I enjoyed watching this moving documentary about a teenager who contacts her birth mother, the subsequent fallout on her and her family, and eventual outcome of her coming to terms with her situation. There are some really lovely strands about family which are brought to life through Avery's story.
The documentary was followed by a few StoryCorps shorts. This one, in particular, caught my attention.
A song from Floodplain by Kronos Quartet. Going up and down my iTunes dial searching for October sounds.
Deluge of rain for over 24 hours now, jolted from sleep around 4am by a particularly clamorous downpour. (The night before it was a single heart stopping explosive lightning strike around 3am.)
Woke up for good a few hours later, stressed. Some of the factors crystal clear, some less so. Talked to the guys and decided to send them off to Ocean City without me. Some family vacation.
It will be a weekend of much needed solitude. Some catching up of work, some Qigong/meditation, some release.
I ran out for some single gal provisions before they left with the car: root beer, spicy salmon and avocado sushi, Udi's GF pizza crusts and a bag of Daiya CF cheese, hummus, Udi's GF sandwich bread, coconut water and orange juice. Someone's thirsty.
The air is chilling down nicely and the sky is lightening though still cloudy. Looking forward to some uninterrupted sleep tonight.
Peace and love to you, hope you have a wonderful weekend.
The latest hate crime-related suicide of a gay teen reported by mass media hit close to home when a NJ native and Rutgers freshman leapt to his death from the George Washington Bridge last week.
Follow this link for some balm to help soothe our collective pain and to sip from a drink of hope.
Or simply watch this video clip (there's more info about the clip at the link):
Let go of a mess o' hair this morning. Decluttering the body. Presently ensnared in a tropical depression. If only that meant I was sad on a pretty beach.
I can't remember which movie taught me purpose
I can't remember which movie taught me pain
I would have been the one baptized in all your water
I would have been the one submerged under your reign
This is not how I want to be forgotten
This is not how I want to leave remains
I'll give you everything that you need
And if you want my blood, then let me bleed
If you want a ghost then that's what I'll be
Was it on Huron when the wind first changed direction
Was it on Franklin when I lost you on the street
All I remember was gray between the cables
The muted pavement could not give me two feet
I'll give you everything that you need
And if you want my blood, then let me bleed
And if you want a ghost then that's what I'll be
You already know what you don't even know
Read the cover, the flap, you just put it back
That's the price we pay for going in all the way
That's the price we pay for going in all the way
If you remain in me, I will remain in you
And if you stay with me, then I will stay with you
If you remain in me, I will remain in you
And if you stay with me, then I will stay with you
Feeling like a mote. Something so small as to be inconsequential being batted about by forces both big and small.
Absorbing the damp of yesterday to the point of a certain level of debilitation. Drying out this morning and soaking in actual sunlight and the figurative sun of girlfriends. Feeling the low pressure system approaching this afternoon nearly knocked flat by the weight bearing down on every horizontal plane of my body.
So sensitive.
From air to fire to water to earth.
Understanding that entropy rules matter but experiencing birth and opening and light over and over again.
Went today with Thing 2 and some homeschooling friends. We hit Infection Connection, Eat And Be Eaten, an exhibit about water, and a workshop about New Jersey Herps (amphibians and reptiles).
I finished the third book, Mockingjay, today. This was an intensely satisfying trilogy of books. Five stars! Definitely holding onto them for the kids for when they're older.
The kids both have colds. I can still hear them sniffling and snuffling from their room.
After his nightly back and leg rub, Gem was climbing into his bunk and asked for the lemongrass oil.
I gave each kid a cotton pad with a few drops of the 100% essential oil on it. They inhaled the wonderful aroma (lemongrass oil opens up stuffed nasal passageways like nobody's business).
Then I remembered the diffuser, bought in Sacramento, and recently unearthed from a blanket of dust during a recent 'chore time'. I brought it into the kids' room and lit it for the first time in years.
I guess I need to bone up on how to use it because the drops of oil I placed in the bowl were burning off within minutes. Now I have the fan and air purifier going in there...
We switched pools/swimming programs and so far, it's going, wait for it, swimmingly.
The pool at the Uni is one year old and it shows. On the drive up this morning, the kids were most excited to go into the palatial and luxe locker room again. (According to Sag it's bigger than our whole apartment.)
I had a prime seat from which to watch and take my snapshots, and also, read a couple chapters of Catching Fire.
A nice way to ease into a day preceded by an enervating night (toss, turn, repeat). Chocolate cake is on my agenda for the rest of the day, among other things :-)
Being a bit under the weather has set up a perfect storm. I'm 500+ pages into The Passage. Nonplussed (but determined) for the first 200-250 pages, I am sucked into the vortex now.
