Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile

anxiety, Children, Mental Illness

Vantage Point

An exploding moment.

One that stretches out inexorably like a slow motion sequence in film.

When tragedy occurs at breakneck speed, but your body cannot catch up; cannot speed up to stop it.

My four year-old teetered on the edge of a boulder that stretched in a line of them on the causeway. My mind was already fast-forwarding to the next scene, the one where her battered and broken body lay below or plunged into the icy depths of water beyond.

My voice exploded from my lungs in a staccato screech more piercing than that of the gulls above.

“Michael, the baby, the baby, she’s going to go over the edge, get the baby!”

Stuck to that spot by fear, I didn’t spring forward; I shook my arms, I stamped my feet. I screamed for her father to do it.

He saved her, while reprimanding me for just standing there. If I were going to have such a violent reaction to it, surely I’d do something about it . . .

In the instant replay, she hadn’t been teetering on the edge. She’d been dancing on the top, but not close to falling below. From my vantage point, it looked like she’d surely fall away from me.

From my vantage point.

My nine year-old watched me in the moments that followed. I caught her studying me. Sizing me up. Not like a cruel critic, but as if she might be wondering just what my vantage point was. What would make me screech like holy hell at a threat that no one else perceived. Like she’d just had her first cognizant look at her mother’s mental illness.

I felt shamed. I felt like she’d seen the ugly underbelly that, between my disguises and her naivete, I’d managed to hide until now. That now she had seen the irrational powers that ruled me.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I should explain it away – and didn’t have the words even if I thought I should. I returned her gaze and pulled her into a hug.

A little while later, I watched her as she stood at the shoreline, hands dug deep into her pockets, jeans tucked expertly into her boots. She is becoming a young woman. Yet, in the wake of the waves crashing upon the shore, she looked so small.

And I thought – is that why we come to the ocean? To be reminded of how small we are? How insignificant in the face of the universe? Comforting to think that our worries are but grains of sand. But suffocating to think of the press of dangers and concerns able to crush us out in one single second.

Which vantage point will my daughter take? Will she recoil from the threat around every corner, refusing to turn and meet it? Or will she refuse to be frozen by fear and tackle her problems head on? Will she see my struggles as problems or failings on my part? Or will she see that I soldiered on in spite of them?

This screenplay is an on-going saga. If only I had the control.

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Awards

Peace, Hope, and Whitney Houston

Marlyn Suarez Exconde is pretty amazing.  She’s introducing me to blogging awards I didn’t even know existed!  She graciously nominated me for The Cracking Chrispmouse Bloggywog Award, which honors blogs that “spread one or more of joy, peace, hope and love”.  Sounds good to me!  Truly keeping the spirit of Christmas all throughout the year.

And in the childlike wonder and fresh-faced attitude that sometimes accompanies Christmas and always the youth, I’d like to give a shout-out to Dana of Spilled Ink.  Dana nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award.  She’s a sixteen year-old maintaining a blog with some pretty sweet poetry on it.  Did I mention she’s sixteen?  I can’t even imagine maintaining a blog at the age of sixteen.  But then again, I’m not even sure there was such a thing when I was sixteen.  I certainly didn’t know how to navigate it if there was.  I’m slowly getting old and out of touch, it seems.  Which is where Whitney Houston comes in.  No, I’m not speaking ill of the dead.  I believe the children are our future.  Dana doesn’t quite fit the definition of ‘child’, but if young people like her keep creating and sharing, they will change the face of the world.

Blog on, bloggywoggers, blog on.

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Awards

Light is Faster than Sound

The sound of my typing anyway!

By the time I made good on Marlyn’s nomination for The Lighthouse Award, Sherri Matthews, of A View from My Summerhouse fame, nominated me as well.  This one’s for you, Sherri!

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Photo: Molly Jo

This sign is just outside the lobster shack that sits beside not one, but TWO lighthouses.  The crustacean cosmos were speaking to me!  Sherri, a beatific Brit, is biding her time until she can visit the northeast coast of the United States and sample this briny delicacy.  And she gifted me with this much-appreciated dual nomination for The Lighthouse Award!  Thanks so much for the honor, Sherri; for your conversational camaraderie; your authentic observations on life on this increasingly shrinking, great planet. How else, without the blogging community, would I be able to see your light across the miles?  Thanks for shining it!

