Tag Archives: balance

Perspective

How’s Your Gratitude Practice Going?

Every year I aim for the perfect pumpkin purchasing day.

Sufficient time to carve for the school pumpkin glow; close enough that it won’t look too creepy on the front step for Halloween. Getting one to last till Thanksgiving, forget it.

This year, the pumpkins disappeared the day after Halloween. From the commercial calendar, that is.

When the huge cardboard pallets full of robust harvest orbs were rolled out for Christmas decor, I knew I’d have to go local and go seasonal to buy a pumpkin for Thanksgiving.

I actually needed one for my Girl Scout to carve at her meeting on November 1, but for several years now I’ve harbored the desire to plunk a big ol’ pumpkin at the center of the Thanksgiving table and ask everyone to record that for which she is thankful. While I did find one at a roadside stand where the proprietor asked me if I wanted it for my chickens while he fashioned memorial greenery baskets for the holidays, my daughter’s leader scored the last of the windfall at a local farm – and let me have one while the girls carved.

Even while the spirits pushed against the veil, I didn’t want to fashion a jack-o-lantern. I decided to go simple, not even cut through the flesh, and maybe, just maybe, have a gratitude-themed pumpkin come Thanksgiving.

I should’ve taken a before picture.

It was glorious. Perfectly etched letters, a simple graphic theme writ large.

It didn’t look quite this bad on the actual holiday, but bad enough that I didn’t dare set it on the dining table. I didn’t even introduce the idea of carving our thanks

When I stepped out the afternoon of Small Business Saturday and saw it slumped there, I thought, whoa, that’s a sad metaphor for gratitude.

Are our ‘thanks’ muscles shriveling up and dying? Molding over and shrinking at the edges? Attracting bugs and starting to smell?

I never even got the candle set up inside before my ‘thanks’ started rotting.

There may be a deeper metaphor of keeping it sealed up (not cutting the pumpkin) and therefore looking better, longer – but, then, aren’t we meant to lay our insides out – in vulnerability, in service to others, in authenticity . . . ?

What’s the sweet spot between plump and crisp and putrid and crushed?

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Write to Heal, Writing

Ain’t Nobody Got Time for . . .

A small kelly green hardbound book with a gold embossed border and square locking mechanism.

Even then, in the dire days of second grade, I failed to fill in the daily pages.

Perhaps the slot at the top of each page to fill in the date was where my ongoing cycle of expectation/failure/guilt got its perfectionist start. If only there were simply blank pages with no open forward slashes for month/day/year, maybe then I would’ve been free to record my thoughts as I wished, order them as needed.

But it was only this summer that it took me two entire days to write one entry in my journal. Now the pages were wide open, but my days were not. The stream of thoughts were interrupted when sports practice actually ended on time one evening and completed in fits and starts when swim lessons turned into extended splashing in the shallows. As parents beckoned with outstretched towels, I began to stir from my chair. But my little leapfrog still happily skidded her hands across the surface of the water even as her classmates began to leave. And her older sisters were likely still snoozing. So why not let her play a while longer and finish my thoughts?

Staying seated in that chair strained every productive perfect bone in my body.

Will another mom see me with my head down and judge me as putting my child in danger? (I looked up every few words and rose from time to time to make eye contact with her) Should I go home and check on her sisters? (I’d texted and only one had risen and started to think about breakfast) What laundry/dishes/errands need to be completed next? (The list was never-ending and would still be there when I got home)

Why did letting my child extend her playtime in the outdoors feel like a bad choice?

Because, in this instance, it meant that I got to fill the lines on my pages and my cup. Because in a daily schedule/vocation/lifestyle (ie motherhood) that society orders as self-less, it seems self-ish to take a few minutes for oneself. On a perpetual treadmill, it seems wasteful to sit and stare into space.

But just as it did my daughter well to soak up some sunshine and wonder in the lapping water, it did me well to off-load some thoughts and feelings onto the page, synthesize others, and start with a clean slate.

