The Sky is Falling

What are you worried about? Why do you think that the sky may be about to fall? Have you never encountered negativity before? It is amazing how quickly we forget the way in which fear exerts a hold over us. Perhaps it is just as well that our memory is so short, or we might all lead dull, flat lives with no drama and no tension. Here comes a little excitement, that's all. What's happening now is challenging. You can be forgiven for imagining that some of it is problematic. But it isn't.
~ Jonathan Cainer, Capricorn forecast for Friday, 29 Sept 2006 http://www.cainer.com/

Why is it that a setback does immediately set me to thinking the sky is falling? How appropriate yesterday’s astrological forecast was for me. Good thing I read it after the fact, so I could and did acknowledge that help will always arrive.

It was a long week. A paper was late (with permission) because I couldn’t find a cooperative school to allow a classroom observation. I was trying desperately to finish the paper anyway, with the knowledge that any delay would only have a ripple effect into the work due later this week and next. So I was trying to survive on four or five hours sleep a night.

I should know better. Sleep deprivation always makes every pebble in my path look like a boulder too high to pass. That’s pretty much what happened this week.

First, I received a phone call from the principal of the school where I was scheduled to do two field placements. That’s where we go into a class all day, for five days in a row, and observe and work with the children, and at the end of the second week, actually teach a lesson and have an observation by an experienced educator/field observer. The principal was calling to tell me that he would accept me into one field experience (good), but that he felt it was important for me to have a second experience with another school district, so he would only allow me the one field placement (bad).

When I called the gentleman in charge of field placements, Mr. M., he informed me that he had many FDU students who had no field placements, others in the same boat as me, and he would place me next semester. That would be fine except that I’m enrolled in this program at FDU where I’m to push through 22 graduate credits in two semesters, so that I can have my NJ Teaching Cert by May, and I need to do my Apprenticeship Teaching (Student Teaching) in spring semester, and must complete both field experiences before the Apprenticeship. eek. As a single mom, with a singular opportunity to finish this program in one year and no financing beyond May, this was it, the do or die moment. (More bad.)

Mr. M. suggested I send an email to the professor who admitted me to the program, to see if she had any additional suggestions to help. I got the feeling I was in the middle of a political maelstrom around the concept of rolling admissions, with some faculty supporting it, others dead set against it. And me in the middle, not for the first time.

The second challenge for my week was a phone call on Thursday afternoon from my girl friend, letting me know that our daughters, best friends for the last two years, did a BIG BAD THING. These are two girls who are sensitive good girls, who wouldn’t intentionally hurt a flea, let alone another person. Well, they screwed up big time. They spray painted “D & D must die” on the fort the friend’s brother and next door neighbor will building. They didn’t get caught, but finally admitted what they’d done when the friend heard that the parents were getting ready to call the police.

My middle daughter spent a night crying herself to sleep. She’s learning a difficult lesson on how to think about what you are doing, what your friends are doing, and how to stop something you know is wrong, even when your friends won’t listen, not just go along. I’m sorry the lesson was so painful for her, and glad that it was something rather innocuous that can easily be fixed.

The third challenge was attending the orientation sessions for my field 1 & 2 placements, and understanding the scope of what’s expected of me, on top of the regular courses I’m taking. eek. I’m a little worried that I won’t make it.

My friends laugh gently at me, and remind me to take one step at a time, and I’ll come out the other end not quite sure how I managed it all. They all have confidence in me and tell me so. My professors have confidence in me, and tell me so. I’m glad to have some people in my life reminding me that I am a wonderful person who can accomplish amazing things.

This morning, I woke up and started planning my weekend. I have a lot to accomplish, and didn’t need to spend the day helping a daughter repaint a fort. But there it is, life presenting me with another FGO (fucking growth opportunity). I fretted, then suddenly understood that there might be a benefit to my field experiences being split up and one possibly being late. It will give me breathing time. It will give me time to learn more about lesson planning before I actually have to produce one in practice. I will have time to breathe inbetween two intense weeks. That’s a good thing.

One of these days, I will learn to take the pebbles in my path in stride. I won’t turn them into boulders, I will just breathe through the moment, and trust that there is always a solution, one that might even be better than if I hadn’t been required to make a sidestep around a pebble, or even sidle around a large boulder in my path.