Some notes:

  • Click on the picture above for a nice travelogue about this lobster shack and its environs.  Molly Jo did all the legwork for you!
  • Bragging rights to whomever can tell me the origin of this post’s title!
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Awards

Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

I don’t know why song titles perpetually pop into my head when it comes time to write an award post, but it seems to be my thing!

I am not, in any way, suggesting Marlyn Suarez Exconde is crazy or encrusted with jewels, but her words are – glittering, not crazy.  As are her light-imbued artistic renditions of moments and movements of her life.

It is an honor, therefore, that she has nominated me for The Lighthouse Award.  That she feels in any small way that my words have been a beacon of light in this world is humbling.  I can only dream of bearing but a spark of flame.  Thank you, Marlyn!

Here are the rules:

  1. Display the Award certificate on your blog.
  2. Write a post and link back to the blogger that nominated you.
  3. Inform your nominees of their award nominations
  4. Share three ways that you like to help other people.
  5. There is no limit to the number of people that you can nominate.
  6.  HAVE FUN.

the-lighthouse-award

‘Help’ is something I hate asking for and have a hard time accepting.  I try to offer it to others, however, in simple ways.  1. Listening.  2.  Finding common ground.  3.  Making someone feel he or she is not alone.  Simple, yet fundamental.

Got a light?  These people do – and they’re not afraid to share it:

Momaste – I was kind of surprised when I read a recent post of hers about struggling with depression.  Charlotte is so positive and life-affirming.  Whole lotta light up in here.  (An example for me to follow 😉 )

The Wannabe Saint – Brian culls and creates meditative spiritual pieces that always leave me in a better place having read them.

I’m Fine, but Mommy Has Issues  – Shannon writes an exquisitely expressed blog about parenting a child with special needs and the disabilities it highlights in herself.  Her honest sharing has created an extremely positive community for people walking a similar path.

61 Musings – Chris had me at introvert.  As someone with this acutely inward personality, I truly appreciate the light she sheds on our challenges and strengths.

Infinite Sadness . . . or Hope? – Even when discussing horrifically difficult things, Cate’s magnanimous attitude and lifestyle shine through.  Radiant.

Blog for Mental Health – In a world of light, this blog is a mirror.  It gives as much as it receives.  A voice for those stifled by mental illness, a repository for those stories that fuels awareness and healing.

Calvin’s Story – Christy Shake is the inimitable narrator of her son’s story living with epilepsy.  She offers hope, community, comraderie, and communication – including information on the latest treatments for this debilitating disease.

Burgeoning School Psychologist – If you’ve ever been a ‘first-year: teacher, counselor, school psychologist’, you can appreciate how much better that year would have been had you Mo in your corner.  She offers light in that she reached it at the end of the tunnel of her first year – and kept going.  I dare say she radiates light out of every pore of her body.

Shining on is even more important, the crazier we all – or life – becomes.  Thank you to Marlyn and the lovelies listed above for doing their part.  Shine on.

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Identity, motherhood, postpartum depression

Postpartum’s Pithos

Is postpartum a misnomer?

When does the depression start? Is it the instant the partum becomes post? When the final product is pushed from its incubator?

My writers’ group got into a discussion of postpartum depression last night based on the arrival of a box of books on a doorstep. The doorstep belonged to a fellow writer; the box was full of copies of the book she’d just finished writing. She said she was saddened by its arrival. When asked why, she said she wasn’t sure; she’d have to think about that. She said it was almost like postpartum depression. But she couldn’t say why. And she said she didn’t really know all that much about postpartum; that she’d never had it, though she’d birthed several children.

Someone asked, was she sad because she’d have to say goodbye?

This question assumes that she enjoyed her time building and birthing this book. That it had grown inside her and expanded her heart and mind to the point of exploding with love and pride. That would make a good case for depression upon its release. This symbiotic element of herself was now separate. There most definitely would be a feeling of loss upon the shearing off.

