Johnny Marr - Down On The Corner

I had to repost this because my old link broke - here is my original comment about finding this song...

I'm loving this song. Heard it on KCUV in Denver and went hunting on the web for it and found this great video. I find it amazing that I can sit and stare at someone working for 4+ minutes and just love it. No one would enjoy watching me work for even 5 seconds...

Listen and enjoy.

TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME

My daughter has trouble telling time. It’s more than that really, she has trouble with the very concept of time. What time it is, how long it takes to do something, anything much beyond yesterday, today, or tomorrow slips into a haze that is neither chronological nor reliable. So the very idea of telling time is not very compelling, since time doesn’t really exist for A, why would she want to track it?

This, of course, brings up a radical question. Why are we so bent on teaching her to tell time? Oh sure there’s the whole reality thing and the practical matters of how is one going to live without telling time but maybe, just maybe, she’s blessed. If you can’t tell time, and if, in fact, time is meaningless then mortality must be a distant dream.

I’m the sort of person who has felt, not my mortality so much, but the draining away of time keenly. I rush toward every experience, always looking forward, so much so that sometimes that I don’t enjoy the moment because I’m too busy looking forward to the moment that will be, the moment to come. Anticipation and impatience are my hallmarks.

Not so for my dear A, she lives solidly in this moment. There is nothing worse than trying to tell her no, we can’t do that right now, maybe later. There is no later for her, there is only now. In an odd way it affects her relationship with material things. For A ownership is ephemeral, it is only for now and therefore many of her possessions fall away. She gives away her things and for the longest time I didn’t understand why. But it has come to me slowly. Why should she keep something if she has no concept of needing it later, because what is later? And if giving it away means joy right now, the joy of making someone happy, then the temptation is nigh to impossible to resist. Especially if the only thing holding you back is a half remembered admonition from Momma to keep track of your things and not give them away.

Sometimes I watch her and think that she is so lucky to be unencumbered by the ticking clock and the ever lengthening to do list. Her to do list has one item, that which she is doing right now. The ticking clock is meaningless so she can do one thing for as long as it suites her. There are people who circle the globe seeking an understanding of just how to reach this state of being. My dear A was given it naturally.

Many of us experience this with our younger children but A is different, she is 9 years old now and it is past the time when she ought to be moving past this blissful state of timelessness.

So we bought her a watch and it is one of her IEP goals to learn time because even if I envy her “now-centered” existence I also know that I have to break it. At least as much as I can, because she won’t always have a safe purple bedroom down the hall from her Momma. Someday she will want and need to live on her own, she’ll need to get to her job on time and she’ll have to know that chocolate chip cookies must bake for 15 minutes, not 5 minutes and certainly not 55 minutes.

Time is time, and it is passing for she and for me.

specialization

So yesterday we got a flyer in the mail. It’s for a new middle school in our system, an offshoot of a very successful high school – The Denver School for Science and Technology – www.scienceandtech.org They are starting a middle school next year with their inaugural 6th grade.

We happen to have a kid who might like to go there (although it’s hard to know for sure with him.) The question I’m pondering today is this: how soon in life should one specialize?

I’ve talked to various folks about this. One opinion I’ve heard went something like this…
I always knew what I wanted to do and all these teachers made me do all this crap that I wasn’t interested in, I hated school for a long time until I got to college and got to do what I wanted to do. This from a smart guy who successfully supports the GNP today. (That’s the Gross National Product not Glacier National Park…)

Another opinion – How can you be a centered and socially responsible scientist without a good foundation in the liberal arts? Take our friend Einstein who helped invent the nuclear bomb, in the end many people looked to him for much beyond his work in physics. Many look to his writings to see how he felt philosophically about war, handing science over to politicians, and so on.

Now to be fair, DSST (Denver School for Science and Technology not some sinister type of insecticide) claims to provide a whole education that focuses on all the main subjects so it isn’t like the kids suddenly don’t have to pass English class anymore but still we are talking about focusing an education starting at the 6th grade when most of the students are 11 years old.

I think my main focus at 11 was Speed Racer.

Thoughts?

good words

This from Elvis Costello:

"They come from lovely people with a hard line in hypocrisy, there are ashtrays of emotion for the fag ends of the aristocracy."

I can only begin to imagine what he means but I have to love the imagery.
If you have thoughts, please by all means necessary, do comment...

pills and soap

There are times when I find a song that I must listen to over and over – not over a matter of days but literally over and over in succession. Typically it is just a section of the song that I’m needing. I’ve read that music is organized so that our brains are strung along like a heroine junkie looking for a melody that it was first given. That first good high – a series of well struck notes - given quite easily, almost haphazardly and then the song moves on to all the variations that aren’t the same or as good as that first time. And the brain waits, hanging on, looking for the repeat, waiting for the refrain and then (if the song is worth a listen) the goods are delivered. The melody is handed back out, perhaps not as easily as that first time but by then the brain just needs it. So what is it about these songs that I need to repeat, sometimes for hours, especially when I’m writing? Not like an addiction anymore but perhaps the real McCoy. An addiction, an obsession.

Maybe it’s a message I’m trying to receive but my befuddled incompetent brain can’t get it the first time. A part of me guesses that there is something there, something I need to have. So I listen and I’m not sure if it’s in the lyrics or in the turn of the notes. Is it a harmonic I’m needing? Is there a metaphor in the lyrics haunting me? A rhythm that I’ll be able to incorporate into my drive?

So I listen and my mind drifts in and out of the song. Perhaps I’ll dredge up the lyrics from the web or maybe I’ll type them down like dictation. Searching for the meaning – what is it? Sometimes I’ll go further and look to see if some nut out there has prattled on the web with their interpretation of the lyrics for those of us too dense to get them on our own.

Then I’ll lean back and mouth the now-known words, rocking my head back and forth, eyes closed, letting the song roll around my head. If I’m at home I might even get to my feet and stomp it out. Trying to get inside the writer, the performer, where is the climax of the song? Is it like a good novel and the climax is just before the end? What is the theme? If there is a drum line I’ll be swinging it out, or better yet it’s got a strong piano line and I can pretend to finesse it out. Is he caressing or pounding the keys?

I’ve been reading a lot about the brain these days. In fact I’ve become rather round the bend on neurology. I started with the goal of understanding what might be happening with our Ana but I find that the study is often putting my own brain on the table for dissection. The more theory (fact?) I get, the more questions I have. The frontal cortex is the conductor of the orchestra – holds all the cards as it were. Damage here, and here is the kicker about neurology. They know what they know based on damage - long studies of the guy whose frontal lobe was pierced by a tie rod. Stroke damage, radical surgeries, cancers, all fodder for brain study. Know how it functions when it’s broken leads to guesses about how it works unbroken. But back to that frontal cortex, damage here and the brain works like an orchestra with a drunk conductor, or maybe no conductor, or maybe a different conductor every day. Unpredictable results, frustrating to the user, not to mention her family. For myself I wonder about all the changes in my history. The depression? The slow recovery. The sheer differences I feel in myself compared to the person I used to be. I now know enough about the anatomy and biochemistry of the brain to be chilled by the chemical games we play in modern pharmacology.
So what is my brain looking for in these songs? Is my unconscious mind finding something while my conscious mind flops around like a fish on a boat bottom? I only know how it ends. I become numb to the song, eventually tuning it out like the HVAC white noise in my office. My body and brain return to the task at hand and then eventually I change my player back to a larger rotation, no closer to a sound understanding than when I started.

IMpatience

Visual - Amy stepping up onto a small crate. The word Soap Box is painted on the crate's side.

When I was little my Aunt Dianne decided that it was her mission to teach me patience. She would ask, "Now Amy, what does patience mean?" and I would promptly reply with the definition she had instructed, "To wait." Then I would go back to whatever impatient behavior I had been annoying everyone with before she asked.

About ten years ago a co-worker told me that if someone wrote a book about me it would be titled, "Young woman in a hurry."

Patience eludes me, always has and still does.

So a few years back when I wrote about Advent in my Christmas letter many folks were surprised that I spoke of patience. Waiting, watching, and hoping - that was what I said Advent was.

I never claimed to be good at it.

After careful consideration and after listening to my friend Michael talk this weekend I've revised my definition of Advent.

Impatience.

That's my new definition of Advent. Am I impatient for my presents? Not really. Am I impatient to be off of work? Nope. Am I impatient to see my kids open their presents and scatter them around the house? Really not.

I'm impatient for the world to change. That's what Advent is right? We are waiting for the arrival of the Christ child, whose arrival would impact the world and change it.

This season of hope, where we believe in miracles, where we focus on charity and make the platitudes about it lasting all year long. Changing the world.

Well I just don't see it. I don't see it in me, and I don't see it in you, and I don't see it in the world. I still swallow my comments when faced by blatant intolerance. I still go to work instead of marching on Washington to end the war. I don't irritate every last person I meet by endlessly showing them pictures of children withering in orphanages and begging them to adopt.

Patience is complacence.

When people say that change is slow - in the past I would nod and agree. No longer.
Now I'm going to try asking, Why?

This Advent, let's not wait on the world to change. Let's be the change we want to see in the world. Yes, I stole that line from a bumper sticker. Let's be the change and let's not wait until tomorrow and let's not be Patient about it either.

Advent - the season of impatience.

Stepping down from soapbox...

Amy

Middle School rant

Now some of you know that i have an entire other blog devoted to middle schools and so why am I writing about it here? Well this is more of a rant and not really much about any specific middle school and it certainly is not a level post.

We looked at the application the other day for Hamilton Middle school IMP program - I don't know what the acronymn stands for, something like - we'll get your kid into college with 10 pounds of homework a night.

The application included these requirements:

An Essay
a two page questionaire
CSAP scores
a math test
a writing test
a teacher recommendation
an interview

This is more than I did for grad school. Now that might call into question my choice in grad school but come on. The kid is 10!

