Ignorance is Bliss

This too shall pass. That has to be my mantra.

Adolescence is rearing it's obstinate head, in stereo, in my home. At times it seems a battle to the death is our only option. It is so difficult to remain the adult amid the hailstorm. Yet I know that there is hope, as I have survived this once before. Somehow, 13 stormed through and the delightful 17 year old who now resides where I live makes me forget that war zone. Could it be that this is another "childbirth" experience?

You remember, or do you, the day your darling was born? Both the birth days of my daughters are shrouded in fog. There are fragments of the day, waffles for breakfast, walking hospital hallways, a dark quiet room, a brightly lit OR, I think there was some pushing... Then all is clear again a tiny kitten cry and a baby whisked to intensive care, or second time around two babies to hold and nurse and snuggle until they insisted I move to another room. The moments most available for recall all have babies outside of me.

This must be a protection device to insure the survival of our species, the entire childbirth experience is almost forgotten as you hold your new born. This insures we will do it all again. I am beginning to believe that surviving the rearing of offspring through puberty is a similar experience. Of course you have had years to bond with the child, this too helps in their ultimate survival, but if one truly remembered it all I am not sure you would keep future children. Your own need for preservation would force you to sell to the first interested buyer, and may be even be willing to offer monies to cart them away. As a group we might have even come up with institutions to house the unruly lot and let them take on each other instead of keeping them individually.

But nature sees fit to protect us, and when my 17 year old apologized for past sins as a 13 year old I struggled to remember anything that merited an apology or forgiveness. My brain has tucked those memories into corners so obscure that they fail to register. Just like my first airplane ride. I remember being so excited at 16 I was flying to Washington DC with my youth group for a national convention, and chatting with my dad and mentioned it was my first flight. "No it isn't" he said.
Yes it is, I've never flown before," I responded.
"Don't you remember flying home from grandpa's funeral? You were 9 or so..." He went on to explain it was a very rough flight we apparently flew through a tornado on the way home.

Now I have total recall of the events leading up to said flight. My grandfather had a heart attack and died while visiting my family in Oklahoma, their home was in Minnesota. So my father, brother, grandmother, and I all traveled together by car back to Minnesota for the funeral. I even remember the funeral procession to the burial and playing with all the buttons in the back of the limousine. Thinking about it, I realized that we had driven my grandparent's car on that road trip and had to have gotten home somehow, but try as I might there are no available memories. No airport, no flight, no nothing. According to my father it was one of the worst flights he ever experienced, my brother was sick for most of the trip. The old brain pulls a fast one hiding all.

Good thing for the 13 year olds.

Tomorrow is the triathlon, a second annual for the family. Only two participants this year as last year and daddy is very excited. He gets a little goofy when he is excited. It is fun to watch. There is clearly joy in his heart when people he cares about do absurd athletic events with him. Years ago I watched the same thing happen when I started doing weekend distance rides on my bike. These events didn't even require we ride together. I would do 33 miles and he would do 50, we started the route together and at some point the real distance riders veered off, we would part and would have to search each other out at the end of the ride. The first time I completed a 33 mile route and we reconnected by the car, it was like having a friendly puppy at your heels, bumping, nipping, playful and no matter how annoying you would still find yourself smiling at the antics. Tennis too brought on some of this euphoria, a silly giddiness, that prompted sweaty kisses as we switched ends of the court. It is not just doing things together, but they must involve athletics.

A week ago my eldest said "Daddy is really excited about the triathlon." I try not to "Duh" my daughters but was sorely tempted in this case. "Yes," I said. "he really enjoys doing these kinds of activities with family."
"No," she said. "You don't understand, he is really excited and acting kinda goofy."
"Yes, he is, just get use to it, it is part of something bigger than both of us so just enjoy"

My children are driving me nuts, "Has the cast list come out yet?" a question posed at least daily, and sometimes thrice daily, and I have absolutely no control over said cast list. So why do they continue to ask me? "Because she sends it to your e-mail." is the regular answer to that question but one would think that they would realize I gain nothing from hiding the release of the cast list and would not do this, so they will know as soon as I know, unless they are not home. Then it is possible I would momentarily forget to pass along this precious knowledge but it would not be for more than an hour or two.

Why the anxiety? I don't know I have children that must worry about something, this is foreign to me, I can enjoy life and exist for days in a bliss filled state of happiness actually pushing worry out of the way on purpose. But my daughters cannot, the seem to need to fret all the time. Even when things are going remarkably well, they will actually seek out things to worry over. Like after a beautiful day at the beach with friends, one of the girls corners me and asks to talk, this is code for I am worried about something and need to discuss it. Some minor event during our time at the beach will be front and center taking the polish off the day. I try. I try to remind that this isn't really all that important and didn't you really have a good time today? But it is as futile as shoveling during a blizzard, we must moan, and whine, and rehash the slights, and wounds, and mishaps or my day would not be complete.

