spontaneous delight

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The following is a post from last October on the old www.spontaneousdelight.blogspot.com I want to get everything on one site and so I’ll be reposting some of my favorites when i’m back from vacation i will put the original photograph that went with the post – which is one of my favorites

you can still go to www.spontaneousdelight.blogspot.com but eventually i will be taking it down.

and now – for some thoughts from last year – it seems like a life time ago….

These past few weeks have been challenging. I work in the financial field. In New York. Nuf said.

Meanwhile, these past few weeks have been glorious. To watch a wee preschooler turn into a young boy “I am not a little boy!” And this past week I realized he is correct. He is not a little boy. He is a boy. The painting above was done by our dear friend Rick Price. Q is 2 1/2 years old in the painting. When I asked Rick to paint Q’s portrait I was thinking of the classic portrait. We had a baby blue sweater with a peter pan color that Q never wore but that I loved. However, I believe in letting the artist follow his instincts so when Rick asked what I was thinking I left it to him. “I’m thinking, Spiderman” said Rick. Rick worked at our local cafe and almost on a daily basis Q and I would stroll in, me wearing exaustion with as much grace as I could muster (Q is not a sleeper) and Q wearing – almost every day – his spiderman costume. He was not allowed to wear it the two days he was at daycare (against the rules) but every other day he had it on. Q wasn’t pretending anything in those days, he WAS spiderman. You can see it in this portrait, can’t you? Spiderman going over his accomplishments at the end of a long day. Relishing the fame. And he was/is famous. “Hey” casual passerbys would say “it’s Spiderman. Nice to see you!” And Q would nod usually. Sometimes give a small wave with his little hand. Those little hands in the portrait, Rick got the hands perfectly. They are Q’s hands. No one elses.

After Spiderman there was Batman. Same thing – about a year. One day soon I’ll write about our adventures out in costume. Those days were magical. I often think about the fact that I am not raising a boy, I am raising a man. Well, lately I have begun to think I am raising a super hero.

We are conservative people. So during challenging times, we pull back a bit and prepare ourselves for anything. Last year Q took drum lessons until the summer. We were going to take the summer off and start in the fall again. He was excited. In truth we have the money. And some to spare. But like I said, we are conservative and so we are slowing down on some of our ‘wants’ in order to never have to worry about our needs. I explained to Q that while we did have the money we thought it best to keep it. Things are uncertain and that we could practise the drum at home in the meantime. He smiled at me and said OK. “I think that is smart mom.”

Meanwhile he has been actively petitioning for a new pet (we have 5 fish in two tanks) which are his responsibility and now he wants a guinnie pig. We had pretty much said it was a possibility for Christmas. But last week we decided again that while we had the cash, we didn’t feel it was a great example for Q that during uncertain times we take on more responsibility with bringing another, living, breathing, eating animal in our home. And so I sat him down and said exactly that. Not in any kind of heavy way at all, in fact hopefully with a happiness about it. I explained that we liked to live simply in general but especially now. I said the reason that we did was so that our worries were always very small and that we never had anything bigger to think about than maybe are we eating too much dessert? Or what color are we going to paint the bedroom? Simple stuff. Again, he looked at me and said “OK, I understand. We’ll have a new pet one day.” Yes, we will. And we hugged. And I was amazed.

A few days ago, I came home from work and we were getting ready to read stories. He was sitting in his rocker and said “I’m just going to rock for a moment and think. You can sit on the bed and talk to me if you like.” “OK” I said and I sat down on his bed. We talked for a couple of minutes and then he said “I think you are a great Mom.” Wow. It’s the best thing in the world. Then he got up from his chair and got into bed and told me to sit forward a little bit. I did and I felt his little hands rubbing my shoulders. Although rubbing is too strong a word because in reality his touch was so gentle I could barely feel it. “Q, are you giving me a massage?” “Yes, I know you’ve had a hard day.” About one minute later he got down and went into the bathroom and came back with an absolutely soaking wet warm washcloth.” He had me rest my head on a pillow and put the cloth on my forehead (his father does this for him if Q says he has a headache.) While I layed there he rubbed my feet for a minute. “There, do you feel more relaxed?” Yes, I told him but did he think I wasn’t relaxed? Do I look when I come home like I’m not relaxed. “No, you look happy” he said (whew – I was beginning to get worried.) “I just thought that after a long day you could use a little extra relaxation.”