A friend was talking about it last night and the program they are looking at requires two teacher recommendations so apparently it can get worse.

Help us all!
A

Be Good or Be Gone, Fionn Regan

Another video for you. The song is great but the changing settings is even better.

when they are like you

I was talking to a friend yesterday, telling a story about J. As I told the story I realized that I could have been telling a story about myself. They say that we hate in others what we hate in ourselves. I wasn't so much hateful about what I saw in J, I would say it was more of a despairing thing.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m fairly non-confrontational. A peacemaker as it were, not to say that I can’t come out swinging, in fact, that’s probably the problem. I won’t confront a situation until I’m pretty good and angry about it. Over time I’ve learned that isn’t such a good habit.

So when I see J continually ducking confrontational situations I despair. These aren’t even really confrontations, they are little things, places where J should be able to come forward and talk, tell his truth. And he would rather not. In fact, he’ll do much to avoid.

I’ll just read the book again instead of asking what I should do when I’ve
finished the book I’ve been assigned.

I’ll agree with her and tell the principal that she accidentally pinched me
instead of asserting what really happened.

I’m not sure how it works for J. Is it just that he wants to avoid people, wants to be left alone? Is it that he wants peace? Is it that he fears being told he’s wrong? Is it just that he wants to be self sufficient?

How do you teach a child that putting yourself out there, risking a little confrontation is a good thing?

Johnny Marr - Down On The Corner

Editor's note - see post on January 5th, 2008 for the link - somehow the link to the video broke for this post and I don't have the know-how to fix it... -A

I'm loving this song. Heard it on KCUV in Denver and went hunting on the web for it and found this great video. I find it amazing that I can sit and stare at someone working for 4+ minutes and just love it. No one would enjoy watching me work for even 5 seconds...
Listen and enjoy.

School involvement and me

I'm the kind of person that can't say no. I've known this about myself for a long time and at times I have worked hard to shore up my lack in this area to little avail. The problem is that even if I manage to say "no" the first time I may not have the will to say it again the next time. And it's not like I agree to do things I hate to do, it's just that everything looks good. It's a little like being at the dessert table of a buffet. How could I go wrong here? Only by choosing too much. And that's me.

I marvel at the parents who can manage to drop their children off at school and not get out of the car. Who can toot the horn at the end of the day to summon the children and go on their merry way. I'm not saying I want to be them but I'm wondering how that happens.

Me, I go in the door because I want to ask the 5th grade teacher why we are teaching my child how to spell "millennium" when he writes sentences like this one. "Than I wud be abl two eet al the cak." (Then I would be able to eat all the cake.) Once I'm inside it starts. I wonder if the solar panels on the roof are working and if the kids could learn about solar energy. (No, the panels aren't working, the system was decommissioned in 1986.) What happened to the after school science class we had last year? (The teacher who was coordinating it moved away.) I ask these questions and then I find myself researching revamping the solar panels and coordinating an after school science class.

When did I say yes? I don't remember but I think it has to do with getting out of the car.

Wanna build a school where the parents are involved?
Get them out of the car, the rest should take care of itself.

Amy

Crushed.

It's the morning ritual of school. After two hours of prep at home we are finally pouring out of the van onto the playground at my kids' elementary. I'm giving my oldest down the road about his "reading counts" points (a complex system that assesses books read and comprehension) and his lack of points. I'm chasing down registration slips for the afterschool science class and I'm thinking about the rest of my day. The trip to the grocery, an update of a schedule for work, a few other tedious details that are sooo important.

I see the staff in a meeting. The bell rings and they release. I see my second grader's teacher. I ask her how things are going and in a very unusual move she says, "bad." She zips right, I go straight and am wondering what she meant. Immediately it's all about me. I think about the small class size we are hoping to keep and imagine it being changed, merged classrooms or some other disaster for me. I walk to the playground continuing to imagine. I touch a head, kiss a cheek, and hug the stuffing out of my kids as their lines slither into the school. Knots of parents are left behind and I go join one.

Faces are drawn, one woman I know as a happy go lucky hippie sort has this drawn sunken look as though she has been punched in the stomach. Another has the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes.

What? I ask

One of the kindergarteners drown over the weekend.

Now I'm the one who feels like I've been punched in the stomach. The same gut sucking, sick in the head, gonna cry feeling that hasn't wrapped around my body since I was young enough to skip through a playground like this one.

The details pour out.

I could write for a week about how my petty existance was put into perspective at this point.
I could write for another about how I considered the situation and assessed whether it could happen to my family (it could.)
I could write and write and it wouldn't change one thing.

I said multiple times throughout the day, "I can't begin to imagine..."
My husband said to me, "You know I think it's really horrifying because you can imagine..."

He's right. I can imagine.

Dear God, help me keep them safe.

Amy

Book Review - The last summer (of you and me) by Ann Brashares

I picked this book up because I liked the movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" This book is to be her first adult novel but I would say that it is barely adult as the characters are all in their early 20s and don't often act like adults. The last half of this book saves it, if you can hang in there that long... The first half is all set up and the middle sags badly. The setting is wonderful and her descriptions of the summer only community are quite striking and believable. The characters a bit less so. The ambiguious sister who may or may not be a lesbian (a question which is never answered) is the most interesting character and isn't on the page often enough. The good girl who in many ways becomes one of those characters that is easily labeled as "too stupid to live" becomes annoying with her very predictable bouts of self doubt. And finally the boy-man also drowning in self doubt makes for drab reading after a while. The reader wants to beat these two children/adults senseless but they already are senseless so what's the point? The themes of childhood friendships changing as they evolve into adulthood are interesting but too lightly explored. The underlying theme of choosing your own death was fabulous and too shallowly mined for my tastes. A good effort but if it were a first novel I'm afraid it wouldn't have made it out of the slush pile.

The Break Up - movie review

This was an interesting movie and I wondered why anyone would be motivated to watch it. I finally picked it up out of curiousity and a certain respect for Jennifer Anniston's acting. So Eric and I sat down to watch it and it was two people fighting for about and hour. Now as a writer I could appreciate how well this breakup was written. It was well done, well written, well portrayed but it was not enjoyable to watch.

One point I have to make is that as long as I was watching a break up I felt that it should at least be even sided. And it seemed to start out that way a bit. There were points on both sides. But in the end the male character just ended up being an asshole. So even though the female was unrealistically trying to change the man in the story the asshole was so loud you didn't get to notice that she was unreasonable too.

I think Vince Vaugn stole the screen a bit which seems to be his mode of operation. Everything I've seen him in he tends to hog the picture, not always to the benefit of the production. He steals attention which leads to unbalanced story. If you ever get a chance to direct him tell him to turn it down.

Not a slacker

I'm not really, just been working hard on a new novel and enjoying that as well as two new picture book texts.

I had to write today though cause I'm listening to this Aimee Mann song and I'm in love with her lyrics - she is brilliant

"even though your slippers are ruby you'll be lured to the booby trap..."

That is fabulous.

A

Two Funerals, Two weeks.

I’ve been to two funerals in the last two weeks.
The first was at my current church for a woman who had been a member there for many years, perhaps her whole life. There was much family there. Children and grandchildren. She had lived a long life, ending it with a few years of Alzheimer’s based confusion. When Pastor talked about the resurrection and her passing on to life with Jesus one could dream of a woman restored to herself, freed from her confused prison, looking down on the world. And there was joy in that.
I didn’t know that woman. I barely even knew her family. I was at the funeral because I was asked to sing with our choir which is sparse even in its best moments. I parked a half a block from the church to give space for those who can’t walk as far as I can. I wandered up to the church a bit early dressed in dark casual clothes that would be covered with a choir robe for the service. Even though I was early there were people there. The body was displayed at the front of the church for viewing. People moved around with gentle purpose.
By the time the funeral started it was a packed house. As people stood at the pulpit and spoke of her I got a sense of a woman who had been a treasured friend and a motherly refuge. A musical gift to the world. It sounded as if she had been placed wonderfully in this world to add pleasure to the people around her. I found myself crying at the thought of the obvious loss. Even though they had been losing her for some time already, this was when it was recognized and given its due.

