tired

so my oldest has strep throat. and everyone just seems kind of grumpy and every once in awhile someone mentions a headache, which in turn, gives me a headache...

but i did pull out our hiking packs today and check out some books from the library on the grand canyon, bryce national park, and zion national park...also one on hiking essentials that has some fun exercises i might show the kids.

between the headaches of the day and deciding today would be the day i'd begin my coffee free mornings, i'm just too tired to blog more.
peace

weekend in review

had a really fun, outdoor, sweat-and-play-hard kind of day yesterday. also a share with friends, delightful kind of afternoon. then a quiet, hang out together at home kind of evening. good times, good times...

but oldest came to our room, pretty upset, around five this morning. head hurting, couldn't sleep, just generally stressed out and ready for some help... i think he may have gotten dehydrated from hanging at the creek yesterday, but i'm not sure. some motrin and more water and he quieted. i don't know that he ever went back to sleep. i don't think he got some rogue caffeine in the evening. (we're all pretty sensitive to caffeine around here...except dr. dad who i think just sticks his in an iv at work...) i don't know...but he seems okay today...tired, but feeling fine otherwise.

so we will start working on getting ourselves together for our camping trip sans dad. i was telling a friend of mine last night that i could feel myself working out of the denial stage (concerning dad's non-attendance on this big trip), into the acceptance stage. i'm glad i got there with almost two full weeks to prepare us...pretty good timing, i must say... it'll be fun....we will be fine. (these are what my internal thoughts look like...)

still other things i want to blog about...but words aren't coming together on this. just stuff, really...nothing huge. thoughts that float through my mind but scatter when i try to catch them and put them into words. i'm patient...

but i do want to ask for prayers for a mama named julie walker. her daughter and my oldest son went to school together for first grade and we share a mutual friend who's kept us connected, sort of, in the years since. aside from being a mama, julie's a doula and child birth educator and friend to so many. she is having a tumor removed...a brain tumor...on monday....yeah, tomorrow. so prayers, positive energy, whatever you've got...please...she needs them. and it'll be a good thing to do if you send them, so it all works together...the giving, the receiving...

peace

babble

my spouse and i have had a kind of rough year. it's been a rough time since we made the decision for him to go to medical school in 2002. but medical school was a lot easier than the first year of residency has been...

he is really immersed in his profession. every night (that he's home), the man has either a medical journal or a medical textbook out, reading up on the details and intricacies of what he does in a day, what he sees, what he's responsible for. it's like a whole new culture...even a whole new language. i know his profession requires he be immersed because my spouse is just not an immersion type guy. he likes to know a lot about lots of things...but he's not really one to dwell. but i see him dwelling here. and i see how difficult it is...most of the time...well, really, just once in awhile. like maybe two or three times this year i have been conscious of how difficult it is for him. not because i'm a jerk. just because i've been a little more immersed these days as well.

my kids are growing. i can no longer say, "hey, let's go to the park" when every one's bored because now my older kids say, "which one?," or "who else will be there?," or "what are we going to do there?," or, my personal favorite, "well, can we drive thru on the way home?" and i am not exactly thrilled to be their new social director, to be honest. these guys have been soooo freaking bored this summer, and as much as i want them to have fun, i am not spoon feeding it to them. a friend of mine told me her mom used to tell her "only boring people get bored"....i keep forgetting to use that line! doh...

anyway... last night my husband and i were trying to interact... i'd go sit near him, he'd smile, then he'd forget i was there and go get something to eat. at which point i'd move to the computer, forgetting i was trying to spend time with him. then he'd wander in the computer room, look over my shoulder, and wander back to the front of the tv. rinse, lather, repeat. over and over. seriously, i think we did this about five different times. then, this stupid show called hopkins came on and while we both rolled our eyes, we ended up watching it. there's a couple on their way to divorce in that show...he's a surgical resident, she's a p.a. they have two kids. then there was the guy the brain tumor. it was quite a show.

