Heidi Beth

Teresa and Matthew are asleep. We read extra books in honor of Teresa’s first sleepover. Matthew applauded this decision. She came with her own bed time readiness case and back pack, both pink :). First she was in the boy’s bed and Matthew in our bed. Then they tried to share our bed. Then a few errands, like getting more stuffed animals and Devyn’s robe and my jacket to snuggle to sleep. Then Teresa went back to their bed(I think Matthew was having a harder time getting to sleep w/o mom in the room) and soon fell asleep. I just checked on them and Matthew had turned the light on but was sound asleep. Teresa was not where I first checked, like with her head on the pillow holding her animals. She was in the bottom middle of the bed over the covers and sideways.
Before the sleeping part…While it was light out they had a short game of adventure in the front yard, we said goodbye to David with a big group hug and then they both told me they were going to hug me so hard I’d be in two pieces. They tried and I pretended to be in two, crumpling and making faces. Once inside, Teresa and Matthew played with a few toys then Matthew took his 30 minute turn on the computer. Teresa tried to be interested in this, but once he stopped playing with the kitty and started playing a strategy game she wandered back to the alphabet machine, draping herself over the couch upside down. I had forgotten how much she likes to be upside down in chairs. After Matthew finished his computer turn, they ate a snack, tried to play with playmobil then I redirected them to Lincoln logs where there were no good and bad guys, no powerfuller anyone and Matthew was not trying to finally be the big kid and be bossy(oy and fortunately this was the only time he did this, and was happy to be quickly guided to better ways). They liked the little horse stable/house we built. I liked singing our bedtime book of well known songs with repeating lines. Even the ones Teresa didn’t know she always tried to sing along and soon could stay with the repeating parts. And Matthew soon lost the desire to interrupt with silliness and started singing along too in his soft timid way 🙂 . Such a sweet way to spend a Sunday night.
Tonight reminds me of how precious these days together are. Our family is 10 years old and so new.

I followed millions and watched Thriller. I sat with my heart in my hands because it was my childhood sitting there in the room with me. The childhood that has been coming back to me in strong emotions in recent months, crying, “Look at me, feel what I couldn’t feel when I was 12, when I had to focus on staying safe.” I watched the whole video. I could see again clearly that Michael Jackson has had a great influence on dance(among other things obviously). I also realized that life on earth in America was painfully difficult for youth in the 80’s. Seeing it from the perspective of a 37 year old mother of 2, from the perspective of someone who was half real and half created for the audience of her peers until 11 years ago. After Thriller I watched Beat It and parts of a few other of his videos. Then I wanted to hear Duran Duran. I wanted to remember those long sunlit afternoons in Allison Utech’s living room listening to The Chaufer, Hungry Like the Wolf…dancing because we had this energy, this creative energy and no guidance, no help in channeling it to good. Oh that those who can may connect with those who are lonely. I look back and think we could have been connecting with our elders. I’m idealistic about this. I see these lost eyed people wheeling themselves slowly around nursing homes and I wonder who would come out and live again if there were more dancing. Not necessarily to Duran Duran. I wanted to hear the Chaufer even though I know not what it is about. I know that it sounds like beauty and longing. I don’t listen to the words and I don’t intend to. I listen to the sound of the music, the shadow shape of the words as if they are not words at all and that’s how I found meaning to it when I was younger. It was longing and love, wind on my face and I was dancing in to it. I haven’t talked to Allison in years. I miss her. That’s what I have done this afternoon. I sit on my couch, earphones in, traveling the swift distance between then and now. The tears come, I am enveloped in a memory of dust in the light that streamed in her front window in the room next to the record player. The room with hardwood floors, the room just for company that needed to be dusted regularly. But in the afternoon, before working parents came home it was ours, we were alive and we were happy.

