It has been snowing since some time very early in the morning.  Just enough is on the ground to justify using my snow blower, more to make sure it is working and ready for the really big snows to come than to clear what is there now.  But I promised myself a writing this morning before anything else.  And so . . . 

On Saturday, I drove to Northbrook, IL, near Chicago, to see an eye doctor, Deborah Zelinsky.  Consulting with her is perhaps the beginning of my exploring non-evidenced based therapy/treatment for Julia.  Without explaining what I can about the eye care that Dr. Z offers, an online description  that is not on her website says:

The Mind-Eye Connection was created to fill the need for evaluation of interconnections between auditory and visual processing systems.   Most people don't realize that alteration of eyeglasses and/or contact lenses affects auditory localization.  Even people who have 20/20 central eyesight can benefit from peripheral and other sensory integrative processing.  In addition to the eyes themselves, we evaluate systems connected with the eyes. We emphasize peripheral eyesight and moving targets, and have a patient base consisting of routine eye care patients as well as people on the autistic spectrum, those who have suffered brain injuries and children with developmental delays and/or learning problems.

The exam was incredible.  All the regular eye testing was done and then some others.  Dr. Z, herself, is pretty much brilliant.  Using the tests and her observation and interaction with Julia, she told me and her intern about Julia and described her spot on.  Julia has trouble seeing the board in front of the classroom.  I see her squinting at things like her sheet music if it is not very close to her.  Dr. Z says that Julia has 20/20 vision but that her internal focus has kept her from developing the muscle strength to see at a distance.  Like, she doesn’t reallyHer prescription is pink tinted lens that are a slight prism which should get Julia to look out further and to encourage her eyes to work her muscles.  This is a very simplistic explanation but I cannot explain the workings of the eye the way that the doctor can.  

I did a good deal of research before I made the appointment.  LEND and my friends at Waisman have given me a very healthy dread of non-evidence based treatments.  I know I can suffer from wanting to believe that there is something out there that will make a world of difference to Julia -- to fill in her holes.  David was, for better or worse, so much more skeptical.  Possibly he kept me from a few foolish endeavors.  Now,   I must be both the dreamer and the rationalist.  

Perhaps that is why I was incredibly anxious as we drove to Chicago on Saturday.  At one point, there were snow showers -- not awful at all, but the first of the season -- and I was almost in tears.  I took many slow long breaths which helped my physical anxiousness but not what was going on inside my head.  

Julia did splendidly at the appointment.  There were a lot of tests and most of them as boring as all eye tests are.  Julia has never been one for doing tests that are not of interest to her and she did complain some.  She also allowed herself to be coaxed into finishing the tests which I have rarely seen.  The big pay off, that neither of us knew about in advance, is that her halloween Harry Potter glasses can be used for her prescription.  The way this therapy may go is that the lens will be changed every few months.  We will not know for sure until Julia uses the glasses for a few weeks and she is examined again.

When I asked Dr. Z what to expect, she would not tell me.  She says she does not want to prejudice me in any way.  This could sound rather like a scam but I trust this woman.  She read Julia like a book.  I’ve rarely seen someone work with Julia so well and so quickly.  I think she is sincere, brilliant, quirky and possibly is really onto something.  Well, I say “she is on to something”, there is a whole cadre of Neuro-Developmental Optometrists and an association.  It is not just her.  What I researched goes hand in hand with the idea of neuro-plasticity and bottom line, if it can give Julia a small hand up, fill in a few holes, it will be a miracle. 

I drove home, exhausted, not only from the amount of driving but from the emotion toll of the day, but I felt very much at peace.   I still do.

And Julia woke up this morning asking when her  glasses were coming!

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.