Yesterday’s funeral was at the church where I was married over thirteen years ago. The funeral was for a 32 year old boy. I say boy because that was the feel of it. There was much family there, brother and sisters, mother, cousins, and so many others. He had lived a short life and ending in a moment in Iraq.
I didn’t know the boy. At one time I had been close to his brother and his sister. Time and circumstance had let us drift from those friendships but this event brought those times back in sharp relief. We parked blocks from the church as we saw other old friends do. I struggled to get out of the car in my unfamiliar heels and long black skirt. We started the walk to the church and for the first time noticed the police blockades. The church parking lot didn’t have a car in it. A hearse, vans, and motorcycles took up about one fourth of the space and the rest was empty, cordoned off but for a medium sized tent set up off to one side. Police officers stood in clumps expecting trouble but ready for it. Near the door of the church was a line three deep of patriot guards. They were dressed in motorcycle leather with sewn on patches, a variety of slogans, vet, pow-mia, patriot guard… They held flags that prevented us from seeing across the street. The spoke the Pledge of Allegiance in unison to fill our ears. There were protestors somewhere but the guard kept us shielded from them. I was glad for my sunglasses because overwhelmed tears were gathering and I hadn’t yet made it into the church.
At the door were two ushers that I knew from my years at that church. We hugged and it was a surreal coming home feeling. The buzz of the pledge of allegiance was our constant companion as we spoke quietly of mutual friends and then moved further into the church. More familiar faces there to greet us. Faces that had aged but still held warmth for us. We signed a guest book and spoke to another friend. Outside the plate glass windows the patriot guard held their flags, their lips moving but I could no longer hear the words of the pledge.
The Pastor, the one who married us, who baptized our first child, came and hugged us. More old friends and then the family we had come to see. My mother has always said that funerals were about the living not about the dead and today I knew it to be true as I hugged my friends. We stood in the narthex for a while talking and not talking.
We entered the church to see more familiar faces, ten years collapsed in a moment with more muted greetings as we took our seats.
The service stretched out, wavering in time, endless and short all at once. Tears came and dried, songs were sung and forced out. When Pastor spoke about resurrection and this boy passing on to life with Jesus one could hardly avoid thinking that the boy had died at the age of Christ. So young, was he really ready for heaven? It was hard to muster up the joy. But I learned about the brother that my friends had lost and I struggled to reconcile my pacifism with my patriotism. He had wanted to be there in Iraq, that much was made clear. There had been no mistake, enlisting after the war had started, a good ten years older than anyone else in his unit, he wanted to be there. And yet he wasn’t what I had imagined, he was described as an adventurous yet thoughtful man who saw beauty in every part of life and whose actions clearly communicated his beliefs. He seemed to be perfectly placed in this world and the hole that his absence will leave, a raw gaping place.
Medals were awarded, tributes spoken, blessings made, communion fed, and then we were back outside, moving through a corridor of utterly respectful Patriot Guards to the medium sized white tent. Beyond the leather clad human corridor was TV cameras, reporters, curiosity seekers on the roofs of buildings, all staring down at us. Without sunglasses this time I walked with tears on my face. Twenty-one gunshots fired, flags folded and presented, uniformed men and women with slow motion salutes and then it was done. The police left in groups, the patriot guard left with a Harley type roar, and we left with isolated footsteps shivering in the now cold afternoon.
A man, A boy, A son, A brother, An Uncle, A friend who had given his life for his country, over and done now.
It would be sentimental to say that when I came home much later I woke my children one by one to hug them, my sons a little longer. But it is true. I did. No mother should outlast her children. I’m not the first to say it or lament it. But it is true. Only the good die young. True enough also.

Two funerals in two weeks.
Lives changed and yet the same.
It’s morning again and the day doesn’t wait for me, for the families, or for the dead.

Joe Satriani Concert

I’m deaf this morning.
That could be an overstatement.
I went to the Joe Satriani concert last night and you have to wonder if everyone is wearing earplugs why they don’t just turn the volume down. Ah, but that would take away from the excitement I suppose. It was a fantastic concert. It was the G3 tour so there were three guitarists there. Paul Gilbert and John Petrucci. This is going to sound trite but it is pretty amazing to watch people who are so good at what they do. When you think about the idea of playing guitar for your whole life and getting to be that good. Such singular focus. I found myself looking at their shoes. Most of them wore very nice sneakers. Since Joe does a bit of jumping this made sense. Paul Gilbert was wearing leather loafers but he was a bit of a drama queen all the way around. Wearing a scarf around his neck and making these facial expressions that were ripe for caricature. They all wore earpieces of some sort, Paul Gilbert wore full muffling headphones, John Petrucci had ear inserts that were wired and it looked like Joe had smaller ear inserts that may have been wireless.
We thought we would be old for the crowd but we weren’t – perhaps not smack in the middle but there were a lot of folks our age and older. We had third row center seats and after sitting there for a concert it will be very hard to be anywhere else. It was great to be that close – well, except for the going deaf part.
Again, it was good to see someone that good at something but I have to say that I wonder how much of the show is showmanship and how much is real just playing. I’d love to see them jamming on their own without the crowd but I suppose that would cost more than $80 per.

praying without ceasing

I am going to write a little about an email conversation that I’ve been having recently about praying. The topic is: can you pray for people that you aren’t connected to and what is the theology that supports this practice. Apparently – and this is a quote: The Scriptures speak of praying without ceasing, and praying for the whole creation.

I quote to pull in the section about praying for the whole creation. This seems like it says that you can pray for people you aren’t connected to but I read it as if it says something different than that. Praying for the whole creation feels like we are praying for something larger than a piece of the whole creation. Praying for the whole creation doesn’t seem the same as praying for person X who is struggling with cancer and is the brother in law of the guy who sits down the pew from me.

And I’m not saying I don’t want to pray for person X, I’m saying I don’t understand what I’m doing when I do that. Psychologically, what am I telling my brain in that moment? Spiritually, what am I telling God in that moment? Am I expecting that my prayer will make a difference and where do I believe that difference will be made? And am I (probably yes) making this too literal? Isn’t it easy to pray for someone imagined? Is it developing the habit of thinking of the world as bigger than us and our stupid little lives? I’m sure the answer is that it is all of these things.

The Hospital Room

Delivering the same setting through different eyes & different circumstances

It had been hard to break away from the nursery. He could have stood there forever looking at his perfect daughter through the glass. Yet he also wanted to be here looking at the woman who somehow pulled off a miracle. She was sleeping now. The fluorescent lights of the room turned off, which helped it look less like a hospital room. He had never had doubts about their marriage, had never had that impulse to run screaming from the room that Dave had so comically described at lunch the day after his son was born. He stood now looking down at his sleeping wife, a cup with a bendable straw sat on the table near her face. It was a like a badge, a bendable straw for an exhausted miraculous woman. The strongest smile came to him with no hesitation at all. He was a lucky man.

It had been hard to push the button for the elevator. He could have stood there forever putting off the moment and then a blond woman had come and had pushed it herself with a sigh. He needed to be with the woman who had ushered him in this life, who was now hovering at the end of it. It couldn’t be held off, this moment or the next, the moments that would march them both to the end. They would pass either way, whether he was there or not. The door to the room was open. He passed through the threshold and stared at the cup with its plastic straw. The bendable type of straw so the weak and dying didn’t have to exert too much effort to drink. He dropped his coat on the chair next to the bed. She was truly dying.

Suggesting age

Finish the sentences:

I figured Carol was as old as my grandmother because... like Grandma she carried a hankie embroidered with her initials.

We knew it was time for Larry to go into an old folks’ home... the second time we caught him raking in the yard with no pants on.

We knew that Janey was not far from retirement because... she talked about company loyalty like it really meant something.

Although Daphne wouldn’t admit being over thirty she gave it away by... humming along to the 80s mix.

Tom was obviously approaching the big four-oh because... he started putting gel in his thinning hair.

The Harrisons were your unmistakably yuppy baby boomers... They drove the right cars, had the right house, and the matching crinkles next to their eyes.

You could tell that Jamie was using a fake ID because... his eyes strayed away from the bouncer when he presented it. Perhaps he was hoping that nobody would notice that his face wasn’t really cleanly shaven, instead it didn’t need a razor.

It wasn’t clear at first, but Michael couldn’t have been more than six. Although he talked a blue streak... his feet started dancing before he announced, “I gotta go wee!”

filling in the gaps

Filling in the gaps. It’s actually what writing is all about. Filling in the gaps. We tell ourselves stories to fill in the gaps between the facts. If you can spin enough of them together you get a full story instead of just a scene. The characters help hold interest. That’s what draws the eyes through the sentences, but the facts are all there underneath. The facts with their blanks that need filling in because we can never know the whole of it. We can never know the truth behind all those facts. Not really, we can only tell ourselves stories to fill in the blanks. So what you have to do is find a set of facts that you want to spin. A set of facts that people want you to spin. And you have to be good at creating characters that people don’t want to let go of. In each case that is at the heart of it. But in the end the stories are simple ones. Stories that have been told over and over again, that no one hasn’t already heard, they are just held together differently this time. So which story is that I’m telling with Paul Writes. Paul’s own story is one of redemption on the road to Damascus. I think it is anyway, no one would call me a Bible scholar.
The body of a mummified boy found in a suitcase, that one intrigues me. I suppose getting away with murder intrigues just about everyone. He could have died by accident but then why hide the body? Set up files, set up notes, make it a job to read the news and tuck away those interesting stories. Even as I say here twenty minutes ago saying that I was going to quit, I’m still here plotting and planning. Tenacious thing the spirit. Can’t give it up I guess. Even if I suck.

reviews

Saw an interesting play last night called The Pillowman. It was quite dark. In fact it was downright gruesome. I’m quite sick of this particular playwright, DCTC has now done 4 of his plays and each one is an exploration of the dark parts of peoples’ spirits. I can only hope that they will run out of shows to do by this guy. It isn’t that the plays are bad, they are in fact, quite good. Well written, artfully put together, but in they are so inherently evil that I just can’t stand to spend a lot of time in their presence. The guy who played Hamlet was in the play – I enjoyed him tremendously in Hamlet. Here, he was good but possibly forgettable. The guy who played the bad cop was dismal, just couldn’t wear the part at all and came across as completely unconvincing. I don’t think that anger is his thing really. He doesn’t do it well. He’s done other things quite well, this wasn’t it. The star of the show, hands down, was the good cop. His timing was excellent, his caprice was convincing, and he physically matched the role. Well done. Also, the part of the brother was done well. This is an actor I’ve seen often in recent years and he is typically good. Not an unforgettable performance but a good performance. The makeup was ridiculous, I’ve seen high school productions that looked better. The set was good, everyone liked the hydraulics, I thought they were unnecessary, kind of like the designer had bought them and thought to himself, oh I have to use these somewhere this season. So apparently, an evil play gets an equally evil review from me. In the writing we get to see the dark underbelly of a twisted mind. This feels like a writer who was mercilessly teased in childhood, possibly beaten and psychologically tortured by someone. He plays it out in his writing over and over. He even pokes fun at the fact that he does it. This is one of those times that I’m glad to not be in the theatre because I would hate to have to work on this particular piece.

