~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.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ quercus quetzalcoatlus

Posted on August 16, 2019 by marybethrew

paleontology camp!

there was quite a bit of sand spilling out of the lint trap in the dryer as i restarted the bulging load of size 14 clothing for another cycle. Every pair of underwear but the two extras were worn; all socks; all shirts and pants; when the second batch of instagram photos of paleontology camp came across my feed, my very first thought, “look at his big smile!” was immediately followed by: “he’s wearing a different shirt!”

i got to hear a lot about the people he spent his week with on the ride back from camp, in between him tuning me out to participate in the group text chat the six campers had set up with each other. Conveniently for the purposes of this blog post, they had given each other nicknames. Quinn had become quetzalcoatlus, then morphed into pretzel. The others were bob (previously known as D from L.A.), remus (also CA), frizzie (WI), lead (WA), and k.k. (WA). The leaders, birt and kamel, had also taken on camp nicknames. Frizzie plans to specialize in birds and pterosaurs (such as the aforementioned quetzalcoatlus), bob is headed into paleobiology, but the common theme was that all six of them plan on getting PhDs, quinn’s in dinosaur paleontology. He recalled remus’s question about how many PhDs one could accumulate before getting kicked out of school. Kids on fire to learn!

Their days structured themselves around hikes and museum forays, with a clear division of labor in camp. The leaders prepared dinners, while the campers made their own breakfasts and lunches. bagels and cream cheese for breakfast; for lunch, sandwiches or wraps, goldfish crackers and granola bars. The van became known as the fishbowl, and the six campers themselves as the goldfish, for the sheer number of packages of goldfish crackers they consumed. While leaders prepared dinner, the campers set up all the tents, including those of the leaders. Quinn shared a tent with bob. Among the fossils he brought home was a plain old rock, “my stake-pounding rock!” The campers were also responsible for washing the dishes after meals. Quinn talked about this without any hint of resentment over “chores.”

“Did you know that only one single dinosaur fossil has ever been unearthed in Oregon? And it was a toe from a madrasaur? And it was found by Thomas Condon? He is who the Paleontology Research Station in John Day is named after.” I asked quinn how he was feeling about how the study of paleontology is not limited to the study of dinosaur fossils, the topic of a heated moment we shared a few months ago. At the time, he had felt devastated that his understanding of his dream job was all a lie, and his future was now ruined. It passed. Now he has seen fossils from turtles, plants, mouse deer, “and a very old pig!”

Day 1 Sunday

They drove east that first day into the mountains and hiked somewhere near Sisters, then camped. Before leaving the museum, they had to find one scientific name in the collection sharing the first letter of their name; quinn found Quercus, an oak leaf.

He said the hike that day contained more wildlife than paleontology, and they learned some of the plants currently flowering in the region: beargrass, lupine, and another pink flower whose identity they weren’t sure of.

Their cooking device was missing the correct hose, so they needed to cook dinner over a fire that first night. The kids decided pinecones might work well as kindling, and they lit right up!

Day 2 Monday

They would spend the next two days in the John Day fossil beds/painted hills area of eastern oregon. They finished the drive there, set up camp, and hiked and visited the Thomas Condon Research Center that day.

Day 3 Tuesday

John Day all day!

Day 4 wednesday

They finished up in John Day and packed up, spending a long driving day to Newport, set up camp in Beverly Beach and explored for fossils.

“By the way, mama, we are going to need to get a trash bag or something capable of holding large fossils and take it back to beverly beach to collect my fossil deposit.”

Day 5 Thursday

This was the day they had been planning on going to Florence to see Kamel’s research on fossil pinnipeds (floppy-swimmies) but it was raining and they decided to stay at Beverly Beach. Birt’s tent flooded so they needed to re-do her tent set up.

“Birt slept well that night.”

They went to the aquarium that day instead, communed with modern floppy-swimmies, and took showers back at the state park.

Day 6 Friday

This was the last day of camp, and they woke up, broke camp, and drove back to Eugene. They went on one hike on the way which culminated in some sand dunes where they played on a rope swing (this could have been somewhere around florence, but quinn didn’t know for sure.)

the folder quinn returned home with contained a bundle of good reading material about fossil formations, geologic processes, and animal phylogenies. i know it will be a resource he will look at later! the pile of rocks that came home provides another tangible reminder of camp!

the other kind of tracks

The goldfish made up several songs during their time together. A reimagining of from now on from the greatest showman turned into “And we will go back home, and we will eat these fish. Gold….fish….”

They rewrote hakuna matata using “the Birt will Durn,” the phrase uttered by Birt which earned her the nickname, because of the sausage that fell in the dirt on the first night, and her justification for going ahead and eating it anyway after re-exposing it to the flames.

