When a door closes and a window opens

I've decided to draw this blog to a close and start a new one.  I haven't decided whether to change the name of the blog, or not, but the address will change.  This blog, at this web location, will be set to private rather than deleted.  If you want to be able to access it, you will have to do an extra step of login in order to see it.  I will also need to add the email addy you have associated with Google/Blogger to my list of members who can access the blog.  I will not be adding any posts to this blog after the "end date" which will be determined later.

Once the new blog gets going, I will let you know here.  The new blog will be public.  The new blog will not have identifying photos of the kids.  It will likely have much less detail about them, as well.  I'm not sure where or how I will share news of them and those irresistible "precious moments"...maybe Facebook, maybe Instagram, maybe a "family and friends" email newsletter (haha do not hold your breath on that one)...that aspect of things is not fleshed out...at all.

In addition to detaching my blogging from the kids to give them not only the privacy they are due, but also experiment with designing a more personal/individual space for me, I am looking to flex some old/new muscles of self-expression through the written word and the photo lens.  Less catching up and updating...more thought to creative and mindful sharing.  Less blip, more ripple.

There are some upcoming days (winter solstice, the new year, my birthday) that feel auspicious for launching a new venture...but knowing me, I may just start when the mood strikes.  Stay tuned.

Peace and love.

P.S.  I have learned, scouring my photo library of the last year, that I do not take photos of doors.

Themes

rhythm.

Every November, for a number of Novembers now, I feel a spark and a twinge when I am reminded of NaNoWriMo.  I think, how cool would that be, to write a novel?  Or a solid first draft of one?  And then I quickly dismiss the idea because how dare I disrespect the art form by even dreaming I could do something like that?  I am hardly a writer.

Today, a blogger I follow posted saying she will post daily for the month of November (unrelated to NaNoWriMo).  And I whispered-thought, hey, that, I can do.

Going to the farmer's market with Kelly on Saturday mornings has become a lovely routine.  The company of a good friend, being a step closer to the rhythm of the season, the genial contact with local farmers, fish mongers and culinary artisans...it all fills me with anticipation and gratitude.

This morning I picked up cider from a local orchard (where we get our weekly fruit share from) and eggs and ground sirloin from Anthony.

moments.

The berries were red and because of the cloudy light, had a wonderful matte quality to them.  I couldn't angle my shot properly to catch the color, but liked the silhouette well enough to appreciate the image for itself.

flow.

Something clicked for Gem this afternoon and he worked on some comics with an unusual fervor.  We talked about how cool it is to feel and be one with that flow.

arts.

I read Marbles today.  It was an incisive and funny memoir chronicling a journey from diagnosis to successful treatment (after four+ years!) of bipolar disorder.  It had a lot of heart and I am glad I read it.  It was featured in this piece highlighting graphic novels by women that Sherman Alexie turned me onto via his blog.

I have been enjoying American Horror Story: Coven in its many aspects, and, as a whole.  I am a sucker for wonderfully utilized music and have been riveted by their application of Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie Nicks, in particular, for Misty's storyline.

Peace and love.

Glasses gone wrong

Here I am.  Sleepless.  My consolation is that I am not stressed about not sleeping.  I wish I had slept, but it was not in the cards.  Once I realized it was starting to get light out about twenty minutes ago, I knew there was no use staying in bed.  The only times I can sleep in natural light are when I am very sick or just a bit pregnant.

I realized, also, that with Gem asleep, I would have my laptop uninterrupted.  He has been using it more and more, it feels like.  So I got up.

I recently learned that the lenses in my new glasses, which I'd been wearing for over a month, were incorrectly made.  Not enough as to be glaringly obvious...which is why I spent weeks and then some more weeks wondering why my upper back and neck were SO tight without concomitant stressors and why I was starting to experience headaches (unusual for me)...and why I was finding that I could not read things close up and generally feeling eye strain/fatigue (particularly when reading on my phone screen...which I have doing much more of because my laptop has been occupied by another).

Because the onset of my body's messages of protest was gradual, it took me awhile to figure out the problem might be my eyes (it did not occur to me that it might be the glasses...luckily, I brought my old pair with me in the event that, crazily, my prescription had changed in the month-plus since my last eye exam and I would need to temporarily part with the new glasses).