This is not something I will ever miss.

A Letter to My Daughter

Dearest,

You ask me so often WHY I love you and I feel so helpless in trying to express how much you mean to me and to my life. I know you will never understand fully unless you have a child of your own, but it is Kenyon times 1000. I wish I could wave a magic wand and it would let you feel even for a moment the depth of my love for you so you would no longer need to ask, you would just know.

We have watched you grow from the earliest days there are photos and journals that recorded the minutia. Daddy secretly called the hospital to get the test results and knew you were on the way before even I did, and he got to tell me and we both cried. That was one of the first happiest days of my life. Eight months later was another, you came into the world backwards, and blue and were whisked away before I even got a look. We held our breaths until we heard this little cry and thought then we couldn’t possibly love you more than at that moment, but we do because it keeps growing.

Each day provides opportunity for parental bonds to get stronger, to get to know this “person becoming” who now shares your life. And what a person you have become. More than I could have imagined, as a parent you would like to take credit for all the wonderful, but mostly it’s just you. We are so proud of the young woman you have grown into. Your work at school, your jobs, your college safari, all demonstrate a responsible, mature forward thinking person that leaves her peers in the dust. But more important than the endless creativity, artistic flair, and word mastery is the heart that beats at the center of all that passion and promise. It is that heart filled with genuine concern and caring that shines through even when it’s immediate surroundings seem bleak and dark, we are connected by that heart.

You have yours and I gave you mine 18 years ago, that is how I know exactly how beautiful you truly are. Allowing one’s heart to romp about unprotected isn’t always easy, there are the bumps and bruises of childhood and the rending of adolescence, but on the whole you have taken great care of mine and I feel safe knowing a bit of me is always with you. In exchange for the hazards I get a peek at what makes up the core of you, there is a light there that warms me, consoles me, fills me with hope for you. You make me a better person, by all that you are.

As we face the future together, a great abyss at this moment, know that you are more than I could ever have hoped for in a daughter, I am honored to be your mom. Know too that doubt and faith go hand in hand, during those darkest times, I am there with you and Christ is with me, if you don’t see that, it’s ok, you don’t have to, I have faith enough for both of us.

I Love You, forever and always no matter what,

Mom

Procrastination, again

The fall schedule looms manic, how did that happen? Today I am avoiding the calendar. I am suppose to be filling all the little boxes with all the events to which we are already committed. It scares me. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised when I finish to discover that in no way have I overloaded things it was just my imagination running a muck and the schedule is eminently workable.

I hope. I really believe at this point it is only my schedule that is out of control and this will change after a week of concentrated class preparation. I am teaching three classes this fall, including two new ones, instead of just one and new classes always require more upfront work than I remember. My oldest is in charge of her own schedule and she has done a much better job this fall than I have. The younger two won't be over booked, because they keep trying to skate on the academics, which makes for no extra-curriculars, makes me a bit sad but I refuse to fight as it's ineffective. So onward to class prep and a lowered heart rate.

Two weeks wasn't enough.

So, I was really good at posting for the first two days. But things got busy - like really, really busy. We were up from 7am to midnight pretty much every day (give or take on a few people - I know many of the guys were up later, but most of us girls got a decent amount of sleep... most of the time).

So, first I'll give you a picture spam, followed by a word spam.

I'm fantastically good at both, so prepare yourselves.

There are some artsy photos in here. This is one of them. Deal. This is one of my poems from the workshop, the one I actually read on the night I got to read. It's part of the "image explosion" prompt where we had to take a line from the poem "Don't Write History as Poetry" by Mahmoud Darwish, and use it as the first line of our poem. So those poems were taped on the board originating from the poem itself.

They're kind of out of order because I'm too lazy to reorganize them. Sorry! This was from the last day. We had sidewalk chalk and got to write messages on the wall outside our dorm. So many inside jokes, so this probably means nothing to you, but that's okay.

This was Pierce Dining Hall, where we ate three times a day. Breakfast was fro 7:30-8:30, lunch 12-1, dinner 5-6. You had to be there. Or you died.

One of the RA activities one afternoon was working with the inkpress they have at the Kenyon Review office. It's super cool - if you ever get a chance to use one, they're super cool. But super messy! This is one of my best friend's hands after using the press.

Another of the walls in our classroom. These are our "found poems," where we cut out phrases from magazines and created them into a poem. That was one of my favorite prompts. CRAFTY STUFF.