Obviously, we have been giving Q massages since he was a baby. He is a wound up kind of guy and it always helped him go to sleep. And now this week I see we were giving him more than a massage. We were teaching him how to take care of the ones he loves. And what else is a super hero but someone who knows how to look inside the heart of the people they love and respond with kindness and love.

Are we raising a superhero? I think our little superhero is raising us.

spring with friends

One August night, almost 14 years ago on the Island of Nantucket I sat with Tracy, her father Richard, sister Kelly and friends, Aveen, Terry and Ann. As birds sang their forever song and a soft breeze came in through the open windows, rustling curtains and bringing along with the sea salt the scent of lavender from the bushes which surrounded her home we waited, awake and watching. It was an ordinary spectacular Nantucket night; moonlight and candles, the low roar of crickets and frogs, blankets wrapped round our shoulders, wine glasses on nightstands. Every 30 minutes or so, Tracy would move a bit and one of us would rise from our mattress on the floor and move a pillow to the left or right. We would take her arms and lift them slowly up, first to the ceiling and then down to the other side of the bed and her thin body would follow. Quiet, calm, peace, for a moment. We would search her face and whisper “better?’ If the cricket chatter had ebbed we could hear her breathe back ‘yes.’ As the sun began to light up the wild roses in the front of the grey shingled house and the sky turned from an opaque steel grey to the softest transparent light blue-yellow, Tracy’s soul left her body and quietly continued on it’s journey.

A few weeks before that morning Tracey remarked to a friend that her death was a gift to the ones she loved. Although I do not know her exact words and never had a chance to talk with her about them, they remain the most profound that I have taken to heart. She and her words have been, largely, the architects of my life since then. Tracy was 35 years old when she died. This last May I turned 45.

It is strawberry season again. Easy to forget when you see them all year long in the not-so-super market. This past Sunday, down at the riverfront farmer’s market we saw the first strawberries we’ve seen since last summer. We bought two cartons. They were bitter. The taste equivalent of early spring; bright with color and fragrance but still harsh and sharp. And so each week we will go to the market and buy another carton. We will bring them home, rinse them off and sit down to a bowl of spring fresh strawberries. As we savor them we will practice my favorite grace. We will talk about all of the people who have worked so that we might sit and savor a strawberry. The farmer who works every day of the year. The migrant worker who travels thousands of miles in a year, alone and lonely or with family and family size worries about school and money and health. Did you know migrant workers are not guaranteed the same rights to days off as all the other workers in the United States? Do you know how a migrant worker’s child goes to school, how they learn to read and write? Where they sleep at night? These blessed ones who bend down to pull a delicate ripe strawberry from the plant. The farmer’s children whose chores are a real part of the families success. We’ve been blessed that one of those farmer’s daughters was Q’s teacher when he was 2 and again when he was 4. I say teacher, not daycare worker, because teacher is what she is. What she taught him helped make him who he is and the joy she taught him with helped him to see the world of learning as an exciting and lovely place. We taste the juice (do you remember how juicy real strawberries are? How it spurts out and surrounds your tongue? How there seems to be more juice than there is fruit?) and we talk about the Native Americans and how they cared for the land for hundreds of years. How the plight of Native Americans mirrors the plight of our earth and how the earth has been very nearly destroyed, brought to the edge, is still at the edge and how a few people now are going back and learning from the first Americans. A few wonderful people are going back to relearn what the natives knew for so many hundreds of years. With a great deal of love and work and understanding we can pull this world back into right. We put a strawberry into our mouth and bite down just to the edge of the stem and then suck on the fruit while we twirl the stem in our hands. This very stem another person held it before us. They bent down, held the stem in their rough, overworked hands and gently tugged at it being careful not to crush the fruit until it snapped away from the plant. If I saw that same person on a street in my town would I see their gentleness? We talk about the farmer’s truck and the mechanic who keeps it running year after year after year. How the mechanic might begin to love the truck after so many years and work extra hard to keep it going. And how the farmer appreciates the mechanic who keeps his old truck going. We talk about the men and women who many years ago went down to the river which was dirty and unfishable and unswimmable and basically a dump full of old tires and appliances and how they hauled with their bare hands rusted metal and cleaned it up and built a boat that would be a floating classroom and sang, wrote and taught songs that we sang on Sunday at the festival. And now because of them there is a lovely little harbor where farmers come – the farmer and his wife and his children come – and sell what they themselves have grown. They come from 5 miles away and they come from 30 miles away. They are our neighbors, and we sometimes forget that we are blessed.