I mention this because I had noticed, and been feeling bad about, the persistent lack of pleasure reading/writing in my life the past few months.  I do believe this is one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, my blogging has come to nearly a standstill.  It is a relief to have the smoke clear...metaphorically...my revamped spectacles are due back to me sometime this week.  Time will tell whether and how much my newly-able-to-focus eyes will guide me back to reading and writing.

This integrates a whole new awareness and understanding of learning issues/disabilities into me, physically and mentally.  It took a long time for me, an adult who once made her living working with kids with learning issues, to put two and two together.  I can't imagine a kid, or an adult who has never known themselves to be otherwise when it comes to reading and writing, would be able to easily articulate the connection between the complex physical realities and manifestations of deficit (eyes/brain/body) with what may not even feel like unmet potential...

And pretty much on cue, my eyes are straining...my shoulders are tight, and I am going to sign off.  My dreams of luxurious uninterrupted writing time, dashed.  The light outside just seemed to intensify...as if to make it clear there will be no sleep for me tonight.  It being nearly six a.m. and all.

Peace and love.  (Speaking of love, I LOVED Call The Midwife!)

From the reader

Some good stuff... here and here and here.  (On writing, a recipe and on politics/the storm, respectively.)

Peace and love.

Upon pages

The kids and I have started a new blog.  It is called Upon Pages (named by Sag aka cuteshark, inspired by the song below) and will document our reads over the next academic year.  You can check it out here.  (They love comments!)

Whole30 food : 25

"Don't let go, don't let go..."

Love when music provides just the right inspiration/directive.

Because I am in a mood and just about ready to be done.  Yet, typing "25" just shone a splash of comfort: blog as lighthouse...writing the process of moving on.  Even if only by a smidge.

Slept more and better than the deprived night before, but still tired.  Unfortunately, I am waking into a foul mood.

Not wanting to cook ---> wanting to eat out/get take-out ---> remembering eat out/take-out options for us are extremely limited (not to mention rough on the wallet) ---> realizing I don't really want to eat out/get take-out anyway ---> diving into the "go to" food du jour (ruing the lack of variety till I sink into satiation).

Grass-fed rib-eye steaks have been one of my "go to" proteins.  Seasoned with salt, pepper and granulated garlic, seared for four minutes on each side, rested for five minutes, done.  And delicious.

Peace and love.

Didion

I am reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

I am in day 2 post-gluten gluttony.  Staying still, wondering when I will learn.

I am in a Lula bind.  Her charger has abruptly stopped working.  Cap is too preoccupied with massive grading to shoot me her registration number via e-mail.  (This I understand and there is no resentment.) She also seems to be losing her charge too quickly.  This is all to say that she has been off, mostly, and I don't want to use the desktop, so I am relatively cyber-quiet at the moment.  (I've been using Cap's charger, when I can, to keep her juice up.)

Anyway, back to Didion.

Page 77:

"I had never before had the patience to work crossword puzzles, but now imagined that the practice would encourage a return to constructive cognitive engagement."  (Emphasis mine.)

Constructive cognitive engagement.  That's what I'm thinking about.

This is an interesting book.  The subject matter is tough.  But her voice is clear and her art is beautiful.

Fallow february

This piece by Ayelet Waldman in the NYT comes at a good time for me.  Or a bad time.  (smile)

Since Saturday I have been very quiet.  I've had virus-y symptoms varied and, for the most part, mild.  (The kids, too.)  We were exposed to a nasty bug last week.

Time will tell as it marches on what this fallow time represents.

It has been on my mind that I am at another plateau. Brain chemistry-wise, the flatness of plateaus do not work for me.  I get bored, I get restless.  This NYT piece recently struck a chord.

I feel deflated in moments.  And it could be any, all or some combination of the below (for bonus points the combinations and durations of combinations could be variable from hour to hour!):

• immune system low

• SAD (seasonal affective disorder)

• hormonal/menstrual/mood cycle disorder

• plateau of sugar- and grain-free process

The thing to do is to keep moving.  The whys are not that important to me.  Articles like Waldman's are good because they serve to open my eyes and mind...and my heart.  I feel less alone because I read her piece.  Less of a freak show and more of the flow.

The bad of reading articles like hers is less bad these days.  For a long time, I had a tendency to glom onto new ideas and make them a part of me, quickly and deeply.  (The novelty thing, see second link.)  This morning, though I could relate to specific experiences she mentioned in her piece, I knew, deep down, that I don't have bipolar.

