it’s the opposite. it’s being filled right up to the brim.

what’s your take on what it means to surrender?

~quinn’s forty sixth month~ stirring the pensieve

Posted on December 23, 2010 by marybethrew

~written november/december 2018~

by this time, the blog had taken on a life of its own, and i began documenting quinn’s happenings on a regular basis in ~a month of unschool~ posts the next month, which then transitioned to ~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ posts. as such, this feels like the last chapter needed in this series to complete the splice in the one unbroken line.

unschooling was proving to be a good fit for the learning style of quinn. he was always inclined to follow his interests in an in-depth way, learning pertinent life skills as a matter of course. he was exploring numbers and taking on math all on his own. he would tell me things like, “2 and 2 more, and then another 1, is 5!” he did the same with subtraction, during the course of play. “you have 4 but you take away 2 so you have 2 left.” his boat-y observations about the letters on a page were a great example of how he constructed his own meaning of the world around him, including the o buoys and q crab traps he encountered.

in addition to chronicling the learning-oriented activities and events that took place each month, the monthly learning posts have become a place where i’ve processed some of the different layers of his learning style and personality. by this magical age of three, many of the most quinn-ish aspects of quinn-ness had emerged and i was starting to observe and take notice of them. the blog has been a bit like dumbledore’s pensieve in which i have been able to store memories, and at various times revisit them, swirl them around, and discover connections among the memories and the present days’ events, coming to understand both more fully. i find it incredibly fitting that the memories in the pensieve seem very much alive, as though pulsating with bioluminescence.

by this time i had put my finger on one tricky aspect of quinn’s personality, in that he has a serious perfectionist side. i can easily relate, and i think that was why i could identify this in him at a young age. i had noticed that quinn was easily upset when he was unable to execute his artistic goals to his liking, and he would spend months not drawing. his drawing skills would eventually catch up to his drawing goals, and then he would enter a new phase of drawing willingly, often to the exclusion of other activities. when his goals and skills were out of sync, he bided his time. part of this had to do with his style and personality, my watery ebb-and-flow dude, but part of the ebb was/is definitely an aversion to imperfections and mistakes.

during this particular month, quinn realized he could just turn the page to a new sheet of paper when a mark went onto the paper he didn’t like. he then filled an entire 100-page spiral notebook with drawings in one weekend. attention span was certainly not his issue, and i recorded that three hours elapsed one saturday while he stood at his play table, drawing storm waves, boats, and people so adorable i could have eaten the pages. his people had heads, stick arms and legs, with blobs for hands and feet. he would dictate, “you have to attach the eyes,” and make sure peoples’ legs were inside the boat so they would not fall in the water.

his narrative still saturated with boat imagery, he told me about a drawing in which we made our daily commute in a boat instead of a car; he told of filling the streets with water by poking holes in the road. of all the places in the world to be thinking of sending a boy with an imagination so preoccupied with boats, a few days in venice seem especially apt.

this month was when the milks seemed just like buoys to quinn! and we baked our two big green pumpkin boats and turned them into pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, and we still had pumpkin left over to make pancakes and store some in the freezer. my kitchen helper left no eggshells in the mix, was getting better at filling and leveling the teaspoon, and i didn’t have to stir anymore- he was very thorough!

delving into these archives, i found that the series seemed to be woven through with a few themes revolving around personhood. quinn was solidly self-possessed, and i was heading in that direction myself, engaging in a lot of self-reflection, and contemplating what freedom meant to me. having begun to establish healthy boundaries, i was more free to pour my energy into actualizing my potential in areas i cared about, such as parenting. quinn and i weathered storms, to be sure, as i climbed the mountain of parenting ideals. life would not come to rest in some static pose in the rain shadow, but we would find that we were camping there more frequently than we were trudging through gales on the weather side.