But what if the division and multiplication of cells riots against the verisimilitude of a woman’s life? Against her will. Her expectations. Her idea of time lines and schedules. In that case, depression would come post haste.

The birth does not usher in a sadness at goodbye. It is the greeting – most often with a big wet smack in the face – of responsibility, duty, expectation. The idea that she’ll be instantly in love with this mewling little being in front of her.

When really it has nothing to do with that child at all.

When it comes right down to it, while it’s enacted by the burgeoning and birth of that little being, postpartum depression is all about the mother. Her reaction to it. The way her hormones wreak havoc on her systems and sanity. The total upending of her reality and orientation of existence.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to the little lovely who sits by me now four years older and bigger. I don’t associate her with the things to which I want(ed) to say goodbye. I would’ve loved to say goodbye to the shit that came with her preparation for and entry into this world. I still would. The sadness started way before the postpartum period. And unfortunately, it still doesn’t fit in any sort of tidy box.

Addie May Hirschten

Addie May Hirschten

*** A HUGE addendum to this post: It is NOT selfish to see postpartum as all about you. I think many women don’t receive the help they need because they think it’s wrong to think about something other than their baby.  However, I don’t want my post to be construed as a devaluing of the utter miracle of and attendant caring for a newborn.  We must get the help we need as women so we can go on to be healthy mothers and healthy individuals.

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Identity, Living, Uncategorized

Two sides of a coin.  Yin and Yang.  Juxtaposition.  Oxymoron.  Paradox.  Jumbo Shrimp.

Just call me an illustrative thesaurus of harsh contrast.

I went to the beach today.  Amidst the flying flakes.  The frigid temperatures.  The howling wind.

Photo Jennifer Butler Basile

Photo Jennifer Butler Basile

As I looked at the caked snow curved across the sand, looking like the negative of the waves that rushed up and left the graceful arc of its crust, I thought how perfect it was that I was there on this stormy morning when my children were elsewhere.  When I already felt suspended in some surreal alternative reality.  It is truly bizarre when the nonstop duties of mothering fall away.  Like going to that place of sun and refreshing surf when it’s overcast and chilling to the bone.  There is a void not unlike the cupped depressions in the sand where the winter waves eat away at the coast.  It’s gorgeous, but it feels so foreign it’s unnerving.  I’m reminded of the needed buffer that comes with vacations – the time it takes to unwind before you can truly enjoy the relaxation of vacation.  But there is no time here.  I must embrace this as swiftly as the sand that sweeps across the snow drifts leaving a fine layer of brown sugar.  That is what I must remember.  That there is always a bit of sweet and beauty atop even the harshest landscapes.  You just have to train your eyes and heart and mind to work in concert – and do so allegro.

A Study in Contrast

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Children, Education

Education and Learning: A Mutual Understanding or Mutually Exclusive?

Believe it or not, I came home from a presentation on common-core requirements for kindergarten with a positive outlook on my child’s education.

“Surely, you jest,” you say.

No. I don’t.

The woman who facilitated the workshop, an early childhood educator with a masters in education, reminded me of the education professors I had in college, who were so excited about the learning process. Every moment was the teachable moment; every question or observation the origin of a journey they were willing to follow to its completion. It wasn’t about quantifiable results, but the complex ways in which our brains learned to work.

And this was the same thinking this presenter offered us. While children are expected to be able to name and recognize twenty letters of the alphabet upon entering kindergarten, that does not mean we should be drilling them with flashcards if they do not. Letter sounds and shapes are all around us; we can identify them on signs as we take a drive we needed to anyway. A lesson in classifying objects is as close and natural as mixing two boxes of puzzle pieces together on the floor. See the different ways your child separates them and make note of it. Basic math skills can happen at the dining table. If there are four people, but only three napkins on the table, ask your child how many more you need.

While all of these examples are seemingly ‘no-brainers’, it’s easy to lose sight of them during the course of a busy day. If we as parents are on our game, though, these are things we do innately every day. Likewise, all the insanely scripted tasks and goals of common-core are things good teachers do innately. People in charge of children with a true love of learning embed meaningful experiences into every activity.