In that instant I couldn’t change the tempo of my life, I couldn’t create time, but I chose to step out it. I chose to do something that would allow a refreshed me to step back in.

And we all have that choice.

Whether we draw, doodle, sketch; list, pen lengthy diatribes, or long poems; write letters to someone with whom we’re angry, our younger or future self; discover truths buried deep in our hearts or a simply profound recognition – journalling is whatever we make of it and accessible to us all.

All it takes is a piece of paper, something to write with, and a willingness to be open.

This may be the exact diary I had! Minus the kelly green and drugstore sticker!
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high tide line
Living

Wrong Shoes and Wrack Lines

I wore the wrong shoes for a walk on the beach yesterday. Loose, low-top, canvas. Perfect for sand spillage and saltwater seepage.

But the beach was empty and we wandered across it. There’s always the gravitational pull of the ocean, of course, but the surface packed firm by the pounding waves also makes for a firm path to walk.

Mindful of the play of wind-whipped froth, we measured our distance to the shoreline.

This liminal space always provides so much to observe. Constant creation and movement. Destruction and rebuilding. Patterning and cleaning the slate.

The wind rolled the masses of bubbles into balls of foam and then skidded them across the sand to nothingness.

The salt water splayed out on the sand stiffened into sheets of lace overlay.

As I watched all this, my feet suddenly fell upon solid ground. A rippled strip of wrack felt firm underneath. Steps easier to take, path more sure. I experimented as I followed the serpentine line where the sea left its mark. It didn’t always prove my hypothesis, depending on how much extra sand and bits of sea grass or driftwood were pushed up along with the water. But given the choice between shifting deeps that threatened to overflow the upper lip of my shoe or absorbent sand that would suck me down in, the twisting line of possibility seemed the way forward.

And as does any calm, quiet time in nature, a fully formed realization pushed its way to the front of my consciousness.

It’s always been about balance.

That elusive, ever-shifting sprite, flitting just beyond the fingertips of our most focused days.

For years, I’ve complained about balance. I’ve mocked gurus in their long-flowing robes and elasticized outfits. On more than one occasion, I’ve muttered, fucking balance. But we hate that which we most need, what we are most like.

In the great irony of the universe, I’ve finally come back to what I’ve known from the beginning.

It’s all about balance.

Shooting a straight a line down the seashore isn’t optimal for sure footing because the terrain changes. Based on the moveable sands on the left and the perpetually mobile sea on the right, the way forward turns and twists. The up and down, in and out of the wrack line is the perfect balance of dry, fine sand that slips through fingers and wet, moldable sand that suctions around whatever is placed in it. Of course, there may be plastic tangled up in seaweed on that line. But there might also be the iridescent sheen of mussel shell shimmering in the sunlight.

So, yes, I should wear proper footwear for the journey, but on-going adaptation and give-and-take are givens. And whether I acknowledge it or fight against it, the ebb and flow of the ocean is always a stronger force than I. Better to work with the ebb and flow of life than stubbornly stumble a straight line.

https://wracklineblog.com/
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Living, Spirituality

Being Zoe

Last night as I sat on the glider with my pajama-clad toddler nestled in beside me waiting for her story, I paused a moment. Her anticipation was palpable, her cozy little body so cute. And yet, I spoke to my husband, resting on our bed in a brief respite before the next round of bedtime exhortations for our older three.

“You know, I don’t get anything done around the house when I’m home with her, but it’s not like I spend any quality time with her either. I have all these half-finished things I’m working on and getting frustrated about – instead of just giving up and giving her my full attention.”

He knew it was just my latest in a line of vents/complaints/realizations as I try to come to terms with my reality. It has been an ongoing conversation, one that couldn’t be solved at that moment anyway. There were stories to read, older cats to herd. There’s also a slice of something that just can’t be changed the way life is right now.

