There is change.  For both of us.

When Julia does some bad behavior -- mostly these days not listening in a timely fashion -- I immediately give her consequences -- like, in the car going to therapy this morning, she was supposed to eat breakfast.  Instead, she played with her iPad and when we got to IDS clinic, she had not touched her strawberries.  And so, no iPad for the rest of the day.  She is angry but contains herself.  She apologizes and tells me she will try again next time.  When she gets out of the car, she wants to hug me.  We had two instances of consequences this morning before we got to clinic but no angry words. I know she is getting angry because she almost immediately forgets why there were consequences.  Her concentration is completely on her loss.  I ask her what happened (lost the iPad for the day) and why (did not eat before playing).  I still need to connect the consequences with the reason for them.  She will learn eventually, hopefully before she is 35.  

I am at a meditation retreat today -- the day-long retreat that is part of the MBSR course.  There will be three or four classes here today and the room is lined with chairs.  I feel a bit tentative but more sure of myself than usual -- I feel like I am part of this world although I would be hard pressed to define what I really mean by “this world.”  I have the sense of belonging.  

Trying hard to get home

Trying to get home from NYC.  ‘Trying’ is the operative word.  Julia and I have been at the airport since 5 a.m.  We had a 6:55 plane which was cancelled (I got the email just after I tried to check in).  We were rebooked onto a 12:40 p.m. which has been delayed numerous times, currently until 3:50 but the plane is in  Albany and not off the ground and it is 2:40.  There is some “weather” and there is congestion.  Many planes on the ground, many in the air, no way of taking off and landing.  There are four or five plane-fulls of people sitting all over the place and a line for the service desk that is at least 40 people long that does not move and grows organically.

We had breakfast in the airport before we could check into out rescheduled flight, and then lunch post-security when the flight was delayed the first time.  Julia ate a personal pizza which will keep her for awhile.  I had a very small bean salad which was meant to be a snack until we got home.  

I’ve spent time working on an old manuscript that I wanted to work on this summer, texting everyone and anyone who needed to know where we are or would not be today.  Julia and I played a rather endless card game of War which right now seems to have flown by in minutes without notice.  Julia has used almost everything in her backpack, read some of her Redwall book out loud to any and everyone in listening range and is now drawing dinosaurs which I take it to mean that she is at the end of her patience.  They are eating each other.  She is sitting sprawled on the floor which is filthy but the chairs are uncomfortable and she was very good about sitting nicely for hours.  Really, she has been cooperative and uncomplaining and deserves many medals and bowls of rice.

It is hot and stuffy in this rather ugly hall, that I routinely pass through and give thanks that I do not have to regularly wait here.  There is very little air conditioning.  I have an awful headache because I am very tired, I am hot and I feel the mountains and waves of stress oozing from every body sitting or standing and working behind desks.  

And we wait.  

I’ve been reading and listening to meditation related stuff about present living, getting stuck, cracking open and seeing in new ways -- shifting focus.  Still, I ferociously defend the little bit of territory -- the plug of a charging kiosk -- that I’ve been waiting for to charge my phone.  

Is there a way to be here mindfully?  How many opportunities for kindness have I missed.  None of this is my nature, and exhaustion, stress and stuffy spaces don’t improve me.  I’ve known for a long time that the crabby person and the bitch do not improve with age.  They only become more of themselves.  Only the gentle, the kind, the patient and the generous grow in those qualities as they age.  At present, I don’t see it in my future.  And I am not and/or no longer angry about this wasted day.  Just rather grumpy, prone to harsh judgment about airline companies and employees, prone to feeling sorry for us and very sarcastic.  Possibly a mindful person would be sitting in some corner sending loving kindness out to their fellow travelers as well as airline staff.  I am not there.  At present, I cannot imagine when.

Update: rescheduled again for 4:20 and our number increase as two more flights, to Atlanta this time, have been redirect to other cities to land because they cannot land in Laguardia because planes on the ground cannot take off and are stuck in their gates.  

And another: Four flights to Chicago and Atlanta have been cancelled.  Our plane is in the air coming from Pittsburg.  There are flash flood warnings for an hour.

And another: On the plane but waiting in a long line for the plane to take off.  We may take off by 6:30.

