Weekend wedding in Berkeley.  Julia and I spent four days on the west coast.  It was the wedding of a cousin -- second or so.  This is someone who David has been in touch with since we were all young adults.  When I was at Sarah Lawrence, David went to Berkeley to explore the film scene.  Rita put him up for awhile and they began a friendship that lasted until his death.  The cousin, Rita, was born in Australia to immigrants from Germany via England for a generation or so.  Her family moved to the US when she was a young child but she held onto ties from her first home.  Added to that, the is another Australian cousin who has always been wild about the family tree since he was a young man.  He, Scott, has travelled extensively and makes a point of always going out of his way to visit any bit of family where ever he goes.  And he keep in touch.  

Many, many people have been in some kind of touch for years and Facebook has enabled this far flung group to blossom.  Something to note: common language has really helped this blossoming.  I don’t think I could do this with my family and certainly not with any of Julia’s birth family even it is was possible to find them.

Rita and Joel’s wedding presented a reason for many of us to gather.  Wedding guests flew in from all over the US, from England and from Australia.  I decided to make the trip, David’s stand in, curious to meet people only heard of and hopeful that being an in-law, now widow, would not exclude me completely.

It was quite unlike anything that I ever experienced before.  There was a pre-wedding dinner on Friday evening for out-of-towners followed by the wedding on Saturday and brunch on Sunday morning.  I came knowing only Rita, the bride, and Ron and Linda, one of David’s first cousins and his wife.  It was exciting, wonderful and very nice to meet so many new relatives.  Now we are all Facebook friends!  

There were challenges for me.  This is an older crowd.  People with grown children who have the time and inclination to travel for a far away weekend party.  It was uncomfortable at times to have a child with me, to have a child with significant challenges with me.  Julia is no Cheshire who as the only child at many gatherings worked the room and charmed crusty old artists.  Many times Julia did not even respond when people went out of their way to talk to her -- of course, this is not uncommon for her.  The parties were in small, sometimes precious, spaces, lots of noise, no kid diversions apart from what she carried, and generally just lots of sitting and talking.  Considering all, she did well but the two of us did not completely melt into the crowd.  

And, although everyone was very kind, at times I could not help but feel that it was not really my family and that there was a very large hole beside me.  No one made me feel that, I felt the separation.  I was with all of those people, meeting family that David had only begun to be interested in in the last year of his life.  David was not part of so much of the life that I now lead in Madison, and in Berkeley, I was meeting people who only know of David as a distant cousin who died but still, each time I had to explain my membership in reference to him, he was present, then absent.  I was still the amputee. 

And then there was my anxiety.  I was in a place that I’ve only rarely visited and really had no idea of how to get around.  Because the wedding parties took up most of the time, I did not plan for extra time or visiting museums or doing outdoor things.  I did not have the heightened ambivalence that I suffered from during summer vacation but the result was similar -- just not planning much.  And so, I became very anxious about what I had not planned.  I had addresses and phone numbers, but I did not have a good lay of the land.  To my credit, I was flexible -- when I found that I really needed a car to get around I rented one on Saturday morning.  When we were finished with wedding partying on Sunday, Julia and I went hiking in a park and then to SF Chinatown on the BART.  But throughout the weekend, I felt like I could jump out of my skin.  I was scared, nervous about each part of the days (many what if’s).  There was a sleepless night.  That, after a day of a lot of physical activity, including walking up and down the SF hills (shades of La Paz).  As I lay awake, I tried breathing into the uneasy feelings of the weekend and realized how hard the changes that travel bring were to me have been making me feel.  (OY, this is not articulate)  Travel is something that I love to do and that I always lament not doing more of -- held back by Julia or circumstance or economics -- but I am really, very, very afraid of diving into the unknown, venturing into places that I do not know or understand.  I think the last time I travelled comfortably was the England trip after David died, but now when I think of that time, I see that I was under the spell of sudden tragedy -- shock!  I was not feeling much of anything.  I was just doing.  

Do I crave that much familiarity?  Perhaps so.  Doing what is at the edge of my comfort zone be that physically as in place or intellectually as in challenging learning or perhaps spiritually, as in the long sit, is harder.  This last weekend, I felt it physically.

Why?  There is less to lose now, less to worry about pleasing, less to strive to succeed, but lots of anxiety.  I don’t think I can unravel this now, but I don’t want to back down.  I want to push beyond and dare more, not less.  There is a slight pull to acknowledge the anxiety and consider diving beneath the covers and never coming out, but that is a very small part of me.  Writing solves nothing, but I am comforted by the acknowledging.

September.  The last day of summer vacation.  A new month.  Fifth grade starts tomorrow.

I woke up before 6.  The dog was barking and there is no quieting her these days.  We walked some and then I dithered trying to dispel anxiety which came unbidden before I awoke.

Fear.

I dreamed and I do not remember the dream.  I came to consciousness thinking that Julia was beginning 12th grade, not 5th.  And she was like she is today.  I was fearful that there was no good future for her and that she could not learn more than she knew at present.

And I had no dreams or hopes for her.  Or for me.

And in truth we have had a lovely weekend camping and a good day yesterday when we came home.  This was our second year at Upham Woods with FUS and there were more people who took to Julia.  Some children that played a bit with her and more adults who engaged her in conversation for short times.  But I am left with twin anxieties, happy couples ignite my fears of always being alone and happy, bright children focus me on who Julia is not.

I fear the unknown, the life that I have not planned for.  I want to cultivate happiness, find joy again.  I am not sure what to do with the fear and anxiety.  This is so clear to me that it is my habit of future living vs. living in the present.  And I feel stuck.  I can divert myself but I don't feel like I am meaningfully moving through the stuckness.  Is this a fake it until you make it situation or something else?  Do I embrace the fear and anxiety or is that wallowing?  And are the smiles that come from diversions real or paste?  Is there a benefit in naming the fears?

