My heart is full and I am finding it so very hard to start here.  So many middles.  So many riches beyond any expectations.  Joy that I have no way of deserving and for which I am thankful beyond expression.  As I have noted previous, joy does not come without some measure of sorrow but perhaps there is a lesson that joy and sorrow are not the opposites as I’ve always thought them to be.  They are neighbors of the soul and neither is diminished by the presence of the other.  This idea may be deeply ingrained in most people but it is discovery for me and I am grateful for it.  I have no choice but to live with and in my grief, my period of transition, but I do have the choice to also embrace the joy that is close at hand.

And so I do.

First and foremost, I miss spending Christmas with Cheshire.  She is growing into a life that is her own and that I am not always a part of.  She is glorious and I have not any part of a wish to stop her growth but my heart aches for that wondrous person.  If the stars keep their present alignment, I will give her a very big hug on Saturday and we will usher in the new year together.

Then there is this incredibly odd and wonderful Christmas.  Julia and I have been taken into family, my dear friend’s family.  Something not deserved or worked for, something so serendipitous that it feels like the universe is flexing its muscles and working overtime to throw buckets of joy over our heads -- not unlike the ride at Universal Studios Jurasic Park that we went on two days ago.  They told us that is we did not sit in the front of the “jeep” we would not get wet and so we took the middle seats and were soaked!  Surprise!  Soaked and . . . we could have groused or we could have laughed.

It is the ability to chose laughter that seems to be the miracle. 

To back up (and I may have written this all before), after the summer, I was looking for some way to celebrate Christmas that was not tied to expectations and mired in the past.  I thought of being in the warm but had very little concrete idea.  Cheshire was in Indy visiting Marcia and told Marcia my thoughts and Marcia had a solution.  Her brother had rented two condos in Orlando for his very large extended family and there was a bedroom that was still empty.  Marcia and Matt were going down and why didn’t we join them.  My first thoughts were pretty negative about spending Christmas with strangers but I put that away.  It would be wonderful having time with Marcia and Matt and over the years of our friendship, I have met and spent some significant times with her family.  And so, casting caution to its own purgatory, I signed us up.  It was only after we had been here a day, that Marcia and Matt had to back out of the trip because of health reasons, leaving Julia and I spending Christmas with her family without her.  I realize that this is such a similar circumstance to the west coast wedding that we went to in September -- more people to whom I am not related and cannot claim any loyalty due to friendship  who open their arms and hearts to us.  

This is grace.  

And so, we spend our days at the “parks.”  A first afternoon at Universal’s Island of Adventure mostly in the Wizarding World, then Saturday at Universal Studios and Sunday at Legoland.  In the morning, 12 of us gather for breakfasts and at night we regroup for supper and/or a beer and desert.  We make plans, we shop for food, Jon bought a Christmas tree today and we will make decorations on the eve.  We are planning a Christmas dinner at “home” with a day away from the parks which will probably include some swimming and cooking and exchanging silly gifts.  My reservations of place and belonging have slowly melted away.  We are simply who we are -- we are here, we belong.

I am present and grateful.  My heart is full and I rejoice in finding joy that has no payment  up front or to come.  

Lisa and I are working on a family church service to be held next Sunday at the church where she is a minister.  I have never done anything like this before which does not stop me from fully contributing to the planning.  We will talk about the new year and letting go of what we do not need to make room for what we want to open our lives to with the important caveat that what we want may come in ways we almost do not recognize.  Thinking about this topic -- which has been evolving over the past week or so -- is perfect during this time.  It is where I am but where I am right now is a surprise -- like that water ride. Explaining the possibility of joy, defining the experience in serendipity, offering enough story to serve as example without slipping into self-indulgence, offering a path without prescribing a journey, those are all Lisa’s job.  In these tasks, I have no expertise and I will trust that she will take what raw material I can bring to this task and shape it into some viable message.  

But the thinking, planning and doing is such food for consolidation and movement.  The process is a gift to my now, providing a frame for this joyful Christmas.  

Christmas cannot be what it once was.  It is not the child’s blind joy or the teen’s alienation or the young adult’s created celebration or the parent’s tradition making or anything else.  It cannot be what it was because it can only be what is now.

And I will say once more, now has be in joy.

And Julia is having a pretty good time too. (Pictures of the last two days are in Photo)

written 19 December 2013

Julia has had two very good days -- cooperative, compliant, adventurous and easy to transition.  I have no idea why.  I know.  I know.  I cannot really graph her moods and behaviors and find some correlation with what she eats, when she sleeps, how our relationship is going, but I cannot help the urge to help her get those ducks, whatever those ducks are, in a row.

As we dressed this morning to get ready to travel, I saw that Julia had scratched one of her sores.  “It itched.”  That skin is still so delicate and even though it looks pretty well healed, it take only a swipe or two to peel off a few layers.  My hope of being healed for this vacation and bandaidless dissolved.  She had been without bandaid for the last three nights and once again I was hoping that we could move on.  She did have her gloves on and so she had to take off the gloves to scratch.  She could take off the gloves but could not call me.  The endeavor continues.  

