Sandra Tayler

Doing Fine

By / June 14, 2015

Each week during church I open my mind and heart, seeking for inspiration and direction about the things I have been doing and the things I should be doing. Some weeks I get clear answers, others I don’t. This week I got a very clear “You’re doing fine” as I was contemplating my job as a parent.

I thought about that answer after it came. It definitely wasn’t an indication that I can rest and be done now. It wasn’t telling me I’ve done enough. It was more like the encouragement from a personal trainer during the middle of some difficult exercise.

“You’re doing fine. Now adjust your arm a little bit and shift your stance. That won’t make it any easier right now, but it will make this effort more effective in accomplishing what we hope to accomplish in the long run. Oh, and stop trying to carry that extra weight on your shoulder, it isn’t helping anything.”

I’d love to hear “That’s enough. You can rest.” Instead I get told not to spend energy worrying how I’m doing. I’m doing fine. Which is actually good news, because I was spending energy worrying that I was getting everything wrong. Maybe if I can stop worrying, I can use that energy on something that makes life better.

The Years Accumulate

By / June 12, 2015

One of the odder experiences I’ve had is being confronted that my adult life can now be measured in decades, plural. Today takes that and shoves it right in my face three different times. I’m not feeling old, I’m sitting here and wondering “how can it possibly be decades since that happened?”

First there was this: Andy Weir being interviewed by Adam Savage about his book The Martian. It is a strange crossing of streams in my brain because I’ve been a long-time Mythbusters fan, but most of my memories of Andy are from twenty-five-ish years ago when he was one of my brother’s best friends. Seeing Adam geek out at Andy’s book made me simultaneously really glad, and realize that people from my past don’t cease to exist simply because they’ve walked off camera in my life. Which I knew logically, but apparently some piece of my brain still needed the reminder. It needed the reminder even though it already had that particular reminder ten years ago when Andy previously came to my attention for being awesomely creative. Brains are weird. (Also, you should all go read The Martian and see the movie when it comes out. I loved the book every bit as much as Adam Savage did though I understood very little of the math. It is a great character story.)

Then Howard and I went to see Jurassic World. Twenty-two years ago I went to see Jurassic Park with my fiance, Howard. We came home thrilled and imagining dinosaurs everywhere. Lots has happened during those years, and I’m very pleased to say that the new movie did hit some of the right notes to let me recall that previous movie-going experience. I did walk out of the movie thinking about dinosaurs. This movie was delightful fun and it only increased my desire to see Chris Pratt in more films. Yet I have to say that the best part was holding Howard’s hand in the theater and realizing that he was laughing out loud at the same moment in the film that I was. I don’t often think about the passage of years that I’ve spent with Howard. We just keep moving forward together, focused on the work ahead of us. But today the Jurassic movie made me glance back and notice exactly how much shared experience we’ve accumulated. Yet it doesn’t feel that long really. It feels like we’ve just found our stride and are only getting started.

And, of course, there is the fact that today marks the 15th anniversary of Schlock Mercenary. Since I’ve been doing layout on book twelve, you’d think that my brain would be more attuned to the fact that we’ve been at this for a while, yet somehow it still surprises me. Fifteen years is a long time to devote to a project. This thing has been in our lives for longer than half of our children. For the last nine of those years it has been our primary source of income. I’ve had a front row seat to watch Howard create this thing, and I have to tell you, I’m not sure how he does it either. I don’t know how he holds these big stories in his head and makes up the next piece day after day. Then he pulls threads back in and makes it all come together. I’ve been there when Howard wrestles with self-doubt and I’ve had doubts myself. Schlock Mercenary is amazing and the more that accumulates, the more I’m able to see how amazing it is. I’m glad to be part of it. And has it really been that long?

Time passes whether I stop and notice it or not. I think I would be benefited if I paid more attention and made sure that my days include small creative efforts that will accumulate, because accumulation is a powerful thing.