We talk as we eat our strawberries week after week. Food. It is precious. It is divinely given. We say grace. My favorite grace. May God bless all, each and every one of the people and their children and their families who brought us these strawberries. May their life be sweet.

And then one week we buy 6 cartons, when the red is the reddest and the scent is the strawberriest. When the taste is the forever taste of strawberry then we stack the containers gently in our canvas bag and carry them home trying not to let too many of them get crushed to juice. We whip fresh cream, which comes in a glass bottle from a farm a few miles away from our house. Sometimes the cream smells of the grass that the cows that gave this milk ate that morning. We fill an old pottery bowl with the cool freshly whipped cream and we take another large bowl and fill that with water, gently pour the strawberries into the water and carefully drain them. Finally when the sun is slanting through the yard and the heat of the day is ebbing, we make shortbread biscuits. When the warm biscuits are pulled from the oven we stack them in a basket lined with a napkin and take the strawberries, the cream, the biscuits and some mint tea and we go outside to sit on a blanket in our little backyard. Sitting on the blanket under the dogwood trees we eat our dinner. One night a year a dinner of nothing but shortcake biscuits, a big bowl of whip cream and a huge bowl of the ripest most lovely strawberries that God can give to the world. And we give thanks to God for every person who helped bring those strawberries out of the ground to us. We do this because we are alive. And we are grateful.

Tracey’s dying gift was that she taught me that I am alive. I am alive. Today. Here. Now. I am alive. Her death brought me a greater gratitude for what I have. Her death taught me that there is no such thing as a bad day (bad mood yes, a bad day, no) and that the arrival of strawberries in spring is worthy of a celebration and that the people who are never celebrated are the very ones worthy of all our esteem. Lastly she taught me that the only reason we are here is to love each other well and when you love someone you don’t let them pick your strawberries and then deny them a day off, healthcare and education for their children just so those strawberries will be available cheap and all year long.

Think that’s hard to forget?

Think it’s easy to remember?

Thank you dear friend. I love you.

mother's day 2009 8:29 am

http://adoptioncubed.blogspot.com/2009/04/sacred-mystery.html

a few weeks ago i asked rebecca if i could link to her birthday post for mother’s day
you’ll need to cut and paste as i haven’t fully figured out wordpress yet – but it’s so worth it – even if you read it back in april

motherhood is a team sport
you cannot play it alone
the best mother’s gather their team and keep gathering
sometimes trading
as they learn the sport and the skills required

thank you
all of you
for being on my team

for making it more fun
and for challenging me to be my best

my life would not be the same without you
our life would not be as good without you

and of course i cannot end today’s post without a quick shout out to my own mother
who i do not believe reads this blog
but who none the less gave me my love of reading
and of knowledge
and my respect for courage
and my love for the people on the fringe
and more than anything
my sense of humor
and
thank god for that

happy mother’s day to all of you

An instant favorite. Found on Youtube. Funny that you can know nothing about the people in this video but by their song choices alone you just know you would love to have them over for dinner.