I was angry.  I am so invested in her healing.  I cannot separate and let her just do what she must.  

In speech therapy on Monday afternoon, Linda did some language/direction following testing.  I was disappointed to see that there are still so many concepts missing -- “After you touch the big, black shoe, touch the last house.”  Julia touches the house, sometimes even correctly, but omits the other directions.  If the directions are straight forward -- touch the house, the last shoe and the third apple -- she has a decent chance of getting it right.  What Linda noticed, and once she commented on it, I noticed it as well, was that Julia did not impulsively reach out and touch whatever was closest to her.  She thought, she attempted to follow directions and she wanted to get it “correct.”  

We are giving out holiday gifts to teachers and therapists -- bags of home made cookies.  Julia helped put some of them together but I thought she was rather oblivious to the process.  When we went to cello lesson yesterday, Julia noticed that we did not have a gift bag for her cello teacher.  I was surprised that she noticed.  

We are heading for Orlando.  We are far enough south to see green out the window and it looks so good.  Winter is still new and we have not had much snow yet.  Still, I anticipate wearing few clothes and flip flops.

written 19 December 2013

Julia has had two very good days -- cooperative, compliant, adventurous and easy to transition.  I have no idea why.  I know.  I know.  I cannot really graph her moods and behaviors and find some correlation with what she eats, when she sleeps, how our relationship is going, but I cannot help the urge to help her get those ducks, whatever those ducks are, in a row.

As we dressed this morning to get ready to travel, I saw that Julia had scratched one of her sores.  “It itched.”  That skin is still so delicate and even though it looks pretty well healed, it take only a swipe or two to peel off a few layers.  My hope of being healed for this vacation and bandaidless dissolved.  She had been without bandaid for the last three nights and once again I was hoping that we could move on.  She did have her gloves on and so she had to take off the gloves to scratch.  She could take off the gloves but could not call me.  The endeavor continues.  

I was angry.  I am so invested in her healing.  I cannot separate and let her just do what she must.  

In speech therapy on Monday afternoon, Linda did some language/direction following testing.  I was disappointed to see that there are still so many concepts missing -- “After you touch the big, black shoe, touch the last house.”  Julia touches the house, sometimes even correctly, but omits the other directions.  If the directions are straight forward -- touch the house, the last shoe and the third apple -- she has a decent chance of getting it right.  What Linda noticed, and once she commented on it, I noticed it as well, was that Julia did not impulsively reach out and touch whatever was closest to her.  She thought, she attempted to follow directions and she wanted to get it “correct.”  

We are giving out holiday gifts to teachers and therapists -- bags of home made cookies.  Julia helped put some of them together but I thought she was rather oblivious to the process.  When we went to cello lesson yesterday, Julia noticed that we did not have a gift bag for her cello teacher.  I was surprised that she noticed.  

We are heading for Orlando.  We are far enough south to see green out the window and it looks so good.  Winter is still new and we have not had much snow yet.  Still, I anticipate wearing few clothes and flip flops.

Changed my hard drive yesterday, or the guy at the genius bar in the apple store did, and I uploaded my files last night.  This morning I try to get into word processing and I can't.  Yes, there is a moment of freezing.  What if . . .  Well, worst case scenario.  If it is all gone, I will deal with it.  If I have to go back to the apple store, I will deal with that too.  My equanimity surprises.

Is this a learning?

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner ~

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over the grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Oh, I've listened to poems like this.  I've listened with one ear fixed on not understanding to dozens, no, hundreds of poems.  Is that the ambiguity of living the questions?  I did not understand the now of now, the not stepping into the same river twice, or how to give myself away.  With all the breathless suddenness of a cold bucket of water, I sing ‘I see, I see.’  

So there is some good, something incredible and joyful about this moment.  A breath-taking wonder at the beauty of a steel blue dawn, flannel sheets and a child’s soft snores beside me.  Breath returns in time to thank the divinities inside and out for the possibility of seeing beauty and feeling joy.  But at the same time, I know deeply that sudden understanding and vision does not replace pain.  Understanding does not provide happily ever after.  It is only . . . only, what?  Only just now, only just the point of beginning to give myself away, only the place to start the work, only the place where I step off and expect an angel catching.  Even all that is too much.  It is only now.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Oh god, this is hard.  On a new deeper level it is letting go.  It is expecting, trusting, assuming, living hope.  It is faith.  Yes, letting go is deep dependence on and trust in the unfolding of what is coming.  The absolute knowing that given the completion of today, tomorrow will come and will be a now to be lived fully.  Fully with pain and with joy.  It will come without my need to do anything but wait and accept it.  It will be, for me, the mystery of gratitude and joy.  It might be the mystery of the journey of grieving and disappointment.  Everything that I’ve been taught in these last two years about Dukkha floods in.

