Friends When Needed

/

Two days ago I wrote about people you need in your parenting village, but it is not only parents who need villages. In the past week I have been greatly blessed–more than once–to be brought into contact with exactly the person I needed, even when I didn’t know I needed them.

I saw her from a distance in Sam’s Club. She was a long-time friend with whom I have very infrequent contact. I almost said nothing. She had not seen me. I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, in fact I was feeling the opposite of social. My head was full of things and I wanted to think them all through. But her name flew out of my mouth and she turned to me with a smile. Within three sentences our conversation dove straight past chatting and directly into the heart of our lives. Her current struggles mirrored mine. We stood in the aisle at Sam’s Club for forty minutes and when we parted we both felt lighter.

The letter arrived in a pile of bills and I opened it last, because I like to savor the best bits. The friend who wrote it to me had no way to know exactly what my week had been like, but her words brought tears to my eyes and helped me on a hard day.

It should be easy to call my friend and say “I need to talk” but somehow that call is difficult to make when I know for certain that talking will lead to crying. Instead I emailed and scheduled a brunch get together, warning her that I intended to unload piles of thoughts. She cheerfully told me that it was a wonderful idea. So we met. And we talked. And we took turns crying. But there was less crying than I expected and more laughing. I returned home feeling lighter.

This time there were two letters nestled among the bills. The last responses from my Month of Letters missives. I’d abandoned sending daily mail sometime toward the end of February when everything got to be a bit too much. But these two friends wrote back to me. I opened the letters and read, happy to hear how they are doing, and to hear the answers to questions I asked in my own letters.

I stood at my kitchen sink, pondering my day, when I felt I should call one of my friends. Our friendship was built on in-person visits. We weren’t really phone call people, but I looked at the clock and knew I had half an hour before it was time to pick up kids from school. It was exactly enough time for this call. I knew it without knowing how I knew. So I called. And she needed to talk, even though before my call she hadn’t quite realized she needed to talk to me. Our conversation wound down after about twenty five minutes and we said goodbye. I hung up the phone feeling lighter because I’d gotten so many answers lately and it was nice to be the answer someone else needed.

Six conversations with six different women, all of whom made my life a better place this week. I am so very grateful for my village.

Friends When Needed Read More »

People You Need in Your Parenting Village

/ / 1 Comment

It takes a village to raise a child, or so the saying goes. I’ve found this to be true, but in modern society the village is not something that everyone has automatically. Some do, but others of us have to construct our villages, carefully acquiring the connections we need. Here are some of the people I’ve found very useful while raising my kids. Often a single person plays more than one role or even shifts roles through the years.

Grandparent figure: This is someone who adores your kids and thinks they are wonderful no matter what. They are older so that the kids can learn not to be afraid of age and to respect those who have attained it.

Parents with kids at the same developmental stage: These are your go-to people for commiseration. They really understand what you’re dealing with and can share notes and ideas for how to survive.

Parents whose kids are older than yours by a decade: These are the people you go to for advice. They let you know that there is life after your current parenting stage and because of them you can picture how your life will change in the coming years. So can your kids.

Parents whose kids are younger than yours: You get to play mentor, which is a nice way to pay it forward, but it also lets you see that you really have gained some expertise. Your knowledge is useful. Playing with younger kids also can help yours learn useful empathy and nurturing skills.

Friends with no kids: They sometimes make you jealous, your kids may sometimes annoy them, but they help you remember that your whole existence does not revolve around parenting.

Young aunts, uncles, or babysitters: These people are adults, but they still have the energy of teenagers. They don’t have kids of their own and so are glad to swoop in and run around with yours for awhile.

Teachers: They educate your kids, but more, they have a wealth of experience dealing with large groups of kids who are exactly the same age. They can reassure you that your kids is normal or alert you if something is not.

Doctors: This one most people acquire early, but make sure your doctor is one you respect and one who is willing to listen to your instincts about what your child needs.

Friends who parent the way that you do: Your families blend effortlessly and trading babysitting is easy because you trust the way things will be handled.

Friends who parent differently than you do: Because it is good to learn that your way is not the only way and in fact other ways may be even better.

“Elders” who will teach morals and values: This could be religious leaders, school administrators, or a teacher; it is someone outside your immediate family who the kids can respect and whose respect they want to earn in return.

