busy week

started with a virus infection on my computer. guess it makes me super lucky to say i don't think i've ever had one of those...up until monday. and it was everything everyone else makes it out to be...sucky...scary...annoying. many people will share with you their ideas about the mental depravity of people who create viruses and sometimes even the punishments they feel they deserve...but mostly, i'm just damned glad there are folks out there who know how to fix this stuff. and yes, i realize they very well may be the ones who create the problems...but either way, i was a little uncomfortable with how much i depend on my computer. (not that the discomfort has stopped me from being on here, obviously....)

i also picked my nephews up on monday, took them to the rock climbing gym so they could climb and work out with my kiddos, met the mister there, and came home and ate dinner.

tuesday...my oldest turned fifteen. that was probably enough to wear a mother (pregnant at thirty-five...have i mentioned this?) out for the week alone, but it we also took pizza to our swim night with some of our friends, and then had everyone over to our house for cake and ice cream afterwards. the teens were totally cool and hung out in my son's bedroom and listened to music and talked and such...it was kind of cute and kind of weird--in a flashback omg i just threw up in mouth a little they really are growing up and i kind of remember this yep just threw up in my mouth a little again kind of way. fun times. hung out til almost one in the morning... i think it meant a lot to him and he was touched in that i'm fifteen and not going to get emotional but i'm also still a little bit of a boy and well, it was just obvious to me.

wednesday was a hang out day. it was also the day i took my computer to get it fixed. we also bought ice cream while we were out because it is just too damned hot to make it through a day without ice cream lately...and i don't even really like ice cream, but in the middle of the day, ice water just isn't cold enough sometimes. so we really took care of business on wednesday. then went to my bil and sil's for homemade hamburgers and homemade fries...good, good stuff. came back home and there were actual tears over my nephews leaving the next day. my kids have grown up with these guys...they're almost a little more like brothers than cousins if not for the vastly different parenting styles and home lives they have. but despite those differences (and believe me, those differences bring a number of challenges), these guys really have arrived at a place of love and trust and respect and joy together. it makes me both amazingly happy and incredibly sad at the same time. which i guess makes it truly authentic...

and then yesterday, i took my nephews home. that, in itself, was an adventure.

OH! i forgot to mention the part where cops were banging on our door, waking us up and shining huge flashlights in our windows at two thirty thursday morning...that was crazy. talk about disorienting. we almost called the cops on the cops. but then the cops called us to tell us they were the cops and could we come outside and talk to them?... ended up being kids running the neighborhood (no, not ours, though the thought DID cross my mind...) and the officer saw the interior lights on in both of our cars. which means someone was in there. but i'm sure once whoever opened the door saw what they looked like inside, they figured they weren't the only ones trashing cars that night and someone else had gotten there before us. they didn't even steal my spouse's cell phone (which my sister keeps saying is from 1980...but obviously turned out to be pretty handy in the anti-theft arena...) that was sitting right out in the open.

so that was my week. well, it's friday today and the mister has stayed home to get stuff done around the house. so he's got the fifteen year old at best buy (he DID run by home depot first) and i'm on the computer blogging...i think i'm beginning to understand why our house is so far behind it requires the doc to spend a day at home organizing...not that we're getting too far...well, that's what i'm starting to understand...yeah...ok...even my thoughts are getting disorganized. better get back to my closet...

peace

violence

i just don't get it...i mean, i get anger...i do. i'm not always sure what to do with it, but i definitely understand the feeling...am quite familiar with it. but violence? actually striking out against someone with the intent to really hurt them? i don't get it...

i talked to my nephew today. he's seventeen. and he got beaten up in the bathroom by another kid on tuesday. a kid at least six inches taller than him. hit in the face, the throat, the chest, the stomach, the ears. over a girl. he didn't fight back. he says it's because in high school, there is no self defense...you swing, you're fighting and you get the fighting consequences. he also says that if he had fought back, he's pretty sure he could've dropped the guy. i'm not sure if he's being completely honest in these admissions...the way our culture is, and the way the other men in his family are, i just don't know how honest he'd be if he had other reasons for not fighting...so i told him about how, spending some time growing up in a house with a stepfather who used to beat up my mother, i found out really quickly that i was not a fighter. that watching someone get so angry and start throwing someone else around, hitting someone else...with rage in their eyes...and the fear in the other person's eyes...pretty much left me unable to move. i don't know if fear drained me or if adrenalin so overpowered my system, i couldn't actually control anything, but whatever it was, all i ever did was stand there. and i used to be ashamed of that. think i should've hit him with a chair or something. something to defend my mother. but i'm not ashamed anymore. it was a crappy situation all around... just like this shit with this guy hitting my nephew. it makes me feel sick. and sad. and angry. and also grateful that my nephew wasn't too hurt and that his physical hurts have healed and that he's willing to talk about it and maybe heal some of the not physical hurts of it all.