when he was an infant, and the struggle was being bitten while he nursed, i had to learn not to clench my own jaw. when he was three and having a tantrum, i had to learn that there was a prerequisite amount of connection needed to see us through those storms. now that he is eleven, i am seeing the parallel to the learning i’m doing now, which is maybe more advanced in that it is both about clenching my jaw less and front-loading connectedness. one of the key components to a thriving parent-child relationship all along has been attention to my own self-care, and looking back makes me want to give myself a high-five for steady improvement.

quinn and i took a trip to portland, and given our previous month’s trip having been so hotly contested by my coparent, i did not tell quinn ahead of time, so that i would not have to ask him to keep a secret. when it was time to go, i told him, “we’re going on a road trip tonight to see r and s and t!”

quinn said, “i like them!”

he was quiet for a while, but then spoke up again:

“dada says that one of the mamas is sicker than you are, mama… (pause)… r is the guy who dada says is sicker than you and she has problems in her head even more than the problems you have in your head.”

“whoa buddy. that’s heavy stuff. how did it feel to have dada say that to you?”

“when he said that i wanted to cry.”

“oh yeah? you felt sad, huh? i think i would feel sad too, if someone said that about my friend.”

“yeah (repeating the ‘sicker than you’ part)”

“oh. well, sweetie, i want you to know that you are the one who gets to decide what you think about people. even if dada or i think something, it doesn’t mean it has to be true for you.”

(repeating, “but dada says…”)

“so boo, do you think that about r?”

“no. i like r. she’s my friend!”

“me too. i like r, and i don’t think she is sick.”

a few minutes passed. i can still picture the low winter sun glancing off the water’s surface as we crossed the bridge.

“quinn, how are you feeling about it now?”

“i’m not sad anymore.”

the court-mandated parenting class i took when i originally planned on establishing custody paperwork had engraved in my mind that kids derive a lot of their self-esteem from their image of their two parents, and therefore any trash talking about the other parent in front of the child, while it can influence their kid’s opinions, is done at the child’s expense. so i had redoubled my commitment to never doing it. ultimately, without any need for trash talking, i trusted my kid to figure out whether his other parent is a person of integrity, without me ever having to burden him with my opinion. conversely, if i helped quinn maintain a center from which he could determine his own opinions in spite of outside input, he might stand to be less vulnerable should one parent choose to engage in trash talk.

r and i took the boys to omsi. we spent oodles of time in the room full of nerf balls and vacuum tubing. we played musical wrenches and played with electricity in the physics room. we dunked and excavated in the watershed model. we got to hold a leaf bug. quinn put together a human skeleton puzzle. we used to go to omsi all the time, but it was a different experience with quinn being older and more capable, since i could actually look around a little bit myself. i found a cool book called while a tree was growing about all the historical events that happened during the lifespan of a certain giant sequoia tree- it was a cool blend of science and history. when i got home i ordered it for 48 cents for a christmas present. s was into drawing mazes, and he made one for quinn, and showed him what a maze is all about. the boys played with cars, driving them down the ramp. quinn pretended everything was a boat. r fed us like royalty, quinn ate 27 little oranges, 15 chocolate chip cookies, and a few bites of burrito, and i got to do lots of mama chatting. i made a side trip to visit a friend at print arts northwest, where quinn made beaded candy canes at a table with four adult women, and i looked at art. q told the women his favorite colors are “green, pink and orange.” this was the first time i had ever heard him name any color a favorite other than green!

quinn told me on the ride home, “i had such a good time at r’s house.” i figured it would be so fresh in his mind, and he’d mention something about it to his dad, but at least after the fact, it wouldn’t ruin the trip. when coparent asked me if we had gone to portland, i simply answered truthfully. whereas the prior month, mr. hyde had lectured me about the requirements “by law” that i inform the other parent when taking his son out of town, this time i got dr. jekyll: “so, what is the policy on that? i’m confused.” i agreed i would like to know if he were taking quinn somewhere, without agreeing that i would notify him. i certainly did not apologize or in any way indicate that what i had done was wrong.

