Countdown to Forty

With only a few short hours remaining in my thirties, I sit here on my couch tap-tap-tapping at my laptop. I'm beginning this post at 7:45 p.m. Carl has just returned home from work with the happy, glazed look in his eye that tells me he wrapped up his Thursday route doing a job for a long-time buddy. He brought home critters (lizards and God knows what else) and is outside with the girls, assembling the "critter pen" he spent the last two weekends building.

I griped to Sheri earlier today about Carl's lack of priorities, but all the steam blew out of that train when I saw how happy he and the girls are at this moment. Not to mention I spent the entire--and I mean entire--weekend revising my Guideposts submission and have nothing nearly as substantial as a "critter pen" to show for it.

Turning forty tomorrow feels pivotal, though I know that's probably the most pedestrian statement I could possibly make. I'm excited about the birthday, though. Pivotal is positive for me. I happily gave my thirties to my growing family, staying home to raise the girls, even home schooling them. It's been the most rewarding, most thankless, most invisible job I've ever had and it's not done yet.

But the girls are older now and very independent, thanks to the superior parenting they've received. Snort. They're independent because they've had to be. Can't get your zipper up? Tough. Either can I. Hungry? Let me tell you how to make spaghetti while I sit exhausted-for-no-apparent-reason on the couch. You're sick of peanut-butter-and-jelly? How about peanut-butter-and-honey. Bananas?

Now that I'm turning forty I find myself frequently thinking, I'm practically forty. I don't have time for that crap about a lot of...well...crap I've made time for. In a way turning forty and having almost debilitating arthritis is liberating. I need to have fun and enjoy life while I can. I give myself permission to do things that otherwise I might put off until I'm older, more financially secure, more...you can fill in the blank.

So tonight I'm toasting my thirties with a nice glass of white zinfandel, saying:
so long,
it's been nice,
but I'm glad you're leaving.

What is Your Gift?

I took the girls to the library to watch the magic show it hosted as part of the summer reading program. Afterwards, as the girls played and read, I talked to a local celebrity-of-sorts, Ted Watts, a nationally renowned sports artist, as well as the husband of Hailey's fourth grade teacher.

As we visited he pointed out some of his own artwork that he had donated to the library, sports artwork in the adult sections of the library as well as a rendition of Pinocchio that he had painted on some brown paper-sack-like paper. I would never have known he painted the Pinocchio, as it's not his usual genre (is "genre" applicable to painting?)

He said something that stuck with me: "I assumed everyone could draw like I could until I saw what the other kids drew in grade school." Is it normal human nature for us to assume everyone has our gifts, but we are the only ones with our faults?

My mom thought everyone knew how to organize and keep things orderly until I recently pointed out to her that I hadn't a clue. I have to concentrate to accomplish what she does without thinking. Of course, some of my inability to keep things straightened might have a little to do with rebellion...maybe I should make a point to grow out of that soon.

I'm still surprised when I learn that others don't spend as much time thinking as I do...though I'm not sure if that's a gift or a curse. Sometimes--make that often--I spend so much time in my mind that I neglect the here-and-now.

Do you have a gift that you've only recently discovered is a "gift?"

Faith: Real? Or Make-believe?

Sometime in the past nine months I purchased a squirrel-proof bird feeder, which I hung outside of my living room window. Its globe-shaped, barred exterior has 2-inch circular openings that allow birds access to the inside cylinder full of birdseed. The cylinder has four small round openings, each with its own perch below it. The bars of the exterior are narrow enough to keep squirrels out, but believe me, they still try.

The squirrels crawl up my window screens and leap out onto the globe, causing it to swing back and forth as they try, unsuccessfully, to reach the seeds inside. Until recently the only birds I saw inside the bird feeder were small birds: finches, chickadees, tufted titmouses.




A funny side note. My mom will NOT say "tufted titmouse" because she hates the"t" word so much. Hey mom: tufted titmouse, tufted titmouse, tufted titmouse! Ha! I'm cracking myself up here.