Physically journeying today.  Farther than usual and to the opposite coast.  And after an indulgent, self-involved week or so.  Last week, I bought something new to wear to the wedding -- loose, very soft pants and a top in moss green with a short, soft jacket in blues with branches and buds in blues with hints of purple.  I stumbled upon a sweat shirt which can finally, finally replace my green moleskin one.  The old one is very old.  I have retired it from the all but gardening wardrobe a number of times, but as soon as the weather is cool, I gravitate towards it and I put it on to run errands and go to therapy.  It looks awful, an observation that has been confirmed by Cheshire.  The new one is just as soft and a grey-er color.  It was on a sale rack at the very expensive nice clothes store that I frequent.  The original price was outlandishly high but at 75% off, it is affordable.  Not cheap, mind you, but the price of a Landsend sweatshirt that seems reasonable to me.  It is wonderfully comfortable and soft but in truth, it is still a sweatshirt.  I don’t expect anyone to comment on how lovely I look in it.  Well, perhaps Cheshire, and perhaps not lovely but non-ratty.

This week the weather went crazy.  We hit at least three seasons and I put my garden plans to one side.  Instead, I got a Fall facial, coming home smelling like a well baked apple pie.  I got my bangs cut -- the stylist who cuts my hair a few times a year always offers to take care of my bangs between cuts and I usually do it myself when I can’t stand them in my eyes any longer.  Today, the bangs look a great deal better than if I did them.  I had an acupuncture appointment on Thursday and  four-day fast during the week.  And I met with people three times in a week for some contemplative practice.  Also, social meetings with two friends and my spiritual companion from Quest.  And some early bed time although early to bed does not necessarily guarantee a full night’s sleep.  

This weekend we travel to Rita’s wedding and the pre- and post-wedding parties for those of us coming from far away, and next weekend, I go to the first Quest retreat of this second Quest year.  

This is the first time in a long time that I consciously spent this good deal of time really taking care of myself.  Indulging myself.  Enjoying special treatment that I am lavishing upon myself.  Doing the kind of things that I might have depended upon some gift-giver to provide for me.   This is the standing on my own two feet that goes beyond the basic of food, shelter and clothing and taking care of the kid.  This kind of time balances the work and the worry and the tears.

I see.  I see.  At least for today, I see.

Trying hard to get home

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

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

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

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

And we wait.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are in Chicago but did not see Sue on Friday.  We wound up leaving later than I had planned and then arriving in Chicago close to the same time that Marcia and her crew arrived.  Julia and I had lunch at a great fast food Chinese - Wow Bao -- and then headed off to the art museum with Marcia and Leah.  Julia enjoyed the museum and also was quite willing to put Sue on hold until Sunday.  what she did have a bit of trouble with was another day of her period.  I don’t really think that her discomfort and unease is any greater than a typical kiddo but Julia has no shame about announcing it.  Again, we are with friends and her complaints fall on receptive ears.   I allowed Julia to pick out a souvenir at the art institute.  She picked a sketch book with lovely blank pages.  I don’t sketch like she does but I find blank books with love paper hard to resist.

I just posted lost of pictures in “photos.”  Weeks and weeks worth and a few from yesterday.  

Courage is fear that has said its prayers. 

~ Joyce Mayer

Possibly, but I need to think on that.

The days pass and tomorrow Julia and I will leave Brooklyn and head back to Madison.  I have started writing  few posts and either taken on longer topics that I could write in a short session or I find much better things to do.  Like talk to Cheshire.  Like watch a movie.  We have been busy -- museums -- Brooklyn and The Tenement, a show, cooking, visiting, and Les Mis -- but everything on a low gear.  Cheshire and Chris recovering from a stressful semester in grad school, Julia and I just recovering.

And now it is 10 in the morning and I have to get Julia up and her day started.  Soon.  We are all enjoying sleeping late.  I am sleeping later than I have in a very long time.  Of course, not going to bed before midnight.  Or 1.  Julia loves the lie ins, but has an incredibly tough time getting to sleep at night.  Once again, I had hoped to get her remaining sores healed.  Finally and completely.  But it has not happened this week.  She is still peeling her right heel and scratching scabs on one arm.   I am going to mount the effort again once at home.  Having her sleep in my bed and staying in med with her until she sleeps until school starts.  

