Yet again, I am caught up in started posts that I leave for “later.”  One for each of the last three days.  And now it is day four.  Travel and then immediate immersion into my quickening currents have left me yearning for some good escapism after Julia goes to bed.  Added to that, my four-day excursion to the AUCD conference next week has bee making lists and not wanting to admit that I am really going away for that long.

So, I am giving myself this hour to get something down.  I’ll use snippets of what has already been written.  I have a whole bunch of Julia things to write about and a whole bunch that I should have made note of.

I have a conference this afternoon with the Julia’s teachers -- the newish long-term sub who is not a special ed teacher and her special ed teacher from the last two years.  I am hoping that we can work out a plan for what and how Julia will learn until the new special ed teacher starts at the very end of January.  Although I felt that I needed a lot of guidance during the past few weeks, after working with Julia every day last week, I have a handle on what I’d like her to learn.  In math, adding three single digit numbers, adding double digit numbers, carrying over when adding double digit numbers, and the explanation for multiplication.  From the math sheets that Julia has been bringing home, only the multiplication concept has been touched on in school.  Julia has brought home sheets that are too easy or much too hard for her.  I need that to stop.  I stridently wanted that to stop while we were in Maryland, I can breathe into it today.

If the teachers have other ideas, I can embrace them.  As long as they are moving Julia forward and challenging her in such a way that allows for some success.  The too-hard sheets that present a dozen different problems do not reinforce any concepts and Julia learns nothing from the scatter-shot method.

Yes, I know.  I am the mother from hell.  What I see is that Julia is still in a very good place to learn.  She still asks to do math games or reading comprehension exercises as rewards.  This balance might tip when she hits puberty - anyway, that’s what I’ve heard.  That day is coming and coming soon.  I can’t afford to ease up on the learning.

In Maryland, Julia and I walked Lisa’s labyrinth most days.  It was not a pure meditative experience, with Julia chattering constantly and calling for my attention to the latest discovered bug or leaf or pile of deer poop.  A few times she jumped the paths to catch up with me when she slowed down to check out a discovery but most of the time she carefully followed the paths and me.

Every time that we walked Julia gathered cattails, and when we were finished with the labyrinth, we’d walk over to the bamboo grove where David’s ashes are buried.  Julia “planted” the cattails in front of the grove and talked about Daddy.  When we walked on she made a point of saying that we were leaving Daddy there and we would visit again.  I had no idea that she remembered about the rather casual laying of the ashes that we did last year, but Lisa did do a bit of speaking when we did it, and Julia listens.  

On Thanksgiving, we went out with Nick to pick some dried flowers and greens to put in vases for the table.  When I finished gathering what I wanted to use, Julia wanted to cut some bamboo shoots.  She was very bossy directing Nick to go with her to the bamboo grove.  Nick complied and it was very sweet to see the two of them feeling so comfortable together.  It strikes me that Julia demands relationship.  She knows what she wants and she is not shy about asking for it.

When we were on our way home on Sunday morning, Julia told me that it hurt to miss Cheshire, Lisa and Nick.  I agreed with her and she went on to something else.  I wondered if she could go beyond that thought but did not push her.  Tonight, with a therapist, she asked me if she could call Cheshire.  (They are working on phone calls.)  I haven’t heard what she will say -- they rehearse phone calls and also messages.  She doesn’t always have the words to move beyond initial thoughts or feelings, but not long ago there were no initial thoughts.

I’ve been noticing these days that Julia is looking into my eyes more often when she speaks to me.  It is usually when she initiates the conversation and then it is about something that interests her or some demand or desire, like noodles for supper.  Therapists and teachers still have to ask for eye contact.  I hope for generalization.

This morning waiting for the school bus, Julia got in the face of some of the neighbor kids and wanted to talk to them.  She gets too close, she doesn’t provide context, but she insists on conversation.  At least, until the other kid asks her a question in return.  She comes off as a social bull in a china shop, but again progress and a new awareness of a big world.

