Writing the Waves... Again
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
New Blog!
As all things must change, so goes my little blog. Having undergone a makeover, you can find me now at The Light Will Find You. Same words, new look. Please join me over there!
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Get Your Belly Over... to the Elephant Journal
If you missed my post on lovin' your belly over at New Approaches, come over to the elephant journal. I'm talking about some unique ways to increase the peace with your body image.
Labels:
body,
body image,
children,
elephant journal,
fun,
guest post,
life,
worth,
Writing
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
A Good Death
Picture from the Juneau Empire files
For my grandfather, Bill Ray
These are the sounds after a quick death following a long
life: The telephone rings are steady, but not constant. Arrangements are made
swiftly, with no big decisions, discussions or surprises. Voices are calm. You
hear a lot of sighs. Only a thin layer of shock drifts by, like a cirrus cloud.
My grandfather lived to be 91. We loved each other and said
so in later years, but we didn’t speak often. He was strong-willed and
difficult with those he loved the most. He was a storyteller and a lawmaker. A
liquor hawker. A secret-keeper and a gold collector. He was a name caller. A
fisherman and a painter and a writer.
He was a child of the universe who was here, and now isn’t.
A constellation of ancestors, long twists and turns of
accident or fate. A mother’s eyes, a grandfather’s nose. The birth name, Will, that he grew into, but later changed.
My best memories of him are when he told stories. He sits at
a table, one hand on his coffee mug. He is already laughing, his eyes shining
with anticipation. “This is a good one,” he says. “Wait until you hear this
one.”
It’s the one where his father’s dog, Whitey, fell out of the
fishing boat, perilously close to the falls. “‘What’d you do, Dad?’ I asked
him.”
‘I said, So long, Whitey!”
‘I said, So long, Whitey!”
He shakes his head and chuckles, his laugh still sturdy
among the laughs of his listeners.
I wish I had listened better, had a better memory. I wish
I’d written the stories down instead of letting them sing by, all wisps and
trails. I wonder where do all those stories go when we die? Do they live on,
swirling and hanging in the air where he was? In the cells of his great grandchildren
who he never met? In the pages he wrote?
“Reaaad boooook, Mama,” my daughter says, pattering over to
me.
She hands me Goodnight
Moon. Her eyes are big and blue, her cheeks full and smooth. I start reading, my eyes taking in the
flat greens and tomato reds of the book. By the time I get to And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of
mush, I am in tears.
All those goodnights. The words of the book, a childhood favorite,
reach back through my mind, unlocking the little girl inside of me. The one
whose grandpa was larger than life, full of laughs and stories. He was big and
handsome. He slipped her sips of beer in the kitchen. Sent her postcards when
he travelled. He appeared on the radio and TV, making jokes and laws.
These are the sounds after a good death: Quiet sobs. Voices on the phone, shaky, but not shattered. Patter of small feet, new tales unfolding. Goodnight stars, goodnight air. The rush of memories, of stories, rising and falling, lifting into the sky. Sunday, September 8, 2013
Superpowers
In a wildly generous move, my cousin offered me a free photo
shoot with the photographer she works with. So this Wednesday, I met up with
cousin Meghan and Kevin Ouelette, photographer and DJ at Amazing DJ Music,
Sound and Photography.
Getting my picture taken is not my favorite thing. Despite the fact that I can air many of my vulnerabilities here, there is something about being photographed that makes me feel so very naked. Not in a good way.
I was that painfully shy kid growing up. I kept my lips
pursed and my head down, slouched in a desk at the back of the classroom. I
internalized most of my emotions. I thought I was fat and ugly and therefore
unlovable, so I hid. The more I hid, the more I became convinced that I wasn’t
worthy of being seen.
“I have a nose smile,” I confessed, referencing the little slash that blooms beneath my nose when I grin. “And sometimes in pictures I look a little cross-eyed.” I almost started in on my “strong” nose, and hadn’t even gotten to body parts below the neck, but Kevin was ready to get started.
“Okay,” he said. “Cool. Let’s go!”
As Kevin drove, we chatted about my writing so he could get a sense of what to capture in my photographs. I told him I wrote mostly about parenting and grief and spirit, and that— SPOILER ALERT!— I was working on launching a new website. Our conversation flowed easily, and I felt instantly comfortable.