I am by nature an optimist.  I have always had a measure of faith in my jacket pocket but I’ve been abandoned, I’ve been disappointed, I’ve been hurt.  There is a hole in my jacket pocket and my measure of faith escaped.  I have been left with Dukkah.

I found this definition: ‘‘suffering’ is an inadequate translation of the word ‘Dukkha’, but it is the one most commonly found, lacking a better word in English. Dukkha means ‘intolerable’, ‘unsustainable’, ‘difficult to endure’, and can also mean ‘imperfect’, ‘unsatisfying’, or ‘incapable of providing perfect happiness’.” (http://viewonbuddhism.org/4_noble_truths.html)

This morning I need to celebrate and not be slightly embarassed for doing so.  I am finding joy, chasing it, even though I’ve lost the person who completed my life and the perfect child that I imagined.  The intolerable pain exists at the same time as the joy, and at the same time, it is possible to  not make either such a big deal.

Last night before Julia turned over and went to sleep she said, “I think that Lizzy might be a Weasley.”  Thereby uniting her two worlds.  Lizzy, of course, is the purple dinosaur who has been with Julia since our trip to Disney in 2011.  A little purple T-rex also is very much a part of Julia’s story before she became part of our family.  Working with Marilyn on the long story, with many pictures, of Julia’s life in China, it is Lizzy, the dinosaur (not the toy but the “real dinosaur”) who is her champion against all that was wrong, all that hurt her.  She says that the dinosaur was always with her; however, if there was something with her in China, she called it a Fie Dun and it was a sort-of monster.  Once home the Fie Dun quickly became a dinosaur.  She admits to it being made up by her, but she says it was made-up-real.  Marilyn thinks, as do I, that it was the invention that supported her survival in that awful place.  

Now, there is Harry Potter and his magical world.  She loves it -- it is the first and last thoughts of the day.  She can admit that it is make believe but she loves it.  I have lifted my ban on the books (I didn’t want her to read beyond the second one).  She has been sneaking into the dining room to check out the other books on the shelf (Interestingly, her lust for all of Potter, led her to the realization that we have a lot of books on our shelves.  She asked me whether she could read them all.) and she has done the same at school.  She is plowing through the second book right now -- reading it out loud to me  as we ride in the car and at night before bed.  It will take her a long time to get through each book.  I am not worrying about her meeting experiences that are too intense for her.  I was not too much older when I snuck into the adult part of the library in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and read all manner of adult books.  “Catcher in the Rye” comes to mind in particularly.  When David’s first book came out, he made a special redacted version for Cheshire and her friends who were in 8th grade at the time.  I don’t know if she snuck and read the full version.

My meandering point is just that I need to let go here.  I want to protect Julia because she is still so immature, but if reading is one of the things that she is compelled to do, it may also be one of those things that helps her to mature.  She is drawn to adventure -- Cat Warriors and Guardians of Ga’hoole -- books I am really not interested in.  Cheshire at that age was discovering historical fiction (Cheshire, you should set me straight if I am way off base).  I was discovering science fiction but interested in the worlds not the wars.  I cannot chart Julia like I could Cheshire.  I cannot compare her to myself or to Cheshire or even to what I know of David’s reading habits as a boy.  Not being able to chart her, I tend to tighten the reigns.  I want to limit her exploration.  

But I cannot.  I should not.

I will be there for guidance.  Of course.  Of course.  The kid is much more dependent upon me than Cheshire was at this age.  I have a stronger veto power with her.  But I must learn to use it much more gently.  One day, she may be able to be much more independent and I want her to still trust my guidance.  If I am too powerful right now, I may be the best spring board for her rebellion and independence.  

Gosh.  I have always over thought.  I over thought every decision of Cheshire’s growing up but not as much as what I do now.  Now, alone, without a partner to bounce decisions off of, I can be the hovering tornado mother.

Not good for either of us.

Cello: We hit on something this weekend -- I had Julia write the note names above each note for two of the songs in her school music book -- Jingle and Twinkle.  I know that she is supposed to be learning to read music as well as play, but I think doing both together are just a bit too much for her.  And she was the one who wrote the notes in.  Her fingering improved immediately.

She is learning to read, it is just slow.  She does not recognize patterns, even repeating patterns, so she is deciphering notes one at a time which understandably takes her forever.  This is very much the way she was when she was first learning to read.  She is getting better at fingering -- we practice between two notes often -- but I think she needs to see the letter names for a while longer.

Her private cello teacher agrees and was very impressed by Julia’s lesson during which Julia insisted on playing both Jingle and Twinkle for her.  Her teacher came up with a way to practice in which I will do one hand -- fingering or bow -- and Julia will do the other, thereby giving Julia practice with both without needing to always put both together.  She does not agree with the way that she is learning in the strings class but she is going with what Julia brings in.  We have, very much, found the right teacher.  I told her yesterday that Julia doesn’t recognize patterns yet in the music, and I saw that one bit of information change her manner.  

Julia continues to be gifted with brilliant teachers.