He has been anxious when it's time to turn off the lights, beset with 'bad thoughts', for a couple of months. (I have a feeling that this is a result of the insecurity that often comes right before a developmental spurt. He turns 9 in November and there are changes afoot...you may have noticed that he even looks different these days in that b/w pic I posted earlier this week.)
A few weeks ago, Gem started to tell Sag stories to help distract and calm him. They are now in a lovely groove, one which they both look forward to. After they put their books away and the lights are turned down low and lavender oil is dropped onto their pillows and I tuck them and their creatures in with blessings and leave the room...
I hear the song of one son soothing the other. Words spinning tales of adventure and fun and mishap, of truth in imagination. Hushed tones to trilling laughter back to hushed tones again.
I wish I could take a picture, but of course, I can't. This evensong is theirs alone.
...of excitement. And literary bloodlust. The Passage is waiting for me at the library!
After a sunny late September afternoon of dropping Cap and the kids off at the art museum (the kids' 2D animation class starts today) and picking up veggies, fruit, chicken, eggs and raw cheese at Donna's, I will head over to the library, grab my books, and settle in for some reading tonight.
I did say books. When it rains it pours, these two books are waiting for me, as well.
Nerve endings quivering feeling simultaneous love and loss.
Every thing a whorl.
P.S. Practiced Qigong for the first time in a long time this morning and it has been a marvelous day. Methinks this late afternoon dip would be remedied with a bit of chocolate. Alas, there is none on hand.
Walked around Barbour's Pond with the usual crew to mark the Fall Equinox (a few days early). It was our first morning hike to mark the seasonal occasion and the light was quite different. We were happy to see our feathered friend, Broken Wing, who we don't always catch a glimpse of.
The brother of the child who usually pokes me before climbing into bed was the one who gently poked me this morning. He needed help. The husband moved so I hoped he would get up. He didn't. I am the one blessed/cursed with the ability to pop wide awake. At any hour.
So I got out of bed and helped my child. And he felt better for it. That made it worth any lost sleep right there. It took awhile to take care of everything and then settle back into bed. It was dark, but peaceful. And the clock had said 5:30 when I caught a glimpse of it.
Soon, the usual bed joiner crashed through the living room. I remembered seeing a large light saber box in a bad location and cursed my not-awake-enough self that noticed but let it be. He snuggled into bed, I rubbed his bumped knee, and my body was warmed by a child on either side.
I couldn't fall back asleep, so I got up thinking it was close to 6:00 by then.
Came out to the front room, turned on the computer. Saw that it was 5:17. ?!?
Being up since 4:30 always makes for an interesting day. I should make every effort not to operate heavy machinery after 4pm or so.
Why why why at 44 do I still not get it. (Not that it really matters I guess?)
Last night while the kids were playing with L&O and then settling down for the season premiere of Star Wars The Clone Wars at 9pm, I was at the computer, feeling more tired by the second. I was positng pictures from the aquarium. I was vaguely dissatisfied, physically out of sorts. I remembered the chocolate bar I had picked up at Whole Foods (where we picked up some dinner items since our original plans to have sushi in Philly fizzled out).
It was a dark chocolate with coconut bar. In the car, Gem had declared it too laden with coconut. Sag didn't like it either. I felt it was too sweet. But, I had hated the feeling I had gotten standing in front of the chocolate bar display. They didn't have my go to Divine. Nothing else looked reliably good. I was becoming disgusted at my American self standing in the pinnacle of American consumerist supermarkets unable to decide which chocolate bar I wanted and not wanting any of the hundreds at my disposal.
I almost walked away, so great was my anomie. But, then I spotted the coconut, which sounded interesting and I grabbed it.
Fast forward back to 9pm. I plucked the bar from my purse and proceeded to eat the whole bar. Part of me was prodding my brain with a finger going 'really? really?!' But, most of me was in a daze. A daze with some purpose. Must. Have. Chocolate.
I hit the point of crumpling shortly thereafter and walked to my bed and lay down on top of the covers. I just had to close my eyes. I was so sleepy. Normally, when the kids are up, and especially if they have friends over, it would never occur to me to lie down.
Cap was working in the bedroom, half of which is his home office. He bore witness. He saw something I was too hazy to see and told me I should just go to bed. In the recesses of my mind, behind closed eyes, I muttered 'don't tell me what to do', clearly unclear on my situation. And a crank, on top of that. He gathered his things, turned out the light and left me alone.
I got up briefly to brush my teeth, but then fell right asleep.
So does everyone else see what I didn't? I woke up this morning and my period had arrived.
You know, it's actually kind of interesting. I am definitely in the autumn of my menstrual career and things are changing. PMS used to be distinctly recognizable and it no longer is. Now signs of my approaching period (my body being fed a particular chemical/hormonal cocktail) include what were signs of pregnancy (ie. the supra sleepiness). An opportunity to take a trip down memory lane before it all goes away?