This morning, in the small window between two kids leaving and another rousing, I decided to spend a few minutes doing some spiritual reading. Time for me, time to center – before plunging headfirst into the day – or trolling Facebook, which very rarely yields spiritual dividends. I fumbled around, trying to find the page I’d left off on since the toddler, who now positioned her head directly in my line of sight, had been so kind to reposition the bookmark for me on a previous occasion.

I’m pretty sure I reread pages already hard fought on another day, but in them, the author talked about zoe and bios. Eternal life vs earthly life. Do we strive for something bigger than ourselves? Or are we bogged down by the day-to-day so that we can’t see beyond the ends of our own noses?

My first year of teaching, I taught a short story called “Be-ers and Do-ers” by Budge Wilson to my eighth graders. They were more enthralled by the close resemblance of the first word of the title to an adult beverage than the overarching theme, but even then, I think I knew that the play between the two ends of this spectrum was important. Before life got crazy hectic and happiness was hard-won.

Am I mistaking productivity for a successful day? Week? Motherhood? Life?

Am I looking to to-do lists as structure for the free-form days of stay-at-home motherhood?

Am I allowing quantitative data to measure my worth and override the qualitative moments of life? Because it’s easier to complete measurable tasks than surrender oneself to something or someone outside of themselves?

Hours later, after I’d given up reading and hustled number three out the door, I wrestled the toddler onto the changing table. She went full-alligator until I burst into tears. “Why, God, why?” I called out, not unaware of how pitiful my approximation of Jesus’ agony on the cross was. As fiercely as she’d fought, she suddenly was peaceful.

That was why.

Bios – doing – is that much harder when I pay no mind to zoe – being. Being at peace, in God’s light, resting in the assurance that He knows more and can handle more than I can.

“The boredom or tedium of life flows from [a] lack of depth. We tend to focus merely on the horizontal, the immediate reality of life, without ever hearing or obeying the words of our Lord: ‘Duc in altum! Set out into the deep!’ (Lk 5:4)”

Stepping on the Serpent: The Journey of Trust with Mary by Fr. Thaddaeus Lancton, MIC

 

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anxiety, Depression, Living, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Survival

Holiday Hangover

Is it Tuesday already?

It came as quite the shock this morning when I had to wake up and rouse myself and kids to face another school day.  The holiday weekend seemed much longer than three days, as if we’d all already slipped into summer mode.

The long weekend was some weird sort of stasis.  It was neither too long nor too short; not stupendous nor horrible.  It was good.  In the midst of PMS and prepping for my two-year-old’s birthday party, I managed to not lose my mind and then relax a bit and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

Yet, even though I cleared out a wood pile that had been lingering in the yard and set up my compost area; even though I cleared a garden bed and planted two long-waiting potted plants; even though I enjoyed laughing with my husband and girls as we ate our first outdoor ice cream of the season – my thoughts turned last eve to how it all may not have been real.

The fact that I survived and thrived may have been a fluke.  The fact that I managed to not only be productive, but enjoy it; that I could not only enjoy my children, but feel joy with them; the fact that I wasn’t overly irritable, low, or unmotivated – I couldn’t just be in these wonderful feelings.

As I looked to a return to routine, I wondered whether I’d fail on my own.  Without the buffer of helpers in the house, would I be overwhelmed with the task of caring for my little one?  Would I feel trapped without the option of another set of hands if I had to tend to a household task or take a moment for myself?  Would my mood plummet without the excitement of a holiday weekend and the drudgery of the everyday?

It is said that comparison is the thief of joy.  Depression is as well.  It’s also said depression is a liar.  It is.  It is telling me lies about how I may fail.  And anxiety is helping spool out its prophecies far into the future.

I may have reached a point where therapies and supplements are finally coming together for my success.  But I cannot trust that.  If I do, the bottom of what I wish for so vehemently may fall out from underneath me.  I may have just had a pretty great weekend.  But even that, I can’t enjoy.  Because I figure my balance is due and I must pay up at some point.

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iSpot.tv

I look forward to celebrating the holiday where the right treatment and my own ability to sit in and take a moment for what it is converge; where no thing is the thief of my joy.  That will be a true celebration.

