Lips

Last week I attended my daughter's parent-teacher conference.  She had been all excited for me to see her artwork which featured an Egyptian mummy.  This is the daughter for whom drawing is a pain.  It requires her to sit still and movement is where she finds solace.

Well, we entered the school and there, on the wall was her mummy.  It was beautifully colored and it looked like she had spent a considerable amount of time on it.  Admittedly, the first thing that we noticed were the lips.  They were fairly large, but it seemed to flow.

When we arrived home, I told her how proud of her that I was and that we saw her picture.

Ladybug: I went a little crazy on the lips, though.
Me: What makes you say that?
Ladybug: I just did.
Me: Did someone say something to you?  I thought your picture was great just the way it was. 
Ladybug: No, I just do.

Which got me thinking.  Why would she have made the lips so big?  Artistic license?  Uncertain boundaries? 

Or maybe, she feels the need to be heard! Bigger lips, more voice?  Crazy linkage on my part.  However, maybe today, I will make a better effort to hear what comes out of those lips.

Post in my brain. . .

Sometimes I am worried that I am not going to remember some of the most heartfelt moments in my life.  Things that I have really enjoyed in the last month that I want to solidify in my brain include:

1. Attending the Emerald Ball with D and staying at the Gwen overnight.
2. Watching Inside Out with my family this weekend.
3. Raking leaves with Honeypie on Sunday and playing stop and go on her bike.  She almost ran me over several times, rode her bike through my leaf piles and then laughed like crazy.  It was exhilarating. 
4. Mowing the lawn on Sunday while Ladybug attempted a cardboard box sculpture for our cats.
5. Having a dance party with H and L upstairs.  We danced to Shake it Off, All about the Base, What's going on (4 Non-Blondes) and others.  While D did not participate, he actually came into watch for a bit.  Both girls were out of control and really having a great time.  So was their mom. 
6. Snuggling with both girls at various times in the night. 

Simple Things . . Part Deux

BEING MINDFUL!

Again, I suspect that this is at the crux of my question.  Being mindful is at the crux of living what I write.  I took a mindfulness meditation class several years ago and really felt that I grew at that time.  It may be time to pull this info out again and resume this journey. 

Simple Things

It seems like gratitude is everywhere: self-help books, church, friends, sisters' blogs, etc.  I am not complaining about this in the least.  I believe that it is important to be grateful for things that we have been given, whether it be talents that enabled us to work hard for one thing or another, health, family, whatever.  I am extremely grateful. 

Currently, I am in my office.  Office, you say? Yes.  I am in my office which is housed in my basement.  To my left, my laundry assistant, the Samsung front loader is washing my clothes. To my right, is a soothing cup of mint tea that I am drinking in a enormous Bee mug from a dear friend from my Ann Arbor days. In my office resides several other very important items: a Frigidaire deep freezer that is full of gelato, gluten free and other types of bread, homemade chicken broth that D made over the weekend, and a variety of other extremely important foods. Behind me, stands our furnace and water heater which assists us with staying warm and providing us with the potential to enjoy our showers.  For all of these things I am grateful. 

The weather is getting colder.  We pass the same homeless people on the street every Sunday on our way to church.  I wonder where do these folks go?  I know some sleep on the greenspace near the Madison street exit on I 290.  Michael, one of the regulars, greets all passerbyers with a big smile, a joyous voice.  "Good Morning. God Bless."  I wonder about his mother.  His partner. Does he have even have one? Does he have children?  How does he stay warm in the winter.  How does he stay healthy.  Almost more importantly, how does he stay safe?

I have a home. I have food and warmth. I have a loving husband and family.  I have health. I am so grateful. However, simply stating how grateful I am is not enough.  What can I do to "pass these gifts on?" What is one concrete action that I could do to express this gratitude that could be embedded in my being?

Family Night . . . Inside Out

Last night was family night.  Three of us snuck into our PJs early while D cooked pasta for dinner.  I was excited because I had convinced the three of them that it was a good idea to have dinner and a movie in the basement. 
Granted, eating pasta was not easy, but hey we had a little table for the girls. 

Granted, Inside Out was rated PG, but we were going to be there to explain things to both daughters. 

The evening had a grand beginning.  For appetizers, the three double chromosomed individuals danced in our "dance room" to Four Non-Blondes, and a whole host of Best of the '80s musical scores. It was a riot.  I flipped Ladybug in circles while HoneyPie shook her rear and head.  Best of all, we were out of earshot from XY who, as I said, was cooking dinner and talking to his brother on the phone. 

