The contents of my child’s pockets
the contents of my child’s pockets
I give her new jeans, a coat, or a dress. She says, does it have pockets?
I empty her pockets as I do the laundry. Yesterday was something new– a small, pretty plastic butterfly.
At the holidays my husband laughed as he told me he saw her pull out and ring a fairy-sized metal bell.
She always stops and darts like a bird to pick up a choice bit of gravel, or an acorn– I’ve removed more of those from her pockets than I can count in the years since she’s started preschool.
For a long time, I superstitiously kept all the little stones. I thought they might somehow be a mark of some affinity we’d need to know about, that might be weakened if I took it too lightly. Or maybe we had to put them around the house because of her kinship to some feng shui aspect I haven’t had the time to look up much less nurture– earth?
Let’s not even talk about a trip to the beach.
Finally I got the courage to start throwing the bits of gravel away, though many are still lying around the house. There are about seven on the sink in the laundry room. I just looked away, this evening. I’m not strong enough to dispose of them today.
In one most touching phase, she was folding her art projects in half, and in half again, and again, until she had a bit of paper compact and hard as a rock. Look what I brought you, Mummy! Slowly she brought it out and unfolded it for me, beaming with pride, generosity, and accomplishment.
I saved every one and am overwhelmed by these wrinkled bits of paper. It took immense courage for me to begin, only recently– these were not just rocks! she made these!– to throw away those which did not represent ‘her best work–’ like she’s some sort of Mary Cassatt, whose legacy I have to guard and conserve.
These are her choices. She finds them significant and sticks them in her pocket, holds them for some reason, sometimes to give me, but more often for me to find at laundry time.
Are they little totems, small familiars? Or can I cast them like bones to gain some kind of understanding?
Even if I could, it seems like that would almost be a species of prying. You know, like witchcraft or a ouija board. Where I go, you cannot follow.
The meaning is in the very act itself– of spying and choosing, or creating, and carefully stowing–
of discovering and realizing– her dimpled, callused hands chose this. Her beautiful, dirty little fingers plucked this and saved it.
I think I’ll start a big clear glass jar. It will be like a three-dimensional scrapbook. I know it’s really detritus, but it’s treasure to her, at least for that fleeting moment. Or, what is it?
Maybe it will yield some insight for her, about who she is or was, some day. Though she’s not nervous, not like I am, and she probably won’t ever need to ask. They’re her bones to cast, if she even chooses. She may choose to live consciously, and in only this moment, a good choice.
take it up a notch with christmas feng shui
Sounds great, huh? And it really is.
Christmas is the chance for so much hope– good food, good gifts, good friends, good time off, good decorating.
So how ’bout we ratchet up the comfort-and- joy-or-else with feng shui?
Weeeell, remember my Southern Living/Nightmare Before Christmas aesthetic?
As it turns out, I learned too late, dried flowers are one of the top ten ways to bring bad vibes into your house. So, I have to throw away those bunches of dried red roses hanging upside down from the ceiling of my back porch (and looking disturbingly like dead game birds?) . The black glass christmas balls may not be that good either. Sigh.
And, the elements that comprise a Christmas tree need to be either smack dab in the center of a home, or in the Southeast corner.
Well… the Southeast corner is our laundry room.
If we could put it in the Southeast corner of our living room, another option, that would be fabulous… but it would not be visible from the street. And if you can’t let your Christmas tree sparkle sweetly in your front window for all to see, what’s the point?
[Of course then my husband fusses because I open the vertical shades and he's always hanging out in his boxer briefs and wifebeaters-- spoilsport.]
And the colors we need in that front part of the house– those pertaining to water– well dammit, that just wasn’t my color scheme for this year! Blue and silver was 2002!
And… I know all this clutter in snowdrifts around the house isn’t good for the chi, either. I am *this* close to having my daughters’ curtains finished. Once that’s done, I can clear a path, in anticipation of really enjoying decorating, cooking, scrapbooking, whatever else with my family this weekend. I could even go finish them this minute but I am sooo tired. I already worked on them for about two hours tonight. It’s time to get ready for sleepies.
twenty years on
Today it’s just me. Well and a small amount of my media consumption, but I am going to work hard to actually show up in my life this blessed long weekend.
They didn’t have The Big Chill at the video store. Pity, I’m just going to have to buy it. The fifteenth anniversary edition.
[So we watched Rage Against the Machine's farewell video, which roused some late nineties self righteousness and regret, and Magnolia, which was interesting, if not completely authentic-feeling. That is, we watched the first two and a half hours of Magnolia, with the baby getting all up in our faces making us feel simultaneously angry and hunted and guilty.]
I am obsessed with the Big Chill. I’m not even sure what it’s about but I love the music and I am pretty sure it’s about the promise of the Baby Boom generation and the reality 20 years later. I’ve been avoiding reading much about it because I don’t want my first viewing spoiled.
I am turning 37 in several weeks. In May I will have been graduated from high school 20 years. I just can’t believe it. So I can’t resist a little retrospecting.
The thing is, I am not depressed about this. My life at 37 has much more joy and promise than my life at 17. At 17 I was headed nowhere fast… luckily my parents kicked me out to college so that I could at least get my piece of paper and get some broadening foreign travel under my belt before I sank into alcoholism and promiscuity.