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Children, motherhood, Perspective

The Push and Pull of Motherhood

It all starts with a push.  It is through a woman’s labor, a forceful push, that a baby – and her mother – is birthed.

From that point on, it is all about pulling.  A woman, now a mother, pulled in eight thousand different directions a day.  Literally, she is – calls for food, cries for comfort – but that’s not even of what I speak.  I’m speaking of expectation vs. reality; perfection vs. attainability; manic striving vs. sanity.

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From that first push, and from that first pull forward, the unwitting conditioning of our ideas and carrying out of motherhood shape our every decision, every day, our very psyches.

The other day, I kicked my kids out of the kitchen while I made the cupcakes they requested for Easter.  My second oldest had requested red velvet, which we’d never made before.  Why, suddenly, did she want this new and different flavor?  Could we not keep it simple, especially surrounding a busy holiday?  But then, I could’ve kept it simple by redirecting her to a different flavor or even buying a ready-made mix.  Instead, I half-kiddingly offered the metaphor of red for Christ’s blood.  She was sold.  And I began research on homemade recipes with less artificial ingredients than the mixes.  Again, could’ve kept this simple, but looked for the simplest one I could find that was sort of in line with the husband’s and my new trying-to-be-healthy-ish regimen.

 

That morning, the second oldest and I participated in an impromptu Girl Scout cookie booth.  I came home to prep appetizers for a dinner party at a friends’ that night.  Then I set in on the cupcakes.  The cupcake-requester was nowhere to be found, most likely buried eyeball-deep in her iPad after a morning of social interaction.  Her next youngest sister saw me gathering supplies and asked to help.  At this point, I was up to my eyeballs in a messy kitchen and bad humor.

“NO,” I replied far too emphatically.

When I saw her sad little face, I almost reconsidered, but held my ground, knowing that with limited time and remaining fuse I’d do far more damage than that to her poor little soul.

By way of a conciliatory carrot, I said, “You can help decorate them when they’ve cooled.”

As I prepped the rest of the recipe, I felt guilty.  These were cupcakes for a family celebration of Easter, requested by the kids most excited about the holiday.  Yet, the kid who’d started this whole evolution was MIA and I’d sequestered the rest.  Was I not sucking the joy out of this?  Was it about having a finished batch of red velvet cupcakes or letting my daughters participate in a fun activity?

When describing the frenetic events of the weekend to my therapist today, but before I got the part about my guilt, she congratulated me for sensing my limit and taking steps to keep from flying right over it.  When I told her how I perceived it, she said that I had been well within my rights for self-preservation by prepping the cupcakes myself.  She pointed out that I welcomed them in decorating the cupcakes, which is all kids really want to do anyway.

It did occur to me that, had I removed that fail-safe for myself that day, it wouldn’t have been a June Cleaver moment even if mother and child had made cupcakes together.  It almost certainly would’ve ended badly.  Just the night before, I’d dropped the f-bomb as we all made Resurrection cookies together.  Jesus would’ve been proud.

Looking back, I can see how it would’ve ended.  I would’ve needed multiple ‘come to Jesus’ moments afterwards to recoup.  And yet, the guilt still came in the moment.

And that is the pull modern mothers have.  We have been conditioned to do all manner of June Cleaver, Martha Stewart, Mother Earth type of things for our children, our families – even to the exclusion of our sanity.

Motherhood, parenthood, by its very essence, is sacrifice.  But there is no sense giving all of ourselves if everyone involved is miserable.  Even cupcakes are bitter to the taste buds when made with resentment and frustration.

The journey of motherhood started with a push.  That doesn’t mean we have to be pulled apart from that point forward.  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  And no, I’m not saying we should push our kids around.  We mustn’t remain static in the face of our conditioning.   There has to be movement both towards our children and our own self care.

After all, my homemade version of red velvet cupcakes were vegan – with store bought cream cheese frosting.

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