I'm in awe, really. Do men get to be so entertained by their body systems?
Right before I woke up, I dreamt I was in a marketplace. My friend Kelly was in one of the stall shops selling bunches of white cyclamen. The flowers were a bit fuller than cyclamen actually are in real life. They resembled the thickness of a tulip. The stems were long and leafless and they were cut.
The flowers were beautiful and plentiful. I would be taking some home.
The European-feeling market was on Austin Street, the street that had all the shops on it in my old neighborhood. In real life, the area was struck by a tornado a couple of days ago. One person was killed, my brother says it was a miracle that more people weren't. A friend from Hunter posted on Facebook that her parents, her mother specifically, had a very close call. Another friend from Hunter posted a photo of a downed very old, very big willow tree in the front yard of the apartment building of yet another Hunter friend whose mother still lives in the building. My sister and brother-in-law's parked car, which was empty at the time, sustained a shattered windshield and dented hood from a very large falling branch.
I don't 'do' mainstream media for the most part. I never watch the news on tv. So I have been sheltered from the clamor of images and sound bites. But, clearly, Forest Hills is in my thoughts.
Two interesting dream details:
• I walked by quite a bit of food in the market and though it all looked delicious, I didn't eat anything. The flowers felt like my destination.
• I started my journey in the lobby of an apartment building which was a combination/permutation of the lobbies of my sister and brother's apartment buildings. (Both live in the old neighborhood an easy walk to the location of the marketplace.) As I walked through, I saw another friend from Hunter, but one who has no connection to the old neighborhood that I know of. This friend was seated at a large dark wood table (my sister's lobby features a lot of dark old wood...it's a beautiful old building). We both glanced at each other and I left.
If you haven't read this book, read it. It is very, very good. Truly a nearly perfect book. It's one of those books that as you're reading it, you think, how has this book never been written before? It seems so natural, so real, so familiar, so of life.
If you have read this book and didn't think it was the bee's knees, I would love to hear your perspective.
Now, I have been working hard to curb my buying of books for personal pleasure. But, last month, I succumbed. The combination of my deep desire to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, my impatience in the face of a god-knows-how-long wait for the book from the library and Amazon's deep discounts proved too hard to ignore.
Because I hate paying for shipping, I also tacked on The Hunger Games and Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird to my order.
It took me awhile to get around to reading The Hunger Games, but once I did, I was riveted. A few chapters in, I requested the second and third books through the library and was promptly put on the waiting lists for them.
I finished the book yesterday. Today, we got back from our day out much earlier than expected. I thought I'd run up to my indie bookstore to pick up the second book if they had it. I called and was dismayed to hear that the second book is not out in paperback ('because they can' the bookseller said).
When I ordered the first book from Amazon (for $9) I thought it was a hardcover remainder. So when I heard that my love of a bookstore had the second book for $18, my heart sank. I just couldn't do it. The bookseller on the other end of the line understood. This part of the exchange was unspoken. How often this must come up for them, I can well imagine.
I hopped online and ordered the second and third books from Amazon for 50% off cover. That's how much I loved the first book. I cannot wait to find out what happens next to these characters and this society.
Adventure Aquarium in Camden. It was wonderfully uncrowded. Philly is right across the Delaware River. We had planned to head to Philly for an early sushi dinner, but we were done with the aquarium by 2pm so opted to head back.
It's nice to have some unexpected time at home. Cap's prepping tomorrow's class and we're hoping we may be able to watch a movie together tonight. The kids are chilling. I decided to make a move regarding the latest book I read and loved. Which you can read all about in my next post :-)
He understands that each item has its place and has only needed to hear once where those spots are. (As if the organizational design makes total sense.) He is persnickety about any moisture, stains, and 'crust'. He works quietly, thoughtfully and at his own pace.
(He doesn't earn money for all the work he does around home, but for this new job he is receiving 75¢ per unloading. He's saving up for something and asked for a way to earn some scratch.)
Again, of course, the choppy waves and red tornado clouds have passed. I'm tired...no longer rocked with stormy, sad emotion.
Enjoying the sunlight slanting warmth onto my fingers as I type.
Enjoying my lovely blue cast iron dutch oven full of chili on the stove. The chain of events: chopping, sauteing and adding onion, garlic, carrots, green-purple peppers (all from the farm) to ground turkey well-seasoned with salt, freshly ground black pepper, cumin and chili powder and then stirring in a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans and then pouring in two big cans of crushed tomatoes (one organic, one local)...aromatic, meditative, therapeutic. Slow cooking the chili for the next few hours and then letting it season overnight for common meal tomorrow.
Enjoying listening to the silence and din of the kids with O. Deep play with great friends usually involves both.
Enjoying the book I started this morning during DEAR (Drop Everything And Read): The Hunger Games.
Enjoying this picture. The kids and I washed the kitchen floor today.
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