Yesterday I postmarked my Guideposts writing contest submission, due June 24. I'm a procrastinator at heart, so I spent many hours over the weekend writing...obviously not on this blog.

OK--four paragraphs of rambling finally bring me to the thought that sparked a blog entry.

Only in the past two weeks have cardinals visited my bird feeder. Being medium-sized birds, larger than the previously-mentioned birds, I assumed they couldn't fit through the openings. I was wrong. They fit fine and now beautiful, red male cardinals and their plainer-looking female companions frequent my bird feeder several times a day. Gorgeous.


Writing a piece for Guideposts, a faith-based magazine, has me in "faith" mode. However, seeing the cardinals reminds me that I have a faith that's both real (to me) and make-believe. As I've said before, I'm a cradle-Catholic, baptized as an infant, confirmed in middle school, mass-every-Sunday (except that one Sunday I lied to my parents) growing up. When I attended a Catholic university, I became agnostic. Go figure. I later married in the Catholic church and carry on my childhood tradition.

Yet, something inside me yearns for mystery bordering on the magical. I like to think that God is speaking directly to me and I know the secret language. Somehow I'm special. That's how I started the idea that whenever I saw a bright red, male cardinal, God was saying hello.

I know that's make-believe. My non-believing friends will eventually point out that all faith is make-believe, something we conjure up to make ourselves feel better, less afraid.

My believing friends will lean towards saying there are no coincidences, though most would pressure me to find a place in scripture where God spoke through cardinals. Especially in the Mideast.

So...faith: Real? Or make-believe?

Healing Summer Continued

Laurie asked me in a comment if I have a list of items for my healing summer. Kathleen asked me how my healing summer is going. My answer to Laurie is yes. To Kathleen I answer better than expected.

My healing summer has progressed better than expected because, as I have mentioned before, I have a tendency to make grand, philosophical plans that feel deep and profound (to me, at least, though I know I can be full of myself at times...ok...often). However, when it comes time to carry out those plans, I flop. No follow-through. No discipline. Like the diet you promise to begin on Monday after purchasing all the special food, spending hours listing what you will eat and when, purging cupboards of junk food, pigging out on Sunday because this is the last time I will ever eat chocolate again. But when Monday comes, you hadn't slept well the night before, green tea just won't cut it so you allow yourself the usual cup of coffee with cream and sugar, the kids bicker, and you just say, "Screw it. Maybe next Monday."

Yes, I made a list at the end of May. I love lists. LOVE lists. I feel deceptively productive while making lists, about which I've written before. Here.

Following is my Healing Summer list, unedited, exactly as it looks on paper:

1. Heal My Body

A. Antibiotic Protocol
B. Enzymes
C. Exercise
D. Diet


2. Heal Relationships

A. Friends I've neglected
--Bob
--

B. My marriage/Carl
[note to blog readers: my marriage is not in imminent danger,
but what marriage couldn't use a little extra attention?]

3. Heal My Perception of Me
[not sure what I meant at the time...]

4. Heal/Accept Healing of My Relationship With God


So far I have flopped with #1. Why do I always put my physical health last, especially when I have special needs physically? Although I can report that I've played Wii tennis religiously. Does that count?

I've done pretty well with #2. I'm beyond happy to be back in touch with Bob. Carl and I are in a happy place. Etc.

Number 3. Hmmm. Turning forty next week has me analyzing my life, my attitudes, my...everything. Without going into a bunch of boring details, I'll comment that I realize I spent much of my thirties feeling like a victim. What a waste.

Number 4. Continuing with number three. If I've been a victim of something, God could've fixed that, being omnipotent and all. I've been pretty pissed at God, at his allowing me to be sick for so long, allowing Hannah to have a brain disorder, allowing me to struggle with chronic pain and the resulting depression. Resentment is never good for the soul, and resenting God proves even more fatal to well-being than resentment towards people.