To bullet point the time:

• started work on 2013 resolutions.  Some of it just repeating last year’s for sure but some for new, some rephrased.  I have less to give up, more positive activity and contemplation, and each to do verb is attached to the adverbial phrase ‘with intention.’

• being with Cheshire and Chris, like being with Lisa puts me face to face with loneliness.  I sent up the intention to live closer to someone whose roots have mingled with mine.

• the Wednesday before we left for NYC, during Crane meditation, I was following the simple movements when I felt, for the first time in two+ years, that my whole self was in my body.  It was a whoosh of realization although I have the feeling that there has been incremental gains over the past month or so.  And the feeling has stayed.  Another veil or haze of grief has been released and I can stretch into my full physical self.  Impossible right now to explain the feeling -- so physical, so mystical and spiritual.  So ordinary, really.  It was as if I suddenly realized that I had been hovering above my body, observing and directing but unable to truly touch the full physical impact of my experiences.  Is it because now, finally, the physical experience is not as excruciatingly painful as it has been?  Like holding a hand just beyond the hottest part of the fire and then getting the ability to grasp the flame and survive.

• possibly because of this feeling of being “in my body,” I spent a very low morning on Christmas eve.  I felt very sorry for myself.  Being in NYC reminded me too much of being here in 2010 and I felt bereft of familiar anchors to hold me steady.  And I could see how Cheshire was carving out her Christmas which includes the large and loving family that Chris is a part of.  I did not feel like I could melt into Cheshire’s plans -- Julia’s needs and challenges put demands on the structures of time and make melting into any social situation impossible at best.  For moments, I wanted only to escape the facade of a happy holiday and let Cheshire go into a family that is enjoying some simple joys of the season.  I could give her Christmas with Chris’ family and not cling to our holiday together.  But Cheshire and I talked, we cried, and we spent the late afternoon traveling into Manhattan for a glimpse of the big Rockefellow Center tree and ice rink, and Saks windows, and St. Pat’s chapels.  We went to Chinatown for soup dumplings and tofu curry and green tea ice cream and home again on trains in the rain.  

• this is the year of beginning again to find what we will do on Christmases to come.  It has taken some time to accept that  but i can now.  

• I met an old friend, Steve, for dinner two nights ago.  He is one of those people who was long absent from my life, someone I lost track of as we moved west and my experiences seemed far removed from his.  But he is one of those people with whom the connection is immediate and deep.  We met at a little restaurant on the lower east side and caught up and told stories and traded ideas about writing, work, art, life.  Of course, always life.  He is more exacting than I am -- he is taking photos and his photos are like his art and his poems.  I see something in what he is doing that I want to cultivate -- not the taking of interesting photos or the writing of poetry, both of which are mysteries to me -- but the cultivation of inspiration.  That is what I will take for this year.   

• Lisa and Michael came up to go spend the day with us.  To go to the theater and take a meal together and to talk.  How much more is there to say of family like this? 

1 December 2012

Mid-air heading east & DC

Traveling to DC to attend the AUCD Conference.  Two planes, an afternoon and most of an evening’s travel.  I sit and read the Richie Davidson book that I’ve been carrying around since the summer.  I take his 6 true and false tests about assessing emotional style.  At this moment, I wonder what my style would have looked like last year or the year before that.  The statement that stops me cold is “I expect that the next ten years will be better than the last ten years.”  I think I have always been able to answer “true” to that one.  I really can’t right now.  I’ve grown in resilience and regained some optimism.  I have some reasons and objectives and goals, but I cannot help but miss joy and the awareness of being the beloved.

Still, the switch that was thrown a few days before July 5th remains firmly in place.  I assess as resilient and focused, at least by my own appraisal.  And I am.  