I will spend a morning helping two lovely young girls understand that they must always think about how their actions affect others.

And I will spend a day outside, living in the moment, even if it means some intense writing later on tonight or tomorrow. My mind will be fresher and clearer because of it.

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a
home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace
for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~ Melodie Beatie

Today, in the midst of a house that looks like four separate hurricanes blew through, as I work on two small freelance jobs, two papers for school, back to school night, and the finalization of my divorce this week, I am still grateful. Oh, yeah, and paying bills, feeding the girls, trying to catch up on laundry, and making sure we all bathe on a semi-regular basis, in spite of all of that, or maybe because of all of that, I am still grateful.

I have the money to pay my bills. I have food to feed my girls, I have hot water for showers. I have a house to live in, on a beautiful farm that we all love. I have schools that are wonderful for my girls, in spite of one daughter’s teacher quitting in the second week of school. I am in school, with funding to be able to make it through the year, and I’m enjoying my classes even more than I hoped! I have some work to enhance my meager income. I have my three fireballs of energy and wonder who, yes, wreak havoc through the house and are still learning to help keep it in order, make my life joyous day after day after day. And I have a life full of friends and full living, after years of quiet misery.

There is indeed much to be grateful for this morning. The singing of the birds outside my office as the sun rises. The pride of my eldest daughter as she reports that she successfully rappelled on her challenge course yesterday (the same daughter who has a crippling fear of heights – or used to, anyway!) The majestic beauty of the geese as they rise to wing their way south. The warmth of the cat laying in my lap, warming me on a brisk fall morning. The love of friends who give me essential oil treatments when I’m sick and give me work when I need it. The love of other friends who support me when I am sad, sending me virtual hugs and love and btdt survival strategies.

I am indeed grateful this morning.

A hand reaches out

A hand reaches out in love,
to save, to offer sanctuary.

A hand draws back in fear,
containment, survival.

Can we bridge the gap
between fearing for survival
and living lives fully?

Can we walk out under the stars
and understand our puniness
our insignificance
in the glory of the universe?

Can we rest in the peace of the night
knowing we are a part of the whole
nurturing the dust from a faraway star
carried from the beginning of time
held safe within us for a life
passed on to the next creation
when we are through?

Made of stardust,
eternal, glorious, part of an
unspeakable
indescribable
universe.

Hands reach out in love
offering sanctuary.

From fear, we extend our hands,
welcoming the love,
accepting the fear,
living the glory.

~ Robin Slaw

© 2006

The Field

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.
~ Jelaluddin Rumi, The Essential Rumi

To love someone, with all your heart and soul, free from the constraints of society, free from fear, free from judgment, free from pain, free from misunderstanding. We all strain toward that, don’t we?

In learning to live again after divorce, messages to my soul have been arriving one after another after another. Some of them are difficult, challenging, make me weep in anguish or frustration. Some sooth my soul like balm on a fiery burn. Some make me go still and quiet and begin to listen with the quiet core of my soul.

I suspect it’s those messages that I should most pay attention to – the messages that slide deep into my quiet inner core. The ones that make me go still, and sink deeply into myself. The ones that help me lose all sense of self while contemplating an essential truth, a truth about myself, a truth about the world. Those messages hold my soul in thrall with the essential rightness that I need for learning at that moment.

I also have friends that take me to that field where ideas and language don’t make sense. They are the friends who see clearly in the world, who can say words to me that cause me to stop, take stock, and give my soul another eternal moment of pause to be, to grow, to acknowledge my essential self. Friends like that are rare; I cherish them beyond words, and find myself grateful every day of my life to have found them.

To my friends who are there, meeting me in that field beyond ideas, language, or even each other, namaste.

May you join me in the field often.

Unlived Lives

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived lives of the parents.
~ Carl Gustav Jung

Last night was perhaps the best and worst of possible nights. I spent the evening trying to sleep in the parking lot of my daughter’s high school, while she attended a dance.