Walking the Spiral

By / June 10, 2015

My breath came ragged through my open mouth as I walked quickly up the slope. Dirt and rocks crunched under my feet as they walked along the narrow trail in the grass. Many other people had walked this path before me, as is to be expected when one goes walking inside a state park. None of those people were visible now. The parking lot had been empty when I pulled up. I’d intended to tweet a cheerful photo. “Look how beautiful Fremont Indian State Park is.” I’d taken the picture, written the words, hit send. No service. The park was in a canyon, hidden from cell towers. It was a dead zone. No one knew where I was. Howard knew I’d headed to southern Utah to pick up our daughter from college, but I hadn’t mentioned my intention to stop at the park. It had only been half an idea, something I was mulling over. I’d intended the tweet as a digital bread crumb, a quick note to let people know where I was. Instead I stood on the asphalt, wanting to seek out a place where I’d been before, wondering if I really should go hiking solo, knowing the trail was an easy ten minute walk, and finally deciding the park was a safe enough place. “This is how people go missing.” I thought as I took the first steps on the trail, but I walked up anyway. I was drawn there by a desire I didn’t fully understand. I promised myself I would turn back if I didn’t find the place in ten minutes of walking.

My children and I had stopped at Fremont Indian State Park on a whim in the fall of 2012. We were on our way back from a college visit where my daughter got to walk the campus and realize that she really did want to attend that school. All four kids were with me on the trip. I hauled all of them out of the car and made them walk trails with me. None of them were particularly thrilled about it at first. Slowly they began to enjoy themselves and we all rejoiced when we found the spiral built in a meadow. The kids ran their way to the center. I have a photo of the four of them standing there, triumphant. Even as we walked away, I knew I wanted to visit it again. The memory stayed with me. I thought about stopping each time I drove past the freeway exit as I traveled on trips to fetch my daughter or drop her off. “I really need to go back there.” The thought bounced around in my head. Each trip had a dozen reasons why I didn’t have time. Two and half years of driving past and I didn’t go back. Until I did, because on that day the pull was stronger. I’d had a rough few months. I was mired in depression, grief, and other emotions I couldn’t quite sort. I didn’t know what I needed, but I knew I really wanted to see the spiral again. So I stopped and I hiked. Solo.

The trail was clear and did not branch. There was no risk of getting lost. As I walked, I measured the land with my eyes. Did I remember this place correctly? I thought I was on the right trail. It seemed that I was traveling ground I’d been over before, but two and a half years had passed. I didn’t remember clearly. I wondered if the spiral would still be there or if it had been neglected. I was nearing the end of my ten minutes time limit and ahead of me was a rise. I told myself that if I couldn’t see the spiral from the top, I had to turn back. I didn’t want to, but every step took me further from where I was expected to be. I could feel responsibility calling me back to my car. My daughter needed me to help her load her things into my car and to help her finish cleaning. After that I was needed at home. I had responsibilities and they tugged on me as I walked upward.
Spiral
There it was. My breath caught in my throat and I realized I’d been worried that I wouldn’t find it, that it hadn’t been real, that it had vanished like some modern day Brigadoon. I half wouldn’t have been surprised at that. It felt like a place that could just vanish. Or perhaps a place that could only be found by serendipity or need. On that day I found it. My eyes began to water as I walked the distance to the open end of the spiral.

2012 was before. It was before all the transitions that our family made stepping all the kids up, one to college, one into high school, one into junior high. It was before my younger daughter had panic attacks. It was before my older son began his long slide into depression. It was before we recovered from that. It was before I discovered that our recovery was a limited one. It was before my younger son also had panic attacks. It was before all the appointments, therapists, doctors, medicine, and meetings. It was before something in me broke, or gave up, or grew too tired. The person who visited the spiral in 2012 could honestly look her depressed son in the eyes and promise him it would get better. The person I was when I returned wondered if that was true. I wondered if I had been lying to him. I knew I had to keep going, taking the right steps, but somehow I’d lost touch with the belief that we could pull out of the emotional mire which kept reclaiming us. We’d seem to be out, but then the troubles would come again. My feet stood at the opening to the spiral. The last time I’d been here was before. I didn’t know why I needed to come again, nor why I wanted to cry at being there. I stepped forward and began to walk.