Everyone has a comment about Michael Jackson. I’m no different. So far I haven’t reflected on his career, his talent, his amazing contributions to the world. I’ve been thinking about the person who had to live in his skin. The person who seemed to want to do right, regardless of the small or large mistakes he made. My first thoughts were so sad. I cried for his soul. I see him as the poster child for the most damaged adult child of a dysfunctional family/society(though I don’t know anything about his family…guess I could read up on it pretty easily now). He’s also the poster child to give us an image of cancerous materialism. I watched a slide show of his career on yahoo news last night. I cried that he is human yet seemed so uncomfortable in his own skin, so desperate to get out. I cried because someone so potentially beautiful had become such a horrible image. I don’t know what we think we’re doing in our society. We each have an idea of why we’re here, what we’re supposed to accomplish and give in our life time. For some it’s simply a not knowing. A going along in the wave of energy that engulfs a soul and hides reason. Could this be it, riding waves of just going along and anything to mask the pain. I was just like the rest, obsessed with Michael Jackson for several years. I probably wanted to marry him. I don’t remember. I memorized Thriller, the song and the video. But remembering that and thinking that his talent is gone from this world are not what bring tears. It’s that this spiritual being suffered in a way most of us can not imagine because he shared his talent, did what he had a passion for, made his livelihood in front of us all and we judged him constantly. You are so great! You are so deformed! You are so sick! You are brilliant! Can he rest now, ignore the criticism and praise that have flared up after his unexpected death and be answerable only to a loving God. That’s the way it’s always been anyway.

Picking red and black raspberries at 6pm. A tour of the garden by Maya. She’s so articulate now. I was out there with the mosquitoes, the damp air that is summer in Illinois. I listened to Teresa splash in the little blue plastic pool near the play set near the new trampoline with the big net.
Driving with a quiet mind to the coop food store. A walking meditation through the aisles. Dental floss, bar of castille soap, 2 kinds of hummus, chips. I resisted the chocolate. Eying items one by one, weighing the possibilities in a part of my thinking that I can not see if I look directly at it. Outside I sat on a wooden patio seat, laid my food out, read a bit of Pratchett, looked at the sky, the people walking by, not very many on Sunday after 6pm. I called in to a 12 step meeting. I listened. The Serenity prayer, The Problem, The Solution, The Twelves steps, The reading from text, the sharing as each voice gave it’s story, it’s slice of understanding.
I walked slowly to the car. Once the ac was on, I leaned the seat back, kept listening, closed my eyes, waited. My body sank in to the seat, relaxed. I knew a car pulled up next to me, someone got out then got back in a bit later. I didn’t look. I knew the little car was black. Eyes open now, I looked at all the clouds. I did not see shapes, I saw sky, big and beautiful, far away and all around me. Time passed slowly. As I listened I nodded recognition. I didn’t give a piece of my story today. I did last week, I will later.
This was two and a half hours alone.

This Superhero blog I read often hit home and I obviously recommend reading it! I also share here the comment I posted as a way of telling friends where I’m at and because I’ve been so fond of sharing from the inside this week 🙂
http://www.superherodesigns.com/journal/archives/001664.html
(I tried to add this link so you could click it and travel there, but it didn’t work. So until I figure this out, cutting and pasting will work nearly as fast 🙂 right)
Thank you for such clarity here. A month ago I was on my knees crying and praying for how to help my overwhelmed 8 year old son. The answer was clear. Take 2 months off from everything I don’t have to do, simplify everything I feel I need to continue by asking for help doing things I know how to do but take up time I need to spend being rather than doing, and focus on setting up our new home. I let go right away and my life and my family’s shifted almost immediately. Since then I’ve discovered more I can do, or not do. Today(with help), I picked out 5 kinds of toys for my kids to play with(legos, books, play mobil, blocks & the simple building toys, and the train track) for the next 30 days. Then we’ll switch out some or all. All the others went in to boxes. Other than those 5 kinds of toys, board games are accessible. Already there’s more peace in the house.
By thinking of this process in terms of what is enough really helps. 5 kinds of toys is enough. I think I’ll start looking at other aspects of my doing through that lens. Bed time routines, morning routines, writing schedule, time learning to play guitar. I was already doing this in a way, but not being consistent since I didn’t set a “good enough” limit, but a goal to be achieved(goals are not bad, I just like this a lot better right now).
What’s been interesting about the process of following the answer I believe came from that prayer is that I am healing spiritually and emotionally in ways that have been visible but just out of reach for years.
As always, thank you for your honesty, for sharing your journey and for seeking truth in what works.
Posted by heidi at April 30, 2009 09:00 PM

I’m feeling too out of balance to write. The boys are are getting along, but it’s not a consistent peaceful relating like we have many days. We are not unpacked and put away from our trip. We have not eaten a proper two meals around the table together…we’ve been grazing all day, I’m sitting with a mild level of anxiety as we transition into what is possible in life with a little stability, that is, a house we(God willing) are settled in for a good long time(maybe we’ll be able to say”we’ve lived here 42 years” like our neighbors,even once we also have a home and land in the nearby country…affirming may make this more possible :-), I’m hungry and procrastinating, and really this list of why I’m not in writing space could go on and on and on. BUT, I’m writing any way. Legos underfoot, boys wandering from room to room in intense plays of pretend adventures, Ericka helping out with life’s details(like putting away the mountain of clean clothes I dumped on the bed from our duffel bags, dishes, smiling at boys in a way I forget to do too often), listening to the music on another blog(the boys want Lady Bug picnic on repeat), with several new projects ready for our hands in the next few weeks. If I only manage to blog about this moment, if I don’t pass in to the hot space of creative freedom I so love to get to when writing, I have still walked up to my life and said “Hello”.