we tried to talk later... our eyes got kind of lit...that look we get when we're getting ready to talk, share, laugh... but he'd talk about medicine and doctors and i'd talk about kids and mamas. and for some reason, all of our stories involved so much back story, neither of us had the energy to fill it all in. so it was a lot of start...huh?...never mind...you go...kind of stuff. it seriously made me think of the story in the bible where everyone starts speaking different languages, none of them the same. it was kind of weird. and it kind of sucks. but it's also kind of ok. it's just the way it is, really. i'm certain it'll never be the same. i am hopeful it will be better at some point.

i'm not always sure about this journey we are on. it is not an easy one. i know few are. but things sure seemed a hell of a lot easier before we took this turn. and i don't know why we do this, to be honest. i try to find a peaceful place inside of me, but then i look at where i am in life and think this is just stupid. what the hell was i thinking?!?! but then i remind myself that my spouse and i are friends, that we love, love, love our kids, and that our kids are really funny, terrific, well-balanced people. i think way more so than their parents. and maybe that's what'll happen. they'll keep us from going crazy...falling off the ledge i feel we walk so close to.

oh, speaking of ledges, did i mention i'll be taking my kids, without my spouse, and with my spouse's family, to the grand canyon for a week? tent camping? yeah...there's a ledge...literally and metaphorically, huh?

maybe the true babel is in my head. one part of me talking about peace and calm and the other scheduling these crazy things...making these crazy choices....both nodding with seeming understanding, but something being majorly lost in the translation. i don't know...

i don't think it's all that crazy...it's more just my size crazy. but i just had to get it out....
peace

enjoy the silence...

...well, in small doses anyway.

today, i signed on my computer, as usual. i checked my email and then signed in to my blog, as usual. saw a friend had updated her blog, went to go read, saw she'd posted a video, clicked play, and was a little confused... honestly, my first thought was that it was a performance piece of sorts...you never know with you tube...a band was singing, but no sound....lots of other stuff going on...i watched the whole thing waiting for the finale.

it never came.

i mean, the video ended, but i was a little more than a little confused at that point. i went back to my own blog and, out of curiosity, clicked on the beatles video i posted yesterday. ahhhh, similar themed "performance piece"...the beatles move their mouths, but there is no sound. this has happened before. something came unplugged or something. the first time it happened, i felt desperate...."fix it" i impatiently commanded my spouse. i'm a little more practiced at patience and relaxation these days, so i didn't command anyone to do anything...but i did feel that same sort of desperation... (i just let it move through me and not define me.)

when i was a teen, i worked at a camp for children with different disabilities...most of them had multiple disabilities. we had a weekly dance and the campers i worked with who were deaf would often climb in the dj's huge speakers and hang out there through much of the dance. (rendering their counselor hearing impaired by the end of said dance...) but i'll never forget these little scrawny kids, climbing around in a big black speaker, feeling the sides, their eyes lit up. once we had a week of kids who were just deaf, and those guys danced...i guess they could feel the beat without climbing in the speaker...although "kokomo" by the beach boys did confuse them some...

then i worked at the school for the blind. in the life skills department. and i watched the kids there navigate through a world they couldn't see. it was often scary for them. there was one child we worked with for months just to get her to touch sand...it was scary shit for her. she would scream and claw us if she thought we were trying to get her to touch it. but she'd been born blind, and no experience with anything like sand, or with anything that would make sand make sense....so that was sort of different. we had other kids who'd jump on trampolines, swing in swings (ever done that with your eyes closed?), even roller skate.

have you ever watched a blind person "see" another person? touch their face? i mean, my son has a blind flute teacher and i don't think she's ever "looked" at him, but when a blind person does touch someone to "see" them...have you ever seen that? the times i did, i'd often look away, feeling a little embarrassed by the intimacy of those touches. not the abstract brushing hair out of some one's face, or taking a crumb off of some one's mouth...a touch with the intent to imprint, to remember, to learn. i don't know...maybe i'm a prude.

anyway...so i wondered, often in my younger years, which i'd prefer (if given the choice, of course), being deaf or being blind? and the failure of my speakers, the watching of videos going on with no sound, affirmed what i've always thought...