I once read about a meditation path in the center of a garden. It was a twisting walkway leading toward a center point. A person was meant to walk the winding path and examine whatever thoughts surfaced during the walk. I took a deep breath and as my feet walked, I opened my thoughts. “What do I need here?” I asked.
Center
Walking a spiral feels like going nowhere. I passed the same scenery over and over. As I got closer to the center this was amplified, I saw the same things, but they went by faster. At the end I felt as though I were spinning in a circle even though the speed of my walking had not changed. Then there was the center. And I stopped. I sat on the log and waited. I took deep breaths. Birds chirped unseen. The wind blew past my face and lifted tendrils of hair. I wanted to cry again, but in the center the tears were happy instead of grieved. I sat there, feeling happy, feeling connected to the person I was before. It was the first moment in a long time where I could see that yes, we kept getting mired in the same emotions. We were seeing the same troubles again and again, but somewhere there was a center where the trip might begin to make sense. I just had to find the center. Then I had to work my way out from there. I sat for long minutes. I did not want to leave. I could feel my obligations and responsibilities waiting for me beyond the edge of the spiral.

After a time, I stood and walked my way out along the spiral. I saw the same things over again, but this time the more I walked, the more the sights slowed down. Then I was at the open end and stepped free.

Finding and walking the spiral seemed such a silly thing. I still don’t understand how so much meaning got attached to it. Yet in that step out from the open end of the spiral I felt like I’d left some grief behind and took something hope-like with me in its place. The spiral helped me remember that there was a before, and the existence of a before heavily implies that somewhere ahead of me there is an after. I just need to keep wending my way along the path until I get there.

Productivity Report

By / June 9, 2015

It was a highly productive day at my house, which was a surprise since I had insomnia last night and only got 2 hours of sleep. But then I got Gleek off to girl’s camp. I answered a pile of customer support email. I liked today’s pile of customer support better than yesterday’s. Clear lesson: People are irritable when they are confused and faced with unexpected decisions. But people are kind and agreeable when you apologize for confusing them and clear up the confusion. I wrote contracts for the artists we hope to work with for the Planet Mercenary book. I got a quote from our book printer. And I pulled together a sample deck of cards for some play testing. Side note: creating cards is surprisingly complicated and nit-picky. We have a lot of work to do before these are ready for prime time.

Howard had a fairly productive day as well, though his would have been better if I hadn’t had some last-minute card design requests. Patch had an exceedingly productive day. He spent all day creating an amazing castle in Minecraft. That might sound like wasted time, but he was using a digital tool to make something he imagined. I’ll take that over endless hours of watching YouTube. To balance out the productivity, Kiki and Link took the day easy.

Now we’re all tired and ready for bed. Hopefully this time my brain will do a better job of letting me sleep.

Field Guides and Hobbies

By / June 9, 2015

“Oh! I hope I see this one!” Gleek’s finger pointed to the blue and black glossy picture. She flipped a few pages over and saw my handwritten note “You’ve seen this?” she gasped. I watched my daughter flip through my field identification guide for western birds, and she squeed over pictures with as much enthusiasm as she sometimes spends on anime stories and characters.

I fell in love with bird watching when I took a field biology class in high school. It was a hobby that often lay idle, but never completely forgotten. I’ve attempted to share it several times with my kids, but either they were too young, or they didn’t have the passion for it that I did. Also the best bird watching occurs long before they wanted to be out of bed.

This evening Gleek was packing for her five day trip to Girl’s Camp. The packing list said “journal” and Gleek remembered that she had a nature journal which teaches about observation and note taking in the natural world. The nature journal had a list of things to pack for an observation trip, one of the items was a field guide. So I raided my shelf. I handed over a book about Utah butterflies and another about Utah flowers. Then I loaned her my second best bird book. I couldn’t quite bring myself to let her take the one with all my notes in it. That one is a record of the birds I’ve seen and when. It has my bird count.

Maybe she’ll get to camp and find a hundred things to do which are not using field guides to identify the nature around her. Or maybe she’ll discover, as I did, that the world only feels more magical when you know the names for what you are seeing. Either way, I’ll get to hear her stories when she returns. And maybe in months to come I might have a bird watching buddy for a few early morning trips.

Rain at the Picnic

By / June 6, 2015

It is almost ten o’clock and outside my open window I can still hear the rain falling. It began hours ago with a few drips while we were at a dinner picnic in the park. Soon the children were running, laughing, spinning in the rain. I watched Kiki whirl around with her younger cousins. Kiki’s long braided hair whipping around like a rope attached to her head. Patch chased after her for a bit and they both laughed. The spinning and running was Link’s idea. “You should make yourselves dizzy and play tag.” So they did, and he stood and watched, protected from the rain by his hat. Gleek found an open section of lawn and sat. She was still while the rain landed on her, communing with the sky. I watched all this from the pavilion where most of the grown ups and half of the kids had retreated when the rain began to fall. Howard stepped out into the rain to flip the last of the burgers.