This afternoon we took our drums to a neighborhood Baha’i children’s class held in an apartment complex in Arlington Texas. I had no idea before hand what we’d be asked to do, and I was happily surprised. I was given the whole hour(after they sang a prayer in Spanish…their little voices so sweet)) to share my love and knowledge of drumming with a lawn full of beautiful smiling children who had been anticipating this class for days. They ranged in age from 2 to 14(at least) and a few young mothers. Many of the people present did not speak much English, so I had the opportunity to hear what I said after I said it and it helped me stay focused. Focused on helping everyone have a joyful experience making music together(and I loved hearing another language floating all around me). 3 girls in particular, all around 12 or 13, seemed to fall in love with the sound of the drum, with the sound they could make together. Many of the smaller children drummed along on their stools through everyone’s turn. All the children were respectful and involved, happy to wait their turn. Devyn and Matthew were polite, helpful and allowed me to tend to other children with out complaint, simply being a part of the whole. Matthew did two cute magic tricks for all of us. Devyn helped pass the drums around as we went, and at one point held a big drum off the ground so Matthew could play and make a good sound. It was joyful! This retelling only skims the surface. Clearly the prayers from my mom, David, Louise and all the people that regularly pray for this group were surrounding us and lifting us all higher, to a place our spirits already know exists.

Many people have asked for this recipe and I have now offered it to another blogger so here it is.
Preheat oven to 350
1 1/4 cup sucanut(from the bulk bin)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa( this last batch I used Ghirardelli brand and I like it best so far)
1 3/4 cup flour(I’ve used whole wheat flour, but now am gluten free and find Bob’s Red Mill all purpose baking flour to be good and cake like-not like a rock)
3 tbs flax meal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
mix all this in one bowl
then in a food processor blend 4 medium bananas and 1 cup of fresh cooked or unsalted canned kidney beans
add 3 cups of this to the dry mix(approx)
1 cup soy, rice, or almond milk(unsweetened)
1/2 cup coconut oil or 1/2 a shredded zucchini or whatever oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
Mix this all in well
then add 1/2 cup boiling water, mix
I have found that cup cakes are best, stay moist, though pouring into a cake pan works fine
Frosting
mix 2/3 cup cocoa w/ 1/2 cup melted good earth vegan margarine, the add 1/3 cup vegan milk and 1 cup sucanut. keep adding sucanut by the 1/3 cup until desired consistency. I have never made the frosting like typical frosting consistency. Probably using powdered sucanut or powdered sugar(which we don’t eat) will have the desired effect.
For anyone who tries this, I hope it turns out yummy.

Two rules. Set a timer and write something somewhere. That’s for each time I get on the internet. Otherwise my good intentions pile up and eventually get lost…waiting for a better moment…when I feel more together, less likely to wrote the “wrong” thing. I cannot be this careful and expect my friendships to grow. I am not made of glass, though I’d like to believe this sometimes rather than make the effort. With this permission to communicate, or rather expectation, I am free.

End of July we’ll be moving back to Illinois…again. I didn’t want to leave Illinois a year ago(though now I’m sad to be leaving our dearly loved friends and family in Texas, really sad) when we moved to Texas and I’m happy to be returning. So are two boys I read bed time stories to most nights. Matthew asks about once a week if we are on the way back to Illinois. Always as we are getting in the car. Devyn is appreciating the time he has here with friends. The other day he realized with sadness that since he is getting older and changing, so are his cousins…so when they get together they won’t play the same. I’m not so sure. I believe they’ll still run around a lot, make loud noises, have exciting conversations about the current pretend adventure, eat lots of fruit, laugh easily and generally enjoy being together outside of the necessary growing pains of annoying each other and learning how to work through it. I believe they love each other, that they’ll go along as people do when they love, making memories, growing and learning from each other. I’m looking forward to this.