"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin

A Sunday Kinda Love

Love my girls.  They rock.  My 17 yr old, Twisses (an actual nickname she endures) just returned from a "grueling" week at the beach nannying for her aunt and uncle.  We all missed her and she was missing home.  I don't know how we'll all manage when she leaves in two weeks for college.  She's such a ray of sunshine.  My 8 yr old, Miss Drama  Queen (MDQ) was with me this weekend but Sundays she goes to church with her dad.  Singing Arrow and I went to brunch at a local cafe while she was gone.

Now this here cafe, I drive by it all the time.  Every trip to Big National Bookstore. (Oooh! Speaking of which, I picked up 3 fabulous art books from their clearance table. I am all aflutter over relearning how to paint with watercolors and draw).  I've driven by it for years, but have never gone. Go figure.  We went today and it was yummy; just SA and I.  Halfway through,  the Ex,  Twisses, and MDQ walk in from church.  The Ex is still a little skittish around Singing Arrow so after hugs from the girls,  they picked a table on he other side of the restaurant.

Singing Arrow and I had a lovely time sitting in the shade, drinking coffee and connecting.  We really enjoyed some quiet time together.  Afterwards, he had to go take care of some rebellious computers at work, so he dropped me at home.

MDQ came home a little later and we agreed it was really too hot to do much.  We visited the furniture consignment shop where I left a trail of drool and she left lots of fingerprints.  We then headed straight for the ice cream parlor.  Even at 8, I have never seen that girl pack away that much ice cream and get chocolate in so many places! LOL.  Yummy, again.

We are now resting under the ceiling fan, imagining we are in our petticoats taking our Sunday naps like the Southern ladies used to do. 

Posted by: brutallycurious at July 30, 2006 16:30 | link | comments
family

The wedding weekend, part two

As if a wedding weren't enough (did I mention we drove 15 hours to get there?), my sister-in-law E. (the wife of SIngingArrow's  brother) was within 1 week of her due date on her fourth child. Everyone agreed all she had to do was get through the 11 a.m. wedding and reception, and then she was free to go into labor. Which is exactly what happened.

I was her guardian. She and her 18 month old were my charges, the other two kids being farmed out to members of the wedding party. The whole day is a bit of a blur. I know we came home from the reception and everyone rested and then she and I ran some kind of errand...I think to the grocery store. By "in labor" I don't mean writhing in pain and timing contractions. No, for a woman on her fourth baby, it's more like going about your daily life a little more slowly than you usually would at 9 months pregnant and laughing at how funny it is to be in labor on your sister-in-law's wedding day.

So I followed her around all day checking her symptoms, watching her face. She wasn't complaining, so it wasn't until about 5 or 6 that I noticed the contractions were beginning to stop her in her tracks and contort her face. At this point I asked her when she actually planned on calling the doctor. I got a laugh. We all (meaning 3 kids, 4 adults and baby-in-utero) trundled over to the family reunion post-wedding cookout. There were 30 of our closest relatives and assorted neighbors hanging out.

By 6:00 she finally started timing contractions. By 6:30 she was in pain and they were headed for the hospital. She was checked in at 7:30.  As you can imagine, the whole clan was waiting on pins and needles for every phone call from them. Dad got one to say they had arrived and were being admitted.

About 45 minutes later, they called me. I figured maybe they had forgotten something. But they asked me to come be with them. Cool. And then it hit me. They wanted me in the delivery room. I was stunned. E and I are pretty close, but it just never occurred to me she would want me in the room. They also called Becca, the best friend of the bride. We both got there within 15 minutes, which is a good thing. By 9:30 she had delivered an 8 lb, 9 oz baby girl.

I have seen live births on tv before, but this was the first time i'd been in a delivery room observing and not pushing. It was a magical time and a experience that bonds all who share it. Gabriella came into this world a little frightened and traumatized, but she soon relaxed and I have no doubt she felt the cloud of love and warmth surrounding her.

I am in awe of the creative process...which is exactly what I witnessed in human form.  We are all sacred beings with the power to create and destroy life. We have the ability to bring forth love, beauty, life, possibility. We have the ability to send it away, shut it down, deny it and deny ourselves. We do it in every aspect of our lives, and it is our choice.  I am not advocating any course of action. My prayer is only that all beings recognize the power that lies within them and honor it. Whether that be choosing to bring children into this world, or to bring their own talents to bear. We don't even have to "do" anything. Simply recognizing  our own existence as sacred and walking through our days with that knowledge is enough.