On a lighter note, in the same comment mentioned earlier, Laurie said, "I could do with a PURGING summer, but it's too overwhelming. In fact, the stress of all these hoarded possessions is putting me in need of going shopping..."

I don't know about you, but that made me laugh, because I relate only too well...

Tomorrow's blog: SILVER DOLLAR CITY! What a day!!!

Talkin' to Bob

No, I'm not writing about that.

As a sophomore in college I rented my first studio apartment. At the time Bob lived in the same apartments. We met outside at the picnic tables in the shared courtyard and struck up a conversation. I was 19, he was...let me think...somewhere around 54? 58? Newly divorced. The late summer nights were still long and humid and we saw nightfall outside together many evenings as we got to know and love each other.

Whatever you're thinking, you're probably wrong.

Bob became one of my best friends, very intellectual, intelligent, open-minded. Over the years we have discussed religion vs. spirituality. We have discussed politics. We have discussed aging. Some days we drove from Wichita to southeast Kansas in the springtime, simply to drive and talk and view the redbuds and dogwood in bloom in the beautiful corner of the state. Eventually I married (he attended the party at which Carl propsed to me as well as my wedding months later), moved to that same corner of Kansas, and welcomed him as a visitor.

When I had children, we discussed parenting.

Then two years ago we both went through difficult times and stopped calling each other. Neither of us felt animosity, we simply became "busy" or preoccupied. Or whatever. I'm not sure what he would say.

I blogged earlier about my healing summer. Part of that healing, for me, is renewing contact with people who are important to me. I've realized with the tragedies and premature deaths that my community has experienced recently that nothing is guaranteed. I would regret losing Bob. So I called him. We've already visited at length and I'm looking forward to our next conversation and his next visit.

I've been talkin' to Bob again and it's like a balm.

My Mirror, My Child

As I tapped my laptop keyboard after 10:00 last night, Hailey approached me in the half light glow of my computer screen. "Mom, can we talk?" she asked, her small voice breaking.

Truthfully, I was annoyed. It was after 10:00, time for all kids to be tucked in. Time for me, dammit. I'm sure that, in her heightened state of self-consciousness, Hailey sensed my poorly-masked aggravation. "We can talk another time," she offered, tears running down her cheeks.

"No. Let me shut down my computer."

She didn't wait. All day she had been on the verge of a dizzy spell. If it continued to worsen, she would miss our trip to Silver Dollar City on Friday (tomorrow), so I expected she wanted to talk about her worries, her fear that she'd miss the fun.

As my computer slowly went to stand-by, Hailey said, "Sometimes I feel like...." She paused. I vacillated between annoyance at the interruption for her ill-proportioned fear and shame at my own lack of compassion for my distraught daughter. She continued, "...I feel like...like I'm...bad."

What?

She launched into a litany of her faults, faults that had nothing to do with her dizzy spells. As I listened, looking into her tearful eyes, her face transformed to my face. She became my mirror.

My own soul wept for my child. Wept because, at almost forty, I sometimes have the same irrational emotions and poorly proportioned self-analyzation. I despise that part of me, try to stuff it away somewhere or poke fun at it before anyone else. Yet here in the mirror that was my child it stood bare, exposed, raw.

God, how do I advise her when I haven't yet learned how to advise myself?

As my ten-year-old described her feelings of awkwardness, of feeling "different than," of feeling like the only child in the world with atypical migraines and dizzy spells, I listened. I listened as my own thoughts found voice in my child. I knew I had a choice to make, a choice that--in the current morning light--looks large and life-altering. I had to choose between answering her with the Inner Critic to whom I have listened for years, or answering her with love and acceptance.

Acceptance that we fret while Carl and Katie flow through life with ease. Acceptance that, as intellectuals, we analyze things that others barely notice. Acceptance that we have illnesses that limit our physical abilities, but not our abilities to desire.