I was talking to another girlfriend, whose 37th birthday is Monday, about this. The sad thing is, we are no longer in our teens and twenties, able to get away with just about anything because we’re young, cute, smart assed, and lack the good sense of full frontal lobe development. I’d love to go do it again knowing what I know now. But I can’t, and truly, the future’s finally so bright I gotta wear shades, in a way it never was 20 years ago when I was listening to that song and bumming around Oak Ridge with one of my brilliant, grown-up-too-fast girlfriends. My life just didn’t have all that much promise, back then.
Okay, analyzing done.
Last night the delicious vegan mushroom walnut gravy was a rousing– failure.
I am not used to working with mushrooms. I don’t like them, but I was craving mushroom gravy for some reason, and it sounded like a good vegan option.
So in the end the flavor was quite good– garlic, olive oil, very finely ground walnuts, mushrooms, shiner bock, water, milk, tons of salt and pepper and a teeny bit of nutmeg– but the consistency was pasty and heavy– a glutinous mass, even without a roux, if the truth be told. We had to share a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream to keep from starving. I was so disappointed. But I learned something about gravy and about noodle dishes. I’ll be more patient and careful next time.
What to do today?
That sound on Mickey’s Clubhouse sounds like a slot machine. I do love the sound of a slot machine.
It’s a three day weekend. I am torn between doing truly creative, meaningful life change things– starting my Best Old Friend’s baby quilt, practicing my bass, writing, doing reading for healing school– and wiping every single surface in this house with either Pine Sol (I have become obsessed with this smell) or Dr. Bronner’s.
With all I have to do, all my options, believe it or not my strongest craving is to start cleaning. I think it’s a species of fear of success, or fear of reality– isn’t that the psychological basis for much obsessive compulsive or addictive behavior? It’s an illusion of control, an illusion that the external circumstances in my home are a reflection, for better or worse, of my wellbeing. But honestly– if I could stay home from work some of those days when I long to stay home from work, I would spend my morning cleaning.
So… Pine Sol and Dr. Bronner’s it is. I have a three day weekend. I can resolve to do what really matters most tomorrow and Monday mornings.
I’m off to go show up in my life.
feng shui for hassled mothers
I woke at four thirty this morning. I tried to go back to sleep for a bit longer, but nothin’ doin’. I got on up and made my coffee and did my (please don’t laugh) Denise Austin workout. It’s the first time I’ve made a concerted effort to exercise in weeks.
So I was zipping around my dark house, happy as a sandboy, throwing in laundry and working out in nothing but panties and a sports bra–they didn’t even match, woo hoo! because praise Jesus *I’m the only adult home!!!*
Mindful of my unhappiness and exhaustion lately, I thought of something positive I could blog as I was zipping around: Feng Shui for Hassled Mothers. Maybe I should call it Feng Shui for Hassled Home Executives, eh? Is Home Executives a Flylady term? Anyway, I was so excited about it.
This evening, after starting my day at 7.15 am, shepherding my adorable blind coworker all around the Capitol City and sitting in personnel orientation for my job for eight hours, and hearing my child say Mom, Mom, Mom at least 100 times between five and six pm, I’m feeling a bit less excited.
I’ll try to dig up that can-do spirit. I’ll try not to advise that you just take to your bed with a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes and a book. I’ll try not to advise that you pile it in the middle of the kitchen floor and set it on fire.
Feng shui need not be this arcane, complicated set of measurements, remedies and properly placed expensive energy interventions. It certainly isn’t at my house– nowhere near what I would love to do if I stayed at home and could indulge my compulsive tendency to sort and sort and sort (notice I don’t say clean) all day and wouldn’t be broke from staying at home.
I have two sources I must credit for my feng shui knowledge. I have two Lillian Too Practical Feng Shui books. But guess who my best source is? And she doesn’t mention feng shui ever.
My best source is Flylady! Because Flylady is all about keeping the energy moving– and that’s what feng shui is about really– opening up to energy and giving it, and oneself, room to move and keeping it moving. It’s about loving oneself and one’s home enough to bless it by working briefly and then move on to something more fun. Renounce martyrdom! Just as feng shui is about clean, simple, comfortable spaces, Flylady is about throwing away the clutter– emotional and physical– that makes it impossible to clean house, take care of oneself, or be comfortable.
So.
There are many small quick things to do that get the chi moving again, brush stagnant energy out and make room for fresh. When there’s so much craziness going on, so many demands on my heart, mind, body and time, one tiny step is a triumph.
Today’s version, based on the things I dash through whenever I get a quick minute because it makes my life easier to do them a little at a time– Five Minute Feng Shui.
Even one of these items clears out stagnant energy and makes room for chi to flow.
My number one favorite thing to do, when I have time for nothing else, is
Take out the trash. Talk about symbolically getting rid of stagnant energy and making room so your house/energy/creativity can breathe again!
Other five minute goodies:
Spend five minutes sweeping the floor, just the big chunks.
Throw one load of dishes in the dishwasher. Don’t worry if the kitchen isn’t spotless– one load gets you farther than you were before.
Put all the dirty laundry in the laundry room.
Throw all the shoes in the closets.
Fold one load of laundry.
Spend five minutes tossing magazines.
Spend five minutes bagging clothes to take to the thrift shop.
Spend five minutes checking for out of date food in the refrigerator.
Take two minutes to scrub the tub *or* (NOT BOTH) wipe down the toilet with disinfectant.
Make the bed.
I managed three of these, this morning, and I felt like maybe, just maybe, sometimes I can manage this working mother thing.
But tonight, so help me, I’m going to bed at nine or earlier. Five a.m., or four thirty as it was this morning, will look a hell of a lot better on more sleep.