I have to move beyond this -- through, over, under, or around.  Julia is a glorious child and I am not so bad either.  I want to write once again that I am tired of this sadness, these fears, but obviously I need to feel them here and now before something else comes.  This morning I do not know how.  I remember writing soon after David died that I was ready to be saved.  This minute, I feel like I've been waiting for the savior since that time.  Not completely true at all, but there is something about that idea that rings so true.

And the only savior is me.  Have I been waiting for whatever spirit is hidden deep inside of me to spring to life?  Have I been waiting for the warrior of joy to spring fully formed from my head top?

This morning, I know that there will be no springing, no fully formed savior in any form.  Just me, walking through deep mud, feeling with booted feet for solid ground.

the day after

I just posted a lot of photos in the photo blog.

Indeed, I did more than survive yesterday.  Thriving may be going a bit far, but abiding in acceptance, understanding and love are useful ways to define the day.

The days was a slow flurry of activity.  I cleaned and cooked in the morning in preparation for the evening.  I was in the kitchen puttering during that half hour that marked the time that the emergency team worked to try to restart David's heart.  I pondered the meaning of "time of death."  Was it the time that the pulse was lost or when the medical team gave up, when they asked me,  standing at the foot of his bed, whether it was ok for them to stop working on him?

We went to the pool -- I took my water aerobics class, bouncing in the water with a bunch of old ladies of which I proudly consider myself part of.  Then Julia came into the water and we saw some friends from school.  Julia hung out with the girls while I chatted with the mom.  It was a beautiful afternoon, sun, puffy white clouds, sparkling water and company.

Then home to finish preparation for the evening's gathering.  Maria from next door stopped by with an offering to Julia and I asked her to come for dinner and the movie.

Mary and Robert arrived early.  I showered and the three of us prepped while Julia did her reflex math. Then Maria and Kirstin and Amy and crew came.  We feasted on antipasto, home made hummus, cheese, M&M's, ice cream and Amy's incredibly delicious pear sorbet.  My DVD player would not respond to the remote and for moments there was the possibility of no movie.  Maria stepped in and offered her living room and DVD play.  A very handy save and the party became progressive.

The film, Mysaki's Princess Mononoake was very intense and long.  We all struggled a bit towards the end.  Julia was too stimulated and she needed to burst out in talking very often.  And we were all patience.

And then the movie was over, loving people left, Julia and I prepared for bed, Julia fell asleep and I could not sleep for ever so long.  But no matter.  I had made it through another of these anniversaries.  I was able to have a party, a gathering of loving souls to get me through.

And I enjoyed giving this party.  Actually, I also enjoyed doing the End of Therapy Party two weeks ago.  This too is a change, a move out of the tunnel of grief.  I am beginning to be able to do what David and I loved doing together.

Today begins the time of living here, in Madison, for more time as a single mom than I did with David. I miss him.  I would do so much to have our lives together back, but . . . I am learning to thrive.  At least yesterday and this morning.

Third Anniversary

Julia is just waking up, Mary called a few minutes ago.  I've been up for awhile, answering texts and emails and checking face book.  What I wrote yesterday, it true for today.  I am in a new place, the intense grief of the last few years is not present.  At least not now.   I now know that difference between grief and sadness.  And I have plans for the day.

I am fully enjoying the new found energy to engage in my world, my life and Julia's life.  I am very grateful for the healing power of good friends, quiet counsel and time.  I read what I wrote of this day last year and the year before.  And the day before this day -- last year and the year before.

And I also wrote and posted this:

A day to abide with what comes, to be gentle with ourselves, and to remember that great loss can only happen when there was once great joy.

I wonder how long I will be making posts like this on July 4 and 5th.  It will be as long as I need to do it.  The lilies that I called David's lilies have not bloomed yet, possibly in another 3 days.  When I got my new credit card in the mail two weeks ago, I remember thinking when I signed up for that card that when it expired, David would be dead 3 years.  I could not imagine that time and now it is here.  What ways to mark such a time -- lilies and a credit card.

Possibly more later.

Started on 28 June 2013

It is so damned hard to let go of comparison, grades and measurements.  Julia is in swimming class (every day for the last two weeks which is a great format for her) and today is the last day of this session.  She will get a “report card” which will recommend whether she stay in the current level or move on to the next level.  I have sworn to myself and others up and down that I don’t care in the least what level she is in, but this morning, I cannot help but wish hard that she is allowed to advance.  I lean into that competitive, yearning-for-her-to-be-typical feeling and breathe.  So, so, so much to learn.

Update:  Julia did move from level 3 to 4 and I am so pleased.  Going into the class, she knew how to do an overwhelming number of the listed tasks.  Her challenge was listening and doing what she was told when she was told without the help of an aide.  With 3-4 kids in the class, she was able to do that.  She is proud of herself for her work.  I don’t think the move from one level to the next impresses her at all.  I hope that she doesn’t need to take pride in external measures of success for a long time.  Or rather, be proud of herself for the work and the reward but not be dependent on the external reward.  Wish that her mother was more that way.

This is the last week of intensive therapy.  We have therapy today and tomorrow and then it will be only twice a week at the clinic.  I am holding my breath -- even though I can really use breathing into that one as well.  

Some week highlights, which were shiny indeed:

Julia told a joke at the end of last week.  Her first!  “what is a tree’s favorite soda?”  “Root beer.”  She doesn’t quite get it herself but she knows that it amuses people when she tells it.  There are two things working her -- at least two -- people with autism are not known for their sense of humor and yet Julia wants to tell jokes (ok, a joke at this point).  Wanting to tell a joke to friends is a very social yearning.  Julia was pleased to tell the joke and pleased that her friends liked it.  Julia has many, many steps on the social ladder and she climbed one more.

