For as long as I can remember, I have been internally bound by the "school" calendar. September brings with it a feeling of intense promise (even as here in the northern hemisphere things are clearly beginning to show signs of winding down for Winter) and June, well, June brings with it a sense of bittersweet. I loved school and the close of another year, another set of relationships with teacher and classmates, was sad. But, of course the stretching ahead of open days and nights...very sweet, as well.
When Gem was born in June, almost eleven years ago, this month took on a different quality. He was "due" in May, but decided to join us out here in June. Cap and I are both January babies and now here we had a Summer-cusp-ling. I still taste the bittersweet in the back corners of my brain chemistry, but it is all but swept away by the rush of celebration which now reigns supreme when it comes to June.
Two really great blog posts came across my virtual desk this morning, both worthy of sharing here.
The first is a must read for anyone who cares about someone living with autism, or more generally, about language and communication...truly and deeply. The author really nails the point, one I thought about a lot, passionately, when I was teaching. (And which applies in simply being human...all autism aside.)
The second one parsed the very important difference between "patience" (as in you must have so much patience to homeschool...or work with kids with autism come to think of it!) and "perspective". I can't tell you how many times I've heard that over the last two decades teaching and learning alongside children outside the box. (It actually started when I was 12 and began babysitting, something I really enjoyed and spent a lot of time doing until I left home for college.)
I internalized this belief, that I am patient/have a lot of patience, and through the personal work I have been doing around being ADDish in the last year or so, I have been deconstructing and dealing with some confusion. Because you see, I am not that patient. I love instant gratification. I don't like waiting. My mind had been sold a bill of goods to a certain extent, that I was patient and that being patient was "good" (patience of a saint). I wanted to be good, so "patient" I was.
But, my body was not so patient. So I have been living with this dichotomy. Not a big deal, we all do it, most of us have more than one going at any given time.
Living to be happy and healthy and peaceful means figuring these things out as we go along, to lighten the load so we have the most energy we can...to do the best we can in whatever we choose to do.
This blog post was an epiphany moment for me. It "got" me and helped me understand my own experience more clearly...succinctly. I am grateful.
I don't know if I will blog about Barcelona today...though pleasurable, it does take time away from daily living kind of stuff. And this post ended up waxing much longer than I thought. Wishing you a great start to a new month and eventual new season. Love and light.
2 comments:
One thing that I know for sure is that I am not patient. Oh, I can wait in a line at Whole Foods easily enough. But when it comes to things around the house I tend to want to do them right away or else they'll never get done. But this means I sometimes hurry through a project and do a mediocre job or gloss over an important detail or make a hasty decision. It's sometimes hard to find the balance between efficient and chill.
I, like you, am working on it.
...the balance between efficient and chill...I like that! In kind of a zen way, I am finding that the more chill I become, the more capable I am of efficiency...in my efficient moments...if that makes sense... Haha, my word verification word for this comments is "chills"!!
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