Watchers and guiders: These are school psychologists or resource teachers who help diagnose problems and apply solutions when the kids are away from home.

Librarians: They may not actually work at a library, but they suggest books, loan books, share information, and informally teach kids in a non-school setting. In fact some of the knowledge may not be book-ish at all, but instead by hands-on.

People who are different from you: They may be disabled, differently-abled, of a different ethnicity, or of a different religion. The point is to let your children see that different is not necessarily bad. It also forces them to examine how they want to live rather than just living one way because they’ve never seen anything different.

I’m sure I’ve missed some valuable village roles here. I don’t have someone in all of these roles all of the time because relationships wax and wane over years. People move away and new people enter my life. But I am forever grateful to the people who have reassured me and even more grateful to the people who have carefully pointed out when something was out of the ordinary and needed to be addressed. I am so very grateful for my village.

People You Need in Your Parenting Village Read More »

Small and Simple Things

/ / 1 Comment

I was standing at my kitchen window when I saw them, a spot of bright in a world of dead grass and gray sticks. They poked out from the grass that I failed to clear last fall, determined to be themselves despite their surroundings. Crocus are hope embodied. They are the first flowers each spring and I rejoice when I see them because, even if it is still cold, even if the sky is still gray, even if it snows, I know that winter is going away.

Seeing these small beauties was a gift today. Yesterday was flow, I was carried through things which could have shipwrecked me. Today I am not carried. I walk on my own feet, sorting, working, trudging my way forward. I am doing one necessary task at a time because I am too tired to hold more than one thing in my brain. Remarkably, I have not spent today rethinking all of yesterday’s decisions. Either I’m confident that I chose right or I’m too tired to fret. It doesn’t matter. There are crocuses blooming in my garden and we’re on the edge of things getting better.

Small and Simple Things Read More »

Good Days are Not Always Easy Days

/

On the morning after three hours of sleep I expect the day to be a disaster. The fact that it was not I can only consider a series of small miracles doled out to me as I flowed from one task to the next through the day. Flow really feels like the right word, because I have been carried through this day from rolling out of bed, until this moment when dinner is simmering on the stove and I have my first moment of quiet to get on a computer. I have three hours left until bedtime and I pray that I can keep riding all the way through without ending up beached or shipwrecked.

Early morning class for Kiki was followed by a battle over breakfast with Gleek. Link had a slow and grouchy start because of bad dreams. I dropped him at school and headed for an early morning meeting with a couple of Gleek’s teachers. There are matters of concern and we needed a plan for them.

(Interrupted here by more evening stuff. Began writing again in the kid’s bedtime lull while they read before lights out.)

On the way home from that meeting I stopped at both the grocery store and Walmart. Shopping lists had been accumulating, filled up with lots of small but important needs for the kids. Having these small things perpetually incomplete had been wearing on all of us. I came home to unload. Then I went back out to Sam’s Club for prescriptions and the last few stock-up items. While there I ran into a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years. She was exactly the person I needed to talk to today, and I was just who she needed as well. We stood near giant bags of beans and talked for forty minutes. It was going to make me late to pick up Kiki, but then Kiki called to let me know she had her own ride home. We scheduled lunch next week for more talking time.

As I drove home I saw Link on his walk home from school and picked him up. Then he and I sat down to do some homework for which he needed my help. It was paused while I fetched Patch from school. On the way home Patch mentioned he felt sick. I didn’t pay that much mind, instead I fixed myself some food, the first since breakfast. I retrieved Gleek from choir and had a pause before she and I had to return to the school to meet with her teacher. Gleek needed to be apprised of the plan.

Then there was dinner, Kiki’s friend visiting, Gleek’s homework, Patch demonstrating that he has stomach flu, a girl scout delivering cookies, a relative stopping by to pick up stuff, Family Home Evening, and carefully shepherding Gleek through the evening because she’s particularly intense today.

This sort of packed day usually ends up with me collapsed in an overwhelmed heap. Instead I see clearly that each part of the day was exactly what it needed to be. Each challenging thing was an important step from where we are to where we intend to go. I’ve been calm and assured, even during the hard bits. I’ll probably do my collapsing tomorrow. For now I’ll just be grateful for today.