Nice hotel -- Hilton in DC but I don’t know this town at all and I am scheduled almost every minute of my stay.  Tonight’s after-flight dinner and perhaps tonight after 8 are what I have free.  Two lunch times are taken, and if, perchance I really do network, I could fill more.  Right now, I feel a bit of a whine coming on about a full dance card but I know that busy and time filled is where my comfort zone is strongest.  And the fullness is my choice of exciting options.  

They don’t take credit card in cabs.  I have a map.  Maybe I’ll do the run/walk -- and you know where I will be -- tomorrow morning just to see the neighborhood.  The physical activity wouldn’t hurt me any.  Needing very hard to be back to activity.  I brought sweats and sneaker thinking this might be the time.  

Cable tv in the room and after surfing for 20 minutes, I have no regrets of living without it at home.  My junky tv comes in on Netflix and Hulu.  It’s all I need.  There is so much noise on tv.

Bedding down and sleeping without a thought to who is sleeping in the next room.  Funny how it is like turning off a light somewhere in the house.

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?  

Now for the delicious time of flight.  I used to journal by hand on planes, now I have to wait until we reach 10,000 feet to begin, not that it takes that long.  Julia is sitting with her iPad playing one of the games I put on two nights ago for this trip.  I put a few games on (no killing by any means and no bird throwing) when we first got the iPad and then took them off when school began and Julia wanted to play games on the sly. (I do take it as a sign of development that she tries to sneak something that is forbidden.  Ah, finding the positive in the strangest ways.  She whined for a bit and then stopped, becoming very content with the math games that I left on.  

However, for a weekend of travel, I decided to treat her.  I’ve also been looking for my version of appropriate games and found a decent puzzle game (up to 400 pieces although we are starting with 25 -- 25 on the screen is sufficiently challenging for me.  For Julia, not so much).  Right now, she is playing TanZen HD, a computer version of something she plays at home.   7 shapes to put into defined patterns.  She zipped through the first 10 or so, but now she is challenged which is good.  Her graphic eye is good but she needs to work at these and try different combinations of shapes.  She is patient and tries over and over.  She also does the kid-intuitive thing of finding out what the rules are as she plays.  I consider this the great generation divide.  When I put a new app on any of the electronics, I want to read all the rules and directions.  I also want to refer back to them when I run into problems.  Julia, like her contemporaries, just futzes around until it works for her.  

During the past few weeks, and getting more intense as time passes, Julia’s Concerta (ADHD med) seems to be losing potency.  It takes longer for it to kick in  in the morning and by 5 in the afternoon, it has worn off.  She has grown over the summer and there are signs of puberty.  We also have not seen her meds doc since before vacation which has not allowed for any possible adjustments.  This is too long to go without a visit.  I must have written that he cancelled two appointments along the way, each time resetting another month out.  Finally, I called and asked to change to another provider who has more time for us.  We were re-assigned and this time to a doc instead of a fellow.  I don’t know whether this is a long term assignment or just a stop gap measure.  In another corner of our world, consistency has come to be a challenge.  

School update, I went in on Monday, voiced my concerns and they were addressed.  Her teacher even sent some portable work for our trip which is great.  We will do something when I finish this and later today, we will be at Cheshire’s apartment alone for a few hours and we’ll do a bit more.  The regularity of work for Julia is important for mood and well-being.  She may balk at putting away the toys to sit down to math or spelling but school work regulates her more often than not.  

And talk about regulation.  Julia is a good traveler and has been for a long time now.  Picking up her heavy back pack, which she carries and which now has a little bit of our communal travel needs, I think about weighted vests and leg blankets.  Does a heavy backpack help regulate her?  And if not regulation, she is in training to be a great backpack traveler.