This was a sign on the third floor of the girl's side of the dorm. Who knows why.

THE DASTARDLY HILL. To get to the athletic center, you have to go down this HUGE hill. Whoever built the center obviously did not think about placement too much. Because after you work out, to get back to the dorm, you have to climb all the way back up the hill after you're all nice and tired, and just showered... so annoying. It's a huge hill, especially for us flat midwestern folks who don't even have lumps in the road.

This is Middle Path, the main artery of Kenyon College. It's actually really cool, because the whole campus is centered around the path. It's gravel all the way up and down, and at this section, these twinkle lights light up every night. We had to walk this way back to the dorm every night. So beautiful.

Another artsy photo - this time from the inkpress day. This is the ink you use for the press. Yup.

This is in the great hall in Pierce, where we ate at every meal. The stained glass is really cool - the whole hall literally looks like the Hogwarts Great Hall. NO. JOKE.

Another photo of Middle Path.

Oh, there's a graveyard on campus, for whatever random reason. One of the first nights, two of my friends and I went and wrote in the graveyard for about forty-five minutes. It was pretty cool!

Artsy ice photo. Deal.

This is Ascension, where everyone had classes every day. I miss it so much.

All right, now you've got some fun photos (*cough stop bugging me mom cough*).

It was the best two weeks I've ever had in my life, and I can't explain to you how hard it is to come back to a normal life with two jobs that you really don't like every day. It's such a shock - to have been doing something you love every day, to be with people you love every day, to come back and realize you may never see those people again, and you're stuck doing all of this stuff you really don't want to do after you've seen how fantastic life can be.

It sucks.

The people are a whole post in themselves. They're the most fantastic people I've ever met (no offense to my friends here) but it's totally different to be surrounded only by people who are exactly the same as you are - who like the same things, who love the same things, who understand your quirks and accept you. I've never felt more accepted in my life; and I'm not really in an environment normally where I'm not "accepted," so I can't even imagine what it's like for the people who go to school and really don't feel like they fit in.

It was an amazing experience. I've finally found friends who understand me and most of my life - they've seen me, and it's such a confidence-booster to see that they like me for who I am and not for who I pretend to be around them.

The problem is, they're all across the country, and in some instances, the globe. That sucks too.

Everything about it was perfect, and I know everyone wants to just go back and stay there forever, writing and writing with the same people, living in an environment where all you have to do is do what you love.

Man, just writing about it is making me emotional. The last day was the saddest day of my life. I don't cry in public very easily, and I didn't think I was going to cry that day, but all of a sudden as one of the shuttles was leaving, the floodgates opened. I've never cried like that in front of other people in my life. But everyone was crying, so it's okay. But it's hard, because part of me definitely understood that I may never see those same people again - and almost for sure we'd never all be like that together again.

But thank God for technology. If this had been ten years ago, even, it wouldn't have been as easy to stay in contact. We have Skype, cell phones, facebook, blogs, email... the list goes on. I've gained at least 50 new friends on facebook, and many contacts in my phone. Reunions are already being planned. I'm seeing two of my friends from the workshop at Christmastime because we discovered we're all going to be in Vermont at the same time. Technology is fantastic.

Well, in short, it was amazing, it's hard adjusting back to home life, I miss everyone and everything.

The end.

Fall Obligations

Must learn how to post photos and links to keep this from becoming even less interesting. The weeks of summer have flown, and fall is racing forward and I am not ready. I like the peacefulness of summer the unhurried days and sitting by a pool with certain regularity. But I now have to plan for fall.

We have begun some art and begun the religion, but not a whole lot more. Butterflies and gardens are fading and they have asked for more history and french? Math is set and language arts at least I know what we will be doing for that. Chemistry did also emerge this summer and will resume as our instructor's other obligations dissipate. History co-op will resume this fall on Fridays, but I think we will also cover early modern times on our own as well. Theatre and Tae kwon do will take care of themselves. Book clubs continue in September, OH I need to pick a title for the first meeting, now.

I am also looking at creating classes that involve sewing, and maybe recycling, and maybe some crafts, and can you tell the ideas are still floundering? I have to appeal to a wide age range, offer substantive learning opportunities, with minimal supplies, and all in one hour. This is really stretching the creative brain. I plan to hit the bookstores this weekend as I know there are sources there. The library failed me yesterday, nothing of interest on the shelves and not much that was missing or checked out. I did not have time to check the kids department so I may have missed something but the adult section was dismal. These classes need to be pulled together with syllabus and cost by next week.

All while we travel out of town for a birthday party... Enough with the musings must get to work.