i feel bad for this kid who beat up my nephew. i can't help but envision him as this sort of neanderthal. which, in all honesty, is how i'd view my stepfather when he'd get drunk and abusive. it's just the way my mind works. you can look like a normal person one minute, and then swing at my mom, and all of a sudden your arms appear a little longer, your eyebrow a little darker and ridged on your forehead. it takes a few weeks for the vision to fade and eventually, he'd look like himself again, but i can still remember him both ways in my mind. so while i'm sure the child who beat up my nephew is not a neanderthal and probably every bit the picture of youth and possibility and vitality that my nephew is, i just wonder what hurts would lead him to hurt someone else...and did he really think his girlfriend would be so impressed by this violence that she'd stay with him? i guess some girls are...at least i have heard some are, but i haven't really met any of them. which doesn't necessarily mean i don't know any...maybe they just haven't shared that part. anyway, my nephew didn't do anything bad to the girlfriend. as a matter of fact, he was doing quite good things for her...being her friend, listening to her, laughing with her. he'd mentioned her to me a few times. i could tell he liked her. he never did mention she had a boyfriend, though...i guess that wasn't one of his favorite things about her.

i don't know...i have a lot of sympathy for the way the situation played out...it sucked...for everyone at some point or another. the neanderthal, er, i mean other kid has been kicked out of many school organizations he'd participated in. the nephew had to heal a bit. the girlfriend, i'm sure, was distraught over numerous things. but it still makes me feel sick to think of my nephew getting punched...of this other child feeling that punching was the right thing. but i know this is part of life. not my favorite part, but...



peace

weekend edition--short version

so...no one puked at my house. i think the odds of being exposed by two different folks to two different puking viruses in the same house and NONE OF US getting the virus are slim. which makes me feel like we have immune systems of steel. and maybe that's not what it means, but it is how i feel, and that is what matters....

my nephews came and spent the night last night. seven young men/boys...ages 16 (almost 17), 15 (just turned...yesterday was his birthday), 14 (that one's mine), 13, 10 (almost 11...mine also), 9, and 5...it was a blast. it really, really was. i am so glad we did it and we all had such a good time...almost burned the house down with my less than brilliant candle placement on my nephew's cake, but otherwise...all great.

i do notice, as i keep going forward with this life, how some things change...many things change. but many don't. but i can always change how i react to things. if i choose to. and i imagine that as i change how i act in those types of situations, it will change my whole perception of them. i don't know. i just have to slow down a little...pay attention somewhat...relax the rest of the somewhat. something like that.

lately, i have this feeling like there's more to say, but then i just can't frame any of it in words. there are many things and many people i pray for right now...but most of them involve situations i am fairly certain i do not know the right course in. i am fairly certain i cannot even sit and lay out five distinct courses for any one situation, which tells me i am limited in conceiving a solution. so, all i can do is offer my sincerest wishes for peace in and for all of them. and that's where i'll end this...
peace

mystery

i listened to this song on the treadmill today. mystery by the indigo girls. (i really do listen to other music, i swear...it's just been the indigo girls that hit the deepest for the last two decades...) anyway...there's this line in the chorus...oh hell, here's the whole song...

each time you'd pull down the driveway
i wasn't sure when i would see you again
yours was a twisted blind sided highway
no matter which road you took then

oh you set up your place in my thoughts
moved in and made my thinking crowded
now we're out in the back with the barking dogs
my heart the red sun
your heart the moon clouded

i could go crazy on a night like tonight
when summer's beginning to give up her fight
and every thought's a possibility
and the voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me
maybe an equal mystery

so what is love then is it dictated or chosen
(handed down and made by hand)
does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years
or is it just pop emotion
(handed down and made by hand)
and if it ever was there and it left
does it mean it was never true
and to exist it must elude
is that why i think these things of you

i could go crazy on a night like tonight
when summer's beginning to give up her fight
and every thought's a possibility
and the voices are heard but nothing is seen
why do you spend this time with me
may be an equal mystery

but you like the taste of danger
it shines like sugar on your lips
and you like to stand in the line of fire
just to show you can shoot straight from you hip
there must be a 1000 things you would die for
i can hardly think of two
but not everything is better spoken aloud
not when i'm talking to you

oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight
breaks a bottle to christen her
basking in the exploits of her thief
she's a very good listener

maybe that's all that we need
is to meet in the middle of impossibility
we're standing at opposite poles
equal partners in a mystery
(handed down and made by hand)
we're standing at opposite poles
equal partners in a mystery

words and music by emily saliers
copyright 1994 bmi virgin music inc and godhap music (bmi)

so i was all over that song. the mystery of attraction, of relationships...the duality, the opposite poles equal partners in a mystery image...heart the red sun, heart the moon clouded. yeah. that. what they said....

i had a lovely weekend. a mysterious weekend, too.

we celebrated the confirmation of my nephew, which at this point in my life seems just like commitment to the biggest mystery of all. we celebrated the birthday of another nephew on a glorious day in austin...i love that city. my sister fell off the face of the earth and then returned...that was happy. my children spent two nights away and then returned...that was also very happy. i talked to a friend on the phone i hadn't spoken to in awhile....and that was happy, too. my mama cyber-tribe was there... and then there were also the mamas i shined my shoes for, right? well, that was ok... but i did it, which made me happy....snort

but equal parts, right?...

i already mentioned my friend that emailed me for help with a problem of hers. another friend had to put her mama in a hospice home. and as tough as the year has been for this friend already, it looks like she'll lose her mama here on earth, too. i'm sure her mama will stick around in energy for a very long time...she just has one of those tough spirits...but i know my friend will miss her when her body goes...and for that, i ache. i know she will be pragmatic in how she handles it...but i know under the layers of protection she's laid, a tender part of her is sobbing. so i'm sending some love and healing there...join me if you feel so inclined...because you know, every thought's a possibility.

mystery...
peace