Posted by: brutallycurious at July 28, 2006 09:32 | link | comments (2)
creation, kids, beauty, gabriella

Twenty years

I have started this journal entry 3 times. I just can't put into words what the last week has been like. I have visited my past and released it. I have visited my future. It moved me. It calls me.



saturday we attended the wedding of Singing Arrow's little sister Amanda. She is 21, a devout Christian and the mirror of me at that age...virtuous, idealistic, naive, child-like. My heart broke open for her, and for who I had been when I married at 19. Oh, the innocence. Oh the road ahead for her...and for me. Lauren Bacall once said something to the effect that she wouldn't go back to 20 years old unless she could take her 40 yr old brain with her. I thought alot Saturday about the path from 20 to 40.



I even started writing a letter to Amanda to "share some of my wisdom". Yeah. That didn't get far. What can I possibly say that she won't have to actually experience to understand? I can't "save" her from any real or imagined pain that may lay in her future anymore than my elders could have saved me. But i can make myself available if she ever wants my perspective.  She already has a spiritual path which will support her and I believe that it will serve her well until she begins to work through her own heart's knowing. Not that I assume she will leave christianity, but the re-working of one's faith, or lack of faith, will happen at some point.



But I felt like I was watching myself get married. It was beautiful and heartwrenching. We left the reception to find real food (and you know exactly what I mean!)  and on the way I just lost it. I sobbed for the girl in me. I had thrust her into the adult world without giving her the opportunity to grow up at least a little. And, like Amanda, I didn't have a wise mother to give me counsel. I had a mother so mired in her own pain she had little energy to share her true heart. Amanda's mom...I don't know much about her, but I could tell Amanda didn't feel supported. I cried for us both. The difference now is that I see the beauty in the pain. The pain refines the heart into gold if we allow it...burning away all that does not serve us. We gain wisdom, strength, moxy, nerves...all that good stuff.



So I have no regrets...no feeling like I made a "mistake". I just felt a young girl's pain and naivete...and let it go. I just acknowledged it and released it. That was so powerful! I was able to send it out into the universe...away from me. I no longer have a use for it. I revisited that young woman, saw the pain, and blessed it. I felt free.





Three days later I saw Wendy the Life Coach. She had me do a visualization...of myself 20 years from now. No kidding. I visited my vision of myself in 20 years. Again, I was overwhelmed.  I saw a woman of great strength and inner peace who had crafted for herself an amazing life. It still takes my breath away that I have that vision within me, and that it speaks of what my heart truly desires. She is beautiful. I am already well on my way to crafting that life. I don't think in 20 years I will look back and cry. I will probably laugh.

Posted by: brutallycurious at July 26, 2006 19:49 | link | comments (1)
wendy the life coach

notes on the fly

life is busy and i can't take an hour to work through these thoughts...here is the quote I will be chewing on the next few days. This is an amazing book. It is an expanded version of the PBS series Bill Moyers did with Joseph Cambell close to 20 years ago. I am going to get these videotapes.

from The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

Moyers: And poetry goes to the unseen reality.

Campbell: That which is beyond even the concept of reality, that which transcends all thought. The myth puts you there all the time, gives you a line to connect with that mystery which you are.

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to Nature. And that's what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meet the outer world.  And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That's where you are.  You've got to keep both going. As Novalis said, "The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet."

 

Posted by: brutallycurious at July 20, 2006 13:26 | link | comments (4)
mythology

Gremlins

I feel more me today. I felt better yesterday as  I went through my little rituals that center me again. I appreciate where I was yesterday as a reminder that  I don't get that upset as often as I used to. That's a good thing.

One of the things that happens when my mood takes a nosedive is that the mental loops return; those thought patterns that are completely self destructive and have nothing to do with the situation but crop up at the first chance to pull you down. My life coach Wendy calls them Gremlins. Appropriate word, but I can't really think of them that way.

My loop is..."you're fat, you're ugly. No one wants you because you are fat and ugly. If you were prettier people would love you more". I am not making this up. It's horrible to see it in print, but it is the truth. It's a vicious cycle of judging myself and feeling unworthy.  I've gotten much better at just admitting what's going on in my head. And it helps that I know many other people have the same thoughts going through their heads. Don't everyone raise their hands at once.

When I was gettting a divorce and I was depressed, I lost about 20 pounds and the voice went away. Once I was back into a happy life and the weight came back..(my friend Cale calls it "happy fat"), the voice returned too.  It's taken me a long long time to figure out how to turn it off. It's a combination of finding an affirmation that I actually believe, and meditation that helps me practice turning off my thoughts.

The most powerful tool I've found is believing, absorbing, and gut-knowing that I am a sacred being. I AM A SACRED BEING.  So is everyone else. Absorbing that frees me from a lot of unhealthy behaviors...and thought patterns. That freedom may last a few minutes, a few hours....it's definitely a process of retraining my mind.

But what else do I have to do? This is the stuff of life. I have no agenda for my life...nothing I have to do. My goal in life is To Be. Just To Be and allow the doing to follow that Being. I am a sacred Being!  Aho.

Posted by: brutallycurious at July 17, 2006 19:37 | link | comments (2)
beauty, body image, wendy the life coach