Good Days are Not Always Easy Days Read More »

Scheduling March

/

I sat down and counted. During the month of February there were 20 school nights. These are nights when it is important to run life on schedule so that homework gets done and people are in bed on time so that they can get up the next day for school. Out of those 20 school nights, only 8 of them were not disrupted by a non-routine event. More than half of our school nights had something unusual going on, something that pushed dinner late, prevented homework, required adjustment, or delayed bedtimes. This makes a joke out of the concept of “routine.” I look ahead to March and know that somehow I need to keep more of the evenings free. Either that, or I need to do a better job of taking breaks earlier in the day so that I am not worn out by evening. I’m not sure how it will all work out, and I’m torn. Part of me wants to plan it all and defend my plan. Part of me thinks I should trust and follow inspiration to flow through my days. I’ll probably split the difference: Making focused lists and tossing them aside as needed.

Scheduling March Read More »

Tilting

/ / 2 Comments

I tip my head one way and my life is over-full with good things. I tip it in the other direction, and I want to cry about how hard everything feels right now. Some of the desire to cry is a direct result of “over-full” but mostly it is because so many of my dearly beloved people are currently experiencing times of struggle and growth. I see the struggle. I see the shape I hope for them to grow into; I know how I grew through similar trials; but I can’t do the growing for them. I can’t even shout instructions without inhibiting exactly the growth I would most love to see. Instead I love them as hard as I can, and hope that the force of that love will somehow be carried to them and loan them strength. That, and I pray.

I pray for those in the midst of a crisis of faith. I pray for those who collapse in panic when the world gets to be too much. I pray for those who need to learn to soften when dealing with difficult people. I pray for those who drift, in need of a purpose and direction. I pray for those who need gainful employment and don’t have it. I pray for those stricken in health. I pray for those who lay awake in the dark, late at night, wishing sleep would come. I pray for those whose minds become a regular battleground between hope and despair. Yes I have specific people in mind for each of the “thoses,” Their stories are not mine to tell, but they all weigh on me and I wish I really could be the fixer of all things and the finder of all solutions. I am not. I am not. I am not. I have to repeat it to remind myself that I must not try to be. When I try to be the fixer of all things, then I am a “those” who ends up curled in a ball, panicked and fighting despair.

Instead of the fixer, I must love and pray. I must carry hope for those who can not carry it for themselves. And I must remember to tilt my head in the direction where life is wonderful and all my beloved people, all my “thoses”, are in a temporary struggle on their way down paths toward amazing things.

Tilting Read More »

Fragments from Today

/

We put chairs in our front room. It is part of the ongoing project to remodel the room; a process that started with paint and will not be complete until I’ve done some woodwork. The paint was nice, but the addition of a pair of chairs from IKEA transformed the space into a welcome place to sit. We had a chair and a horrid little love seat, but mostly the room was used as a dumping ground and staging area. The effect was magnified today when the new couch was delivered. Now, instead of squished seating for three, we have pleasant seating for five or lounging space for a smaller number. Someone has been sitting in the space pretty much all day long. I sat in one of the chairs in the sunshine, glad for the sunshine, glad for the chairs, and looking forward to doing the finishing work that will make the room be nice. I also feel a small measure of joy that the chairs are are a little bit bouncy and they are named Poang, which is a bouncy sort of name. People keep flopping in the chairs, bouncing a bit, and then proclaiming “Poang!”

I don’t always have answers or solutions, sometimes I feel that as a gaping void that I ought to be able to fill somehow. There are times when I weep because I can not fix the troubles of my beloved people. Other times I see the void and I stand back because I know I can not fill it. This is a new capability for me, to stand back at a safe distance while sympathizing and agreeing that things are hard. It feels uncaring. It feels like I am locking my heart away and being selfish. Except, my previous habit of throwing myself across gaps meant that the gaps did not feel so challenging. They seemed a small thing, part of the patterns of our lives. When I learned to stand back was when we began to see that the gaps as problems to be solved; when we began to fill in the gaps, change our routes so we didn’t hit so many, change the landscape so that they closed up. The moment I stopped rushing to fix everything is when I learned that love means letting others struggle and grow.

I’m starting to see the end. The snow is melting, the sun is brighter, and daylight is coming earlier in the morning. Winter is drawing to a close. Howard is in the final stages on two large projects. We’ve exited the muddle in the middle and are beginning the final rush to the end. I got my redesigned copies of Cobble Stones 2011 back from the printer and they look good. I’m doing a final editing pass on Cobble Stones 2012 before sending it to the copy editor. Howard’s kickstarter has funded and is in a stable pattern until the final rush at the end. I began the process of setting up the kickstarter for Strength of Wild Horses. These projects have been brewing and simmering for months and we’re finally starting to finish them off and call them done. It feels good.