On a happier note I read a great book this week called Between, Georgia. It was really quite wonderful, lots of characters in the story, a small town with plenty of personality. In short a wonderful setting and a good solid story with peril, twists, personal angst, and a little romance too. Quite good.

getting distracted

Well I woke up all ready to write – stirred from a dream and felt like I was in that lucid state that would do well for writing. But then I glanced at the clock and my mommy mind took over – I had to get things moving. That was 30 minutes ago and so now I’m trying to write but getting that state of mind back will be difficult, if not impossible. I’m thinking more about Sally. That’s a tentative name. But I’ve always liked it. I wanted something unusual but still familiar. Except now I’m listening to a dialogue on school lunch and the drinks associated with. I think this is going to be tough this morning to write about Sally. I’m going to try again later in the day. For now I’ll talk about something that made me happy. I know something was good yesterday, I remember thinking that I needed to remember it – now all I remember is that part and not what I wanted to remember. Ooooh this memory lapse thing is getting pretty frustrating. Well okay, I have something from today. Henry was supposed to get up early because he signed up for an extra tutoring class at school. It was his idea. Anyway he was sound asleep and the aunts were picking him up in a half hour so I went in to wake him up. I rubbed his back to wake him up and he really didn’t stir. I called his name a few times and he was still pretty out of it. I stood for a long time rubbing his back and stroking his hair. It was one of the sweetest moments, he didn’t squirm under my touch, he didn’t pull away and fight the affection. In fact he even moved closer to me and let me hug him for a while as he slowly woke up. It was one of those moments that I don’t think I’ll forget.

sledding & the movie

Nothing like a good story to chase the blues away. I woke up this morning disgruntled over work. I’ve vowed for various reasons that I’ll never speak about work here and so I’ll keep that and not explain why I may have been disgruntled. But the feeling wouldn’t be shaken off. The day progressed and we did some errands and still the cloud hung over my head. Not even a new spatula would turn the tide.

We went sledding which I very much enjoyed and I didn’t think of work once out on the hill. It was great fun. I went down about 4 or 5 times. It was as fun as I remembered but I don’t remember taking long hot showers to recover when I was a kid. The memories came back only when I was flying and bouncing down the hill. They came as flashes mostly, not sustained. Memories of sledding at church (the hill behind St. Stephen’s) Whitnall park, and traying down the hill in front of Liz. I ended my sledding career today with a crash that nearly tore my knee out and left me sucking in air. I’m getting too old for this nonsense but it was fun. Thanks to Jay who wouldn’t stop bugging us about it. I came away from the sledding as I thought I might, a bit energized from the fresh air and the exercise. My mood was fine but it was my body that benefited (even as it was beaten) from the sledding.

It was the movie that reset my temper. We saw Night in the Museum. And while the beginning was slow and it was a simple film, I found it to be just delightful. Full of surprise and excitement yet nothing too frightening, perfect for our kids with a lot of good themes of loyalty, perseverance, friendship, and teamwork. I was really impressed after not being all that thrilled about seeing another children’s film. So many of them can descend into the very base elements. In either case, I found myself happier when I left the theater. And it seems to have stuck. It was the right story for me today. A good story well told. The very best thing.

Oh to be such a story teller.

The Door

Today’s exercise it a bit tough. I’m not sure that I get it. It’s about leaving your mental editor behind but the description of how to do it leaves me feeling like I’m in a horror movie. It’s supposed to be me going into the basement of my childhood home and finding an old door and opening it. This just brings to mind images worthy of a Stephen King novel and doesn’t really help me shed my working inhibitions. Well, I’ll try it anyway.

The door knob feels gritty as though it hasn’t been used in a long time nor has it seen a dust rag. I turn the knob and feel a grinding click as the latch releases from the frame. The door itself is heavy, but the hinges swing freely as if they are well maintained and oiled. When I open the door I am looking into the conference room where Paul and Nathan sit. They are both glaring at each other. And I see that I am in the scene where I have been stuck for some time now. I want Nathan to turn the screw. He needs Paul to do his English assignment for him. Paul doesn’t want to waste his own time doing the assignment, he doesn’t want to tutor Nathan at all yet he doesn’t want to imperil his life either.

Gee, I'm still stuck.

after ten at night

This morning the book encourages that we write letters. I like the quote by Thomas Hardy – Nine-tenths of the letters in which people speak unreservedly of their inmost feeling are written after ten at night. I could post here many many letters that I’ve written for I do love to write a letter. There are a few where I’ve actually touched on something, where I have been able to write a letter that provokes more than a perfunctory response. Not always, and never more than preaching to the choir, but yet saying something in a way that isn’t perhaps so typical. So there are writers who write letters every day before they set to work. How interesting. I would say that I love to write letters and I love to get them. The good ones, those that are written after ten at night, are best. But I can count those on one hand. Shore up Amy, it is better to give than to receive. And yet I like receiving too.

It’s been a bad week, one of the worst in recent memory, I think I’m climbing out of it but it has me worried. I’m not sure what else to say about that. It’s made me think that it might be time to do something more. To put more safeguards in place, to have another place to go to if it starts to crumble that bad again. More thinking is needed on that because I’m not sure what the safeguard should be.

family myth

It isn’t a myth. It’s really how it happened. I stood on the machine shop floor and listened to the super tell us that there was no more work. They were closing, for the summer, possibly forever, but most certainly for the summer and we could check back in the fall to see if there would be more work. But for now, we were to clear out our tools and go home. America, the dream, ock. I started packing it all up, just like every night and then again, not like every night because this time, I wouldn’t be back in the morning. I walked home to Else who was standing in the doorway waiting for me. She knew but she was waiting for me. But to open my mouth would be to let too much out. I nodded at her and took my tools to the shed. I was longer with the tools today, wiping each one down before putting it away. It would be some time before I would handle them again. Else didn’t follow me into the tool shed, she waited for me in the kitchen. Perhaps she had seen in my nod that I didn’t want company. When the last tool was away I stepped back from the shelves and looked them over. Was there work somewhere else? Another city, another state, back in Germany? But no, that wasn’t the way of it. There wasn’t work anywhere. I left the shed, locking it, and came to the back steps, carefully wiping my feet before walking into Else’s kitchen. I stood inside the doorway watching her as she stirred the soup. She brought it to the table and we sat. I dipped my spoon into my bowl of soup and held it near the opposite rim letting it cool.
“It’s for the summer, we can either lose the house or the car.” Else nodded looking around her kitchen. “I’ve decided it’s to be the house.” I said. She looked up at me, her eyes wide with the surprise of it. “We’ll keep the car.” I said. “There’s freedom with the car. We can go.” I paused and then finished, “if need be.”

movie review

Well it’s late in the day for morning writing but I’m feeling like I need to get back into the swing even if the routine isn’t being kept of it being first thing. One thing I want to clear up is that this isn’t morning pages. I’m not hand writing these which is supposed to be essential to morning pages, something organic about pen touching paper and while I can understand that thought, it just isn’t convenient. I’m listening to the soundtrack from Neverland right now and lately (since Sat night to be exact) I’ve been thinking about the new James Bond film – Casino Royale – oh yes, I know, how UN-literary of me to be a James Bond fan and yet I find Bond to be wonderful. It is an odd phenomenon to be sure, with the different actors playing the same character and everyone talking about the “new” Bond when a new one comes round. I read a review that summed up my feelings exactly this morning – Connery was the first Bond – set the standard, Moore was the buffoon Bond, Daily was a good Bond but never felt comfortable in the role, Brosnan was a great Bond but was too comfortable in the role, and now we have this new guy, the blond, irradiated blue eyed Bond and he is quite startling in the role. More than that though, I like where the production has gone. A lot of stunt work – fabulous to watch. They cut a lot of the camp – very nice – they could have cut more but I’ll not complain. Sentimental – the minute he says he loves her you know she will be dead by the end of the film, the question is how. By her own hand was quite a stunning move. Brilliant in the way of plotting, a continuing character has to suffer. These films are a lot like romance novels, there is a formula and the good Bond filmmaker knows just how much to play with that formula. So I enjoyed the film. I’ve forgotten to mention setting – such a prime importance in a Bond film. It satisfied with gritty in Madagascar to resplendent in Venice (I believe it was Venice – I could be wrong – canals, water, green, architecture – some wet European city.) How very American of me not to know… And an Astin Martin which he wins in a poker game. I liked that twist. And when they wrecked it I actually groaned, we had barely gotten in the thing. I came away from it with a smile though and wondered if I shouldn’t go back to writing genre – it’s so much fun.

Oh, one last note. Janet Evanovich has come out with a writing book. I flipped through it the other day and found it was in question and answer format. I started reading it and found my own question and her answer in the book. I had written her an email a few years back. Odd to see my own words in print on the page. A foretaste of publishing perhaps…

faith/mystery

Don’t we all love a good mystery?

When I consider faith I consider a mystery. I walk around in my world and I find people who have faith in something, whether it be in God, in their country, in themselves, in vegetarianism, whatever it is, and I might wonder at their faith – where it comes from and what makes it stick. Often as I contemplate these things I look at my own faiths. What are the things in my life that I take on faith? Where do these faiths come from? Is the very essence of every faith I have based in God? What tests would these faiths withstand? How far would I go for these faiths?

I find myself reading a lot of books about the brain just now. Trying to understand what might be different about our Ana. More mysteries being unraveled as I read these books that discuss personality, soul, and the center of each of our existences. What part of the brain pulls which strings? One of the most helpful books, well written and intelligent, was written by a self proclaimed atheist. He’s kinda a fact guy, has faith in his science, which doesn’t keep him from writing very elegant thoughtful prose. He pokes at soul, says it isn’t there. We are no more than the sum of our working parts. Take any part of the brain away and the being is altered, take enough of the brain away and the being ceases.