But I also pointed out our blessings: both of us love to learn and learn easily. School is easy for us, yet it brings Katie to tears. We both excel at all things musical. While we both hate to miss out on anything because of sickness, we have opportunities and blessings if we only look for them as we lay on the couch.

Hailey and I visited for nearly an hour, laughing at points, near tears in others. Something happened between us, something mystical and bonding, something we will always remember in spirit if not in detail. That something, which I have yet to name (any suggestions out there?), is now the foundation for future relationship as the teen years loom ahead.

I love you my mirror, my child.

Things Never Change, Yet They're Always Changing

Is it really Wednesday already? What creative writing energy I have has been directed towards completing an entry in the Guideposts Magazine Writers Workshop contest, postmark required by June 24. I'm doing a revision on my "You've Come a Long Way, Big Girl" blog entry. I didn't realize how much I had taken for granted that people knew the characters in my blog. I'm having difficulty in the revision.

So, to keep this blog current, I'm going with a bulleted entry.

• We are now the proud owners of a 2008 Hyundai Sonata
• A tire went flat as I drove it home
• The car has been returned to the dealership to detail it, fix the flat & windshield
• I can buy a lot of gas with the money I spent on the car
• Enough about money
• We're going to Silver Dollar City this Friday (OK--money there, too)
• We're leaving Hannah all day with a new babysitter
• The babysitter has a sibling with Down's Syndrome
• I contacted a friend of 20 years that I had lost touch with for 2 of the 20
• I told you it would be a healing summer
• My mother-in-law visited again this past Monday and Tuesday.

You know I haven't been in blogging mode when I didn't blog about getting a flat tire in a brand-new-to-me car before I even parked it in my driveway.

• Compared to driving a Tahoe, a Hyandai makes me feel like my butt is dragging on the highway
• Carl has diverted from the "Building Project" to build a HUGE critter pen
• And making home brew

Things never change, yet they're always changing.

New Car

We spent all afternoon test driving and buying a car. With gas prices reaching $4 a gallon and promising to go higher, we decided we didn't need a Tahoe for running general errands. We're keeping the Tahoe for times that I need to transport my wheelchair, but now we have a white 2008 Hyandai Sonata.

Did we do the right thing? I hate buying cars. Hate it. I hate negotiating, hate parting with money, hate spending the time. We could buy a lot of gas with the money we spent today. However, I have been staying home instead of getting out to run errands ever since the day I spent $96 to fill my tank. Ouch.

When I hit the brakes as I neared town, the car began making a funny sound and an exclamation point lit up on my dash. What the heck?! Engine trouble already? I pulled over and Carl pulled in behind me. He came up to my window and, after I explained everything, he looked at the light and said, "You have tire trouble."

"OK...well, would you check my tires?"

Sure enough, I had a flat. I took the Tahoe home and left my knight in goofy clothing behind to fix the tire and bring the car home. It's sitting outside now with a donut tire.

I'm sitting inside, tired from the shopping and ready to do absolutely nothing.

Tomorrow is Father's Day and I bought Carl exactly what he wanted: A home beer-making kit. He has no idea, though he requested it. I can hardly wait to give it to him.

My brain is fried, but the day is now documented.

Friday the 13th

Happy sort-of anniversary to us. Our anniversary is actually August 13, but we were married on a Friday the 13th. When everything's happy between us, I think of how un-superstitious we were. When we go through the down times that every marriage faces, I think what were we thinking!

So Much for the Spirit

Some of the funniest things seem to happen to me at church.

Our small Catholic parish consisted of two church buildings for decades before we moved to Oswego, Kansas in 1996. Several weeks ago one of those buildings was condemned and now we are combining into one church family in my town. Because our church building is two blocks from our house, the changes have not affected me personally. But I can feel the grief rolling off of those who have lost their church building one town over, the location where they were married, the structure in which their children and grandchildren were baptized, the spiritual home that held so many warm memories.