i never did confront him on the trash talk. at earlier times he would turn it back on me, denying things he had said about me completely with, “maybe he got the terminology from you.” (gaslighting alert! looking back now with an understanding of such dynamics, it is so easy to see.) from all these years later, i hold these truths to be self-evident: that i had good parental judgment and the right to do what i wanted to do, and go where i wanted to go, with my son on my own parenting time.

what is also clear to me years later is that i stand behind my then-conviction to maintain quinn’s personal integrity, to encourage rather than discourage him to decide for himself on matters large and small, whenever possible. it can be unwieldy to parent a three-year-old with a strong self-knowledge and definitive agenda, in a world where the prevailing parenting paradigm revolves around compliance. with my eye on the longer-term goal of quinn knowing, absolutely within his own soul, who he is, and as a side benefit, knowing who his parents are, i have always encouraged him to be in touch with what he thinks. this has been worth every bit of awkwardness going against the mainstream.

this was the same month i posted that he knows himself in which he made stunningly self-aware statements about not going to school, and not belonging in a city. i was in awe, looking to him as a model, and hoping to catch up in the department of self-knowledge! i could already see the radical approach i was taking was starting to bear fruit.

one morning on the way to work (in the rainy semi-darkness of mid-december) we saw an owl fly out of a tree beside the road just before we crossed the bridge. since nobody was behind us, we waited at the stop sign a while and watched it fly again, down to the grass. we talked to it, telling it to stay safe and not go into the road. it flew back up into the tree. we drove across the bridge.

solstice this year fell on a full moon, and featured a full lunar eclipse! the timing of the eclipse didn’t allow for us to see it, but such a celestial backdrop seemed like the natural time for things like owls flying by my car on my morning commute.

we filled the house with the fragrance of cinnamon-applesauce ornaments, and cloves stuck in an orange. we made playdough (beet juice pink, reminds me of red violet), and painted all our buoys for our buoy garland every color of the rainbow. a long string of rainbow colored buoys is about the most fitting ending i can think of for a post series about fixing a broken line, finding a whole bunch of unexpected treasures, and turning them into a celebration.

~~~

~post-script~

as i tucked the pensieve back into its cabinet, i re-read each post and pondered how transformative this writing process has been. just due to the very act of saying yes and showing up to do this specific writing, my perception went through a dramatic shift. at first i perceived this line splice project as a repair that would be functional, but not necessarily pretty. i was on a mission to unstick myself in a certain aspect of my writing, because it occurred to me that this missing piece was holding me back from fully integrating my storyline. i went into it slightly intimidated, daunted by the things i knew i would revisit, and apprehensive about what i may have forgotten. i thought i would catalog memories, organize them into paragraphs, slicing away ugly or unneeded parts and maybe inserting a metaphor to tie them all together. however, by the end of the first one, i realized i had been remiss to think of it so clinically, and i had been so focused on how hard things were during that time, that i forgot how beautiful and joyful they had been. by the third post, there were rainbow connections and so many gems whose immense worth i could not have fathomed at the time, but which were now radiant given the new angle of the sunlight shining upon them. i gained some momentum through several more posts as i savored the flower petals i was able to hold in the palm of my hand once more. and i reveled in the broader view having come full circle up the spiral staircase. the connections zigzagging from then to now and back to then, all reminding me that integrating is about making these important connections, that this mending project is not just making the whole more functional, but also lending it strength. it will remain to be seen if i am now “unstuck” as i hope to be, but what i feel i can take away from all of this is what beauty you can make out of what was broken and left behind, if you’re resourceful.

it turned out that the broken ends of the strands of my rope were just another magical place on the edge of things, the crack where the light gets in.

so i lay my line splice down here on the threshold of another winter solstice 8 years hence, another darkest part of another year, to hopefully bring a little light to the darkness.

mb

magic & bioluminescence

Tag Archives: integrity