We had a party on Monday to mark the end of intensive therapy.  We had pizza and fruit and a dinosaur cake (chocolate with blue icing made by Julia and her therapists and decorated by Julia) and iced tea with dino cool aide ice cubes.  Julia and her therapists painted together.  It was a canvas that needs to be finished.  Julia sketched in pencil as a guide for everyone to paint.  She sketched as if she had been doing it forever.  Like sketching for a painting was a skill just stored inside of her for retrieval at the appropriate time.  After painting, we all went for a bike ride -- all of us!  No one ran behind Julia.  She took two small spills but was able to get up and get going.  She is still not as steady as she needs to be and she still needs to be reminded to keep her eyes on the road and to avoid distraction.  She needs to be reminded to use her brakes.  Last year at the time, she took the lose the training wheels course and finished being barely able to ride with no confidence in her ability.  She has come very far.  

We are sitting on a chaise at the swimming pool.  We have an hour between Julia’s lesson and my water aerobics class.  It was a brilliant blue sky day a half hour ago.  Not there are very grey cloud making their way across the sky.  I can’t be sure the rain is inevitable, so for now we hold our ground.  And just to note, I love sitting on the side of the pool typing.  Absolutely no guilt about what I should be doing.  Crazy thing is that I can do the same thing at home.  And I don’t do it!

The clouds keep moving.  Leaves are turning over and the breeze is much cooler than before.  Still, no rain.

The dentist did sealants on Julia’s four back teeth on Tuesday.  The dentist has warned me that if Julia couldn’t do it -- sit still with the mouth open and her tongue -- for a bit more than a minute, that they would try to redo it but if it failed we would still be charged.  I don’t like the dentist.  I do not get a “can do” vibe at that office.  Julia was able to do it.  We did some prep before even as far as putting cotton in her mouth -- under her lips -- to see how it felt to have something in her mouth that she was not eating.   As we left the dentist office, I felt  a hush in the waiting room and many stares.  Julia was her exuberant self.  She talked to kids who were on the video games and pondered, out loud, her “prize” choice.  She was in a great mood and doing very well.    Still, there were stares and quiet as we went through.  The people at the desk do not engage Julia.    Nothing untoward is ever said.  It is just a feeling.  A feeling of exclusion.  Elusive and not specific, but palpable.  

An experience of my own:  Last week, when I wrote about dreaming of David, I did not paint the entire picture.  The day before the dream, I went to a Quest dinner and integration group.  Our assignment was to “tell our story” and although I had not planned to do it, there was time for “one more”  when those who had planned to do it were finished and I volunteered.  I had a metaphor that I had thought of right soon after I heard about the assignment.  

Julia had wanted to know more about how a caterpillar transforms to a butterfly and when we looked it up, I found out that in the chrysalis the former caterpillar turns into mush before it reforms as a butterfly.  My point of reference was the instant that the former caterpillar brain, realizing that it was not what it had been and had no idea what it would become, observes his situation and utters a bemused, “Shit.” 

And then, I told my story.  How life was so ordinary before David’s death -- growing up, theater, David, Cheshire, law -- I was invested in the ordinary path, but after David died I could not be.  I had to change and I found new passions with more questions than answers.  And how I’ve lived that “Shit” moment for a long time.  It seems like the longest times ever, and it seems to have gone by in the blink of the eye.

Telling my story, what I told was no tale of woe, tragedy and despair.  It was  -- and I don’t mean to make more of this than it was -- amusing, interesting, full of humor with possibly a dose of irony.  It was not the story of one of the walking wounded.  This telling took my very much by surprise.

After my story, Trudy did a closing reading:

Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life

we have refused

again and again

until now.

Until now

It took me until I was home to take in how the telling and then the listening struck me.  I pushed it away until morning and wrote the following to my integration group:

_____________________

This was an interesting choice for a closing last night and reading it again this morning prompts me to want to talk about those strings running through life that shimmer in the light every so often.  I don't believe that a god or the universe or some great power micromanages our lives, but I am pulled up short with surprise and wonder at the synchronicity that occur.

I might feel a bit vulnerable and exposed, sending this out to all of you, but then after last night, how can I even go there?

Last night, listening to Trudy's closing reading, I wanted to share this piece that I wrote for David's memorial a few weeks shy of three years ago.  I put that desire away and out it popped again this morning.  The image in my head is of the me of three years ago standing behind the pulpit and the me of last night sitting a few feet away. (Our group that night met in the auditorium of the church and that night, I sat facing the pulpit less than a dozen feet from it.) Listening to ourselves.  To each other.  Time bending and losing its linear shape.

And so, 

I’ve been looking at this blank page for two day trying to impress upon it something that would tell you of my David.  Something very special, something secret, something so apparent  that some of you would yawn.  

I started with Dayeinu which is a Hebrew word that means "enough."  At Passover seders we sing about each successive step of God's provision for the Israelites and we sing a chorus of Dayeinu -- that would have been enough.  I could do that chant but in the end I could not/ cannot feel Dayeinu.  It was not enough.  David and I wanted more.  And I am having trouble with Dayeinu.

Just before David and I married, we were reading a lot of Rainer Marie Rilke.  We were caught up in his book Love and other difficulties.  In particular, this piece:

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude . . . . A merging of two people is an impossibility. . .  But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them.

In our vows, we promised to guard each other’s solitude and  to witness transformation, reconfiguration, melting into nothing, and springing to life from the phoenix fire.  I had the front row seat to stories, refinished windows, hagadas, a pond, acceptances and rejections, plays, plumbing, novels, putenesca sauce, songs, tears, speeches, silence, articles, and the silliest man I have ever met.

In the expanse between us, we made our life and that was not always easy.  We were both passionate, both sure we were right, neither one willing to give in for the sake of peace.  Well, maybe David was sometimes.  David gave me the first unconditional love that I ever knew.  Our love honed the pointy ego places that could have kept us apart.  His soft voice quieted my shrill; his silences encouraged my talking; his perseverance inspired every uphill battle that I fight. And there was a moment, more than 35 years ago, when my eyes met his, over the hood of a beat up Dodge Dart, that was magic.  And slipping my hand into his made everything in my world alright.  The love, the devotion, the complete attention of one person is so much more than enough.   So much more than I had any right to expect.   Dayeinu.

Thank you for listening last night and this entire year.  Thank you for telling your stories, checking in and out, for hugs at the end of group, and smiles and words when we see each other outside of our Quest activities.  I didn't know what Quest was going to do for me; I just knew I wanted to do it.  I am humbled by the wisdom of the simple direction to "trust the process."  