What impressed me most was that Kevin operated purely on
instinct. He drove around for awhile, then suddenly said, “I’m feeling like I
want to park here and walk around.” So we did. Because he trusted his instinct,
I did, too.
He asked me to sit on the front steps of a stranger’s house,
which would normally leave me feeling anxious. But I didn’t feel anxious. It
felt like we were on a fun little jaunt, instead. “Think about elephant bums,”
he said, pointing his camera at me.
As if summoned by a camera-wielding wizard, a big, genuine
smile spread across my face.
We continued that way, walking and chatting our way through
a neighborhood of lovely old houses. We paused at various stoops, stairs and
fences per Kevin’s hunches. I cheerfully envisioned the nether regions of
pachyderms while Kevin snapped away. I wasn’t thinking of my nose smile at all.
“So how long have you been doing this?” I asked.
“About three years,” he said.
“Wow. And you have no traditional training?”
“None.”
I was stunned, having seen some of his gorgeous photos on Facebook.
Kevin shared that capturing the essence of people was his
superpower. He grinned, as if thinking of elephant bums, while he expressed how
amazing it was to produce images that helped people feel good about themselves.
The way he said it was devoid of ego—he sounded almost surprised that he had
discovered this ability. It made me feel happy—what a wonderful way to be able
to make people feel good.
At one point, he was photographing me from my left side. “You do have a bit of a lazy eye,” he said.
At one point, he was photographing me from my left side. “You do have a bit of a lazy eye,” he said.
Though I died a tiny bit inside, and briefly doubted his
claim about making people feel good, he said it with kindness and objectivity,
as if proclaiming that I had a strand of grass in my hair.
“You knew that, right?” he said, concerned that he had
surprised me.
“Sort of.”
After about forty-five minutes of walking and shooting, we
headed back to his studio. “You know that this whole time, you’ve only talked
about your imperfections? Which aren’t really even imperfections—you just
perceive them that way.”
“Hmm. Show me your other side,” he said, again referencing
my teeth. I did. He started laughing.
“Maybe you can photoshop a little bunny into the pictures,
going after all the carrots,” I suggested.
I silently made a vow that if I ever had my photo taken
again, I would floss beforehand. Twice.
As Kevin worked on the photos, I sat there thinking about imperfection. About my Forest Whitaker eye and my carrot teeth and my nose smile. When I zoomed out and focused on the whole picture, the photos looked really, really good. So why was I focusing on the imperfections, which we all have?
“Which one is your favorite?” Kevin asked.
“That one,” I said. I liked the little orbs of light in the
background.
“Really? That’s actually my least favorite. I think you look
a little inhibited in that one,” he said. “This is my favorite. I feel like it
really shows who you are.”
Later, my mom would declare that Kevin had “captured my
essence,” in that photo.
It occurred to me afterwards that one of my superpowers is that
people often feel really comfortable sharing personal things with me. I
frequently hear, “I don’t usually share stuff like that with other people.”
Just the other day, I was getting some bodywork done and the practitioner, who
is highly professional, ended up sharing some very personal issues her family
was facing. As I was leaving, I said, “I’m really sorry you’re going through
that.”
She looked a little alarmed. “I don’t usually share stuff
like that with my clients.”
“I know you don’t,” I said, with a gentle smile.
“I know you don’t,” I said, with a gentle smile.
In retrospect, during my visit, I’d been vulnerable with her
and had talked about my issues with anxiety. Though my focused attention on my
own flaws causes me a lot of discomfort, I think that my ability to openly share
those flaws might be related to my tendency
to make other people feel comfortable. Because I am fairly at ease with
removing my social masks, other people feel like they can go ahead and lower
theirs a bit, too. It’s not unlike how I trusted Kevin’s instincts because I
could tell that he did.
So much of my personal growth work is about accepting the
whole deal. The grey area. The AND. The carrot teeth AND the photo that I love. The superpowers AND the
vulnerabilities, both of which our world desperately needs. And seeing that
sometimes, sometimes, they are
actually one and the same.
What’s your
superpower?
Labels:
body image,
failure,
fear,
fun,
life,
spirit,
sunshine,
transition
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Guest Posting at the Elephant
I'm over at the Elephant Journal today. Come on over to find out why this non-athletic, gentle moving gal has taken up running.