This was what got me excited as I left that workshop. That there are still people, in the face of such crushing paper chases, who still marvel at making connections, flipping on the light bulb of learning, making that ‘a-ha’ moment happen. That is why people become teachers. That is what makes learning absolutely magical and powerful.

Unfortunately, that is not the direction in which education is moving. The hopeful feeling I had was tempered by the reality of the high stakes environment my daughter will experience upon entering school. She may not feel the pressure in kindergarten, but her teachers will and it will eventually filter down to her as she moves up in grades

I get it. We need to ensure that the millions of children across our country have an equal chance at quality education. We therefore need standardized language to articulate what that quality education will look like across the board. To assess adherence to and progress toward, we need quantifiable goals as part of this standardized language. All great ideas – in theory.

Essentially, the pie-in-the-sky learning process I described from my education classes in college was theory, too.

The future of education in America depends upon which theory will win.

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Weekend Write-Off, Writing

Polka Dot Penguin Pottery

It’s usually a good sign when the cover of a book on creativity is oriented so that it opens bottom to top rather than right to left. Once I opened the cover of Polka Dot Penguin Pottery by Lenore Look/illustrated by Yumi Heo, I kept waiting for the page where the text would shift to traditional format, but the entire book continues in this way. And what a testament to the creative process it is. And how refreshing that is addressed in a picture book for children.

Though it’s been floating around our house for awhile, I read it for the first time to my six year-old last week – a day or so after reigniting my love affair with writing my young adult novel. How fitting that I should find this story at that moment in time. The “author”, an eight-ten year old girl, introduces herself by her nom de plume, Aspen Colorado Kim Chee Lee, stating that she writes stories “about monkeys and elephants, aliens and robots, and sometimes, about me.” She goes on to elucidate the writer’s process in the way only a child can. I sniggered to myself that I could’ve used this book a few days previous; if only I’d had the secret to finishing a story!

 

Illustration by Yumi Heo; image from George Shannon 

Alas, even with this fail-proof plan, Aspen Colorado Kim Chee Lee falls prey to the dreaded writer’s block. Her grandparents suggest some ‘chill-out’ time and take her and her baby sister on an outing. On the way to Polka Dot Penguin Pottery, Aspen continues to make lyrical observations despite her writer’s block. “The wind lick[s her] nose and whistle[s] in [her] ears.” Once she enters the shop, [her] words are swirling around . . . and [she] cannot catch them.” A potent reminder of the fact that we are always writing – even when we walk, stare, converse, dead-head blooms in the garden – not just when we sit at the keyboard.

Unfortunately, the crippling malaise of writer’s block transfers to Aspen’s pottery painting project. Luther and Ivy, who sit nearby, tell her “you have to stay super-still and wait for something to happen.” The shop owner suggests she relax and have fun. When she makes a blotch on her ceramic egg by accident and thinks the project is ruined, her creativity soon blossoms because she realizes she has nothing to lose. “You can only make a masterpiece if you’re willing to make a mess,” says Ivy.

Taking risks and keeping at it are the true key to the creative process. Following your monkey mind even if – perhaps especially if – you don’t know where it’s leading.

“And this is the story that began with just hanging out,” Aspen finishes her narrative with.

All too often, I think writers, at least me, are crippled by the blank page or screen. I may have ideas zipping around my head like crazy, but once the word processor loads that blank screen, I feel a constricting band around my throat. Unless I can ‘not think’ like Aspen in this story. When she wasn’t looking for it, the story found her.

 

Some additional notes about this book:

  • While the format is landscape, find the spreads that have different views depending on which way you turn the book. For instance, the page where Aspen and her family walk the street; her family in relation to the words and the shops and other people on the street.
  • Search for whimsical details like the squirrel 🙂
  • Consider sharing this with other writers in your life – especially those who have trouble living the simple truth it conveys!
  • Expect to enjoy it perhaps more than your children. I don’t know if I love its value to children or the fact that it’s a kids’ book that introduces the concept of the creative process. I sometimes wonder if authors create some picture books with the adult who will be reading it aloud in mind. (Thank you!)
  • Another picture book I’ve come across addressing the creative process is Begin at the Beginning: A Little Artist Learns about Life by Amy Schwartz
  • It is not a coincidence if you find parallels between the creative process and life.  We could all adapt such useful lessons to our benefit.