Rain didn’t ruin the picnic. It just added a new layer. Though the temperature dropping probably did send people home sooner than they otherwise would have gone.

I like listening to the rain. I like that we got to be outdoors in it for a time.

Too Early for Evaluation

By / June 2, 2015

We are two days into the school-free summer schedule and I’m still trying to figure out how it goes. I’m certain that this summer has more scheduled things for the kids than I’m accustomed to and I’m trying to figure out how that fits with all the hours where I need to be able to ignore the kids and get work done. So I dove into my blog archive to see how I managed other Junes. Turns out it has been five years since June wasn’t impacted by a major shipping event. It has been three years since June didn’t have a big trip in it. My archive trawl showed me that the only pattern I have for June is to intend to do lots of good parenting things and then to let them slide because I have to balance against the work I need to get done. Thus the kids play far more video games than I should probably allow.

For the first time in years I have June as a month to establish summer patterns. I’m not going to make ambitious plans. I’m just going to try to help us all to settle in. We need routine and relaxation. We need work and rest in appropriate proportions. We need to set up Link’s summer independent study program. We need to establish therapeutic cello practice for Patch. We need to visit the barn where Gleek rides horses and plays with kittens. I have to remember that I’m only two days into the summer. It is okay that we don’t have established patterns yet. It is okay to feel our way through this first week and figure out how things need to go. June has 30 days and I don’t have to get all of them perfectly right.

Not that today or yesterday were wrong, they just weren’t routine. Yet. Because nothing can be a routine when you’ve only done it once. We need some more summer Mondays and Tuesdays before I can know if they’re working. Only then can I see what needs to be tweaked. For now I can hear my kids laughing out loud because they’re playing a game together. The fan is in the window drawing cool evening air into the house. And I’m sorting my thoughts into words. These are all good things.

Letting Go of Who I Was

By / May 30, 2015

There are boxes in my office waiting for me to sort them. The presence of boxes awaiting my attention is not that unusual. Things stack up when I get busy, but the contents of these boxes make them unusual. They are things that were dragged out of the back recesses of a storage closet that had to be emptied so that my sons could have it as a closet for their new room. This process of moving them has unearthed many an object which we’d forgotten existed. I’ve found partially finished projects and things I acquired because of something I intended to make. We found toys that had been long outgrown. Load after load has been hauled off to be given to a thrift store. The same fate awaits much of what is in the boxes waiting for me.

I used to sew. I made costumes for kids, Sunday dresses, and other pretty things. I enjoyed sewing and I acquired many fabrics because of their potential. Some of those fabrics became beautiful things. Others sat in boxes waiting. I am not sewing very much right now. When I pulled out those boxes of fabric, I remembered the things I intended to make. It was quite nostalgic, but none of those projects interest me anymore. If I were to make time in my life for sewing, I would pick different projects. So I gave away most of my fabric. I retained the tools and books, but the projects in potentia are all gone. This means that my sewing supplies fit into two boxes. I have more space for the things than interest me right now. At some point in the future I may sew again. If I do, then the sewing supplies will expand. In the meantime, I have more space and that is good.

The sewing things are only one example. This process of clearing out keeps bringing me in contact with who I used to be. I find remnants of old dreams and I remember them being important. Part of me wants to hold on for memory’s sake. Yet if I want to fully become who I am now, I have to let go of who I used to be. This is the process of life at all stages. We don’t stop growing and changing just because we hit adulthood. Realizing this is one of the reasons that I cut eight inches off my hair. For ten years I was a person who truly enjoyed having long hair. I liked the interesting things I could do with it. Lately all that hair started to feel more like a burden than anything else. So I let it go. Now I can discover who I am with shorter hair.

I sorted my closet and got rid of used-to-be-favorite clothes. I culled the bookshelves of books that no one in our family loves. I dug into the electronics bin and got rid of things which have no real purpose for us anymore. We packed beloved family toys for young children into boxes and put them into storage to await grandchildren. I am making space in my house. It is time to clear all of this away because I want space to grow. I want space for my children to discover who they are as teenagers and fledgling adults. I want our surroundings to reflect who we are now. Reminders of who we used to be are fine and good. We keep the the things we still love, but we don’t want to be burdened with caring for and storing the past.