But, I can easily place myself on the bipolar spectrum.  My genetic family tree lights up with addiction spots not too far removed from where I sit (one of my grandparents was likely an alcoholic).  So it was interesting to read about Bipolar II.  I'd never heard of that before.

The thing about "just keep moving" is that it is hard to do in a month like February.  For all the light I felt during January and this mild Winter, February is finding me, so far, entrenched like so many Februarys past.

I am tired.  I am not sleeping well.  I am not getting outside.  It's like I'm hibernating, but I'm not.  Because it's not that restful...yet it does feel essential.

Peace.

An alex chee essay

I just love how his writing.  You can read Annie Dillard and The Writing Life here.

Good morning!

On inspiration

Okay, so this morning, clearly, I am filling in the void that Google Reader "Sharing" has left behind.  Bits and blurbs from the internets delivered right to the blog.  Through my manatee filter.

I love Alex Chee's writing.  He went to our university, but neither of us knew him very well.  Edinburgh is a beautiful and haunting read.  I am eagerly awaiting his next novel.  In the meantime, I enjoy his musings and essays on his blog.

Enjoy this one, on inspiration, writing, talent and stamina.

I ♥ FNL

I plowed through the episodes and have finished watching Friday Night Lights, the tv series.  I highly recommend it.  It's right up there with my favorite series of years past.  I am sad it's over, but really happy for all involved that they got to finish the series as they wanted.

There's no single photo or video clip that can encapsulate the show or how I feel about it.  If you haven't seen it, do! (Here's a more detailed review than mine :-)

Melange

We laughed, we cried, we were impressed, we gnashed teeth...it was time, for thank you cards.

I was stunned to see the change that has occurred in Gem's handwriting.  It's a gift to see efforts pay off!  When I commented, he said, "D'Nealian has become a reflex...I blame you."

He's smiling here, but he was begging for me to decrease my demand of getting half the cards done today.  Eventually, he shed some tears of frustration as I made the rare move of not budging.  (I have my own issues with thank you cards, as in, I rarely send them because my attention wavers once I "let them go" for too long.  Gem's cards from last year's birthday are in a bag somewhere, a pile of "things to get to" shoved in a bag during a "clean up".  He had written them, I just never got to getting stamps and then sending them out.  This may be "lame" to you, but it's the life of a someone with ADD...)

In between tears, and with reminders to sit flat on his bottom and lift his head off the table, here he is writing.  The content of his cards, though simple, had a straightforward, emotional quality to them that I enjoyed reading.

My coffee, with caffeine, sugar and coconut creamer, helped me stay clear.

My lunch, seaweed soup with rice (miso soup with rice is one the most comforting foods I know), will help power me through the rest of the day.  Here's something else that will put me outside the box for many: I am trying to gently extricate myself from attending the boys' first playoff baseball game tonight.  Believe me, I hear the "bad mother" voices...but if Gem becomes okay with it (Sag is fine with it...Gem is fairly convinced that it would give them good luck for me to be there), I am staying home...my system needs some inside-quiet-alone time.

Big love

Big Love came to a close on Sunday night.  In a highly satisfying and pretty darn brilliant way, if you ask me.

I started watching it on Netflix discs when I lived in Sacramento.  We've begun paying for cable tv for the first time here in NJ and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching my HBO shows in real time.

The writing and acting on this show are solid with flashes of brilliance. I'll miss you Henricksons!

Tinkers

Mary handed down this slim volume with the appealing cover the night before I boarded my flight back home from Cali. I managed to read a few pages here and there since then, but delved into it a bit more this afternoon as I sat and DEARed with the kids (Drop Everything And Read).

(Yes, sometimes it takes the intention of instilling the life of my children with some goodness to create the opportunity for that same goodness to bloom in my own life.)

The book has an interesting back story of its own which you can read about here (the first novel from a small publisher to win the Pulitzer in 30 years, the author a first-time author to boot).

There is some breath taking prose in this book.  It is meditative and beautiful.

What are you reading these days?

Books and thinkings

The Nellie Oleson book (Confessions of a Prairie Bitch) was good.  If you are/were a Little House fan I highly recommend it.  She dishes on working on the show with love, wit and clarity.

I started Married To Distraction yesterday and finished it today.  I thought it started strong but ended...not with a whimper, but it kind of faded into ideas that didn't resonate with me (most significantly "God" was suddenly thrown into the mix).