Monday, September 2, 2013
The AND
When I was pregnant with my son, I asked a friend with an
almost two-year-old what parenting was like. I knew it was too broad of a
question, but I asked anyways.
My friend thought for a moment. Then she said, “Hard. And
amazing.”
One of the great, continuing lessons of my life has to do
with the grey area. With understanding and accepting that nothing is just black
or white. That we constantly hold a myriad of aches and joys, triumphs and
tragedies, struggles and success.
Take, for instance, yesterday. We took the kids up to
Freeport to have lunch with friends and to procure preschool supplies for the
kids. Towards the end of our trip, none of us were happy. And we still had 45
minutes to wait for our son’s backpack to get monogrammed.
Our two-year-old daughter was about an hour past her naptime
and proceeded to screech and weave through the crowd of shoppers unless she had
the giant L.L. Bean bag containing her new pink rain pants strapped over her
little shoulder. Max was whiny.
I hadn’t imbibed my daily quotient of caffeine, and soon I
was whining, too. My husband was done with all three of us. Strangers were
giving us that look. The can’t you
control your horribly behaved children?!? look.
It was hard. Not in a ‘capital H Hard’ way, like with
natural disasters or serious illness. More in a why did we decide to take the little crazy people shopping kind of a
way.
Finally, Max’s new shark backpack was emblazoned with his
first name and last initial, and he was so delighted that he cuddled it all the
way home, where the kids and I all napped.
Amazing.
When we got up, we were mostly refreshed. The Kastaways, the
mascot band that plays for the local Portland Sea Dogs baseball team, was
scheduled to make their last appearance of the season. Max loves music—it is
his thing. And he’s been infatuated
with the Kastaways since he first heard them play last summer at his very first
baseball game. After which he began talking about them constantly.
The thing is, he has always liked the idea of them more than
the reality. Often, when we go to hear them play, he just stands there
watching, looking slightly frozen and cowering if any of the mascots approach
him. The rest of us usually sway and enjoy the chance to hear some live music. You wouldn’t guess by
looking at Max standing there on the crimson bricks outside of Hadlock Field
that this would be the moment he would talk about for weeks to come. “Tell me
about the time we saw the Kastaways and that boy had a birthday and the
Kastaways sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to
him,” he would say at bedtime. Every night.
Having been a shy child myself, I find it slightly
heartbreaking to see him scared and holding back from one of the things that
most brings him alive. The thing he talks about all the time and replays in his
head and with his words. Often. It is
one of those soft spots from my own life that I have to watch out for—it’s far
too tempting to try and parent from my own wounds. I have to just let him,
sometimes, be scared and frozen and trust that he, like we all are, is on his
own path.
So last night, when we decided to go see the Kastaways, we expected
him to be shy and tentative. But I actually did the unthinkable anyways; I woke him up from his nap so we could
make it in time to see them play. “Maxie,” I said, lowering myself to his bed.
His eyelids fluttered, then dropped. “Do you want to go see the Kastaways play
for the last time this season?” I whispered. His eyes grew round, and he sprung
up, rubbing his eyes. “YEAH!” he said.
When we arrived at Hadlock Field, the Kastaways were taking
a break between sets. We sat and waited, while hundreds of people headed in to
watch the actual baseball game. Finally, we heard the telltale sound of the musicians
saying, “Check,” into their microphones. Sir Nigel Rathbone the Wharf Rat,
Spike the Porcupine, Clarence the Clam, Pete the Puffin and Herman Dean the
Power Hog strutted by us. They introduced themselves and began to play. I
watched a huge grin slide over Max’s face as they started playing
“Centerfield,” Max’s favorite. Within moments, Max was tapping his feet and
spinning around.
Then, the lead singer, Sir Nigel Rathbone the Wharf Rat,
beckoned for Max and another little girl to come up and dance in front of the
area where they were playing. I was stunned when our guy headed right up. As
the music started, Max started busting out donkey kicks and rock lunges to
“Twist and Shout.” He danced for several songs, the sound of the keyboard and
drums propelling him. He was wholly in the moment. In his body. In the music.
It was beautiful, and it brought me more into the moment, too. My boy—my sensitive,
determined, mercurial boy—let the music pool and swirl inside him as dozens of
people streamed by.
I watched him, and I watched my husband, who was videotaping the moment. I watched the faces of the other people in the audience, smiling at my son’s freedom. I felt like the late August sun was shining right down into my chest, soaking my heart.