I guess whether you poke at religious history or you poke at the existence of soul, you find the same thing. Nothing but faith and more mystery. You come away either believing that there is something more there or you don’t, but to prove it? One way or the other, well…

Perhaps one should consider God’s proverbial sense of humor.
He has enough talent to put together a mystery that we humans just won’t be able to solve.
She has enough whimsy to give us unending curiosity that will force us to continuously search for the answer.

I’m a bit too sharp right now

Writing this morning. I was thinking that I would finish yesterday’s work but the morning has invaded and I’m not sure I’m going to get any time to write at all today. I was looking at one of those low residency MFA programs again last night. It’s like a little dream world I live in when I look at those programs. A 20K dream world. If we had that sort of cash laying around, we wouldn’t be spending it on that. A garage maybe, private school for Ana maybe, but not a creative writing MFA program. Mmm, I’m sounding rather whiney this morning aren’t I. And if this dream were important enough to me then I would spend the money on it. And if I did spend the money on it, what would that say about me? The guilt would be crushing wouldn’t it? (she says with a wry smile…)

Okay – one thing that made me smile and one thing that made me wince. I smiled yesterday when I got back to work, I smiled with a big sigh at the thought of a few hours spent in another direction. Life had gotten a bit too much 24/7 kids and house. It was nice to focus on something else for a few hours. I winced yesterday to feel my mood shift into the dangerous negative zone. Eric commented that it was a full moon. He’s right, it is, and I’m a bit too sharp right now. I hate it that I can feel the change but I can’t prevent it.

thrill of entering this bigger world

So this week I’m going to try to juggle two things at once – should be easy – I’m a woman after all… insert wry smile here.

First will be to list two specific things one that made me smile and one that made me wince.

Next will be the normal exercise.

First off… Jay woke up this morning and is cuddling with me on the couch while I do my writing, which is making me smile. Dinner last night, I cooked spaghetti, sauce, and cheesy bread, very few of the children ate it, they insisted on making their own dinners and that made me wince.

Now the exercise, which is to take an event from life, write two sentences about the event. List the facts you know, list the facts you don’t know, then write a paragraph that uses both. This is to alleviate the need to stay too close to the facts when writing about things that are close to truth.

When I was about five years old I was climbing a tree with my brother and he fell out of the tree and broke his arm.

What I remember: the Brownells were there, we were in the woods near the house, the older kids called the tree the elevator tree because you could climb one tree, grab another tree and float down to the ground, I was in the tree, Tracey holding me after getting out of the tree, Mrs Brownell not wearing her shoes and driving

What I don’t remember: who else was there, climbing the tree, Steve falling, Getting out of the tree, needing help when I was in the tree, what time of year it was, if the fathers were there, the Brownell boy’s name. How we got to the woods. How we decided to go to the woods.

We had already finished our lunch of sloppy joes and mac-n-cheese. Mrs. Brownell and Mom were sitting with their coffee. Steve, Em, and Tracey were gunning for adventure. We called him Em, his name was Emory, but it never really seemed to fit that way. They were going to leave Robin and I behind. I’m sure they would have taken Robin if I hadn’t been there but I think they thought they were doing me a favor by leaving her behind for me to play with. Nothing doing. I wanted to go too. So did the moms, get us all outside and gone, out of their hair. So we left, Steve grumbling. He was leading us to a secret place and he didn’t want his kid sister along. There I was though, a permanent thorn in his side and destined today to become a bigger pain for him.

We trooped like a parade down the block, past the proud lawns of our Midwestern suburban neighborhood. Steve was in the lead, followed by Tracey, who was wearing the combined look of interest in this reportedly secret place while also quite obviously above all this adventure as the mature oldest of the group. Em was doing his best to be as determined about this adventure as Steve but he didn’t have the same enthusiasm, his was a more distracted sort of guy. Robin and I trotted after them, having to hop and jump a few times to keep up with the older ones bigger steps.

Then we were off the block, this wasn’t something I did much of, my world pretty much consisted of a five house diameter starting at my house, ending at my best friends house and including two of my arch rivals houses. Steve, however, ranged much further in the neighborhood, and the delicious thrill of entering this bigger world swelled in me. We continued our journey onto Sussex Street which was bordered on the east side by woods. We stole through a quiet looking house’s yard to the woods beyond and soon were tromping through the trees…

Time’s up and pencils down folks. Sorry but I’ve got to get to work…

What is on the other side of the veil?

More writing with no assignment – I’ve sent Jay for the book but I don’t know if that will actually work. We’ll see. What an odd time right now. I feel my mood swinging around at the whim of the wind it seems. Like a flag when the wind is swirling. It is disconcerting when I can detach myself enough to see that it is happening. I have noticed in the past week and a half that being indoors is a bit of a trap. Each time I have gone out of doors I’ve felt better. Once to watch the kids play in the snow and dig out the car and again to ski with Ana. Both times I felt better for it. I can’t tell if it was the physical activity or if it was the sun that did it but I know I’m not imagining the surge. Another thing that seemed to make a difference was yesterday I was able to turn my music pretty loud in the car. I liked that too. Okay on to the assignment – Jay actually found the book. I have also flipped two fried eggs while doing this. The assignment is more about journaling. Keeping a journal and accounting for things in different ways. Experimenting with POV, sentence length, nouns, avoiding the forms of be. In the example there was an entry about getting a letter. And of course we have been getting letters lately. It is Christmas and letter writing has descended to that hasn’t it? We all just write letters at Christmas anymore, except for Betty, whom I write more often than that. Letters of note this year are the handwritten variety. I’ve always known this about Christmas letters. I’ve always known that I liked the ones with a note scrawled across the back of them. The note from John sticks in my memory most I think possibly because it came fairly recently compared to the others. It was newsy and contained a picture of him on the deck of a cruise ship near Oslo. He is getting his MBA at Madison right now which I didn’t realize until Su emailed a few weeks ago. So I tracked him down and we emailed a few times and I nailed down the address so I could send him a Christmas card. Seems like he is happy. I think perhaps the real reason that his letter sticks with me is because his life has turned out so different from mine. He is not married. He does not have kids. He doesn’t even have a career that obsesses him. He seems to float around from place to place, job to job in what appears to be an aimless fashion. This is from the outside looking in with little information to go on. And it makes me wonder and fires my imagination. What would it be like to be John? What does John think about and worry about, if not the things that I think about and worry about? I asked Michael this fall if I had created this life in order to distract me from the things that I wanted that scared me. This is not a complaint, this is me wondering what is on the other side of the veil. This is me comprehending that I’ll never know. The choices that I have made are permanent ones and don’t misunderstand me. I don’t regret them. This isn’t about regret. This is about imagination. I really can’t imagine a solitary life with so little attachment and it makes me wonder. So I’ve described a letter to you and how it made me feel and I think I’ve avoided the forms of be but I’d have to know more about the forms of be to be able to avoid them.

rusty...

Ten minutes of writing which you could do right here before making the soup. Of course the soup is in jeopardy already as it might take longer to make than you have before OT. It is the Christmas holiday and that has sort of taken over my life right now. You would think being off of work would mean that I would have more time to write but the change in schedule is disastrous. All the best goes out the window. Saw the movie Proof and the movie The Hours this past week. Loved both films, liked Proof more than The Hours though – felt it was more accessible. Or maybe it’s just because it was about math whereas The Hours was cluttered with Aids, homosexuality, and depression. Proof was just straight schizophrenia… wry smile..
Of course Proof isn’t really about math but there were math geeks in the film – well not really that either because the math geeks were conceptualized by Hollywood so they were the most attractive and socially alert math geeks ever conceived. Okay, so the whole – it was about Math theory has now been blown to bits. I think what I liked was the focus on this woman having her own voice that somehow came through even though she was needing to do all these other things in her life for other people…

The grace part is our decernment

Free Writing 12/21/06

It’s finally stopped snowing, don’t know if we’re done or not but no more snow for the moment at least. 20 inches at our house. No school, airport closed, so no Christmas visitors for us. I’m tired without really knowing why, it might be the tired that comes from being cooped up. Is that how you spell that? Hmm. My writing exercise book is upstairs and I’m not all that motivated to get it just now. I thought instead I would reflect a bit on this Christmas, which is feeling a bit strange. The quiet Christmas we envisioned is surely happening. I’ve given up some of the trappings this year. No Lebkuchen, no gingerbread house, few cookies. I don’t miss these things all that much. Certainly no one has asked after them. So they slip away. No visitors, no whirlwind visits from the grandparents, no jolly Uncle Steve, and although I do miss the family I don’t miss the rushing around that comes with it. I think back to Michael imploring us on the first Sunday of Advent not to forget the quiet of Advent. The waiting. The watching. I think of that sermon and I think to myself that we have had an advent this year. We have waited and laid low. I sent out the Christmas letter via email yesterday. I try to keep the email list light but sent the Shuler card via email on the off chance that the paper card wouldn’t find them in the world. Got a reply from Karl. He’s stuck in Chicago. He was on his way back from London for the commencement of Justin’s graduation from Grad school and for Christmas in Colorado. He won’t get here and the commencement was cancelled anyway due to the weather. I know the story of Justin and school. The cancellation of this celebration is just typical of Justin’s life. The guy just can’t catch a break. Somehow each one of his accomplishments is eclipsed in some way, not the accomplishment itself but the recognition of it. I know that Karl & Susi were looking forward to this being one shining moment. Now it is ruined. Karl put it eloquently in his email when he said two things; the first was “The child is graduating with honors…” I smiled at this line, the child in question is probably 24 or 25 years old and he is almost as big as Eric. Surely no longer a child except in his parent’s eyes… and yet maybe in this situation the reference is apropos because there is a child buried inside Justin who has been wronged. A child who struggled all the way through school constantly misunderstood and this commencement might have made up for some of the slights. The second was “I have to keep from sobbing…” I suppose you would have to know Karl to understand just how out of sync this sounds. Even though I’ve known Karl for a good fifteen years I can’t quite imagine him sobbing and yet I know this: often the disappointments of your children are more acute than your own. So maybe the Karl I know wouldn’t sob for his own account but for his son? Well, perhaps. In either way I know that this family has a hard one to swallow this Christmas, a big disappointment and then not even being together for it either. Somehow all of this should make me feel lucky because our Christmas is going as planned. Yet I still feel the melancholy creeping over me. Now that probably has nothing to do with anything other than me and my… situation. But it brings to mind the phrase “There but for the grace of God go I.” I remember Michael talking about it once and I have to agree, it’s a terrible phrase – as if God’s grace is dispensed in some inequitable fashion. We get what we get and then we deal with it. The grace part is our decernment.