Final update:  It was after 10 but we did get home.

This morning I woke up in Brooklyn on Cheshire’s couch -- there is the perfect spot for sleeping on that couch for which I am very thankful.  The tension and confused feelings of the past weeks (?), the strivings of the late winter and spring have disappeared.  This morning they are replaced with a sense of calm, decision, right-placedness and play.  Is it being with Cheshire and Chris -- after supper last night and before Julia went to bed we sat down and watch a tv show for Julia, I fell asleep.  Later, when Chris was finished studying for the night, we watched something for ourselves and I fell asleep.  Yes, I was tired from a day of travel but such immediate release into dozing bliss is not my usual reaction.   (I wonder if David’s naps in front of the tv before bed time and Lisa’s ability to take sleep when she needs it is something that I should allow)  These days, sleep may come or not when I decide it is bed time but the normal course is for me to awaken after 3 or  4 hours of sleep and struggle mightily to regain rest.  Or is it New York, the place of home, even though when I contemplate that thought, I don’t imagine that I can really live here.  

In any event, I am here, I slept through the night and woke up.  That may be enough.

Two days ago, umm, no three, Julia and her therapist were going through the daily schedule and came to phone call.  Julia has been practicing making phone calls to the grownups she knows who have agreed to take calls from her.   Teaching her to make phone calls has been a long, drawn out process.  Lots of rehearsals and scripts and lots of sounding like a bad actress reading a stilted script.  The grown ups she calls -- other therapist, Cheshire, our adult friends -- have been patient, helped Julia along and been thrilled with anything whatsoever.  On Thursday when Michelle asked her who she wanted to call, Julia piped up Amanda!  Amanda is the school mate with whom Julia had the play date after Quinnie’s birthday party last weekend.  Michelle and I debated whether to honor Julia’s request, and I thought there would be no hard in her trying.  Amanda is in class with Julia every day and Julia’s attempt at conversation should be no surprise to her.  

And so she did, and Julia had to leave a message.  Julia called again on Friday, and the girls connected.  I was at Waisman on Friday and Michelle sent me to text messages:

“Julia just got home and told me she wanted to call Amanda.  then she told me Amanda’s phone number and she was completely right!  Wow!”

It is a challenge most days for Julia to remember what she did during her school day, or some important tidbit from the weekend when I ask on Tuesday, but here she was able to retrieve Amanda’s phone number after dialing it once the day before.

And later: “She just talked to Amanda on the phone.  It went great and she had a smile on her face the whole time! She wants you to call her mom soon to plan a play date.”

We are not done working on phone calls but finally after months the fruits of our labors are visible.  Huzzah! 

And one incredible transition.  At least I hope it is transition and not serendipity.  Julia was invited to a birthday party last Saturday.  Most of the girls in her class were there.  It was at a gymnasium and there were planned activities run by the staff.  I expected to shadow Julia but the girls took care of her, prodding her, reminding her, cheering her on.  It was quite remarkable to watch them.

At the end of the party, one of the girls who Julia talks about a lot, asked her mom if she and Julia could have a play date immediately.  They had no plans, I had none (and would have moved heaven and earth to see this happen!).  The child came over and the two played together and/or in parallel for another almost 3 hours.  I did some cueing but for the most part they were just together.

There is change happening.  Not perfect but ongoing.  It seems like a miracle, a very well prepared, well worked miracle to be sure.

This evening, as I closed up the house early in order to get to sleep to relieve an exhaustion that I cannot shake, I stared up at the black and white family pictures that I’ve hung in the corner of the living room.  Before I turn off the lamp there, I looked at David.  His face, as familiar as my own, the way he holds himself, where he puts his hands in each picture, the tilt of his head, where he looks and how he looks, likewise familiar, comfortable, loved.  My knowledge of him “proves” that my life did include him, but as I look at the pictures, I almost can’t believe that there was a life with this person who was a partner to me.  It is not a sad feeling but a perplexing one.