 

 

 

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Living, Spirituality

Peggy

I almost didn’t take that road home this morning. Its twists and curves in and out, down and around the hills and forest might not bode well for a commute through the fresh covering of snow left last night.

I didn’t want to stop when I saw the woman chipping away at the chunks of ice barricading her house from the rest of civilization. It was cold, my house was warm, my writing beckoned.

I knew I would think of her all morning if I didn’t.

I slipped and slid my way through a sloppy three point turn and peered into the unfamiliar driveways until I found the beacon of her yellow jacket.

“Would you like some help?” I called.

In the time it had taken me to circle back, she’d started back up her driveway. She had paused when she saw me pull over and now made her way back to my car.

“I was just headed inside for a break,” she said. “I go in for about 45 minutes to warm up, then come back out. It’s a lot easier today than it was yesterday, I’ll tell you.”

I noticed now that three-quarters of the driveway had already been cleared, presumably by the metal shovel and approximation of a turf spade she held in her hands.

“Are you a neighbor?”

I explained where I lived in relation to her house. Not exactly neighbors, but I passed by her house quite frequently en route to mine.

“Let me ask you, have you had any problems with your mailbox?”

She pointed out the naked post next to her driveway and explained that in the five and a half years since her husband died, she’d had three mailboxes knocked over by plows. Her granddaughter and husband reinstalled one one spring; her son shored up another. She’d called town hall. A plowman who came out to her house told her in brusque tones it was the snow, not him, that was responsible. When she objected to his tone of voice, saying that town hall never would have spoken to its residents that way in her old town, he said she’d paid more taxes in that town.

“But I worked in that town hall,” she said. “I was the voice of town hall.”

I discovered her motivation to clear the driveway: so she could haul her mangled mailbox to town hall.

She asked my name and introduced herself, telling me to beep and wave the next time I went by and then she’d know who it was. When I turned around a few houses down from her house in the other direction and passed back by on my way home, I saw her yellow jacket at the top of the driveway, heading into the open bay of her garage.

I’d still think of Peggy all morning, but not with guilt for not helping her; in gratitude for having met her.

Whatsoever you do for the least of my people, you do for me.

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Living, Spirituality

A Will Isn’t Always A Way

Yesterday, I labored to remove the soaked shove-off from the city plow. I missed out on completing the errands I’d planned. This morning, I slid sideways down my driveway.

Once I righted the car and went on my way, the sun slanted through the trees, illuminating the white lines traced along the branches of the forest. Intersecting angles everywhere there weren’t mounds of snow hulking in the foreground. Pine boughs bent in supplication. As I traveled this snowy tunnel, I wondered whether I hadn’t been transported to Vermont while I slept. It was truly a winter wonderland.

Overcome by the beauty, I realized that a snowstorm, the resultant ice, and the resulting snafus in our daily schedule wouldn’t be such an issue if we weren’t trying to sublimate nature to our will. If I accept the fact that I need all-wheel drive and a fair amount of ice melt to enter or exit my driveway, I won’t be as frustrated the next time it snows. If I expect to drive slowly and downshift through the gears to slow rather than jamming on the brakes, I will be able to marvel at the sublime scene all around me.

And just like that, God sneaked up on me again.

Much the same way I’d be able to see the beauty in a winter snowstorm if I laced up my hiking boots and moved through the forest unencumbered by wheels and sheet metal, if I didn’t spin my wheels trying to navigate a path God never intended for me to take, life would flow more smoothly. Be more meaningful. More fulfilling. Though it may not be in ways I ever anticipated. That caution and care, that easy-going spirit would allow me to bend, but not break, just like the tree branches bowing to the ground. Accepting my circumstances as they are would allow me to see the value in what is rather than languishing about what might have been.

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Photo: Jennifer Butler Basile

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