losing Molly

Free Writing 12/18/06

The exercise is a story from childhood that made you laugh or made you cry. Tapping into strong emotions is the point. I’m not sure I have a good childhood story that I can dreg up here. Childhood feels so far away sometimes for me now and well my childhood was rather unremarkable. It was easy. It’s funny to look back at my life and determine that the things I felt emotional about were typically not connected to me. Strong emotion doesn’t always get all that close; I always cry when the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come pronounces that Tiny Tim will die. Typically I don’t cry in the day to day operations of my life. But the exercise is the exercise. The last time I cried, really hard, emotional, couldn’t stop crying, cried was when we lost Molly. If Eric was sitting here he would correct me and say Marina. If we hadn’t truly settled on the name, that was only because she wasn’t home yet. In my heart and in my life she had already been ours. Her picture was all over the house, the count down calendar was on the refrigerator, the court date was set and we were moving forward. It was a plan; every detail of that adoption was under control and was going so smoothly. And then I got the phone call from Amy. Our coordinator’s name was Amy, she had guided us through the adoption of Henry and now was guiding us to Molly. She called, it was a Friday night, and I was at work. She wanted me to call her when I got home but I couldn’t. I knew something was wrong and I wasn’t going to let her off of the phone. So she told me. And the whole world crashed around me. Molly had been adopted by a Russian couple. They had precedence, if a Russian family wanted a child there was nothing that anyone could do. It didn’t matter how close you were to the adoption. I knew this. I knew it but hadn’t believed. Had pretended that it couldn’t happen that way. We were three weeks from Molly, just three weeks. And if it had been four weeks or two weeks I would be standing here railing those times. But it doesn’t matter how close or how far, the reality was that she was already my child and it felt like someone was ripping her from my arms. My head crashed down onto my desk and I squalled. I didn’t weep, I didn’t cry but I squalled like a child who hasn’t had a nap and just had her favorite toy taken away. My nose ran, my hands shook, and I cried. I honestly couldn’t put anything together. Even though I was supposed to pick up Henry and take him home I felt that I couldn’t move. I had never been frozen like that before. I don’t know that I have ever been like that since. It was frightening that I lost all my will. Will had always pushed me through every hardship in life but for those moments that day my will had deserted me.

How do I tell him?

No writing exercise today. More blathering I’m afraid. Not that I really need to apologize to an audience that doesn’t exist. I could take a moment to explore my need for apology but that isn’t what I came for.

I came for a bit of an unload. It’s the season again. From Thanksgiving to shortly after Christmas we go through the season. The season where Henry is sensitive, agitated, quick to anger, quick to sadness, and desperate for something to help him. It is a tricky season for us because he isn’t all that conscious of the situation. He has little awareness of his temperament.

Coming into the season we talked it over with Jill. We decided to try to smooth out the season. No visits from the Grandparents, move the birthday parties to other months, no trips, no skiing, just us, simple Christmas. So that’s what we are living. It has been good but it hasn’t changed Henry. No, it’s us who has changed. And it has gone smoother, he is no more comfortable but the reduction in stressors has meant that the meltdowns are easier to deal with, shorter and less frequent.

But even that isn’t what I came to talk about. I came to talk about Henry’s adoption. And a bit about Ana’s too. Jill mildly suggested (and mildly is about as strong as Jill gets) that we consider that the window is open right now with Henry. Open that we can talk about the adoption. That his emotions hovering near the surface are because it’s the anniversary of his adoption. That now is the time. Not that adoption is a secret in this house, it isn’t, but how do you tell a child that he has biological siblings? When is it the right time to tell someone, oh by the way there are three people living half way around the world that are your birth brother and sisters. There isn’t a good time. There isn’t a right time. And it isn’t something I consciously think of really. I don’t spend time contemplating them. I don’t honestly think much about his birth mother either. Maybe that’s denial, maybe it is survival, maybe it’s guilt. We can’t save them all. Oh God. God, there were so many of them. Dark rooms, women in cool white lab coats and babies, so many babies. It was hard enough to think of them but when you add the desperate mothers to the picture well your brain sort of just shuts down. Your vision becomes tunnel. And your mission becomes taking the one that is in your arms. And if it’s Sophie’s choice, if you are faced with saving one and damning another you can’t accept it and you clutch the one tightly and you close your eyes to the others. So maybe that’s the truth of it, that’s why I don’t think of it – because I couldn’t or wouldn’t save them too. I wouldn’t damn myself to help them. Listen to my arrogance, American arrogance that, I could save them. There are many in Russia who believe that the ones who are adopted out are the ones who are sacrificed. Sacrifice a few for the American dollars that can be used to save the rest. You can turn it all around in your head until you don’t know what to believe and then you decide to stop thinking about it.

Until it’s your son’s adoption anniversary and his therapist says the time is right and there is something that you know that you need him to know but you don’t know how to tell him. His birth mother had three other children and she just couldn’t take care of one more. And that one more is your son. And you’re grateful for it but that doesn’t make it right or easier for him.
So we went to the bank and we took the papers out of the safe deposit box and brought them home. We sorted them by child and stared at them. The names are all there on the pages, names that we don’t often think of and truly, we often forget them, maybe we are blocking them. I don’t know. But her name is Svetlana. She is 6 years older than I am, the birth father that she listed on the papers is even older – 16 years older than I am. The bald statements on the relinquishment papers that don’t explore the feelings behind the reasons.

It’s all very cold you see and I want to make up a story to go with the words in fact I can’t help yourself. I imagine the woman, I imagine the pregnancy, I imagine her apartment, I imagine the children she already cares for and I make up a story that makes the fact that she gave up her child somehow okay. Something I might be able to reconcile if not imagine doing myself.

So we call him over and show him the dates. December 16th, 1997 and today is December 16th, 2006. Nine years ago, we finally walked into the courthouse, to the judge’s chambers, sat through the bewildering Russian court session before the stern robed judge, and then we went to the orphanage and took you away from there. Forever. And I can’t make it anything more than a recitation of the facts because if I start to think about it I won’t be able to speak. Here is her name, here is her address, here is her age, here is her height, she has dark hair. And that is as far as he can go, he is already leaving the kitchen, simply walking away. No grand emotions, no questions, very few words, just skittering away. Not now. Not today. Not now. I can see it in his closed down face and his trembling hands. Not now. Not today. Maybe not ever. This isn’t my story you’re telling. Take this cup from me. So we let him slip away, stack the papers and ready them for the trip back to the bank. The only copies, the originals, irreplaceable. He runs outside to throw the football and the world is fine except we didn’t tell him the one piece that I can’t hold inside anymore. The fact that there are siblings. I can’t hold this anymore and neither can Eric. He has to be told. He has to know.

It’s Sunday morning now and the anniversary is over, the rest of Saturday had past without an opportunity. It’s around 6am and I can hear him coughing. This is just like this child. His cough wakes me up. His demands for something else for dinner grate on my nerves. His refusal to learn to read. He is like a bird singing outside my window when I am trying to sleep. I can’t ignore him, his calls for help are frequent and strident. So this morning he is coughing and quite possibly about to wake up all the kids. Eric guides him downstairs and closes the door hoping I’ll drift back off. But my eyes peg open. Everyone else is asleep. The perfect time. So I take the paper from the vanity. A small slip of paper with three names, three birth dates, and current ages written on it. I slip onto the stool next to his. He is intent upon a birthday card for Jay. Today is Jay’s birthday. December is a busy month. I say to him that there is one more thing I want to tell him. Something I wanted to tell him yesterday. I remind him of his friend Alex who has a half brother who doesn’t live with him. Alex is here in CO and his brother is in MI right. Yes, Henry agrees. And I slide the paper onto the counter. Your birth mom had other children. They live in Russia. And this time he is a little interested. He isn’t sliding away this time. We go through the names, I explain that Valeria is a boy’s name in Russia, he snickers a little. We go through the ages. They are older and his interest wanes a bit and I can feel him dismissing this a little now. He goes back to work on the card for Jay but the tremble in his hand is more pronounced now and he pushes down harder on the marker to compensate.

Do you want this paper? I ask him.
Put it with the others he says
We keep those papers at the bank I say because they can’t be replaced but if you ever want to see them all you have to do is ask. I say
Ok he says

We cook breakfast, a feast to celebrate Jay’s birthday and also a way to make up for this news too. As if food could somehow solve this. He is mixing the pancakes for me. I put my arms around him and he lets me. This is telling. I have to say something more. So I say, Can I tell you what I think about when I think about your birth mother?
What? he says
I think about how grateful I am that she gave you to me when she couldn’t take care of you herself.
Mmm he says and he lets my arms stay around him for a moment longer.

Oh God it hurts. It hurts so much. How could the world do this to him? Why couldn’t he have just been my biological child? Why couldn’t you have taken her pregnancy and given it to me? Why put him in a place where he might wonder, where he might be hurt by this. People always say that we should focus on the positive part of adoption and I know they are right. We should focus on being chosen, on being given, on being loved enough to be given another, different chance. There are so many faces to adoption. So many parts of the whole experience that are disparate. I don’t mean to focus on the negative but some days I can’t help it. It is time for church now and I’ve written enough this morning.

