It is what it is. A holiday where families, if one is so blessed, gather for traditional food, like turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie. A holiday based on a blessed lie, that when the pilgrims came all was good. Well, maybe it wasn’t based on a lie, maybe there was some blessed moments, even in the midst of hard daily life, and people trying take other people’s land and colonize indigenous cultures. It is what it is.
If we all don’t share food, can we all share being grateful? Probably not, so this is not such a universal, or even national day, we probably will never all get on the same page on one day. It is what it is.
words on paper
babies
(mine)
Ella singing
Louie swinging
Coltrane laying it out like to die for
coffee
(with milk)
the Eiffel tower
men with kind eyes
overcoats
warm bed
new shoes
creme brulet
art & ballet
impermanence
solid ground
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Missed
There was no hip hop no bebop no happening music
to play out our sad saga
There was no Chagall no Frida no color
to the palette of our lives
There was some champagne once in a while
but the bubbles all burst into thin air
Which was all that was left of our love
by the time I got there
to play out our sad saga
There was no Chagall no Frida no color
to the palette of our lives
There was some champagne once in a while
but the bubbles all burst into thin air
Which was all that was left of our love
by the time I got there
Monday, November 8, 2010
Getting to Know You: How Our Children Become Our Zen Masters
or When their journey demands your truth.
In their book Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, authors Myla Kabat-zinn and Jon Kabat-zin talk about how our children can become our Zen masters. This take away alone makes the book worthwhile; it’s something to think about, perhaps meditate on, as you begin or are on the parenting journey. In the book they state how getting up to take care of your children is your practice, how brushing your teeth is your practice, and how not getting to brush your teeth because there is no time for you also becomes your practice.
So, as it seems that parenting is often all about everyone else, it can also become about you. Just not about you the way you thought it would be. Not perhaps the way you thought parenting, or even life would ‘be.’ These thoughts keep getting in our way. Thoughts of parenting, thoughts of life, thoughts of what is success, what is not success, competition. I struggle with competition more now than ever. I thought I’d escaped that condition but it haunts me now, chases me down, as I compare my life to others at this point. And I wonder, will I be successful, wondering if I’ll find my dream, even as I remind myself this is my life, this is my dream, right now.
Sometimes, I think it is this same competition that fuels parenting and leads us so far astray. Trying to mimic, when we are unsure what to do, and it ends up feeling unauthentic to ourselves and is just plain confusing to our kids as we’re also teaching them values about being honest and about respecting themselves and others. So, how do we parent authentically in an imperfect world? In a world where we as parents are imperfect people, the truth is contextual, and sometimes, the truth is so painful we try not only to hide it from others, but from ourselves as well.
Over the weekend, there came a point where Kathleen’s journey in her life demanded more truth about my life, my past, with her dad and well, I needed to know “how to tell”? How much to tell? Not only did we talk about what needed to be said, but also about how do parents share painful past histories? Each family has their own painful stories in both big and small ways. And both individually and collectively.
We try to show our children and each other what we’ve come to know in wisdom and guidance for their lives, but we all step in and outside of those lines, learning other truths, harder lessons, and how do we shape them and feel free to share these harder life lessons with those we love the most, those we hope so strongly to protect from these very life lessons? I shared with Kathleen, the irony of the story of the Buddha, whose father tried so hard to protect his son, Siddhartha, from any pain of life, as do most parents! But the Buddha left his protected life looking to find his own path, and he found in suffering that truth was the middle path, and left us this wisdom. We can’t escape the pain of life, but we can hope for the middle path, a balance of pain and joy.
As a therapist, I am prepared for hard stories, for sad stories, stories of loss of esteem, loss of love, loss of fortune and more. As a parent, I parented my children through their own valleys of the shadow of death and we are all mostly more towards the top of the hill right now, but roads twist and turn, irregardless of our hopes and/or choices. So, as parents how do we deal with our inner, personal struggles becoming shared life lessons? Perhaps, this is how our children, into adulthood, continue to be our Zen masters, if we let them. We follow down the path of what’s best for them, not considering the pain we need to go through to give them truth. We open our hearts, and tell our truths with compassion for ourselves, compassion for the past, and compassion for our children, on their own journey. Then perhaps, with each step, each breath, the universe opens us, and we, before we know it, have become our child’s Zen master.