Happy Day Before Mother’s Day for all the waiting and no longer waiting Mom’s. Check back tomorrow for a link to my favorite post of the year about Birth Mother’s.

we listen while we work and our children watch and sing along

one of these things is not like the other
one of these things is not the same
one of these things is not like the other
one of these things is not the same

a song from a popular children’s show meant to teach children about what?
I’m not sure
perhaps there is a reason but I do not know it

and if you are two or three years old
and you are the different
everyone around you knows it
the moment they see you
before they talk to you
get to know you
they know
and you know
you are the different
you are one of these things that is not the same

different is not what you want to be when you are three
You want to be the same
You want to be part of the group
You want to be a friend
You want to be liked
You do not want to be the only
You are not ready for that
You want to be part of something
You want connection

And you go to school for the first time
You leave your family
You are scared
And happy
And expectant
And you want more than anything to belong
So you wear your bulldozer shirt
Because you saw the boy with the nice laugh and fun spirit
You saw he had a bulldozer shirt too
And you feel you are the same
You know you are the same
And now, wearing your bulldozer shirt everyone will see
You like bulldozers too
You are ready to belong
You are ready to make friends

And your teacher when another student asks about your skin
About why your skin is different
From hers
And most of the people that she knows
Your teacher says
Different is beautiful
We are all different
And it is beautiful
We are all beautiful

And the truth of that statement is not lost on you because at three it is not taken in
And what is not received cannot then be lost

For you are three
And you are more feeling than thinking
And what you feel is you do not want to be different

And if your name is q
And you are three
And you are unusually quite on the ride back from daycare
Usually a happy time of day
Usually a talking/happy/giggling/handsmoving/smiling eyes discussion
But this day
Silence
Brooding
Staring
Confusion
Looking out the window at the trees
And your mommy
For you still call her mommy
She asks what you are thinking
Was school (you call it school – wanting to be so big) good

And you say yes but do not look in the mirror
And then you tell your story

You are three
And the teacher says everyone is different
And beautiful

And your mommy says that’s right
That’s lovely

And for the first time you look at her in the rear view mirror
And for the first time you look at her like she doesn’t know as much as you do
And you are right
She doesn’t

And you talk slowly
And with some disdain
So that maybe she will learn

And you say
‘no it’s not mommy
it’s stupid
they’re the same

I’m different

we ask our children to work so hard
to be brave beyond words

we imagine that childhood is carefree
at the same moment that we ask them to master skills
that are new, seemingly impossible and more complicated than anything we would lightly take on

we ask that they learn to read, look at symbols and attach unique sounds to each symbol
except that the sounds are not unique but change depending on the symbol directly behind or in front of or even several symbols away

when was the last time you learned a new lanquage

we ask our children to learn to swim
it’s a necessity swimming
it is statistically more dangerous to have a swimming pool in your backyard than a gun in your house
imagine
so swimming lessons
we ask our children to trust that they will float
we let go
we ask them to hold their breath
and stick their face in water
and trust us
it makes no sense to put your face in water
submerge your body under water
and yet we ask them to jump on in come on go ahead why do you hesitate don’t worry trust

and yet when was the last time you learned a new skill
or sport
or excercise

when did you last challenge yourself to accomplish something at least half as difficult as what we ask our five year olds

we ask
our children

we should not forget to ask ourselves

what would it mean to our children if they saw us try something new, struggle at the beginning, stick with it and then eventually master it

how much greater the lesson

this month – in honor of mother’s day
i’m challenging myself to learn something new
teach by example rather than words
to do something that scares me
to start something difficult
and to stick with it

being a mother for me is not about what I say but about how i live

i sometimes forget that

this month i will concentrate
be mindful
of all the ways that i am

do my actions truly and fully reflect my values

this month
i will concentrate on myself as myself
rather than mother
and hopefully
be a better mother
for the effort