The premise that the reason so many marriages/long term coupledom suffer these days is due to lack of attention (which the book defines as prevalent way above and beyond an actual ADD diagnosis) makes sense.  Figuring out ways to assign/apply judgment-free constructs of how/who we are as individuals, alone and in relationship, as well as, specific to various situations, seems like a good idea...but a bit cumbersome.

The authors (a married couple one of whom has ADD) include a "workbook" at the end, 30 exercises in 30 days, designed to assist couples to reconnect.  The point being that if you practice giving each other attention, empathy, understanding and play every day, or often enough, that there's no way two people committed to a lasting relationship, who once loved each other crazily, won't recapture what seems lost.

I finished the book feeling it lacked a distinct feeling of nuance/depth.

I'll be interested to get through some of the ADD books I have that I haven't finished or started (I know, go ahead and chuckle).  Because reading this book made me feel less ADDish rather than more.

Onto my thinkings:

I am feeling slightly beached.  Like I'm out of flow.  When I pull back as far as I can, I see that this is most likely due to not receiving Vinny treatments for going on two months now.  Going from weekly treatments for two years to zero for two months is taking its toll.  Not to mention the silent twilight of my emotions around him which cannot even begin to touch the reality that he was so sick he almost died.

There are times that I feel less artful blogging here and now is one of those times.  My sense of creativity is way dialed down and I find myself boring even myself.  So why do I keep at it?  Times like this the balance certainly feels like it tips into the zone of non-productive time online.

Something is holding me back from taking a break, though.  I am tossing aside the tiny sandbags of worry over my "lack of discipline" (I am a disciple to no one/thing).  I am instead focusing on a shimmer I feel on the horizon.  Sometimes there's a lull and you just have to wait it out.  Being grounded can feel so reassuring at times and like a burden at others.

I lie prostrate weighted with possibility.  Waiting for the moment when my heart will signal my head to lift my body and continue on the path lit by my soul.

The little things

Pokemon is still going strong here. The kids have been drawing/making their own Pokemon cards (they buy cards, as well).

He's reading about World Cup soccer during a D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) time. Sag has been reading Captain Underpants books lately and I recently started Children of God (the sequel to The Sparrow).

I am so pleased that Apollo hasn't expired during his stay with us. I cleaned his tank the other night and he is invigorated.

These are the lists the kids made for today. Notice the joker who wrote "today's date" at the top of his paper.

It's been a quiet and busy day. A pleasant hum of activity has been our background music. Sag has a sore throat I'm keeping my eye on, I'm knitting Felicity every chance I get, I'm fiddling with poetic words and phrases, and realizing that I don't have an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to watch tonight. That's okay, I have last night's Louie to carry me over.

I may be an ADDish Renaissance woman, but I'm feeling the energy of coming into my own as a Renaissance woman and am digging it.

I am

...subdued.

An intense period (mercifully short) knocked me down Friday and Saturday. Mother's Day yesterday was mellow and pleasant.

This morning...

Same old shit sounds more negative than I feel, but it kinda feels that way...(the same old shit part, not the negative part...)

It's a spiral, which is what I always contend. Looping curves which move forward, up or down, inward or outward...always onward, never closing.

So, yes, I am in process (seemingly in forever loops) with sleep, Qigong, food, homeschooling, decluttering/organizing, being.

Yes, being.

Here's a quote from D.A.R.E. an essay by Michael Chabon. He's talking about marijuana, but these words have struck a chord within me (who has not smoked pot since sometime during college).

"...could intensify the sunshine of a perfect summer day, but it could also deepen the gloom of a wintry afternoon; it had bred false camaraderies and drawn my attention to deep flaws and fault lines when what mattered---what matters so often in the course of everyday human life---were the surfaces and joins."

At the crux of my striving for balance lies this choice...of the surfaces and joins over the extremes both high and low. I am realizing and recognizing that my brain appears neurobiologically predisposed to tipping towards the highs and lows. That is where I feel most alive and most whole.

(Enough so that I've possibly been overcompensating for it in some ways, but not enough so that I've begun self-medicating or am unable to function in the world.)

So I turn my attention, in a more conscious way, to the surfaces and joins. Words can be such a catalyst...I am so grateful for writers for that.