Earlier that week, I’d had a party planned. I was supposed to be divorced this week, and was looking forward to a night spent celebrating my new life with some good friends. Instead, the divorce was postponed, the party cancelled, and a quiet evening spent with a girlfriend whose husband was away traveling replaced my original plan. It still would have been a nice evening.

Friday afternoon, while attending a volunteer training at the charter school where my younger two daughters attend, I received a phone call from my oldest daughter. There was a dance at the high school, and she wanted to go. This is the high school, mind you, that is a good 45 minute drive for us, because she attends the county tech school’s theater academy.

Her first dance as a high school freshman, how could I say no? I’m so proud of my blossoming daughter. I rushed home to make sure she ate something, and she apologized for screwing up my evening. It was ok, I reassured her. Dances are fun, I was glad she was going. I noticed her outfit, and in one of those bizarre brainless moments of parenting that you curse yourself for later, I ignored it. I choose my battles wisely, or at least I try to, and it really wasn’t that important what she chose to wear to the dance. It was nothing bad, just dressier than I would have chosen myself for a dance in high school.

So, into the car we went, and we had a nice discussion on the way down about how she was feeling about her new school. We haven’t had a lot of time to talk in the first week. I started school, and A. goes to sleep early because she leaves for school at 6:30 am, so her little sisters are still awake when she goes to bed. I was valuing my parenting time, enjoying our conversation.

When we arrived at the high school and A. realized how everyone was dressed, she panicked. She had on a funky skirt and top with sandals, exactly the kind of outfit that I wear to parties and camp dances, she was using my example as a choice for her outfit, and much to her dismay, her mom is just plain weird and follows her own unique path. Certainly she doesn’t follow a high school teen’s path…

“Please, Mom, take me home. I’m so sorry I made you drive me all the way down here. Please take me home, I can’t go in there dressed like this.”

I tried brainstorming … do you have any clothes in the car, do I have any clothes in the car, is there anything else you can put on? Do you have anything in your locker? You’re not that dressy, maybe the other theater people will be dressed like you, let’s wait and see. (It was only 7 pm, and I knew others would still be arriving.)

“Mom, please take me home,” she begged, with a rising note of panic and desperation in her voice.

My mind was now racing at top speed. She was looking forward to her first dance, this was a *huge* step for her socially, and I was so proud that she’d made the decision to go. How could we set this right??? I know, I know, let’s find somewhere to buy a pair of jeans. There must be somewhere we can go.

At that point, I would have paid designer prices for something for her to wear. This was my daughter, trying to blossom, and I was worried that a failure tonight would set her back months or years in self-confidence!

We live far from the school, so I didn’t know the neighborhood at all. I hadn’t noticed any stores that would sell clothing, but Wal-Marts and K-Marts are endemic – surely there must be somewhere that we could go for an emergency replacement. I was racking my brains to think who I might know that lived locally to the school, and A. finally remembered that she had a friend from the charter school who lived nearby.

We called, got directions to the closest Wal-Mart, and found a pair of jeans for only $18. Can you hear my sigh of relief from here? Back to the dance we went, with Alanna happily waltzing into the building to find her new friends.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at the clock in the car, realizing that it’s now 8 pm, the dance is over at 10 pm, and I have at least a 45 minute drive each way. No sense driving home now. Can’t have my nice quiet evening that my friend and I had planned, drinking wine and commiserating over the newest changes at school. Now what???

The best I could come up with was to lower my seat back, and take a nap. I was far too sleep-deprived to even think about reading a textbook. I was so sleep-deprived I couldn’t even think about trying to find a movie theater or somewhere else to spend time. I was cursing myself for not thinking to bring my laptop – I would have paid to buy a dvd at that same Wal-mart, only 7 minutes away.

So, an uncomfortable hour and a half later, complete with stiff neck, I woke from drowsing, drove down to the Dunkin Donuts (the only thing I could find open) to use the restroom and buy myself a bagel, since I hadn’t had dinner, and sat waiting the last 10 minutes for the dance to end so I could drive A. and I home.

She had fun. I didn’t, but I had a proud mommie moment. It’s almost impossible to describe the feelings of pride that we experience as we watch our daughters stretch and blossom, grow into young womanhood. My daughter took a deep breathe that night, and threw herself headlong into life.