Last week we missed 9:00 mass, so we attended 10:30 mass. Most of the people attending at 10:30 were from the condemned church, including the choir. In true Solomon form we arrived just in time to follow Father Larry toward the altar so closely that we looked like part of the procession. Usually we sat towards the back, but for reasons known only to Carl, we marched up to the third row. Well, I didn't exactly march, but it seemed like a good verb for a procession.

That particular Sunday morning I was in more pain than usual, so I took a darvocet before leaving for mass. I also wore a form-fitting, ankle-length, mustard-yellow dress that I hadn't worn recently and, since I couldn't find the, um, proper underclothing, I wore none. I know. Too much information, but bear with me here. It comes into play.

I held five-year-old Hannah in my lap during the gospel reading that Sunday, which told of Jesus' saying, "Everyone who listens to these words of mine will be like the wise man who built his house on rock." Then Jesus continued to tell of the foolish man who built his house on sand. It collapsed. Ouch. That could have pulled the scab off of any healing that might have begun.

Father Larry did a beautiful job during his homily immediately following that gospel reading. He explained how the house was actually the person's faith and spirit life, not a building. I don't remember everything he said now, over a week later, but I recall that he complimented everyone because, in spite of their physical house being condemned, their faith house was still standing.

The darvocet kicked in. I was feeling the Spirit, baby. If we were one of those charismatic churches, I could've yelled preach it! and Amen! Then the choir, which I rarely hear at our church because they sang at the now-condemned church, led us in a song about "letting the healing begin." Remarkable. It was as if I could physically feel everyone around me receive healing from their own grief...or maybe it was the drugs. I sang my heart out as Katie thumbed through a second hymnal for Hannah. With each of the three verses, the Spirit flowed all the more, carrying me higher and higher. Boy, was I ready for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, a quieter part of the Catholic Mass. I could practically feel angel wings flapping around me. Does that mean I should be looking into 12-step programs?

Katie handed Hannah the hymnal just as we finished the last verse. I was soaring high in the rafters when Hannah realized they were done singing. As the rest of the congregation became completely silent, and I watched from my high place, she arched her back and let out a scream that brought me rapidly from the rafters right back into my pew. Right up front. Oh. God.

She slid down my dress onto the floor, so I pulled her, arched-backed and rigid, onto my lap. As I did so, my dress slid up with her, inching towards my knees. Holy smokes! No underwear! I could either allow Hannah to slide back onto the floor, or potentially flash my priest. So much for the Spirit. 

I did somehow manage to position Hannah on my lap uneventfully and whisper sweet please-please-please-be-quiets into her ear. She screamed again just as everyone else said, "Blessed be God forever" in unison. Yes. Blessed-be-God please get my screaming five-year-old out of here.

I handed her off to Carl, who can walk without the aid of a cane, blessed-be-God, and he took her to the kitchen until she cooled off. Darvocet or no, it took another five minutes for my heart to slow. I never quite got back into the Spirit that Sunday.

After mass, as if she didn't do a thing, Hannah ran up to Father Larry and said, "Hi Fah-er Wawwy!" and gave him a huge hug. He just said, "Hi Hannah Solomon!" and hugged her right back.

Blessed be God forever.

My Little Enigma

At school Hannah received occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy. Watching her this summer, I'm confused when I try to determine her needs. The occupational therapist worked with Hannah's small motor skills, but at home I watch Hannah play the piano using all five fingers of both hands, playing melodies she has heard and including harmony in some instances.

At school she received speech therapy twice weekly with a speech therapist whom I appreciated and liked. I can tell by the way she consciously forms her mouth into an O or specifically places her tongue at the top of her mouth for an L that Hannah's speech therapist worked successfully with her. Yet now that she's out of school she has begun speaking in sentences, her mouth almost keeping up with her mind.

Carl has given Hannah a fishing pole with a big bright bobber on the end. She calls it a pishing pole and says she catches crout instead of trout. We don't correct her because it makes us smile. She sits outside on my lawn chaise lounge chair at least twice every day, usually wearing very little, and casts her pishing pole into the crepe myrtle bush across the driveway, then successfully reels it in and starts over again.