In their book Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, authors Myla Kabat-zinn and Jon Kabat-zin talk about how our children can become our Zen masters. This take away alone makes the book worthwhile; it’s something to think about, perhaps meditate on, as you begin or are on the parenting journey. In the book they state how getting up to take care of your children is your practice, how brushing your teeth is your practice, and how not getting to brush your teeth because there is no time for you also becomes your practice.
So, as it seems that parenting is often all about everyone else, it can also become about you. Just not about you the way you thought it would be. Not perhaps the way you thought parenting, or even life would ‘be.’ These thoughts keep getting in our way. Thoughts of parenting, thoughts of life, thoughts of what is success, what is not success, competition. I struggle with competition more now than ever. I thought I’d escaped that condition but it haunts me now, chases me down, as I compare my life to others at this point. And I wonder, will I be successful, wondering if I’ll find my dream, even as I remind myself this is my life, this is my dream, right now.
Sometimes, I think it is this same competition that fuels parenting and leads us so far astray. Trying to mimic, when we are unsure what to do, and it ends up feeling unauthentic to ourselves and is just plain confusing to our kids as we’re also teaching them values about being honest and about respecting themselves and others. So, how do we parent authentically in an imperfect world? In a world where we as parents are imperfect people, the truth is contextual, and sometimes, the truth is so painful we try not only to hide it from others, but from ourselves as well.
Over the weekend, there came a point where Kathleen’s journey in her life demanded more truth about my life, my past, with her dad and well, I needed to know “how to tell”? How much to tell? Not only did we talk about what needed to be said, but also about how do parents share painful past histories? Each family has their own painful stories in both big and small ways. And both individually and collectively.
We try to show our children and each other what we’ve come to know in wisdom and guidance for their lives, but we all step in and outside of those lines, learning other truths, harder lessons, and how do we shape them and feel free to share these harder life lessons with those we love the most, those we hope so strongly to protect from these very life lessons? I shared with Kathleen, the irony of the story of the Buddha, whose father tried so hard to protect his son, Siddhartha, from any pain of life, as do most parents! But the Buddha left his protected life looking to find his own path, and he found in suffering that truth was the middle path, and left us this wisdom. We can’t escape the pain of life, but we can hope for the middle path, a balance of pain and joy.
As a therapist, I am prepared for hard stories, for sad stories, stories of loss of esteem, loss of love, loss of fortune and more. As a parent, I parented my children through their own valleys of the shadow of death and we are all mostly more towards the top of the hill right now, but roads twist and turn, irregardless of our hopes and/or choices. So, as parents how do we deal with our inner, personal struggles becoming shared life lessons? Perhaps, this is how our children, into adulthood, continue to be our Zen masters, if we let them. We follow down the path of what’s best for them, not considering the pain we need to go through to give them truth. We open our hearts, and tell our truths with compassion for ourselves, compassion for the past, and compassion for our children, on their own journey. Then perhaps, with each step, each breath, the universe opens us, and we, before we know it, have become our child’s Zen master.
Friday, November 5, 2010
who knows where the time goes
Really, November? This is the time of the year when expectations only beat up on my reality and it’s started already. Last Sunday, after another long week, after I’d spent Saturday driving from one side of Minneapolis to the other to pick up my daughter Erin, and new baby Audrey to go visit my mom in Waconia, after I’d taken my oldest daughter Kathleen, to her dance lesson downtown and then picked her up, she asked, “Aren’t you going to go see Audrey today?” I looked puzzled, I’m sure, when she said, “To see her in her halloween costume?”
