Last night, Julia and I sat down to do a pretty formal family tree. Once again, I gritted my teeth. This is a tree that has no room for the people in our lives, only for the genetic ancestors of David and myself. There is no space for other children or sibling, let alone our beloved friends who are more family than those who are genetically linked. At times, it seems like family ancestry is another “R” and required labor each and every school year so that a child who does not know their formal “family” will never be allowed to forget the fact.
However, Julia took on the challenge with gusto, prodding me about the spelling and pronunciation of each name. She took in the Sarvetnick’s and the Zlobicki’s and the Batt’s and Krauchuk’s and the Levine’s and the Reszitnyk’s never once complaining about long, impossible to spell names. These are her family names and although I might be reading into her steadfast application to the task, I felt her respect, as if she would have no problem setting up an ancestor shrine like the one in the movie Mulan, especially if she could put in a little dragon or dinosaur. I asked her and she had no trouble agreeing to put the names “China Mother” and “China Father” next to David’s and my name but my heart hurts for the other family who will never have the gift of Julia’s honor and respect. And it is something that is not within my power to give her.
I send them my grateful heart for my Julia, but I do wish that we could take them into our family.
I had my second MBSR (Meditation Based Stress Reduction) class today. I was a very bad student all this past week. I did not read the suggested reading, did not fill in my meditation log and did not even do the informal practice that I had been assigned. I have been unwilling to fully enter into this experience even thought I committed to it after so much considering and deliberating. I should not punish myself or feel guilty -- that is so much against what they are trying to teach me. I should not even regret. Instead, I should be returning to my commitment anew again and again. Perhaps this considering and re-dedication is my first informal practice.
This school year is winding down for me. I have another two assignments to finish, but little else. Nothing is settled for next semester and at present, I feel only the need for some space and time. I need vacation. It is not that the work is so much stress and strain but that I am still cannot see how doing what I am doing now will lead me to what I want to do. Whenever I go down that road of thinking, I think that I must be judged incredibly foolish to go begging for work that is only a dream in a place that wants evidence based practice and lettered leaders. But fortunately the MBSR word of the week is “non-striving” and if I use it as a guide, I should be drawn back into the present and follow what my heart knows is correct and appropriate. This is not easy for me. My mind darts to future and past; how difficult to sit in the present. How difficult to wait and trust that what is to come will unfold in its own time, not in mine.
One of the final tasks of the year is to chart my progress through the goals that I set in my Individualized Leadership Development Plan. I cannot make myself sit with it long enough to do another edit -- I am not sure that what I have done is directly related to my proposed goals and I have no clear vision of what I will take on next year and how it will move my toward my large goals. And I wonder how much this paragraph related to the last? It is not that I am unwilling or unable to work hard. I am impatient to know what to do and how it will relate to larger goals, but I do seem to be mired in the present and assigned to let what is to come unfold without foreknowledge.
I feel like that there is an answer here that blows past me. I am not very good at hints and clues.
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