Finally, it was time to move our suarez into the basement.  Needless to say, I have never heard Ladybug laugh so heartily.  It was awesome.  Her sister also seemed to either be in on the joke in some parts, or was simply laughing at her older sibling.  It was fantastic. 

However, not so comfortably both girls proceeded to create torrential downpours.  Honeypie and D ended up going upstairs to embark on some magnatile construction.  I held Ladybug in my arms for the remainder of the movie.  What impressed me so (and many others as well) was that the emotion, Joy, was so often trying to suppress her fellow emotion, Sadness.  We are not comfortable with sadness or some of the other uglier emotions.  Sadness does have a purpose. Often, it is instrumental in people coming together to ask for help.  I hugged L a little tighter upon coming to this realization.

So often, Ladybug can be pretty loud with her emotions, especially those that are less than flattering.  This always rubs me the wrong way, and unfortunately, does not bring out my best mothering.  What is hard for me is to sit with these feelings that she has.  I recall engendering some of these same feelings and not having positive outcomes as a result.  However, how terrible could those outcomes have been?  I am still here, I have a loving family, great coworkers, and a wonderful community in which I live. 

So, the thought for me today, in addition to writing more to live, is to learn to sit with emotions that are wrought with hopelessness and despair without trying to fix them.  In my professional role, I am often charged with trying to help patients solve these emotional conundrums.  Take your professional hat off, Lady, I tell myself.  Jump into your life and be.

A Family of Hope to Be Writers. . .Living what you write?

At present, I come from a family of closet writers.  Well, that actually, that is not the full truth.  Both my sisters blog and middlesis is in a full fledged writing group, edits articles for an online magazine, has won a couple of awards and is working on another novel with the hope to be published.  So of the three of us, she is most likely to be declared a writer.

Babysis also blogs on two separate blogs, but journals avidly.  The vocabulary possessed by these two women is quite extensive. Their way with words proves simply inspiring. But from where did this desire, this innate need to write and communicate through the written word emerge in our family?

Simple answer. Our mom.  Our mom.  This is the woman who would rather not entertain a confrontation and ultimately remained silent.  I am thinking about an unusual Thursday this past June. I am in the den of my parents' home, a dark dank room in the basement of their tri-level home. If I close my eyes and breathe deeply I can almost smell the faint remnants of cigarette smoke that once upon a time consumed this room.  The stained sage green carpet sulks because of the damp moist film that lightly lies on its tread.  What am I doing here, one might ask? 

The answer is simple.  I am beginning the process of clearing out the clutter that has pervaded much of this room and much of my mom's brain.  Over and over I stumble upon articles covering topics such as Alzheimer's and Diet, Alzheimer's and Mood, Screening yourself for dementia and the like.
I am saddened by this, because my mom knew what was going on and instead of communicating her concerns with her family, she felt that going into denial and dealing with her memory issues herself was the better option. I do not know if she felt that we could not deal with this or if she could not deal with it.  Confidence in herself or her family has not been her best attribute.  Why is this relevant? 

Because my mom, who occasionally wrote, wrote beautifully.  When I looked at some of her writings, I am impressed with how reflective and thoughtful they were.  I am surprised by the openness and wonder why that side of her was not on display? Why did she not write more? Sadly, I am struck by how hard it must have been to be living two selves, especially one where you write how you want to live but don't or maybe can't.  Perhaps the writing process that lead her down divergent roads was too painful, hence the reason why her writings were not numerous. Who was she so concerned about disappointing?  Her family?

I find that I am often at this same crossroads and then I think about my sisters.  They live what they write.  They are congruent in their thoughts and beliefs and their actions.  I admire them for that. When I ask myself how can I replicate this, of course I have a lot of requirements to move this living congruently into action.  None, mind you are convenient for one lame reason or another. But life is not convenient.  People encounter many things that they never would have anticipated: job loss, death, divorce, cancer, Alzheimer's. 

I read somewhere that one should write what one knows.  Both my sisters do this. Does one know how to live because they write or do they write because they know how to live? My mom knew how to live within a very confined space, but as I said, her writings were few. 

So at the very least, I am going to act on the notion that the more one writes, the more one learns how to live.  In that vein, I will use this blog to be more accountable in both the living and the writing department.  Who knows?  Perhaps I will find my truth in both.