Walking through an airport and boarding a plane reminds me that next summer, we could travel.  Of course, financial ducks need to be in a line, but therapy ends on June 30.  We could board a plan on July 1.  Now where?  China is still out, and in fact, I think it would still be better to stay away from Asia for now.  My yearnings go two ways, no, three -- I’d like to go and do some work somewhere.  A Bolivian orphanage?  Or, I’d like to go visiting in Europe.  Italy beckons and we could stop over in England.  Or a family week at Findhorn and then go south and see British friends.  Or back to Paris for food and art and Monet’s garden.  In the back of my mind is a promised trip to Australia -- to see a dear friend and a cousin in-law who I’ve never met.  I think about linking that with an Asia trip but it is a big world out there and taking time on another continent, one that I’ve never thought much about aside from my two friends there, could be exciting.  And then, for the third yearning -- just a beach.  Sand and water and time being quiet.  The time on the Isle of Wright right after David died is still in my mind.  Not necessarily there, although that could be an option.  Maybe a long Jersey beach vacation?  Or somewhere not as intense as the Jersey beach is such beaches exist.  

Winter has not even begun yet and I don’t mean to be planning my life away.  Still, if luck favors the well prepared . . . 

I have my first Quest integration meeting next Monday evening.  I planned child care and congratulated myself on being organized.  Just before we got on the plane, my provider texted me that she is sick.  So I shot an email to the facilitator of my group with the warning that I might not make it and asking whether I could bring Julia.  Arg!!  I should have worked on a larger pool of respite providers before this!  That doesn’t solve my immediate problem but  no reason not to do it.  

As I wrote on the LEND blog, the work that we are doing in Quest somewhat mirrors some of the work in the Pockets in the Rocks workshop.  The reinforcement of the similar exercises and the different choices in exercises informs what I am learning.  Still, I am such a beginner.

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Later, in Brooklyn.

One long cab line, and one cab driver who got lost in Brooklyn and we are in Cheshire and Chris’ apartment.  It is such a home.  The difference between this place and the other apartments she has shared with one or multiple roommates is stark and telling.  Soft, comfortable, warm, decorated -- just enough of Cheshire to recognize her, some parts that I suspect are Chris, and then a few things that may be theirs together.  I am pulled up short by the old family things that Cheshire has.  Of course, I urged her to take anything that I was not using, and she had first dibs on anything and everything that I wanted to get rid of.  Still, to see my grandmother’s living room rub, my blue easy chair, my mother’s teapot, the table I bought for my Chicago apartment, and the pictures -- Jim’s, family photos, David’s movie posters.  Seeing it all makes me sad, makes me hopeful, makes me joyous.  I take them in until suddenly they look better and more useful here than they have for a long time.

And then there is the music.  Cheshire sorted through my records and took a bunch home, along with a turntable.  Chris has some from his father.  They have a tuner that is just a little more sophisticated than the one I was trying to push off on her.  As we listened to the Beatles and Billy Joel, I am struck by how much the sound is something that I remember.  It is by no means better than on CD or uploaded from iTunes, but there are no scratches and or complaining noises.  Just some quality that I have lost.  For a moment I regret letting my stereo and records go to strangers.  And when I suggest that Julia and I watch a movie as we wait for Cheshire to come home from her work day (Chris having to go to a school function and leaving us alone for a little while), Julia asks if we can play “this” record.  She has pulled out of crowded shelf the original cast recording of Carousel.  I ask, “really?”  “Yes, this one,” she insists.  Carousel is an old favorite of mine, no where near the sophistication and complication of a Sondheim, but  . . .  like a dear old beautiful friend.  “Just because its June, June, June . . . “  I know most every word and could tell stories about listening and of performing this show.  

Ok, am I going to be teary through this whole weekend?  In the city with some of my own stuff, enough to make this feel like home.  Listening to records, apartment neighbors and streets sounds with Julia drawing a card for the bride and groom and playing with the magnetic poetry on the frig.  

I don’t know.  Could I live here again?  I assumed I couldn’t.  I imagined that I had been spoiled by midwest living -- space, houses, quiet neighborhoods, easy commutes.  Am I projecting backwards?