Maybe the divorce was worth it. I chose to live my life fully, to reach out and grasp happiness when I could no longer find it in my marriage. I’ve worried that I might have done damage to my children by thinking about myself, in spite of reassurances from my therapist that I wasn’t helping them by modeling self-sacrifice for their sakes.

Last night I watched, and helped my daughter realize, that it’s better to live life fully, and not retreat to an unlived life. Last night my daughter made a choice to help herself choose to live fully, eagerly, with passion.

I am content. Even with a stiff neck.

The Death of Love

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
~ Anais Nin

Today was supposed to be the day my divorce went through. There was a last minute delay of two weeks, I’m not sure why. The paperwork was not quite ready, perhaps. The dissolution of my marriage has me thinking about love today, and how and why it disappeared from my marriage.

As I ponder the ending, I’m led to sadness. I didn’t start my marriage expecting it to have a finite life. It didn’t come with an expiration date that would mean automatic disposal by a certain time. I never expected to end up divorced, a single mom with still-young children. I would have never chosen this route had I felt there was any other option left to me.

I struggle sometimes with bitterness. In the end, in order to survive, I chose flight. I was dying a slow lonely death in my marriage, loveless, ignored, hurting, so painfully lonely, alone. I begged for help, it was ignored. I’m left wondering why our marriage was so unimportant to my partner that he could choose ending it over working to save it.

Of course, he would probably say that he didn’t choose ending it, because when I finally left, he woke up and realized that he was losing his family. My mom tells me he was, and still is, devastated. She wishes that we would get back together.

I wonder how my own mother could wish for me to go back into misery and loss of self. In the end, as I asked for help, as I asked him to go to therapy and he would walk out of the room without even answering, I was left with the choice between survival and leaving, or staying and dying a slow death of my essential self. I chose flight, in that eternal decision of fight or flight for survival. The fighting hadn’t worked.

I flew for myself. I flew for survival. I flew for joy. I flew for life.

I am reaching, arms and soul wide open, for a life of vulnerability, happiness, friendship, and love.

Following Your Life Path

We learn to live consciously through becoming aware of inner and outer events as they are happening. Building a conscious self means becoming increasingly aware of inner events, bodily events and interpersonal events. A conscious self is able to experience in full awareness all the distinctly different components of the self, including feelings, needs, drives and values. A conscious self lives consciously.
~ Gershen Kaufman/Lev Raphael, The Dynamics of Power

In my journaling book, the one on using journal writing as a spiritual quest, I was asked to write about my life path. What do I know about where I am coming from and where I am going?

What a question to ask someone in the middle of all the life turmoil that I am experiencing. I’m not sure I can even bring myself to answer those questions, let alone do it objectively, without whining or feeling sorry for myself.

On the other hand, I had too many errands to run and not enough time this afternoon to finish them, so I find myself with a fuller day tomorrow than expected, and an emptier day today than expected, in order to not waste too much gas driving to the same town twice in two days. So I might as well try.

My life path has certainly taken some unexpected twists and turns, lately. Yesterday the mail brought my PRAXIS exam scores. You could have knocked me over with a feather, as I anxiously stood at the mailbox, ripping open the envelope and frantically scanning the results. The scores were important – without passing scores, I can’t get approval from the state to teach in New Jersey. I was pretty sure I had passed the Elementary level basic knowledge exam. I was also quite certain I’d not passed the Middle School Social Studies test. It was a stunning surprise to find that not only had I passed both tests, I’d done exceedingly well on both of them.

That was a good twist in my path, another good twist, one that’s brought me even further out into a bright sunlit path full of trust that the future will be better, along with the last minute twist of funding for school. I think my life these past few months might be a testimony to never giving up in despair, that a window will finally open somewhere, even after you think that every last door, every last window, every last chink in the wall has slammed shut for you.

I have been pleasantly surprised by my MAT courses, too. I was afraid that I would be enduring many of them, putting in time and work playing to a party line that would make me acceptable to the state, but not trusting that educational theory would have caught up to practical application at university level coursework. Silly me, I forgot that out of academia come many of our brilliant discoveries. It’s been a truly gratifying experience to hear a professor explain that pop quizzes really aren’t a good way to assess a student’s grasp of subject matter. It’s been even more amazing to hear a teacher explain that she still calls each parent of her kindergarten students every week, to touch base with the parents and let them know how their children are doing in school.