i'm pretty sure i'd still rather go blind. because while silence can be nice and healing, for me personally, it is a damned lonely place that i just don't think some vibrations would find me in. i'm pretty sure i'd go mad if i could never hear another song, another guitar, another voice...the wind through the trees, footsteps in grass that needs to be cut, the sound of oars dipping in and out of water...kids turning over in their sleep, laughter, my sexy spouse walking through the door, mamas talking and sharing and lifting. i have too many things already in my head...if the rest of the world couldn't get in there...i just can't even imagine.

there were some other things rattling around in my mind, but this took it all out of me for today....snort
peace

treadmill philosophy

first of all, i don't intend to meditate or philosophize on the treadmill. i don't know that it's wise to think too much when trying to reach and maintain my maximum heart rate... but with a reiki book there, and my big backyard out my window, and lately, with the beatles playing...it just seems to happen...

here's today's passages i wanted to get down...

We can compare the mind to a glass of sparkling water. The constant stream of bubbles floating to the surface are like our thoughts and feelings. It appears that we are these thoughts and emotions that arise from within, as if they make up our identity and character, or as if they are the "real me." Our true nature is more like the water itself than the bubbles that arise in it, our essence, in reality, is closer to the space between our thoughts and feelings, or simply the lack of "I."

Since our tendencies toward positive or negative actions gradually change with our habits of thinking and feeling, if we are able each day to familiarize ourselves with deep peace and happiness, no matter how negative we have been in the past, we cannot avoid becoming more contented and fulfilled.

now, that first passage i like because i get asked so often if i see the glass as half full or half empty, i'm thrilled that now i can answer that i'm the water in the glass. and i like the idea of being full of bubbles... it did make me wonder, as i was running today, whether "i" was the calf that was hurting, the "i" that sensed the pain, or the "i" that decided it was fine to just keep running and let it work itself out. but "i" didn't come to a conclusion as "i" was running and trying to relax a calf without falling off the treadmill. (all while singing "help" by the beatles which seemed so damned appropriate i thought i'd include it.) but i am also "getting" that i am not identified by my thoughts or my feelings...and i am so freaking relieved by that because sometimes, i just don't know where the shit that flies through my head comes from...

which i guess explains why the second passage is significant to me...can i get an alleluia!!?! a praise god!!!? (or dog or bob or whoever you praise...) again...it's a relief. sometimes i get so bogged down by negative thoughts. so.....bogged......down...... but i'll keep practicing and then i can't avoid being happier...i love that part. like even if i try, i can't avoid it. cool.

so that right there is probably proof enough why i should not think too much while my body is allocating the bulk of its energy to run. but it felt good...

i also want to put out there that a friend of mine (from the cyber mama tribe) is traveling to galveston for some much needed time alone. i talked to her for the first time today to let her know i was thinking about her and to take care of herself. she had kind of a sexy, sultry voice. not that i didn't expect it...which i didn't...but it's just cool how us mama types always have little surprises about ourselves up our sleeves. so if you feel so inclined, i'm sure she could use some raising up.

also, my sons spent time with some kids from a family that is moving at the end of this week. i know people come and go in life...and i know i can't protect them from ever knowing disappointment or longing or loss...i wouldn't really want to, to be honest...but i wish this family the best and am grateful for the time we spent with them. rock climbing will never be the same without them...

also, a friend i haven't spoken to in awhile seems to have been going through some rough times, so a little raising up for her would be good, too...

peace

colors

i often see colors in feelings. when i was a kid, there were these inherent numerical values assigned to colors and weird color combinations would yield these weird equations, but that's not what i'm writing about. when i say i see colors, i don't mean i see auras or whatever. when i'm feeling things, there is often a background color to it. and the more i meditate, the more aware of these colors i've become over time. (the more i meditate, the weirder my dreams get, as well, but that's not what i'm writing about either.)

i went to book club last night. same group of women, minus one. same histories for them, same newbie me, but with an extra month of history under my belt. the book was really good. it was called assassination vacation written by sarah vowell. like i said before, it was about the assassinations of presidents lincoln, garfield, and mckinley. sarah vowell does not like our current administration and i liked her book a lot. but this is not what i'm writing about right now either...