_________________

The night after I wrote that to my group, I had the dream, that very read experience, of snuggling in bed with David.  

We are in the days before David’s death day.  No, I do not fall into the pit of darkness and self-pity when I “go there,” go to the blogging of the days after he was taken to the hospital for the second time.  I can read it with some distance.  I read it looking for cues.  I think I see some but whether I do or not could be refuted by someone who knows better.  And even if there are obvious clues that David needed some other treatment or care, it matters very little.  But I still read, looking for answers to painful questions.

And then I realize that it was last year around this time, again, days before David’s death anniversary that I woke up one day feeling for the first time in two years that I was myself again.  That first breath of air without pain attached.  This painful time also holds magic for me.

There is a little girl, a little one adopted from China, who had a heart transplant on Monday.  Her body is rejecting the new heart and there are all sorts of heroic efforts underway to save her.  A temporary mechanical heart, life support that cannot be turned off, lots of drugs, and the top of the list for another heart.  I read each update and say private prayers for this child.  I cannot comment like so many, many others because I do not see much hope.  David had an 80% survival rate for the first year.  I don’t know what this child had before transplant, but the percentage has most certainly gone down as the days have passed.  Even a 20% chance of death is very, very high.  I do not want this child to die, I want her to defy the odds and battle her way back to life, but the miracle, the happy ending escapes my view.  The miracle, in my view, is the extra day, the hour, another breath, the prayers and blessings around her now.  It is never enough, but it is all that is enough.

Life is fragile. The flutter of a butterfly’s wing.  It leaves the body in an instant.  We hold to an almost certain belief in our strength, in divine intervention or personal destiny.  All of that is over in the time between the out breath and the next in breath that never comes.  

Errant thoughts rushing in mighty circles wake me and finally drive me from bed and onto the screen.  It is just after 4.  Isn’t this why I meditate -- to get some control of my mind instead of allowing the wild horses driving my thoughts to pull me this way and that?  Even my musings on the dilemma just get added into the spin.

So, thoughts.  I make a list and then feel depressed by the list.  I need to write it all out and will have to come back to this during the day, over and over to finish it.  Finish emptying my swirling brain.

Julia’s big challenge these days continues to be about being social.  All the social stories, practice conversations and app exercises don’t act quickly enough to satisfy me.  And that is really what it is -- satisfying me.  Julia doesn’t ignore the world but responds and reacts to it in her own time.  When she is engaged in some interest of hers, she is not interested in talking to or responding to greetings from friends or friendly strangers, directions from her mother (and others) or what is going on around her.  “What did I just say?”  I will ask her after she has “Yes, mom”-ed me for minutes on end.  Her “yes, mom”-s are reflexive and do not mean that she had taken in what I’ve said and certainly not that she intends to act on any question or demand or instruction.  

This is hard for me.  It is not hard for her but at some point, it becomes confusing when I or some other speaker expects that Julia has heard the question or demand or instruction, and expects response.  

It is also hard on me and eventually on her when she does not notice the simple greetings of friends and neighbors passing by.  I’ve noticed that two of my neighbors say “hi” to her when we wait at the bus stop.  They say hi to most of the kids waiting there.  Julia is the oldest child at the bus stop and she is the one most frequently not responding.  I worry about the day that even the best intended people just stop saying hi to her.

Julia is not stupid, uncaring or unfriendly, but her interest in what she is doing -- even if it seems she is doing nothing -- trumps anything input from outside of herself.

Then, there is the reverse.  Julia is hyper-interested in talking to me when I am talking to someone else, on the phone, doing business, watching a movie or reading a book.  Yes, all children do this when they are 2 or 4.  Rude children do it when they are 8 and they have not been gently taught how to get attention in socially appropriate ways.  People with autism . . . And it is hard to live with sometimes.  No, hard to live with all of the time.  

Julia’s interest in communication can and often is so very inappropriate with strangers.  Also, with friends but friends put up with it.  Julia catches the eye of other customers in the supermarket or big box store.  She “flirts,” greets people and then immediately launches into what is foremost on her mind.  She is totally unaware of who is appropriate to talk to and who is not, of the appetite of a stranger for why some dinosaur became extinct 65 million years ago and of how appropriate it is to point out the flaws in a stranger.  Most disarming is that when Julia begins to talk, she looks and sounds very typical.  At least, typical enough to draw most people in.  Then, they are very much confused by her.

And I am left trying to navigate Julia’s communication -- trying to get her attention for myself or a friend, or attempting to deflect her attention or prompting her into appropriate conversation.  Perhaps right now, with intensive therapy ending in two weeks, I am just very scared that I will not be able to give her the guidance she needs to learn more about communication, and I am exhausted trying to keep her protected from unkind people and in good graces with those who have been kind to her.  

My primary goal this summer was, no, no, is to not do therapy.  I want us to live.  Only live.  Julia has been in intensive therapy -- almost or mostly 30 hrs a week for 4 years.  I’ve resolved to do very little therapy this summer - 7 hours in July, none in August.  Today, on the first day of summer vacation (when we still have two weeks of intensive left) I’ve woken up burning with ideas of what I should be doing next for Julia.  Perhaps I should be writing social stories about talking to friends and strangers.  Perhaps we should be making a refrigerator calendar to count down the days until therapy ends.  Perhaps I should be previewing her reading and composing multiple choice questions for each day’s reading.  Perhaps I shouldn’t let her reading the first Narnia book because she will not understand a lot of it.  Perhaps  . . . perhaps. . . perhaps . . . perhaps I should remember my intention for the summer.  

But and just to be totally clear, I am terrified, completely terrified of letting therapy and education go for even a short time.  When Cheshire was a kid, we did nothing about education during the summer.  She read, sometimes from a book list, and one year we did Kumon math for her to learn her facts, but I don’t remember ever organizing an educational plan for her.  I’ve done one of those for Julia for longer than our therapy time.  It is very hard to let that go.