Fragments from Today Read More »

An Audio Interview over at Black Gate

/

It has been a long day full of things done and I’m at the beginning of a week where I have many things yet to do which I don’t want to forget. So my head is a bit full. Fortunately I can point you at this interview that Howard and I recorded with Emily Mah. It is long, an hour and 11 minutes, because we talk about all sorts of things. It is a good thing I was able to say good things then because my brain is out of words today.

An Audio Interview over at Black Gate Read More »

On Being Over Burdened

/ / 3 Comments

I sit in church with my journal open on my lap, writing the thoughts that come into my head. The page fills up with things done and things yet to do. The pieces of my life tumble out and I try to put them into order on the page. I begin to plan the week to come, surely this is a good use of my Sabbath contemplation time. I shuffle the pieces and assign them to days, half listening to the speaker at the pulpit.

My pen pauses in its track on the page. Where do faith and peace fit into this schedule I’m creating? Where are the spaces for contemplation and inspiration? Mine is not the only plan for this week. My Father in Heaven sees more hearts than I can. He knows when I am needed to solve a problem for another person. Yet I have constructed a schedule with all the hours defended and assigned. I erect barricades to prevent anything else from adding to the load that I already carry. No. I can’t do that. I’m too busy. And thus I shut out not just people who carelessly ask me to expend my energy on unimportant things, but also God whose errands are always worthwhile.

I look at my neatly arrayed task list and know that I need to be open to inspiration as I sort my plans for the week. I need to be prepared for my plans to change at a moment’s notice. I tap my pen next to the first item. Does it really matter? Is this thing I intend to assign myself really important? Does it serve a larger goal. My pen pauses for a moment and I reach for answers. Yes. It stays. My pen points to the next item and pauses. No. It is busy work. I cross it off. Pause by pause down my list.

My life is over full. I have more things to do that I should reasonably be able to manage. When I am done with checking my items, I add a few more. They are things which I feel should be added to my long list. As I do a calm confidence fills me. When I over burden myself, I struggle with my load. When I am open, when I take on additional burden because it is right and needed, then I am also granted the capacity to carry that burden. The new burdens, and all the others I accumulated for myself, are made light. I face the week with hope and joy rather than worry and stress.

On Being Over Burdened Read More »

At Saturday’s End

/

The wind blows snow everywhere today. I see it misting off of rooftops as I drive past. Then the gray of the sky grows darker and more snow falls so that in the next cloud clearing the wind will have more to send flying sideways across roads and fields. I watch the snow, interested in the combinations of wind and water. Deep inside me there is a sense of waiting, part of my heart is hibernating, laying in wait for the world to warm and flowers to begin blooming. Some years we have crocus by now. This year we have wind blown snow.

The dryer buzzes, it is time for me to pull warm clothes from it and feed it the next pile of wet. That buzz has accompanied my day as I try to catch up on a multitude of tasks that were left languishing in the past two weeks. Our fridge is fully stocked because I finally made a list before going to the store instead of making a harried dash for things we’d run out of. The boxes of books and convention supplies have migrated out of our front room and down to my office. Soon I will find energy to disperse them into the storage room where they belong. All the merchandise unpacked and waiting to be organized into orders from customers, or perhaps to be re-boxed and shipped off to conventions. The spaces in my house are beginning to emerge out from under the things that were stacked in them.

I should be putting the kids to bed now. To be honest, I should have begun that process over an hour ago, but at the end of the day I have little energy left for making things happen, even things I know will make life better tomorrow. Once we go to bed Saturday will be over. I need another Saturday to finish all the organizing and putting away. Instead time marches onward into Sunday. I like Sunday, having a Sabbath for resting fills my soul. Yet beyond it I can see the edge of Monday and I know that work is waiting for me there. I like my work, but there was such an onslaught of it last week that I would like a little more time before getting back to it. I just want a bit of a pause. I wish I could sit in my hammock swing surrounded by the greenness of my garden, but all is white and bleak out there. Instead I’ll take a few last breaths of scent from my fading hyacinths. Then I’ll go downstairs and declare bedtime.

At Saturday’s End Read More »