When I am at my emotional best these days, it does not break my heart to look at a picture of David.  I am confused, perplexed, in wonderment (still not close to feelings I am trying to describe) that there was a time when he was present and now there is a time when he is utterly not present.  Perhaps it if from these questions that people form the strong believe that they will see their beloved lost person after their own death. I don’t necessarily not believe this.  I just have no reason, from my experience, to really trust the belief.  And then again, the belief does not matter in this discussion.  I am abandoned right now.  Some totally unknown future does not count in these feelings.  Likewise, thoughts of him observing from afar or even existing in some other place offer no comfort.

I am left wondering how I can hold so many lives inside of me and why I have to. I went to sleep early and then woke up after a dream in which I continued my internal discussion/confusion/state of being.  

In the dream I was in a car, riding with two people who have long loved and taken care of me.  The dream had other threads of concern and conversation, but those fell away.  We found a place to park and got out of the car to take a walk.  I wondered whether it was appropriate to create life with someone that I was merely very fond of.  This feeling felt well fussed over inside although not discussed.  

As I debated inside my mind, the idea of David came to me and the world dramatically expanded on the thought.  At the same time, I held distinctly opposing and very deep, gut-wrenching feelings -- I felt intense and realized love and I felt loss and abandonment equally intense and real.  I could and could not hold both of these feeling at the same time, and I could not remember how I moved from one to the other.  It was as if the time of his death had not existed, like weeks and months were cut out of my memory.  I knew that he had not left, we had not broken up.  He was with me completely one moment and then some time later, I noticed he was completely gone from all the corners of my life.  It was at the same time devastating and perplexing.  I could not take in how all these worlds or lives or experiences could exist at the same time.  

Perhaps the people who were with me, who are real in my past or present life and who care/cared deeply for me, represent the strength that I need to dive head first into this perplexity.

I can’t go beyond these understandings, these rationalizations, the whys of my whirling mind.  I can only witness them right now.  Is this trying to “live the questions”?

Can I really have two terrible, awful, horrible day in a row?  

Perhaps.

Just a bit of it yesterday was my fault for not going with my gut, but really . . . 

So, Thursday, I had the morning to myself and I planned to garden.  Rain.  So, the house was really dirty so I cleaned.  I stripped beds, shook out rugs to be washed, and piled Julia’s camping stuff, including sleeping bag, by the washer to be washed.  Then I went upstairs to start in my room.  I tripped on the blanket on my bed but caught myself on the door, jamming my left hand into the door, dropping everything in my hands, scaring the cat who jumped into the window with a crack (that was going to be fixed next Monday).  The window broke showering the bed and Julia’s stuffed dinosaurs with glass.  

I took a few deep breaths -- The thought I am working with this week for meditation class is patience and thus, the breaths -- and laid down on the non-glass strewn part of the bed.  After a few minutes, I got up and started cleaning.  During the day, I bumped into everything that I could and knocked over anything that could fall to the floor.  I still have the aches and pains of the day in my hands and elbows and knees and back and one ankle.  It was as if, I was traveling a few seconds off the rest of the world or my coordination was tilted.  In the afternoon, after attachment therapy, I dropped Julia off at home and went to pick up a few grocery things and found myself knocking over what was next to what I was picking up.  

When I got home, I went to check on the wash, and found a flood in basement.  I have a pipe that leaks when spring rain is at its worst.  It is on the to-do list  and almost budgeted for, but even when it leaks, the water usually drains quickly in the main house drain with no real problem.  However, the main drain pipe was backed up.  I didn’t know this for awhile and tried to scoop up some of the water and put it into the sink by the washer until I realized that when I put water into the sink it would come up from the drain.  And it was too late to call a plumber.  

I shoved a pizza in the oven to avoid any use of cooking utensils and Julia and I ate and went to bed without further incident.  And I held onto sanity.

Whew!

So, Friday morning, I called a few plumbers and decided to go with the one that neighbors had recommended.  I had some misgivings about him when we spoke on the phone -- just did not sound responsible, but his price was the best and I had the recommendation. He was supposed to show up at 10:30 and when I called at 10:50, his voice mail was full and I couldn’t leave a message.  I was due at Waisman at noon, and was stressing out.  I finally called the plumber closest to me.  They came at 12:20, I let them in, showed them the problem, gave them the keys and asked them to lock up and put the key in the mailbox.  A bit crazy, I know, but I needed to leave.  

I came home at 4:30 and everything was fine.  I ran another wash and took a shower.  No flood.  