Carly Simon, curiosity and depression

Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend – Carly Simon at her very very best, a great song and a great lyric – making people curious for going on like four decades.
Who is that song about?
I think if you can make people curious you’ve really got them. Curiosity is pretty much the defining element of humanity although I’ve heard a lot of the animal kingdom has the trait.

Maybe that’s what I hate most about the depression; it’s when the curiosity is gone. I love these days, the good days, when I feel like I used to, when I feel like I can do it all and I want to do it all. Of course then I kick myself later because these are those days when I commit to things I won’t be able to do in a week or two. Things that I won’t be curious about then, and then I’ll have to hope that the feeling comes back around again and that the commitment will not crash before the feeling comes round. It’s a real adjustment – getting used to the slide. Some folks liken it to a roller coaster but I don’t like that metaphor, the roller coaster is too predictable, I can see what’s coming and I know exactly when it’s going to get here. That isn’t what this is like. This is like sitting on a slide. But the slide isn’t attached to a ladder on one side and the ground on the other. This slide is attached on each side to a hydraulic lift and I’m sitting in the middle. Both lifts could rise at the same time and I’d feel great. Both lifts could collapse at the same time and I’d feel like crap. That is the easy part. The hard part is when the lifts work independently of each other. Then I slide side to side, up and down praying for it to stop. I can see where I want to be and I’ve got no power to put myself there. All I can do is ride the slide. I can see where I want to be but I have no idea when or if I’ll ever get there again. All I can do is ride the slide.

This year's Christmas letter

The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.

Pastor Lewandoski stands on the raised dias of the sanctuary, the altar behind him. His arm is stretched high and he speaks the words of the benediction. With his palm facing us I feel warmth and comfort steal over my childhood self.

There are so many benedictions that we receive and we give. Perhaps my favorite is the good night rituals with the children. Henry’s top bunk puts me at eyelevel. He knows I am waiting and I think he likes to keep me hanging there for a moment. He finds a decent stopping point in whatever book he’s reading and then we hug. Jay requires a kiss to the forehead, to the chin, to each cheek, then an Eskimo kiss. I follow that with a moment of resting my head on his chest listening for his heartbeat. He giggles if I tease and say he needs to be quiet because I think his heart isn’t beating. Ana hides, buried under a mass of covers. I dig her out to find wide eyes no longer cloaked in glasses, her beautiful face framed by glossy curls. I lay beside her for a minute, our noses almost touching, staring into her eyes before placing a few kisses on her soft cheeks.
Good benedictions - to and from people we love and trust.

There was a Saturday this past spring when I was at an intersection in east central Denver - not a great part of town. If I was feeling lyrical I would label it ‘the crossroads of bad luck and bad decisions.’ I sat in my van waiting for the light to change. I considered rolling up the window but I didn’t want to shut myself up on such a nice day, so I left it open.

The street was cluttered. A tall man with a broad carefree smile, a meandering gait, and a brown paper sack attempted to follow the sidewalk. I watched him, making my own judgments. Then our eyes met. I hadn’t meant to do that and I glanced away.

“Hey!” he called. From the corner of my eye I saw him throw his arms wide, “Gimme that smile again.”

I was stuck and I struggled with it. I stared at the light which was still red. With cars in front of me, even if it changed right now I wasn’t going to escape. Not fast enough.

I could feel him watching me. He was going to stare at me until I either looked back at him, or drove off. Was I afraid? Was I embarrassed? If I ignored him did it mean I dismissed him? I thought of my earlier judgments. Drunk, lost soul, homeless, mentally ill…

He waited, arms outstretched and I found I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ignore him. So I turned and forced a smile.

He smiled back, his more real than mine and raised his hand to me, outstretched, his palm facing me. He shouted across the street, “Grace go with yah baby.”
My breath, which I didn’t know I had been holding, huffed out of me. My smile became real. The light changed.

An unexpected benediction from an unlikely source.

Sometime this summer Pastor Michael posed a question. When do you feel the Holy Spirit move you? I’d have to say it’s during a benediction, when a small bit of one’s self is sent out for another to carry.

May Grace Go With You This Christmas

Fictional Ramblings

She doesn’t know how it came to this. Perhaps it was just that today was too much, with the dog, the cell phone, and the stupid meeting with the ridiculous Mr. Booth. Perhaps it took that much annoyance to make everything else come to clarity. But somewhere between the trip to the vet hospital and Booth ranting about bird flu she realized that she just didn’t like the sex. The meeting went on around her but she was no longer listening. Instead she was trying to determine how she had come to understand the extent of the problem so fully, so suddenly. It wasn’t like she had a lot to compare. She hadn’t had sex with many men and the baselines were old. She’d been having sex with him for just over twenty two years, before that there had been others but those memories were the dim recollections of desperate young sex. Stolen moments mostly without the possibility of a longer relaxed encounter. On the contrary they had had many long moments. Opportunities to stretch it out, time to plan, time to relax and had that brought visions of God, spasms of ecstasy, screams of delight? Well, no. The flat answer was no, in fact, it hadn’t brought so much as a smile much of the time. Rather, just an exhausted sort of deflation. She dreamt of it too. Dreamt of the same deafening vacuum. The anticipation followed by the disappointment.
And today she knew that she couldn’t stand it, not one more night of it. She was 48 years old and she was going to have good sex while she still had some life left.
Sometimes she had played a game, sat in meetings and looked at the men in the room, watching their lips move while they talked, imagining those same lips on her. Wondering what those lips would feel like. Always assuming that everyone did that sometimes. And maybe there were those that did, but she didn’t want to be one of those any more.

An essay on unfortunate differences…

Trip to DC this week prevented posting regularly, so I am posting some ramblings...
A

We met mid-summer in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. In a room filled with parents, children, and a map of Russia – our common link. I put a pin into two cities, Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk. One for my son who at that time didn’t acknowledge his adoption and one for the daughter beside me who did.

This other family had a son and a daughter too. The son, like ours, was from Krasnoyarsk. A quick conversation led us to a surprising discovery. Our sons had both lived in the same orphanage and likely had been there at the same time.

I went home from camp that year and told my son this. For the first time in his life he seemed interested in his adoption. For the first time he had the courage to face it because there was another - a real tangible boy who was like him.

Over this past weekend we confirmed through pictures that the boys had spent at least some time in the same room. Pictures of each child in a room with pink walls, lace curtains, and panel covered radiators – it was the same room an ocean and a continent away from the farm where we stood now.

We were two families, alike in some fantastic ways, different in other ways just as fantastic. Our adopted children are similar in age, the boys were the oldest and both from Krasnoyarsk, the girls younger and both in love with animals. Each family had one child that was fair and the other dark. The boys had similar temperaments, angry, controlling, at times hyper, and with academic struggles. The girls had their similarities as well; both loved animals, were socially needy and at times seemed socially delayed. Both families were Lutheran.

The differences were equally as stunning. One family lived in Nebraska on a farm that was five miles from the nearest small town. The other lived in a house in a downtown neighborhood of Denver. The children were home-schooled in one instance and were in public school in the other. One family had no biological children and the other family had one younger sibling who was biological. One family was ELCA synod and the other Missouri synod.

In all cases, they respected their differences and in fact celebrated them. The home schooling mother helped the other mother find workbooks for additional summer work for the public schooled kids. The family with the biological child confirmed suspicions about developmental milestones for the family with none. Then came the day when the families attended church together. Unwittingly they would come upon one of the more difficult differences they would face – communion.

Sitting in the first row of the Missouri Synod church it became apparent that for many reasons it would be best if the ELCA family didn’t take communion that day. There hadn’t been time to discuss it with the pastor first, their oldest had had his first communion when the Missouri Synod didn’t typically allow that until after confirmation. So the ELCA family sat, the Missouri Synod family received, and the children were bewildered.

The elephant in the room was large but in typical Lutheran style we moved around it and pretended that it wasn’t there even though we bumped into it at what felt like every turn. The pastor shook hands and welcomed everyone after the service but the ELCA family didn’t really feel welcome by then. How could they feel welcome in the church if they weren’t welcome at the table? It just didn’t match what they believed. In the end everyone left the church and change the subject through the awkward silences later but suddenly they couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about..

Reoccurring Dream

Free Writing December 11, 2006

I had this reoccurring dream as a child, it was a nightmare really. In the nightmare I was at the house in Greendale. On the floor of the house were giant glass milk bottles lined up in rows laying down. Each milk bottle had an alligator in it. I can only remember contemplating the scene; I don’t remember interacting with the bottles or the alligators. In this dream I was a small child and I believe I was a small child when I had these dreams. I do remember there being adults in the dream as well, my parents, my brother, perhaps my grandfather. All of these people were unconcerned about the situation and I felt the overwhelming burden of having to enlighten them.

What word comes next?

Free Writing December 7, 2006

It was a dark and stormy night. It was a dark and stormy life. But a stormy life was better than Rupert’s situation. Rupert was that lumpy pile in the dark corner. And the dark lumpy pile was dead. Dead was definitely not the way to go. I looked toward the door. The door was the way to go. And now was the time to go through the door. The trouble was these chains, it was a dark and stormy night to be in chains. And it would be hard to go through the door into the dark and stormy night in these chains.

Opposite pairs

Free Writing December 6, 2006

Back to sentence pairs

Her child, the very first flesh and blood relative that she would ever touch was before her. With the first touch a swift possession engulfed her, this child was hers. Just as quick, anger rose and tore at her. Her birth mother had held her this way before turning away forever. How?

The girl sat before her. Her nose ran, clothes disordered around her bulging stomach. There was a wild eyed look of desperation combined with the terror there. “I can’t be pregnant!” The words were a wail and a plea.