My face must have fallen, and this is where I felt like crappy Bubbe, not warm, loving, wonderful Bubbe. This added injury to the insult I must have started when I told Kathleen I’d thought of buying her boys, Elliot 13, and Max 8, some candy for her to take home, but then I over-thought it I guess, and thought, “Why would they need more candy?” And I’d told her this. I guess there are times I just over think, and I’m over cheap, but sometimes it does seem like there is just so much stuff, and so much well, hoopla over the holidays, and frankly, I’m tired of it.
Anyone who knows me knows I love my baby girls and grand-babies. I’m just not the commercial type of mom or Bubbe, and I only want to be when I see this look on Kathleen’s face. Erin and Megan seem cool with who I am, I get to be the geeky mom that only belongs to them, but Kathleen struggles with wanting me to be a different kind of mom. When she was young, she did get to be the only child for 5 years, and back then she had lots of Grandmothers and even great Grandmothers still alive. It was a culture of special holidays. My mom would bake all day for Christmas, Steve’s mom would decorate her tables with red tablecloths and crystal. My mom would bake Halloween cookies with orange sprinkles and we’d often have Thanksgiving dinner at two big houses filled with friends and family.
Was not this way as Kathleen got older, her parents got divorced, and her Grandfathers both died, and her Grandmothers were not as able to entertain. Her single again mom (me) just never quite got the hang of the holidays. Truth be told, I missed being the beloved daughter who just got to show up with her crazy kids. It’s coming on Thanksgiving again, and this is what it means for me. I will never walk through the back door of my parents house on Sheridan Avenue with my hands full of baby gear and have my dad give me a hug and tell me “Come on in, Happy Thanksgiving.” I will never smell his warm, clean smell and feel his shaved cheek, and the warm embrace of his checked flannel shirt. Walking through the kitchen, through the smell of turkey in the oven, my mom looking pretty in her apron, hearing my sibs just hanging out, waiting for a wonderful feast. Coming in from the brisk November to the warmth of someplace so good. I’m sorry Kathleen, I don’t know how to make this magic happen.
My face must have fallen, and this is where I felt like crappy Bubbe, not warm, loving, wonderful Bubbe. This added injury to the insult I must have started when I told Kathleen I’d thought of buying her boys, Elliot 13, and Max 8, some candy for her to take home, but then I over-thought it I guess, and thought, “Why would they need more candy?” And I’d told her this. I guess there are times I just over think, and I’m over cheap, but sometimes it does seem like there is just so much stuff, and so much well, hoopla over the holidays, and frankly, I’m tired of it.
Anyone who knows me knows I love my baby girls and grand-babies. I’m just not the commercial type of mom or Bubbe, and I only want to be when I see this look on Kathleen’s face. Erin and Megan seem cool with who I am, I get to be the geeky mom that only belongs to them, but Kathleen struggles with wanting me to be a different kind of mom. When she was young, she did get to be the only child for 5 years, and back then she had lots of Grandmothers and even great Grandmothers still alive. It was a culture of special holidays. My mom would bake all day for Christmas, Steve’s mom would decorate her tables with red tablecloths and crystal. My mom would bake Halloween cookies with orange sprinkles and we’d often have Thanksgiving dinner at two big houses filled with friends and family.
Was not this way as Kathleen got older, her parents got divorced, and her Grandfathers both died, and her Grandmothers were not as able to entertain. Her single again mom (me) just never quite got the hang of the holidays. Truth be told, I missed being the beloved daughter who just got to show up with her crazy kids. It’s coming on Thanksgiving again, and this is what it means for me. I will never walk through the back door of my parents house on Sheridan Avenue with my hands full of baby gear and have my dad give me a hug and tell me “Come on in, Happy Thanksgiving.” I will never smell his warm, clean smell and feel his shaved cheek, and the warm embrace of his checked flannel shirt. Walking through the kitchen, through the smell of turkey in the oven, my mom looking pretty in her apron, hearing my sibs just hanging out, waiting for a wonderful feast. Coming in from the brisk November to the warmth of someplace so good. I’m sorry Kathleen, I don’t know how to make this magic happen.
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