Another swirling morning idea is that I worry that if I don’t act on my education/therapy ideas, I will lose them, forget about them, etc.  Probably silly.  Why do I worry about things like this?

I went to a meditation session (umm, don’t know the right word for it) last night.  We “sat” for 45 minutes and then looked at slides of a member’s trip to Burma.  The more usual schedule is to sit  for the 45 minutes and then listen to a short reading and have a discussion.  Someone I know who was there asked me whether I could sit for 45 minutes and I said that I could even though I don’t usually sit for so long.  I am fine with 20-30 minutes, 45 is still pushing it.  I’d say the last half was much more distracted than the first half but I did it.

By the time I got home, I had for a few minutes before going to bed, an inkling of peace.  Not happiness, but peace.  I felt for that short time that so much of what I worry about just didn’t matter in the least.  If Julia goes not further than she is today, she can live with me for the rest of my life and I do have good life insurance for her.  If I never get to promote mindfulness for families with kids with special health care needs, that too will be ok.  I did not need to be concerned about what will happen, I only needed to do the work.  I could let go of planning like letting go of demons.

Then this morning, it all came flooding back and again I was the worrier, the planner, she who can second guess every movement and thought.  Hard to hold onto the blessed peace of moving in the flow.  Perhaps hard not to hold on to anything but to move with the flow.

And now some ego spilling.  At some point, writing a blog, I had readers.  Not enough hits a day to warrant any kind of notoriety, but a steady trickle of family and friends visiting and sometimes commenting.  I enjoyed that.  Part of the enjoyment came from feeling worthwhile -- I was explaining my experience and people were identifying with it or being slightly educated by it or enjoyed the writing.  It was a form of communication when there was no one to talk to.  My ego also enjoy it.

Now, not so much.

Thinking about the not so much, and by that I mean that my blog is no longer read by many people, and certainly not on a regular basis.  I come up with reasons.  Of course, to begin with, my bottom line has always been that I blog for myself.  And that is/was true to a point.  I also blog to be read.  As rather self-centered as that sounds, I want to be read.  

So, I come up with reasons:

I am just not a good writer.  Oh, that hurts.  I so much want to be a good writer.  In my wildest dreams, some publisher stumbles upon my blog and offers to put it in book form, someone options it for a movie and I get rich simply from writing down my life.  That’s my wildest dream and in truth I don’t need that, but I remember one comment from someone who encouraged me to keep writing, no matter how bad or boring it was because it was good therapy for me.  Ok, the commenter said it in much more polite terms, but that comment hurt.

Another reason or two: When my writing was centered primarily on a particularly subject -- adoption, autism, David’s health or my grief -- it drew a particular crowd.  Sometimes the crowd was simply friends and relatives, sometimes it was parts of the adoption community who knew me from my postings on adoption yahoo boards or facebook.  But my topics have become interwoven, muddled and I moan a lot.  I have lost all sight of my audience.  I would try to describe my audience right now but how many paragraphs would that take?  My writing about adoption is not always merry and the events I talk about are not easily celebrated.  My writing about autism is too personal and not always positive or enlightening and never political.  I’ve stopped posting cute pictures -- I still post pictures but on a related blog that is not as easy to find.  And grieving takes so %$^## long and even I can get bored writing about another bout of loneliness.  I comment here that all the fiction and even memoirs about grieving work it out in a year.  I hypothesize that a year is how long any non-grieving person can allow for the trip to hell and back.  Everyone wants to believe that a year is long enough, maybe even too long to be swimming in doubt and tears. “Just get on with it” can echo in my ears all too often.  And I’ve changed blogs so I am not as easy to find.  I’ve tried separating topics and that has not worked for me at all.  

This is what I feel like it is right now (which may change in 5 minutes).  I’ve always journaled or blogged to pour out my thoughts and feelings.  Most often, in the past, the mere exercise of pouring out worked out some of the tangles.  Right now and for awhile, in the midst of my ever continuing transformation from basically happy part of a couple with a stable life to a truly single person with a child with autism, my journaling rarely explains anything to me.  I guess it hasn’t for a long time and being read for other people worked as a stand in for personal enlightenment and growth.  All my “why’s” have deserted me.

Yesterday was father’s day and I had a hard time.  My primary means of dealing with it was to ignore it.  And that worked during the fist part of the day but as soon as we got to church, our minister opened the service with a hearty wish for all fathers present and thought of.  All I have is fathers thought of and the memory of fathers and of losing everyone and being left alone.  I don’t want to remember even the good times and certainly not the missing and loneliness.  I didn’t want any touch with father’s day at all, but to do that yesterday I would have had to hide in a cave, not seen or talked to anyone, and not tuned into Facebook.  Really, I can’t stand the celebration of family on Facebook.  Happy family pictures from years ago scanned in.  Heart felt testimonials to loved ones and children climbing all over daddies and grandpas.

I have become the grinch.  

I am not happier seeing couples holding hands.  Or families with typical children eating ice cream.  

Last meditation class on Tuesday.  I’ve learned a good deal in the last 8 weeks, much of the time it was putting names to practices that I had used previously or stumbled upon in another life.  Not that I was doing most of the practices in the most advantageous manner -- trying to stay away from saying that I did them incorrectly or, worse yet, wrong.  This was an experience of deepening and lessons.  I learned that I really want to have a meditation community and want to continue learning.  I learned how good it feels to take my inclinations seriously.  Following bliss  and all that is just as good as it is billed to be.  I might excuse myself for not always following my “bliss,” citing practical reasons of middle class living and “blaming” David, as if he would have rolled his eyes and disapproved of this kind of bliss.  Possibly, maybe even probably, his eyes would have rolled, but I could have insisted.  Surely, it would have not been the first thing I insisted upon and which later he would have embraced enthusiastically.  For so many things that was out pattern.  What would it be like to live with someone who brought the “crazy” ideas home? 