So, it was 1.5 terrible, awful, rotten days, and that was all.

Friday night, I had respite time but no one to do some Friday night activity with and so I took myself to the movies and popcorn and a beer.  The movie was good but more than that.  As I walked out of the theater and to my car, I had the feeling of milestone.  Of chrysalis.  I have not arrived.  I am not happy or joyful or content, but I have found strength.  I am someone else than who I was.  Right after David died, I held the image of going into free fall and trusting (and hoping) that angels would catch me.  I have been falling for almost three years. Tonight, for a time, I felt the bounce, the big in-breath of relief that being caught allows you to take.  I almost didn’t know myself.  I was surprised.

And I would say that during the afternoon as I watched the first year LEND students finish and graduate from the program, some ideas formed in my head for next year.  I have to talk to my mentor next week about them and I know that I will be shot down some and discouraged, but I cannot shake the feeling that it is important that I am there.  Not big, incredible important, but important all the same.  After our graduation, I was talking to one of the mentors who I like but haven’t spent much time with this year and she told me about some of her work and mentioned that she had been at it since 1985.  Something washed over me.  I have been trying to run with those who have been doing their work for a long, long time.  If I can keep up for a few paces, I am succeeding.  When I step back from my angst and worry, I have gratitude for this privilege of being there and being listened to.  Not all the time.  Some of the time and some people.  

Another day.

I began Saturday in an foul mood.  Defeated, sad, ready to give something up.  And I wanted to go home, feeling like I had long outlived my welcome in Indiana.  I was of no interest, even to me.  Last week, after the lay trainer teaching a Milwaukee university doc who was attending, asked my partner and I various questions and we all chatted.  I told her of my ambitious plan of resiliency training, my partner of a plan that is simmering in her head.  The doc was polite to me but excited by my partner’s plan.  I felt awful -- her not me, only a limited number of opportunities to go round, maybe I am nuts.  Not articulated enough to be jealous, more like feeling that once again I was foolish to think I had a good idea.  I held on to these feelings, albeit buried beneath more immediate concerns, but festering below.  By Saturday I hungered for recognition and approval which I was not getting.  Not that I believe that I should have been getting it but wanting all the same.  Ego urging me on -- that little devil sitting on my shoulder nodding at my despair.  And that, and noticing Julia’s differences, put me in a bad place.

But by mid-3-year-old-birthday-party, I was feeling better.  I watched Julia play with kids in the dinosaur jumping house.  They were younger but by in large she was appropriate -- with some awkwardness -- and very friendly.   She bossed some kids around, but much gentler than she used to and a word from me would stop her.  She was kind to a girl close to her age, perhaps 10, who was either shy or sad.  And she ate like a truck driver!  First, a hot dog, vegies and chips, and then 2 pieces of cake and home made cookies.  She pointed out to me that it was a good cake. (when we did grocery shopping before getting home, she asked to buy a frozen frosted white cake and said she hoped it was as good at the one at the party.)  And I talked with a Noah relative who works in a homeless shelter.  She felt led to her work and encouraged me to do my own “important work.”  Was that all that I needed?  Some one listen and utter a few words of encouragement.  Small and something that she will never remember.  Was it the angels, my guides reminding me?  According to Ellen, they do it all the time.  I only need to be attentive.

I had a dream on Friday night. A dream of safety and happiness. I woke up wanting to hold on to the feeling. The holding on didn’t work on Saturday but as I was driving home I realized that this is the happiest dream I have had since David died.  So comforting, in fact, that I could summon up the feeling of it last night to lull me to sleep.

Today begins the rescheduled fourth grade camping trip to Upham Woods.  We packed last night and Julia was pretty excited about today.  She did get her period minutes before we were set to leave the house for school.  She handled it without drama or complaint, and told me that I was a very helpful mom for packing her extra napkins.  

I am working at Waisman this morning but plan on an afternoon in the garden.  I made a mental list as I rode in and almost want to cut short the work to get to it. 

Posted pictures in photo and flower.