Manatee musing 2.0

I'm feeling glacial.  Rattling cracking accompanies the labor of an elemental water cycle .  Beyond my sight, way under and below, the earth is razed and reshaped.  Outside of me, the northern world rushes into contraction as the light and dark hew to the rhythm of the approaching Winter Solstice.  But inside, even as the gravity of the most dark pulls me at my roots, I can feel it: the path of Infinity shifting from concave to convex again.

Change is in my air.  In my hair.  In my lair.

I know what some of the changes will be, some are still a mystery.  Bear with me (or not) as what you see here reveals itself as altered or familiar.

There will be a new blog dedicated to documenting our homeschooling.  I am envisioning a space where Cap and the kids might join me in co-authorship.  It may require Blogger membership/be invitation-only.  That is to be determined.

This blog will remain as is.  For now, I will keep the "original" content (the posts that have come before).  But, from here on in it will be make-no-mistake-about-it me-centric.

Recently, I've come to realize that my blog has grown itself to be a new organ within me.  It processes information and emotion, it clarifies my blood and air, it beats and pumps and moves living material through me, keeping me warm.  And healthy.  And happy.

If you know me at all, you know that I am open.  This is an essential part of who I am and how I am.  As I continue my trip of self-reflection/-realization/-actualization (and it is a trip), I want my blog to continue to be the extension of my intuitive and un-self-conscious self that it has become... 

Writing (and taking pictures) my way is a critical tool of communication and understanding for me.  Sharing that with readers (kindred spirits and curious onlookers, alike), well, that's one of the things that makes life what it is for me.

How does one keep from “growing old inside”? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are dispensable.
-Robert McAfee Brown

But, this isn't every person's cup of tea. 

So, I am decluttering and streamlining.  Come here for me.  For homeschooling/home life stuff, go to the other blog.  Nothing is up there yet, but if you want to get it into your feeds, you can find it here: Every Day Eclectic.

Thank you for reading.  For opening your heart and mind to me and welcoming me in.  Peace and love to you.

Love it or love it

If you haven't seen The Wire, SEE IT. Really.

You never know

When Gem was born, I dove into motherhood like gangbusters. We waited five years, but in my way, I had been waiting most of my life for him. I was in labor for a week, he made his entrance nearly two weeks past his due date, and delivery was arduous and tricky (there is a great story that has become part of the "Delivery" segment of this experience...but that is for another time.)

Shortly after he was born (I had enough time to gaze upon his paleness and note that his skin tone came from his father), he was whisked away. Meconium in the amniotic fluid, needed a boost of O2, I sent Cap to watch over him...I needed some tending to myself.

The members of the Special Care unit that Gem was placed in (5 day course of antibiotics, standard protocol for possible meconium ingestion) were responsive to and supportive of my efforts to breastfeed Gem. We were able to nurse, they stopped giving him formula immediately, and when they urged me to get more rest (I was anemic), I pumped and Cap fed him, or, one of the nurses would give him the middle-of-the-night bottle of mama's milk.

Five days later we were home and the unexpected drama faded fast. Gem drank like a champ, started growing rolls of flesh, and I was in heaven.

But, within three months we were sitting with him in Children's Hospital in Boston. He'd been having bloody stools for a few weeks. I'd eliminated most foods from my diet, one by one, to try to figure out what I might be consuming that his little digestive system could not tolerate. No luck, still bleeding. I knew what was coming and was desperate to avoid it.

Gem and I stopped nursing when he was four and a half months old. Emotionally, it was really hard and still brings tears to my eyes. Though the tears nowadays are for a new mother who didn't realize what was opening up when closing the door to breastfeeding.

I came across this photo of Gem and me last night. I was moved by his posture. How he is tucked right into me, his fingers rubbing my ear. He is about two and a half. I was also struck by the picture-speaks-a-thousand-words-ness of the moment. If you feed and nurture a child, no matter what the particular delivery system might be, or the chemical make-up of said sustenance, there will be a powerful connection between you while you "nurse".

Gem and I look no less a mama and her nursling in this picture than Sag and I do in pictures of us nursing. (He nursed till he was three years old so I did get extended nursing time in with one of my kids...there are some stories there too.)

Speaking of Sag, he may not have made it to this world had I not stopped breastfeeding Gem as early as I did. It has occurred to me, often, that if we had ever gotten to a point of "planning" for a second child, that we never would have found the "right" time (always a number of rational reasons to wait.) The Universe saw the small window of opportunity and tossed Sag our way.

You never know.