For a meditation group, there are a plethora of groups in town -- this is Madison after all -- that I could join or casually drop in on.  I can begin with the three groups that are held at FUS, two of which are taught be people that I know from Quest.  I will need to find childcare no matter when I begin -- it does  seem that most meditation groups meet in the evening or so early in the morning that it would conflict with Julia getting on the school bus.  

Yesterday morning, I went to a Japanese Crane meditation group right after Julia got on the bus.  I’ve been doing this form of Chi Gong for more than a year now -- a noon time group at FUS.  That group only meets during the school year and this early morning meeting during the summer and is a combination of two groups that meet at church.  I’ve asked if I can bring Julia next week . I have the group’s approval, but I still have to get Julia up and out of the house by 7:30.  

Julia may or may not be reacting to all the transitions that are upcoming.  She does not acknowledge all of it.  Today is the last day of school and she is excited for summer.  She has not talked about leaving her teacher of two years or the everyday therapists who have done her  intensive therapy which ends at the end of June.  One of our therapists has already left and Julia avoided any good-bye.  She may be doing this intentionally or she may not understand a thing.  It is about time and there are still gaps in her understanding about time.

Sometimes she recedes into her own world which she is faced with concepts that she does not understand.  She can be reached by asking her again and again to re-join our reality, but she usually answers in a perfunctory manner and very much off topic.

Then sometimes she is spot on clear.  The other night, just before dinner, she fooled around when I asked her to put on shoes so that we could walk the dog.  I asked her a few times.  I was in the kitchen and she was in the living room.  I warned her that if I came into the living room and caught her not putting on her shoes there would be consequences.  I got a lot of “yes, mom’s” from her.  I went in, she was reading without her shoes on.  She lost dinner immediately and went straight to bed.  She first refused to do it, but I marched her upstairs and she was able to do as I asked.  She was teary when we talked about it once she was tucked up in bed.  I gave her hugs and kisses in bed, but there was no consequence change happening.  The spot on clear moment was when she asked me if I liked her and if I was going to send her back to China.  She was so (insert appropriate swear word for emphasis) clear.  I had an open channel to her mind at that moment, no confusion, no need to redirect, no need for an aide to interpret directions.  Oh, if only I could reach inside that child and put that spot on clarity front and center. 

She is still such a mystery at times.  

This morning, the last day of school, was the school talent show.  Many of the classes work on a dance to perform for the whole school and a smattering of parents crowded in the back of the cafeteria.  Julia did not make it onto the stage with her class in third grade and was not a full participant last year, but today, it was incredible!  She was enthusiastic and very present.  She kept up with her class.  She was not perfect but she was not the only one.  And she was focused.  To watch her today is to know her potential.  To know that she will do art.  To know that she will have a life with some or all of the pleasures and pain that we all have.  

Such hope from a lip sink dance performance.  

So I’ve taken time to write this morning.

Sitting in Barrique’s waiting for a FUS friend to start camp activity planning.  I am incredibly early and have work that I can do, including this writing which I have not been thinking of as work.  The cafe is crowded but there are plenty of people sitting and typing at laptops, so I have no worry about taking up space for too long a time.  Than, who walks in to meet someone but my big hero and admitted crush.  Yes, I am finally admitting to this crush.  I am on the other side of the room and so cannot eavesdrop or even watch him without moving (which I will not do).  This is not a stomach churning crush -- when will I have one of those again?  It would probably be very healthy to have,  but thinking of  some man as interesting, smart and someone I would love to get to know is not a bad start.  This I say because truthfully, I have not had even a passing interest intellectual or otherwise in the last three years in a man.   Truth be told, I would rather that this crush was my teacher than a Saturday night date, but if I can long for a teacher, maybe a date is not far behind.

Oh, interest in the opposite sex is more than crazy at my age.  Possibly at any age, but youthful libido helped immensely with finding a partner or pursuing a social life.  

Could I write my novel sitting in cafes?  Is it a novel that I could be writing.  Something else?  

I am ready for school to be over for the year and for summer to begin.  I have some ambivalence about vacationing in August but I am ready for days at the pool and slow mornings.

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.

Elliott wrote that “April is the cruelest month” and I sure hope so.  At least for the year.  It’s been pretty cruel so far and we’re only half way through.

A few days ago, I drove past the bay to avoid some Park Street traffic.  I have not be walking near the bay because of the cold (and it is still cold) and I am tired of the ice.  The first thing I noticed was the bobbing ducks, then the lack of ice, then the almost white capped waves.  Even a short glance at those ducks promised to make me seasick, the waves pretty fierce and those ducks all bobbing furiously.  I felt the coming of spring -- still coming, not here and the resiliency of those ducks who could endure the freezing water and the motion of the bay.  I struggle with what those ducks do with little perceived effort.

Mid-April and the reason to write here are piling up.  The will, for some reason, diminishes with each day that passes.  And writing, as soon as I put fingers to the keyboard or pen to paper, is a primary practice for me.  I question how I can ignore such basic knowledge and is deep within me.  Of course, I also know deep in my soul that I should exercise regularly and eat wisely.  

I have the capacity to ignore much of the wisdom stored in my soul. 

Yesterday, I went to the last of 5 meditation classes, “Buddhism in context.” 

After five weeks I have some understanding of dukkha -- suffering -- and that all life has it although it still seems to me that I have more than my share.  I have some understanding of second arrows -- the suffering we add to the actual suffering of life, sometimes called regret or guilt.  Finally, I have listened to the lists and lists to help one who practices meditation -- some of which I can understand, some are too much to hold in my head during the teaching let alone when I am “on the cushion” -- kinda’ cool expression for sitting and meditating. As it was a first class, so much of the teaching have rinsed through me.  I have caught small bits and pieces and for the most part I remain the unlearned student.  There was advice given yesterday: Let the teachings come to you.  I have no choice.  

It has been a revelation and a “duh” that  I’ve finally grasped a bit of the importance of meditating in community.  I ran to church and became a much more involved Unitarian after David died.  Sometimes feeling that there was no way that I was going to fit in but insisting on finding community in the place that insisted on preaching community.  And I have found some community at church but still did not grasp the benefit of spiritual practice in community.  But getting some of it through our Quest activities and now this class under my belt, I feel benefit beyond a simple community.  I am not articulate about this yet, but it is palpable. 