It feels like a good process.

The Scorecard

By / May 27, 2015

Just a few days ago I had a day where I didn’t feel like I was failing. Today that feelings of failure returned, so I took the opportunity to consider the differences in the two days to try to figure out where this sense of failure is coming from. The answer is: Dozens of tiny places. It is in the phone calls I have to make to schools or church youth group leaders to explain why my kid won’t be meeting their minimal expectations. Again. It is in the household tasks that I see still aren’t done though I intended to do them weeks ago. It is in my to do list which has spent two days growing in size instead of shrinking or at least staying steady. It is also in the fact that the things I’ve been succeeding at are big and nebulous where as the failures are small and concrete.

Also, the successes are often attached to some large emotional thing which I really wish wasn’t a thing in our lives at all. It is a huge success to spend four hours talking to my son, assisting him in managing an unstable emotional state. It was absolutely the right use for those hours. Yet at the end of them I have no way to know if anything I said will stick in his brain and make a long term difference. I don’t know if we made progress or if it was just a holding action. I do know exactly what things I would have accomplished in those four hours if I hadn’t spent them with my son. I can measure the failures. The successes are intangible.

The good news is that the ending of the school year gives me a clean slate from a pile of failures. We get two and a half months to re-set, stabilize, grow strong. My son needs that as much as I do. He needs to be out from under the many small-but-measurable failures of the past few months.

Usually the last week of school is a playground with all the stresses lifted. That has not been the case these past two days. Tomorrow and Friday look to be better. Then we are free to make of our days what we choose. One of the things I hope to do is take away the pencil from that one piece of my brain that wants to make tally marks on a parenting scorecard. Keeping score of failures and successes doesn’t help.

Walking Away from an Event

By / May 26, 2015

“Mom, I don’t want to do this.” Patch said the words into my shoulder. We were sitting on the floor in the school hallway side by side, his head snuggled up to my shoulder. The snuggling took some creative hunching on his part since he’s taller than me these days. I looked down at his combed hair, his white shirt, and cool bow tie. (Bow ties are cool.) He was dressed to take part in his 6th grade graduation ceremony and that was exactly what he didn’t want to do.

I thought about Kiki and Link sitting in the audience, waiting to see their brother’s ceremony. I thought about Patch’s teacher who has loved him through his recent difficulties with anxiety and panic attacks. She certainly hoped that he would at least be able to walk with his classmates. I thought of the reasons that humans arrange for ceremonies, their emotional purposes. Then I kissed the top of my boy’s head and thought about how much of his anxiety stems from the fact that he’s an instinctive people pleaser. He never wants to disappoint anyone. Ever. And if he thinks he has, his stress levels rise tremendously. My boy knew that deciding not to walk could make other people sad, yet he found the courage to say “I don’t want to do this.” It is huge progress for him to be able to be aware that his desires conflict with what is expected, to be able to speak those desires in a calm way instead of being caught between what he wants and what he feels he ought to do until he curls into a panicked ball.

While I was thinking these thoughts, I heard the principal begin to welcome everyone to the ceremony. I had a choice. I could probably coax my son into a partial participation. I could try to help him match what was expected by the structure of the event. Or I could listen to him and back him up in his desire to opt out. Ideally we would have made this choice in time to have explanatory conversations with school staff. It was too late for that. Patch’s teacher was on the stage in front of everyone. No way to consult her. I pictured them calling his name on the list and being confused when he was not in his place in line. I’ll never know how they handled that moment.

“Of course we can go.” I said. Then I waded past the crowds of other parents and grandparents. I gestured to Kiki and Link to gather their things and mine. I saw the confusion in their faces, but they came. And once in the hallway with Patch, they completely and happily accepted his decision. Maybe Patch’s teacher saw us leave. I left a note on her desk to explain. I checked Patch out through the office, so that school personnel would know where he had gone and with whom. Then the four of us went out for lunch. Patch lost the hunched-shoulder sad-faced look he’d been carrying. Instead he laughed with siblings and ate chocolate cake. In the end he will be more glad of that lunch than with sitting through speeches and walking in a line to shake hands.

Patch has growing and healing to do in the next months. He’ll be better able to do that if his family listens to him when he says what he feels. Even if doing so creates awkwardness for us.