I was talking to Julia’s very wonderful speech therapist the other day while her student was doing therapy with Julia.  Linda is aggressive and demanding.  She has pushed Julia, constantly setting goals just beyond her reach.  She suggests exercises, ways of talking to Julia, ways of reading with her that get to the heart of Julia’s challenges.  And yet, today, as we were talking about Julia’s memory and the holes that we both see, I told her about what is referred to in the adoption community as “Teflon memory” (or is it Teflon Brain?) -- kids who learn and forget, kids who cannot seem to keep what they have learned.  I’ve heard it connected with attachment or trauma.  Linda had never heard of anything like that.  

Now, possibly what I am talking about is an urban legend among us adoptive moms, but what struck me, what sent a rather cold chill down my back was that maybe I knew something, maybe a whole bunch of somethings that the professionals individually don’t know.  Yes, I’ve known this all along, but some of the sacredness of the trust that I hold struck me straight on today.  Maybe it hit me because Lisa asked me how much of Julia’s needs I’ve written down, ‘just in case.’  Maybe it was today because Linda is so very knowledgable about many speech/communication topics and it is the first time that I’ve come up with something she didn’t know.  

I had a meeting with my spiritual advisor, Ellen, and the topic of conversation and healing was my “genius.”  Genius in quotes because . . . well, because I don’t think that I am in any way a genius, but rather that there is specific work that my soul is here to do and I am compelled to do that work in the best way that I can.  So, why haven’t I been doing or pursuing that “work” for the past 50 years or so -- 50 years gives me a few years cushion to be a kid and grow up some.  What has held me back from this work?  Why have I waited to long to begin? Another well . . . some early training, some lacks in my life, some gathering of love and strength and nerve, some fears held over earlier times, and the need for a lot of training.  There have been times when I could have chosen other paths that might have led me to the one that I am on in a more direct way but I may have needed the learning that I’ve gathered at an unusually slow pace.  Possibly I have had opportunities (which I did not take) to remind some part of me that there was some path, to make sure that the thought of this path was deep inside and growing a strong root.  Oy! Garden metaphors!  Do I have a strong anything?!

Someone in my chalice group replied to my description of my LEND experience as a “trainee,” wondering if I wasn’t too old to still be called a trainee.  My peers are imagining retirement; I envision new working ventures.  When I think about it -- “it” being my current state of student-ship -- objectively, I nod my head vigorously.  My sister and brother-in-law did all the training, working and raising up kids at the standard times and are now enjoying retirement.  When I look at my situation from her eyes, I raise my eyebrows and imagine her saying, “Suzanne must be nuts!”  I have to agree with all of them, and then add my “but’s.” 

But I have the itch to see this through.  But I have ideas -- almost new ideas that others are not pursuing.  But I don’t have to make a living right now and I have been offered opportunities.  But I am not ready to give up an ambition to do.  But I promised myself to live full out and these ideas appear to be a part of that.

And that is my rational for pursuing my genius.

It came to me one morning waking up in Maryland that I want to try my hand once again at fiction.  There is an old story that I spent much time on which seems to have fleshed itself out in some corner of my brain without any effort on my own.  This in itself might be the reason that I have not pushed myself to write here.  I can almost hear David rolling over and groaning -- of course, because he has no grave, I am having a hard time visualizing the rolling and groaning of ashes.  There is a pull, not that the pull has been absent at other times.  I would add that it is different this time, but I probably could have said the same thing any number of times.

I was reading a friend’s blog, another adoptive mom who creates beautiful art pieces.  She writes in complete small stories carefully crafted.  Crystal life slices.  Reading this ramble over and aware of my own perchance of barely making sure that most words are spelled correctly, I am somewhat shame-faced about my inability to crystalize anything.  I don’t mean that I intend to change.  Why don’t I feel the need for that sort of perfection here?