Piano playing and casting a fishing pole are two things that a typical five-year-old cannot do. Her memory is excellent. When I'm looking for something, she often finds it for me because she remembers where she saw it. She's remarkable in so many ways.

Yet, she cannot regularly follow two-step directions. In fact, I have to be diligent if I want her to complete a one-step direction unless she's personally interested in completing it. She still bites herself, still has unexpected meltdowns (like the one in church last Sunday--ooh, I have another blog entry now), still cannot even begin to read. She's not even 100% potty trained.

She's my little enigma, pulling me down this life path that I never planned, but which I find marvelous in it's mysteriousness.

Pruning

This is my favorite season to be outside, and my blogging shows it. I enjoy pruning plants more than any other element of gardening. In springtime the monkey grasses need cut to the ground to make way for new growth, the decorative grasses need the same, the bright yellow forsythia bushes have since turned to green and now is the time to prune them back if I want them to have free, flowing branches rather than a formal bulb of yellow buds next spring. The spirea need the same.

My dianthus need deadheaded, my daisies need cut and brought inside for enjoyment and the baby trees need cut out of bushes and flowerbeds then killed with stump killer before they take over the space.

I didn't have a great interest in gardening as a child or even as a young adult. This desire to prune feels metaphorical as I near forty, wanting to remove the dead, useless stuff from life, and even some of the weaker, good stuff, to make room for the fantastic, to allow the flowering branches to flow naturally in this next season of my life.

Happy? Or Sad?

Several times daily Hannah asks each of us, "Happy? Uh-sad? (Happy? Or sad?)." I cannot hide my emotions from her because she holds a hidden barometer inside herself. I've posted about this before, but this quality continues to grow and mature. I wish I could rip it out of her, but instead I know that I only continue to teach it to her.

Even so, she remains carefree and spontaneous, naked in body and spirit, incapable of hiding anything. I just finished reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter, in which a main character has Down's Syndrome and consequently shows every emotion, hugs everyone she meets, lives life in a childlike manner regardless of her age. Hannah behaves openly that way, hugging every child she encounters, talking to people happily though few can understand her. She assumes everyone likes her and consequently, most do.

At about 6:00 yesterday evening I finished the laundry I had begun and put away my mess. I went outside to check on Hannah and Carl, but couldn't find them anywhere, though both vehicles were home. Finally I found them at the neighbors' house sharing an impromptu barbecue on the new deck that Carl helped them finish last Sunday. Hannah, wearing only panties, danced on the deck with her mouth wide open, living entirely in the moment, happy to dance and sing and make people smile. Originally I felt mortified. She was practically naked, fairly filthy and barefooted.

I've grown to realize I'm the only one who cares. The neighbor playing the music kept asking Hannah what song she wanted next. Everyone chatted and drank beer and margaritas, laughing at Hannah and egging her on. I watched for a while, then called home to have Hailey bring some clothes over. She brought a light blue and yellow sundress that Katie wore as a little one, in which I dressed Hannah, then enjoyed the party.

The "D.J." (really a neighbor playing music on a CD player) played music from the sixties, seventies, eighties--every decade to the present--by the light of a dozen Citronella candles purchased at the Dollar store. Each decade's music prompted us to visit about our lives in that era, what we had accomplished and experienced. As I looked back over my life, I realized I have enjoyed many different things, that my life has been full.

I attended college, sang in a so-so rock-n-roll band (but, hey, we got paid), played tennis, experimented in some things I probably shouldn't have but lived to tell, married, travelled to France, Spain and Portugal, started a business with my husband, snow skied, water skied, white-water rafted, vacationed twice in the Bahamas, struggled with chronic illness, developed some wonderful friendships, let some friends down...I've had a rich life and I'm not even forty yet, though almost.

"Happy? Uh-sad, Mom?" Hannah asks me.

Happy. Definitely happy.