A whole new world was in the process of becoming a song about basalt. “Unbelievable rocks, indescribable basalt…. A Very Old Rock…”

Finally, there was a song being written by Remus about bagels and cream cheese.

~~~

While paying half attention to a tilt podcast, i was directed to this thought-provoking ready for adulthood checklist from the author of the book happy campers.

in that regard, i see how camp encouraged his growth towards independence and self-responsibility. It gave him a taste of being truly responsible for himself in a way he hasn’t experienced before. i also appreciated how the group took care of each other (tent set up, dish cleaning). He may not have packed each day’s outfit in its own gallon ziplock bag the way i did when i went to camp, but he went ahead and wore the clothes anyway! It may seem like i’m making a big deal about his clothing changes, but i witnessed him wear the same shirt 3 days in a row for outdoor school just last month; and that was with a mama chaperone in the live studio audience, letting him know i saw that he was still wearing the same shirt again and reminding him to think about changing it at his earliest convenience.

Summertime learning

Quinn’s adventures in learning tag program day camp ran for two weeks, and we managed a carpooling arrangement that got him to the OSU campus each day. His chosen class schedule included united we solve, mathcraft, lego robotics, and create your own country! I think he enjoyed them all; at first create your own country was his favorite, but when the novelty wore off and the countries he and his classmates created had all cornered the market in the various limiting resources, he began saying more things about lego robotics in the evenings. I know the puzzles class was right up his alley as well!

Swim lessons – 4 of the 5 summer swim lessons took place this month. We will pick up again when school starts with one every other week so he can keep building skills!

I took quinn with me this year to oregon country fair – it has been a while since he was there! He experienced it through a much different set of more grown up eyes. At the same time, the magic of fair elicits from each of us the wonder of a much younger child no matter what age we are. We stopped in our wanderings to watch a parade go by and attended a concert by the march 4^th marching band. We became absorbed for quite some time at an interactive musical art installation consisting of the innards of several pianos bolted to a structure; an assortment of the hammers were available for use around the panels of strings, waiting for passers by to experiment with sound by tapping on them. Food was a big focus, and quinn enjoyed a strawberry lemonade and a kabob (he thinks meat lollipops are yum) for lunch while rich and i shared souvlaki. Quinn mostly absorbed quietly and did not express many desires for most of the day while we walked around, but i coaxed him into trying out the handmade marimbas, and a young dad nearby broke into a grin and bopped his head to quinn’s rendition of take on me. While we watched another concert (the shook twins and john craigie) he was having to dig for the stamina to carry on with standing in the crowd, but the simple distraction of putting on my overshirt, tying knots in it, and letting me dance him around, was enough to lighten his mood. Late in the afternoon he finally made his requests known: ice cream, and to watch “one of the plays.” We had walked past several plays in action throughout the day, but he hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to stop, so by this time of day, he had to settle for some acrobatics performances, which he felt was suitable. After his raspberry ice cream, we ordered burritos for dinner, and it was time for us to make our way homeward with just one more stop to buy three sets of fairy dragon wings for our three pancakes.

At karate, he started learning green belt techniques this month. Our sifu’s sifu visited, and quinn wanted to maximize his time at the dojo to overlap with his time here. Sifu Diaz always remembers quinn each time he visits, and is so warm and friendly to all of us. He wanted to watch the kids’ activity known as jump tag (something he hadn’t experienced) before we got down to the business of belt testing. This was my turn to test, and quinn attended as a spectator, and turned out to have observed quite a lot of details about my test, in spite of sitting on the floor in the back with his face in a book. Our dojo marched in the local summerfest parade again this year, and that night rich, quinn and i watched fireworks together.

family firework gazing

family cloud gazing

In usual summer fashion, quinn spent a few days in “office camp” at my work, armed with audio books (he got caught up on wings of fire) and khan academy (he worked on programming, but also thinks he might be interested in the chemistry course, since he can see that the “balancing chemical equations” and “periodic table” units are near the beginning). He also figured out how to watch naruto episodes that aren’t found on netflix, by you tubing them in japanese and reading subtitles. I asked if he was learning any words and he said no, because he had determined that the words are all in a different order from english! Something tells me that if he is determining the order of the words, it is only a matter of time before he starts translating… i love the unexpected learning that can take place in the unstructured pockets of summer.

~summer shorts~ swim lessons

Posted on July 26, 2019 by marybethrew

Lesson one

“Roughly 80% of your body is water. your body is made of mostly water.” She puts a number on it for him, and it is then that i know i have found the perfect swim teacher for quinn.

She explains not to blow out all his air at once, but to instead hum, letting out small amounts of air at a time. Of course, music helps everything with quinn, even swimming.

In the bedtime dolphin visualization, i tell quinn to relax each muscle and let himself be held and supported by the ocean, to trust the water. I have repeated it like a mantra, a chant, a wish i would have him absorb into his being. “let the water hold you and support you…” it works to lull overactive thoughts into sleep, but he is anything but relaxed when he gets in a pool.