I was a bit envious at that piece of information. My own children’s teachers were quite lacking in that effort last year, never asking us to volunteer in class, and getting only four formal progress reports and very little or no feedback in between. To be fair, it was really only one teacher who never communicated. One was very good at sending home notes each week, and another good at giving me in person updates on progress.

I find myself making mental notes about ideas that sound good to me. Ideas like calling my parents each week. I’m thinking that I might need to start a teacher’s book of good ideas, because I may not remember all these little hints and ideas next year when I start teaching for real.

My goal has suddenly been thrust into a much more viable possibility. I am in school, learning how to be a teacher. I am getting back test scores that indicate I might be quite good at my job. I already know that I have the communication skills to succeed, from previous work and volunteer experience. Now I’m building up the paper qualifications.<

My path is clearer and brighter. I can see ahead to a future that I might actually enjoy. There are people out there bucking the federal (ridiculous) requirements of NCLB, doing the kind of work that I dream teachers should do. Maybe I’ll be able to be that kind of inspiring teacher, too.

Bittersweet

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
~ Ben Sweetland

This time of year is bittersweet to me. My children are hard at work repacking their backpacks for school, making lists for the local office superstore, so we can make the last minute purchases necessary to start off the year properly.

My teenager needs pens, the middle child needs marbled composition books, and the youngest needs a new clipboard as hers cracked over the summer. I need binders. We need to reschedule beginning of the week trips to the grocery store for lunch materials. And this year, I’m in school myself, so the need for organization is even more paramount to our survival!

In the midst of the mad scramble to get ready, I wanted to take a few moments to mourn, and another few minutes to express gratitude to the universe for the gifts we have received. Three years ago, we were happily homeschooling. I miss those days. I miss the leisure to take our time on a project, I miss the slow-paced days, I miss the company of my girls. I’m mourning that time all over again, because I was able to be home with the girls for part of the summer, even though our time was disjointed because of visitation with their father and weekends away from them.

It was not all paradise, though, that precious time of homeschooling. I found myself unable to live an unfulfilled life any more. The girls alone weren’t able to enrich my life the way I needed, and my partner had quit interacting with all of us. I was incredibly, desperately lonely.

Opportunities presented themselves. An amazing charter school was ready to open at the same time as a full-time position in my chosen career opened. The girls were accepted at the charter school, I was offered the job, and our lives changed. We weren’t together all the time any more. That was sad, that was good. My girls were closer to friends, learned how to gain in peer leadership skills. They had fun at an experiential school that had them outside all kinds of weather, every day. My middle child discovered a passion for gardening!

I relearned how to live with passion and intensity. I remembered how much fun it was to be in engaged conversation with other passionate people who cared to make positive changes in the world. I threw myself into a rewarding career. Happier mommy meant happier children.

More changes – my partner sunk so far away from us that it was no longer tenable for me to live with him, so I made the decision to move out with the girls. We moved three miles from school, into our community. Then I lost my job, which required a career change because there were no open positions within commuting distance of our home. I gained an opportunity to go back to school for the classes necessary to get a teaching certificate in New Jersey.

It’s been a whirlwind of changes for the last year. It’s been frightening, joyous, overwhelming, ecstatic, sad, lonely, happy, amazing. My head still spins to think about what the girls and I have been through in the last year. We have survived, we will continue to survive, we will thrive in spite of the curve balls thrown to us. We are strong; we have deep strong roots from being able to count on each other. We are flexible, like the saplings, able to endure strong gales by bending with the winds of change that blow over us. We are alive; engaged with each other, engaged with the world, engaged with life, like the geese who now fly over us every day, headed bravely toward their goal, helping each other take turns at the lead, breaking the way for others who are tired, continuing on no matter what the weather.

So this day, the last before school starts, is bittersweet. Full of promise, full of sadness. We are excited for the new possibilities, mourning the older, more comfortable way. We are starting anew. We are ready!