1.2.16 The look of love

1.2.16 Wide open

In summer, we think of winter, what with its

cold air and crisp days.

In winter, we yearn for summer, plying the

memory of some ideal vision

where no humidity nor unflinching drought

pesters the imagining of such a

gentle breeze, warm air, and the

day wide open for anything.

1.2.16 Please

Deliver me from

useless thoughts

and twisting tangling worries

From worthlessly

trolling possibility

and not in a good way

Help me settle into the

soft and deep and calming

that somehow will fashion

This present moment into

something more alluring

more concrete and reassuring

Than all those fears busily

trying their best just to

dance on the head of a pin

1.2.16 What delivers us

Today is just one of those days. When you're tired out and cranky and so everything somehow looks tired out and crappy. Even though you know it isn't.

 Still, what delivers us on those days is simply that the sun shines and it's January, and the sunlight streams through the skies and past the tall pines and spruce, and the crisp cold air collects all the good things home.

1.1.16 Along the common ground

     Sometimes it seems to take so much effort, to manage one small thing. To go ahead, and pursue that which means something. To finagle all the mandatory acts that keep life smooth and sane, and then save a little for the activities that mean much to us. To hope, or dream of doing something with a way of creating that means much. As a way of connecting with others, across vast expanses of differing opinion, conviction and reactivity.

     Often in the past, I had jobs that formed a container, where the job was pertinent, and my own views were not so much. I could approach a high school kid in school, and talk to them about life and stress and what messes us up using drugs to soften what seems too hard. I got to hang out and talk with people from such different backgrounds, and have something in common that we could all discuss, equally respected and enjoyed. I got to go to older people's homes to see what help my agency could provide, and in those days, really could provide it. I had the profound pleasure of a private practice, honing my skills until I finally became accustomed to the work being effective most of the time. That remarkable pleasure of helping guide people out of so many problematic health conditions.

     And now? Private person. Sure, I can reply to someone at the library who is commenting on a book they're thinking of reading, asking me my take. I can excuse myself getting sand at the town lot, and talk about the weather and the river with the person next to me, without us ever encountering our politics or their pesticide use on their fields or their support for less taxes.

     But the difference between us? Creeps up fast. And before you know it, there it is , leaping into the space between you and a perfectly nice person, who has avid views so contrary to yours that you have to take a moment, a breath, and remember what is most important to you.

     That yes, there are all these pivotal issues, there is all this misunderstanding about the country and the economy and so many that seem impacted , it seems, swooned into thinking this or that.

But what is really important is our common ground. Its' actually just like a marriage, or a relationship with your kids, or family. You need to generate enough nice stuff to be able to manage the hard things. Enough feel good ways of caring that it supercedes the hard hard differences.

     All of which is way easier here, in the little happy valley, than many other places, for certain.

     Everywhere jobs and incomes are threatened, and people are feeling increasingly angry and precarious, looking for someone to blame.

     So I try to focus on that. Our common ground. With the farmer down the road, and the convenience store clerk. With what we share, in our days and our nights, that brings us closer together.

1.1.16 So off we'd go

I raised 4 younger brothers, changing diapers at 5. But I had no idea how, if you persisted in having two terribly close together, you couldn't leave them alone. Until they were both over three. Or at least, with my very spicy itchy genes, that was true for us.

     She was 18 months older than he, practiced being pregnant and asking questions and inserting herself into every single thing prior to his birth. After he arrived, she did the predictable- demanded to be toilet trained. She bit him for his first year of life, despite all my interventions. I had to learn how to understand that she was not being 'mean' , she just had a whole lot of feelings about a new sibling. She just needed a whole lot of physical limits to keep her from easy access. She stopped when he turned one. And then? He bit her for a whole year. I mean, the two of them. Teeth marks! Biting down HARD! Geeze. Drove me nuts. 

     And really, with the two of them, you had to keep your eye on them every second. Once, at 1 1/2 and 3, they took off all their clothes in the kitchen while I was putting in laundry, opened the door, and ran out into the back yard. I came back into the room, and they were gone, outside running around, with the two dogs out with them, too. The very conservative neighbors next door peeking around their curtains, watching with disapproval. After that, I bought those crocheted doorknob covers, and that was that. 
     After an elaborate cooked lunch, being the obsessive that I am, I'd pack them into their down jackets and boots and hats and put them one at a time into the car, into car seats in the back. They'd be like these huge pillows, so puffy it was hard to find the kid in all the puff. I’d lock them in, because they were escape artists, hand them juice-water bottles, and set out. I'd round the corner, and stop at the convenience store, completely happy exhausted parent. I'd back into the store while looking at them, buy a Charleston Chew, slip it into my jacket, and go on out to begin driving them all over the earth, in the vain hope that they would fall asleep, and I’d have a break.
     So off we would go, polluting the air, driving here and there and there and there and there and there and there (their older brother was like this too), until their eyes began to close little by little, with me hoping so hard that this would work. 
     In the meantime, I'd be surreptitiously pulling the candy bar out of my jacket, pausing when the crinkling noise caught the notice of my daughter, who would open her eyes WIDE to see what that was. So I’d wait, hand frozen on the candy, til she got bored and began falling asleep again. Slowly every so painfully slowly I'd get that wrapper off, and then make sure she couldn't see me, when I bent my head down to have a bit. Then chew absolutely silently.
     Sometimes she'd notice the smell. Other times she'd nod off, and he'd nod off , and my heart would give a little jump of joy, and I'd hightail it on back home.
     Once konked, I could carefully lug one absolutely beautiful kid up the stairs, oof!, and gently take off coat and boots and hat, and put them on the mattress on the floor, where we all slept, of course. 
     Then I'd go get the other heavy beautiful child and bring them up oh so carefully, lay them down, take off coat and boots and hat, and cover the two of them up. By then, they'd stir just enough to roll into each other, and throw their arms around the other.
     I'd put up the gate, tiptoe downstairs, and sit in the living room, glancing at the clock and when I'd have to go pick up the older kid from school, munch my crap candy, fall over, and sleep.