On Tuesday, I begin my eight week Meditation Based Stressed Reduction class at UW.  I signed up for this course as a way to gain credibility in the research world, but now it is much more.  I do want to learn more about contemplative practice for its own sake, for my sake.  I am very happy to have started with a buddhist base, not that I am looking for a new religion but I know that the MBSR course washes away the spirituality of meditation so that it can appeal to a broader audience of students.  I, however, like the spirituality and need the science.  I am excited to begin.

I am exhausted -- not always physically, although my nighttime sleep is regularly punctuated with time awake and so it is rare that I get a full night’s sleep.  It is an exhaustion of the soul and my second arrow is that I fear my life will never change and that I will spend the rest of living this life weary.  

Awhile back I was talking to someone about adult service for the disabled and the person casually said, “When you daughter applies for services . . . “  The words were a punch in the gut.  The person had no intention of hurting me, and truly there was no reason not to use Julia as an example during that conversation, but suggesting that Julia will need adult services for the disabled when she is an adult hurt badly.  It may sound crazy but I hold onto a belief that she will be “normal,” “typical” or at least be able to support herself with employment and have friends, even a partner.  I did not know how invested I was in that belief.  Evidently greatly no matter how irrational that dream is.

Julia is still asleep beside me this morning -- Sunday is the only day we are in bed late.  She is the source of so much of the dukkha in my life.  Truth and sadness.  Last Monday, Julia peed in the car again. She peed because she would rather play with her iPad than mind her body.  She couldn’t wait to jump in the car when we were going to do errands, do food shopping and then go to speech therapy.  She did not go to the bathroom before we left because she wanted to go into the car and play with the iPad.  She never asked to go to the bathroom at the various stores we were in and just before speech, I had enough time to run into the food coop to pick up tofu.  Julia asked to wait in the car.  When I came back to the car she was still on the iPad and she had peed in the seat.  I had to stop at the rehab clinic and cancel speech, then home where the car needed to be cleaned out immediately and then go to the car wash for a bio wash that cost $139.00.

The peeing made me angry and the anger sat with me for an entire week.  Towards the end of the week, I saw clearly how much the anger had to do with the loss of control. I have been holding knowledge without acting on it -- that her tioleting habits have deteriorated badly and I’ve lived just hoping they would get better with time.  Nothing that Julia does gets better with time without much teaching and practice.  Julia needs to be reminded to pee and poop even when she is potty dancing.  And it isn’t just when she is immersed in compelling activities.  It is everything -- emptying the dishwasher or putting toys away.  And I am terrified that my life will be nothing nothing but taking care of her.  Forever.  Now with her period I have another another layer of responsibility.  “Change your pad, go to the bathroom.”  Remind, remind, remind.  More and more care for someone who can’t even carry on a decent conversation.  Forever.  Another second arrow because I do not know that this is true.  It is fear nothing else and the truth is that there is little I have control of.  Why let this unknown punctuate my days? 

Opening the blinds this morning, I spy the snow on the ground.  There were weather reports of a spring-like day today and the updated report is that it will be warm for a short time today, but the wintery mix of snow, sleet and rain will only turn to rain and not allow for any gardening.  Gardening is my own true practice.  I have not done it as a practice, as anything more than a struggle for three years.  I am hopeful for this year but the practice needs the spring and it is not here yet.   

The dear son of a dear friend is very sick.  It scares me.  I feel very far away and unable to do anything.  I try to hold my “what ifs” at bay, but they come crowding in all too often.    We have a history, this friend and I, and the history makes it hard to be optimistic.

I know that there are many things to be grateful for, still I whine:  I placed an amazon order for some birthday gifts for Cheshire.  I had a few missteps but when I finally got to the part that would allow me to write a greeting, I broke down in sobs.  The sadness of missing David, of our life together and as a family, of all of the small steps of raising Cheshire, of the joys of raising Cheshire, of knowing that this family life is irrevocably over jumps out at me.  33 months and it can still be so raw.  I know I am not through the tunnel of grief completely, but I did not know how close the tears can still be.

I awoke this morning with the idea the no one does what I want to do.  No one indulges me. I almost laughed at myself for such a thought.  It was so childlike and so utterly selfish.  Is that what having a partner means?  Indulgence?  Not that David, or any partner, does what the other wants all the time, but sometimes, I got or expected to get my way.  Crazy, selfish, considered or wise, David catered to my whims and wants sometimes.  And that was delightful.  The immediacy of a partner is a blessing and still, still, still, I miss it. 

And so, this is April so far.  I hear NPR stories about cherry blossoms in DC or dandelions’ first bloom, and it is as if those word are personal attacks.  I need spring.

Sunday: There.  Here, I mean.  Perhaps a redesign to draw me here and get me typing.  Perhaps something closer to Spicy Dragons is what I need -- the impetus from the outside.  First morning of spring break.  I guess it started yesterday, really, but we had early morning clinic for Julia and were running all day.  This morning, laying in bed, Julia on her iPad playing a spider game and me on the laptop, feels a good deal more like a break.  

Tuesday: Here we are in bed again.  After 8.  How long will it be before she is checking her facebook and email but for now she is playing a game on her iPad.  We are now really into vacation mode.  At least, as much as we can with daily therapy.  That therapy, the intensity of which will all end at the end of June.  I’ll write more about my mixed bag of feelings about the changing field of therapy, but for now it is the reason to stick close to home this vacation and leaving big blocks of time with very little to do, only leaving town for a weekend in Chicago with dear Indy friends -- T-rex Sue here we come.