The school year is winding down for me -- one more Waisman Resource Center project and I am finish until the fall.  This weekend, we are going to Indiana to see Matthew who should be out of the hospital on Thursday and Noah who will be 3.  And spring is finally enveloping Wisconsin.  Well, it may be that late kind of spring that jumps from freezing into the 80’s.  We’ve had two warm days and every flower and tree bud that should have been developing slowly over the past month is straining to show.  I almost fear that we will miss flowers by being gone for 4 days.  And I have ambitious garden plans that I am itching to get started on.  

Julia has lapsed bad into a cycle of inattention again and the morning routine is creeping back to hellishness.  She may need to miss the bus this morning and luckily I am prepared for it.  I’ve also ordered a “potty watch” (http://testkitsathome.com/wobl-vibrating-watch-4-colors-available.aspx) to see if she can learn to “listen to her body” again without verbal cues.  Yes, I am used to a typical child who learns and moves on.  Julia circles back with each change and needs to be taught again.  I have a lot of internal work to do to be okay with this.  Will I be re-potty training her at 30?

We both are sniffling and coughing.  I am sure that mine in seasonal allergies which start with the first dancing dandelion and carry on until some kind of pollen settles.  I don’t know if Julia has a cold or is also slightly effected by the spring, but her nose runs constantly and she is tired.  Dealing with Julia’s runny nose is not just her affair.  Frankly, she doesn’t really care about it.  She will sniff up the snot and she will wipe her nose leaving a trail of snot across her cheek (which, after a few days, gets red and chapped), but she is not fond of blowing and she doesn’t notice until her whole upper lip is covered in snot.  Her teachers no longer put a kleenex up to her nose to blow and when I do it in public, I know we get stares.  It is a hard skill to work on because even when a cold lasts for a week or more, it is not long enough to imprint a skill and then the cycle begins again the next time she gets the sniffles.  

Will I be blowing her nose at 15? 18? 21? Forever?  

On the other hand, she announced to me yesterday that she understand fractions. If the summer goes as planned, I will try to do some fraction work as part of our days, not formally.  She did give me a half of her oreo cookie last night after dinner.  The small half, of course, but then I wouldn’t expect otherwise.  She is a kid, after all.

Still trying to figure out the summer.  The end of June and all of July will be in town and hopefully, we will indulge in the pleasures of Madison -- art, music and theater.  Julia could use some clay time and I want to learn to use a pottery wheel.  August is still a question that I cannot seem to answer.  There is an apartment in Queens, NY, that we sublet reasonably but I am on the fence.  It may just be exhaustion and a few weeks of quiet restful living will reinvigorate me.  I need to be patient.

The retreat was intense, more intense than the previous two.  The work was about acceptance, forgiveness and compassion and I became overwhelmed by what came up during guided meditations.  This is the first time that anything at all has come up during meditation.  At one point in the afternoon, I needed to excuse myself and asked to talk with one of our guides or to make a phone call.  I needed to talk and sob. 

Last week with Marilyn, Julia was able to be much more articulate about her experiences in China and I was filled with such hate, hate that is centered on the man who headed her orphanage.  Now, that she can describe what I only imagined, I could not help but remember how he treated her when we received her compared to a video that I saw of another child’s “gotcha” day with the same man.  To the other child, he was solicitous and caring.  He even held up a kleenex to blow her nose.  Julia was a throw away -- truly.  It was all that he could do to say “mama, baba, jeijei” and push her at us.  The weekend work connected Julia’s life to Jennifer’s which, although physically different, both were grounded in neglect and abuse.  I cannot help but take some blame for Jennifer’s life, but blame with the knowledge that even with best efforts, any attempt to intervene would have been uphill and I may not have been able to do anything at all for Jennifer.  Much like, for all my effort, I may not be able to move Julia into anything near typical adulthood.  Some of this seems to have formed big boulders of blocks on my heart and opening into loving kindness seems impossible.  At least, for now.

When I talked through some of this with our minister, she said that my litany was the making for years of work -- no casual unpacking of boxes but complex surgery that needed time and patience.  She compared it to  sitting in a boat on a lake and throwing a stick of dynamite into the lake and trying to deal with all the dead fish floating to the top.  There was more than the ideas and emotions around Julia and Jennifer, and all of it painful.  Her prescription was more patience and invited me to talk more to her or others when the road was overwhelming.  She is right, of course, and she did take very good care of me.