It was amazing.
Life is hard and amazing. Life with young kids is hard and
amazing. Sometimes, like this morning, when my chest was pulsing and expanding
with love as my kids were snuggling like kittens, and then with no warning,
slapping at each other, it is both
hard and amazing within mere moments. Sometimes you just get the hard stuff,
and sometimes, like last night, you get just the amazing stuff.
Friday, August 30, 2013
. Lighten Up
Yesterday afternoon, Scott, Max and I went candlepin bowling.
We were all excited about the rare chance to spend some time together doing
something that would be challenging with our toddler in tow.
Something that most people don’t know about me is that get
very competitive when playing games, which vacuums all the fun right out of it
for me and those playing with me.
I managed to hold myself back during bowling. I will admit
to smugly thinking I was winning the whole time, only to realize at the end
that I was looking at Scott’s score, not mine. The mild deflation I felt was
redeemed by knowing that Max had a blast, slamming the small balls down the
lane, equally distributing them between the left and right gutters. In between
turns, I sipped my ice coffee and looked at Max, trying to figure out once
again how he morphed from the tiny, red-faced infant into a small person who
could walk and talk, play the drums and bowl. Earlier in the day, Scott had
told me I needed to, ‘lighten up.’ I was trying to take his words to heart.
Trying to be present.
After we finished the thread of bowling, we migrated to the small arcade behind
the lanes. Max wanted to play air hockey. I was delighted, as I love air hockey. And by love, I mean it
sends me into a frenzied fight or flight cortisol party, where my pulse ramps
up and I slam the puck around as if fighting for my very life.
“Sorry bud! I’ll slow down.”
Thwack.
I couldn’t slow down.
“I want to play with Dada instead!”
I reluctantly handed the paddle to Scott and positioned myself on the sidelines.
Scott and Max gently passed the puck back and forth, back
and forth.
Oh, I thought.
Slap.
Maxie giggled and cheered as he scored on Scott. “Yay,
Maxie!” I yelped.
Slap.
Maxie and I cheer again. Scott made a pretend pouty face.
It was at this point that I realized Scott was letting him
score. The thought never would have
occurred to me while I was playing.
“Of course. Sorry, Max. Mommy gets a little excited when she plays air hockey,” I said. “I’ll relax.”
I glance at my sweet, fiery four-year-old. So big, yet still
so little. Lighten up, I thought.
But the minute the paddle was in my hand, my wrist flicked, firing the puck off the sides of the table and slap, right into Max’s goal slot.
Lightening up, relaxing, having fun—these are
challenges for me.
Later that night after we picked up Violet from daycare, I
had another opportunity.
Max loves music.
It is like breath for him, and it has been since he was an infant. We encourage his passion, though it is often very, very loud. For reasons
that I can’t quite explain but blame solely on Scott, lately Max has been into “Africa”
by Toto, circa 1983. Most nights, he asks to watch it on Scott’s iPad while he
slams away on his drum set.
Last night was no different. Scott put the song on.
I hear the drums echoing tonight
We huddled around the drum set while Max crashed about on his drums with abandon, not unlike the way I had become possessed with the air hockey paddle in my hands only hours before. I listened to the song, which somehow sounds better and better each time I hear it. Which is often. The melody washed over me as I watched the musicians on Scott’s screen, and I found myself swaying.
Hurry boy, It’s
waiting here for you
I listened and I watched. I didn’t even stop to make any jokes about
the curly 1980’s mini-mullet on the lead singer’s head.
Or the keyboard player, who looked like this:
Without really thinking about it, I zoomed upstairs and may have came
back looking like this:
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this
thing that I've become
I lightened up. I grabbed my
son’s keyboard and rocked the hell out. Of course, even as I was lightening up,
I was thinking, Hey! I’m lightening up!
This is me, lightening up! Hey, do you guys see what’s going on here? I’m all
light and stuff! Weeee!
We played the song another time or two, and then the day was
done. Without too much ado, the kids were in bed and quiet. I collapsed onto the
couch to watch some Netflix. We had bowled and air hockeyed and rocked out. I had possibly found the seed of an idea for my Halloween costume. I settled into a long, deep sleep. Lightening
up is hard work for some of us.
How do you lighten up?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)