Passover has begun and some Facebook friends post about cooking and gatherings and kids and Manischewitz wine.  I can’t summon up the energy to make a seder happen and I haven’t cultivated some friendship in the right way as to get an invitation to one.  And I miss the ritual.  Undoubtedly, I would cry during some part of a Haggadah reading, most assuredly, after a few glasses of wine.  I would take us to our FUS seder but it is on Friday night and we will be in Chicago with Marcia and Meredith and kids.  And it is not like David and I celebrated every year.  We had years of not doing anything caught up in busy lives or transitions to new places, but it was a ritual we always came back to and one which brought so many lovely people to our homes.  We cooked, we wrote, we read, we encouraged Cheshire to read stories or perform music.  We sat around folding tables or the old dining room table that was a hand me down from Marcia.  

I could go on and write more and more, but the basic idea is down.  Here was a lovely tradition that David brought to our family that I embraced and loved.  And two and a half years after his death, I have not made peace with it.  I have not decided to take it on or leave it go.  Julia and I light to Chanukah candles and I’ve decided to continue that tradition.  It is easy and private.  Passover is much more social, involving a bigger family and much more energy.  If I could go to some aunt’s house, or some cousin, I would be there and that too would be easy at least until I made a firm decision to keep it in my life, in our lives.  

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami 

Every so often, I feel like I am the new person creeping out of the storm.  And then there is another thunder clap, another shower, another threatening cloud.  It is taking full responsibility for everything.  It is having to make all decisions without intimate counsel.  It is learning to be my own person, body and soul.  I continue to struggle, learning with each encounter, how to be alone.  And I question whether I need to master this situation, this circumstance, this state of being -- aloneness -- before I can move on to whatever awaits.

It was rather a small miracle to wake up on Tuesday morning without pain.  The flu was almost over!  I still carried a small and constant headache and a queazy stomach but that was nothing compared to the total body ache of the days before.  I am still a bit tired, that extraordinary tired of being sick, but definitely on the mend.  

And it was fortunate to awaken without pain because the snow was beginning and over the next 24 hours, we were gifted with another multitude of inches that also seems to be more on my sidewalk that what they report on the news.  Still, no matter the tally, our lawns and gardens are landscaped in higher and higher white mounds.  If there is any whisper of spring, it is that a day after the snow stopped the shoveled sidewalks are clear to the pavement, proof positive that it was warm enough yesterday to get rid of the bits of snow and ice left behind by blowers and shovels.  

I hear that we spring the clocks forward this weekend.  I haven’t checked and wonder if it is true.  We are still so far from spring.  

Over the last week at school, Julia’s class has been writing about their families.  Julia brought home her notebook with the writing a few days ago and we read what she wrote together.  I am pretty sure that she had a lot of help because the composition was too smooth to all come from Julia, but her ideas were there.  I sent the notebook back to school without copying the paragraphs and now I wish that I had.  From what I remember, we are all tall, Cheshire and I are pretty and we both cook very well.  Our house smells like baking cookies and Cheshire really likes hanging out with Julia and make gingerbread houses with her.  Julia wrote about Daddy being tall and handsome and smiling all the time.  She said that he like to “write a lot” and we all liked music and reading.  She closed by saying that hers was the best family in the world. None of this is untrue but it is such a lovely, sweet romantic version of life.  I am pleased that she has it.  

After we read the essay together, Julia was quiet.  Then she said to me, “Mom, when Daddy died, you and Cheshire were together all day.  And I was alone.”  I was stunned that she was thinking about that, remembered any part of that day,  I told her that she was with Cathy.  And she said she remember but that she was not with us.  Then, I realized that my memory of the day was that we had shielded her from any knowledge of what was going on until later in the day when Cheshire and I came home from the hospital and I told Julia what had happened.  I have never thought to explain that day to her, didn’t imagine that she remembered any part of it.  And I am not sure that her memory is what she was feeling that day -- there must have been some pretty heavy sad atmosphere in the house even though she had not been told that David had died -- or whether she has thought about that day since then and realized that she was not with us.  Either way, it is far beyond what I thought her capable of.

Julia studied for a test for the first time this week.  It was for science -- magnets, circuits, and a bit of electricity.  There was a review sheet sent home and we went over it a few times.  I review it with her and her therapists did as well.  We all read it over and quizzed Julia on parts of it but it was all very light and quick.  I talked to her special ed teacher today and she said that when she gave Julia the test, it seemed like she had studied and she knew most of the material.  How cool is that!

In attachment therapy today, we were working on a hard page in her trauma workbook, a page about being put in a dark place and left alone when her behavior was bad at the orphanage.  It was a short paragraph, one sentence, and she took it to draw.  The picture of an almost naked little child with a volcano’s worth of anger pouring out of her behind a shut red door was startling and poignant.  After she brought the picture back to us, Marilyn pushed her to talk about the place.  Julia became icy clear as she talked about her feelings and what happened to her.  Clearly this was something that happened often and when she was an older kid at the orphanage.  One thing she said was the they made her take off her clothes when she put her inside the dark place which probably was a closet but what she could only describe as small and dark.  She told us that was why she would not sleep in the dark and that shadows scared her a lot.  During part of the talking, Julia was silent and was clearly not with us, either immersed in the past or disassociating.  She has not done this in a long time.  When she was finished talking, we tapped about fear and anger and sadness.  She was able to feel safe and sure that those things would not happen again to her.  When it was all over, Julia drew a picture of a baryonyx dinosaur holding a fish to eat.

Yesterday, I walked to one of my Waisman mentors, Barb, about what I was going to do next year.  So far, nothing has easily presented itself.  I moaned and groaned about that fact and that I don’t know what to look for.  After talking to another mentor a few weeks ago, I was encouraged not to look beyond what was possible in LEND -- a fit your dream into our box, at least for now.  I have thought about just leaving Waisman and pursuing some experiences in the community, maybe engaging in the contemplative practice community or at FUS, but after entertaining the idea for a short time, I come back again and again to feeling sure I should be doing something at Waisman.  Early this morning, when I first woke up, before the alarm, I felt a peace come over me.  Feeling sure that some opportunity will come forward -- not that I can sit back and wait but that I have no reason to stress about it.  I also realized that I will really miss the Resource Center at the end of this semester.  I am truly enjoying the work there and feeling useful.