when i'm in a group of people, i can get a sense of how people are feeling. it's not rocket science...i'm sure i'm reading their body language, listening to their tone, watching what muscles are tensed...but it is instinctual, so i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing, but last night i could really feel the background colors on each person. it was pretty new for me...

so the cool part...

i was sitting next to this mama i'm getting to know. (the one i saw david sedaris with.) and there's another mama on the other side of her. there's also a mama across from us and a rogue papa who showed up, too. so the mama next to me and i are talking to the couple across from us most of the night. time to tally up the bills and the mama on the other side of mama-sitting-next-to-me (i was on the end of the table...does that make this any easier?) is getting frustrated because the wait staff is not totalling her change correctly. first it's too little...then it's too much. and every one's getting drawn into this frustration...helping her add the change....yes, they are wrong!...what to do?...bla bla bla but the mama i was sitting next to just kept talking, telling stories, laughing. and i kept listening, telling my stories, and laughing, too. it was cool. there were plenty of folks helping mama-with-change-issues get her stuff settled. i don't think we were shirking our civic duties at all. no one got hurt. they sorted the issue out...get this, without our help. and hell, we just had a good time.

so the colors...right...the colors. frustration or anger or whatever...for me, emotions that close me up and don't allow energy to move through to find a solution, basically keeping me stuck in the problem...they're kind of black or some variant of black...which i guess really means some shade of gray. and i'm not judging whether this woman with change issues was closed off or not. this is just my reading of emotions, which is a reflection of me...because i'm not her. and i don't know her...well, i sort of do. but not well enough to know her emotions. i barely know my spouse that well and i've known him for eighteen years. (holy shit, that's a long time...) anyway...i was seeing gray around mama with change issues.

but mama sitting next to me had colors going...blues, greens, purples, reds...and i had a choice to make.

i usually feel compelled to help sort things out...even if i'm the forty-fifth person to come upon the issue. i still feel this prime responsibility to help someone be happy. but i know i'm not always the right person for the job. i often make things worse, what with my morbid intensity and amazing propensity to mindfuck things... yet, i still often react blindly to that compelling feeling...

i guess this is where quiet and awareness come in? meditation and whatnot? i don't know. i'm really still too new to this. but i was aware, as clumsy as it felt inside me, that i had a choice. and i chose colors. and once the change issue was sorted through, the colors returned. it was a really nice night. i'm glad for the community.

so that's about all i got on that. other than there's a kid's book where it makes a rainbow...each page covers a specific color and has a ribbon that color at the top of the page. turn the page, new color, new ribbon in the rainbow. that's what i was thinking about last night when i was going to bed. and for the record, no, i don't do drugs...snort.
peace

quick addendum

i like the article i just posted for a few different reasons... but the biggest is that it reminds me that while i feel like some people need to get over their hang ups, their stereotypes concerning others that they don't even know much about, that i need to do the same.

my bff from high school's partner sent me that article...they live a little north of me, but still in the same conservative, often religious fundamentalist populated state and we emailed back and forth expressing surprise that such an even tempered, well written article supporting same sex marriage would appear in her local newspaper. and i haven't discussed this issue with many folks around me because that attitude would surprise me here, too, to be honest. we just don't expect the people around here to be supportive or understanding, i guess...and i guess we need to get over it, huh?

and i realize stereotypes are often protective...i do not want to spend hours each day arguing for same sex marriage or telling someone else i feel they're wrong (if they feel same sex marriage is destroying the institution of marriage or whatever) anymore than someone wants a lifestyle they know nothing about surrounding them. but i am a live and let live kind of person, just like the guy who wrote the article. and i need to realize that so are many of the folks i'm surrounded by. (well, maybe we're just more live and let live than other things, i suppose.) again with the same-ness, huh?...

anyway...

i have book club tonight and now need to try to finish the book. it's about the assassinations of lincoln, garfield, and mckinley, and i've only just barely started the stuff on garfield...sigh. i just didn't want to be a book club failure again this month... but i will let you know the name of the book and what i thought of it when i finish it...i am actually liking it quite a bit.
peace