Well, time’s up and pencils down. I’m not sure if that’s an opposite pair or not.

vehemently opposed

Free writing December 4th, 2006

I read another writing exercise last night when I was cruising the web. The purpose was to write a piece from a viewpoint that you don’t hold. Pick something that you are vehemently opposed to and write the other side. As typical I was having trouble imagining what this was but thought it would help me in writing Nathan. So here goes. I’m going to write this as a piece that is pro-cheating on homework.

It was a stupid requirement. I was a football player. Writing essays on Shakespeare had nothing to do with me. They were of no use to me and never would be. What was I going to learn from this? Nothing that would help me in life. Life was about making money. I was going to make it playing football. They said, well what if you get injured man? What if football doesn’t work out? But you can’t think that way, you can’t play to lose. You gotta give it your all. And this English class is a distraction. I can’t be worried about some essay when I should be focused on the play. I got to give this my all, on hundred percent. So you gotta write it. This is how the big dogs do it. They don’t take care of everything themselves, they have other people who do stuff for ‘em. They got a guy to do the finances, they got a guy to drive, they got a guy to cook. Well, I’m not there yet but this English paper thing. I can’t do it. If I flunk the class I can’t play. Which ain’t right. I gotta play, it’s what I was made to do. This English class won’t help me play. It has nothing to do with my life. Nothing. You, you’re a writer, English makes sense for you. We don’t make you play football.

Don’t Stand So Close To Me

Free Writing 12/1/06

The first time NAME heard SPECIFIC SONG TITLE by SPECIFIC ARTIST , NAME was down/up/over at PLACE and we were doing ACTION.

The first time Paul heard Don’t Stand So Close To Me by the Police, he was up with Char at the layout table and they were working on the paper. The words came out of the tinny radio that was propped on a shelf in the corner. Garen was the only teacher in the school who had a radio in the classroom and let them use it. The words of the song, being words, registered. All words registered. His brain turned over the story of the song, Sting, the songwriter, had been a English major. A story teller. He had also been a teacher. The implication of the song was damning. Paul’s hand brushed Char’s as he positioned a story on the page. The scent of rubber cement twitched his nose and his smile went grim, Char would die to be the girl in the song with Garen as the teacher. Sting obviously couldn’t resist the girl in the song, why should he expect Garen to do better?

in media res

Free Writing 11/29/06

Either that or it is inaccurate. Dad, Henry has no socks. Henry has no socks. Why don’t you turn on the lights Jay? Thank you. It’s a snapshot of my morning.

The exercise is starting a story "in media res" – or in the middle of something. The first line of the story is, “Where were you last night?”

“Where were you last night?”
Paul continued pulling socks from the mound of clean clothes on his bed not looking up at his mother. He shrugged to let her know that he heard her. He found two white socks that matched and folded them together.
“Paul, what’s going on?” his mother’s voice warbled slightly with worry.
“Leave him alone Molly,” came his father’s voice, “Sometimes a boy has things he has to do. His mother don’t need to know everything.”
Paul continued to work the clothes in the pile, methodically pulling out socks. A blue pair this time. He folded them together. He could feel his mother watching him from the door, his father was gone now, he could feel that too. There was no tension in the air just the warm breeze of concern and love radiating from her. He wanted to turn from the clothes and blurt it all out to her just take all the ugliness that was wrapped around his middle suffocating him and dump it at her feet. To curl up in a ball at her feet and feel her cool hand on the back of his neck soothing the fire away. Like she had when he was sick with the chicken pox. But he was older now, he should tend to this himself, and he wasn’t sure that she would be sympathetic to him. This, she might not understand.

what is parenting about if you can’t share the things that you love?

Free writing 11/26/06

You might notice I didn’t make it here yesterday. There are reasons. Actually good ones. They will color today’s writing which is starting to look a lot more like a confessional rather than a writing exercise space. But things serve in the uses that are needed. Perhaps this is the space of requirement. In either case here goes. Why I didn’t write yesterday or how Henry spent his last ever ski day. Let me begin with the end. I will never ask my son to ski again. He started skiing when he was two years old and while he’s not a prodigy skier he has progressed through the years. He’s skied moguls, he’s skied powder, he’s skied trees, he’s skied about 60% of the terrain on WinterPark-MaryJane. Through the years there have been Henry sort of obsessions around skiing. One year it was the drive up and down the mountain – all this anxiety about the drive. He worried we would crash, we would drive off the pass, we would get stranded and while he’s never had personal experience with any of those things he worried. It got to the point where he would chatter about it most of the way down the mountain in an agitated manner about what disaster could happen. The next year it was the chair lifts. He was sure he would fall off the lift, he couldn’t ride with anyone other than Eric. He obsessed about falling off chairs. He could only sit in a certain seat and the chairlift had to have a “bar” that came down or he wouldn’t ride. Couldn’t we go to Steamboat where they had the gondola? His therapist worked with him and while he didn’t get over the fears he could ride. Then there was this year. There were signs. He wanted reassurance that we would only ski green the first day, only the easiest runs on the mountain. We shrugged and committed to start out there. We rode the lift and got off and it began. He was in such a tight wedge he wasn’t really moving forward. We had seen this twice before over the years and usually it would pass relatively quickly. We skied but he froze every time the terrain had anything other than the most gradual of pitch. When I say gradual I mean that many of us were skating or poling through this terrain. Runs that he had skied before, easier terrain than he’s needed in years, everything terrified him. Jay and Ana waited, and waited, and waited. Eric and I coaxed, bargained, and bullied. Toward lunch we came to Parkway. This is the unfortunate bottom of the mountain run. It’s a little to steep for many beginners and tends to be crowded but our kids could ski it with no problem, until today. Ana and Jay were down and Eric had already walked the plank with Henry about 10 minutes earlier. I took over and in a firm voice coached him down the run. He was angry with me and wanted to just stand there forever. I decided that if I could just keep him moving we would get through it. We made it down but I sounded like a drill sergeant doing it. It was lunchtime and Eric was pretty angry. I was angry too but I had ahold of it. We cooled down over lunch and decided to divide and conquer. Eric would take the skiers and I would stay back with the non-skiers. Ana decided to support the underdog and said she didn’t want to ski. I talked it over with them both and encouraged them to go to Discovery Park. It’s filled with flat terrain and I figured that maybe Henry just needed to get his feet under him. We went up to the park and everything went fine, he looked confident and whipped through the runs effortlessly. We moved around skiing every part of the park and found the same thing. Henry assured me that he was having a good time. We decided to move over to Jack Kendrick a run that is a natural step up from Discovery Park. Once again we hit the wall. I was so frustrated I could have screamed. The terrain was only slightly more steep, really quite easy and Henry was frozen, refusing to even try. I coaxed, cajoled, and ordered for at least ten minutes. Then I told him that Ana and I were going down and we would wait for him at the bottom. He screamed. I moved down the hill about 20 yards. A well meaning woman stopped to ask him if he needed help. I told her no. She ignored me and Henry told her no also. He was crying at this point. He did start to move down the hill. We went back to Discovery Park. We skied some more. He was still angry. I asked him to consider that he would enjoy things more if he let go of the anger. He did so and we skied Discovery Park more. Again he claimed to enjoy it and just as before he skied with no problems, very much under control looking quite expert. Then it was time to go down to the bottom again. We got through the first part of the run a little slower than the last time but we were moving. Then he froze again and this time no amount of coaxing, cajoling, ordering, or outright yelling would move him. He would stand only to sit down on the ground, stand again and sit again. Ana waited patiently at the bottom while Henry stood and sat, cried and screamed. He finally stood up for a moment and I told him I was going to do a skier hug. He screamed no like I had suggested I cut him in two with an axe. I came up behind him with my skis outside and put my arms around him while he screamed. He fought and I feared for a moment we would fall and I’d get injured. He’s young and would probably be fine but I could easily lose a knee or a hip doing this with him. I moved forward and even though he screamed at me he didn’t try to wreck us. We turned slowly but methodically and I spoke softly to him. See we are turning and moving, I need your help push with that downhill ski, help me. No, No, No he screamed, oppositional all the way. We made it about halfway down and my muscles were screaming. I just couldn’t do it anymore and it wasn’t like this was a life or death situation. I wasn’t going to risk injury to keep going. I stopped us and backed off. We both sat. I started the coaxing, cajoling, ordering again. He screamed. Now he wanted the skier hug but I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it again. I just wasn’t willing to risk it for 30 yards of terrain that I knew he could ski. We fought. I threatened to leave. Ana was still waiting at the bottom watching. People skied past. People stared. People frowned. And it continued. It felt like forever. Then he threatened to sit there forever. I threatened to let him and still we didn’t move. Finally I side stepped back up to where he was. He screamed No. Maybe I looked like I was intent on murder. I reached him and offered to help him stand. He held out a hand and when I touched it he snatched it back. No, you’re going to pull me over. I tried again and almost had him standing when he shoved me and sat back down. I reached down, grabbed both of his ski tips and pulled him down the rest of the mountain on his butt while he screamed that he hated me. I admit that I said, “not as much as I hate you right now” back to him. I had hit rock bottom but I had us both safely down that last 30 yards.
I stood there at the bottom of the mountain and knew that I could never take him skiing again. For a lot of reasons but mostly because I couldn’t risk repeating that last scene again. Not for our emotional wellbeing and not for our physical wellbeing. I am so angry, so sad, so frustrated. Another window closed for this child. Another window closed for me. Another thing we would have to work around for this child. Another dream lost. I know I know – some would say, it’s just skiing. But it isn’t. It’s skiing, it’s biking, it’s waterskiing, it’s food, and who knows what it will be next. And this one hurts because it’s something that I love, truly love and I can’t share it with him. Not in a way that makes any sense because I had hoped that he would love it too. And what is parenting about if you can’t share the things that you love?