My first job outside of babysitting and farm work was as a lifeguard and teacher of swim lessons. Something about that has held me back from hiring outside help. I’m qualified, i reason. I was on the high school swim team, a scuba diver, a marine biologist, a sailor on the open sea.

I was just as sure my little pisces boy would take to swimming. He’d be a natural. He is a water boy through and through, in love with boats and buoys, fishing and fly-tying, kayaking and canoeing.

But underlying the wateriness of quinn is a murky deep layer of fear, exacerbated by sensory integration challenges. Just this year he has become capable of showering, because he now realizes the loudness and pokiness of the water cascading over his skull and entering his ears (now that he sometimes allows this) is not going to kill him, though he is still pretty sure that any water entering his nostrils will.

One by one, his teacher starts the painstaking work of dispelling his fears. She shows him that every person has a level at which they float, if they do not move at all. For her, it is at nose level. With no effort at all, she is not going to end up on the bottom, but will equilibrate at nose level, like a cork, and she demonstrates for him. She has quinn try this exercise. His string bean build has him floating just under the surface, with nothing but the cowlick of his harry potter hair protruding above. She tells me later that to him, this feels like he is far below the surface, sinking to the bottom, and for now, all he has is her word that he, too, is a cork.

Lesson two

Graceful high schoolers porpoise across the pool, their strokes cutting slices of water to propel them efficiently forward. The coach looks at me like he’s not sure what i’m doing in the bleachers, does not connect my face to anyone in his database of swimmers. I aim my gaze over at the teaching pool, trying to silently communicate to this coach that mine is the upright shivering stick figure, not one of his muscular porpoises.

With so much water all around, i feel salt water in me welling up, threatening to spill over as i watch his teacher turn the rubik’s cube of quinn over in her hands, figuring out how he learns. Like a midwife working to guide a new mother through the task before her, she tries one thing, then another. Her arsenal of strategies is a deep well.

He responds to her instructions without delay, i notice on this second day. He is ready for this, he wants to build this skill. It is not coming easily for him, but he is putting in so much effort.

She drops a weighted object. He throws himself after it, for once forgetting to pinch his fingers to his nose. His body submerged, one hand stretches above the surface, reaching for the wall and safety, but the other long arm has gotten ahold of the weight. He surfaces, lifting it up and out, victorious.

That day i watch him jump in for the first time ever – not holding his ears, just his nose, and after the first try, not trying to bend down and use his hands to maintain a hold on the edge.

Over dinner he explains his logic of how his eyes and mouth can close themselves, but not his nose and ears. He has found he can deal with water in his ears, because it can’t hurt him, but he knows water up his nose can hurt him, so he is still fearful of leaving his nose open. I tell him that even though his nose doesn’t have a physical barrier, it does have a way to make a “door” it’s just that it’s made out of air… but nothing can go in if air is coming out. he says he knows and now he has even experienced it, but his mind doesn’t totally accept and trust that yet. We decide more experience is what he needs to get past that block.

Lesson three

Two days later he jumps in with confidence, lets himself go under on purpose, lets himself stay under the water and come up slowly, starting to trust. She has him do it again, in slightly deeper water, building even more confidence. He holds his nose, sticks his head in the water, and kicks all the way across the width of the pool. He stands up, parts wet hair out of his face, and when his teacher points back to where he started, realizes how far he just propelled himself. he throws his hands up in the air in celebration. He struggles to float on his back for the first half of the lesson, then there he is, lying back into the embrace of the water, letting himself just float. Letting the water hold him and support him. He stays in the pool after his teacher moves on to her next student, pushing himself onto his back to float again and again. He has it in his body now.

Lesson four

He jumps in with wild abandon (and his fingers pinching his nose), again and again, pulling himself up on the edge of the pool with more ease and coordination between his long limbs and his core muscles. The very last jump at the end of the lesson is epic, he nearly cannonballs into the pool, with the goal of reaching the bottom of the 6 foot section where the green torpedo weight beckons for him to retrieve it. Retrieve it he does!

After he finishes the lesson, he comes over and tells me i have to watch him do the squid! I had been watching the whole time, of course, but i watch dutifully as he climbs back in, leans back, glides onto his back, and squids across the pool with a grin on his face.

Lesson five

More squidding, this time underwater. More jumping, more diving for objects, more floating and kicking. More successes, more throwing up his arms in celebration. Afterwards, i ask what he worked on.

“the main thing today was making sure i can flip over from my front to my back.”

“and can you do that now?”

“yup.”

Swim lessons might be about more than just swimming. Lessons about not letting fear hold us back, about being brave, and jumping in. Lessons about miracles, like the solidity of doors made of air, and matter in a liquid state holding up your body weight. (Quinn’s new word: lolid.) Lessons in trust, even when logic might not support it, leaning on it despite having considered all the facts. Lessons about how we can do hard things, if we put in effort. May these lessons cling to him like water from here on out.

mb

magic & bioluminescence

Tag Archives: swim

~summer shorts~ reclaiming

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ quercus quetzalcoatlus

~summer shorts~ swim lessons