I'm Back!

It's been far too long since I posted here and I hope that I've not lost your interest. Thanks for showing up again to catch up with me.

We had a snowstorm here in Massachusetts last Saturday which knocked down trees and branches and took out the power for many days. What a wake-up call! I was woefully underprepared for such an event. It's time for me to stock up on necessary supplies and have them at the ready for the next disaster. In just a handful of months we've been touched down upon by tornadoes and engulfed by torrential rain which caused massive flooding in the region. Following up with this freak, October storm, which dumped over two feet of heavy snow on leaf-laden trees, just about broke the camel's back. We're rebounding, but it's been surreal.

The power outage cancelled school for me all this week, as the campus is located in a town that was particularly hard-hit. The power was just restored today and classes will resume Monday. School has enveloped my life so completely that I was utterly bereft this week, without a compass. I did not know what to do with myself! Missing a week of school is like missing a month of normal life; we cover so much territory in just one day! Falling away from the continuity of lessons is tough. How will I get back on track? It's like starting over again! I know that I'll do it but right now I am daunted.

I love being in school! It's incredibly fun, completely engrossing, so empowering. I know what I am there for and I am making it all happen for myself, which feels great. I haven't wanted anything the way I  want this in a very long time. I'm so ready, totally committed. I forgot what that felt like! My classes are interesting and I love the way that one builds on and dovetails into the next. What I learn in American Government fortifies what my Into to Law professor is teaching us which relates to what's being covered in Violence and Non-Violence in North America. Statistics is surprisingly fun and fascinating, and Fine and Performing Arts, a massive, lightning-fast-paced survey course of art history, is blowing my mind. Can't wait for next semester when I can begin to study law with greater focus.

What I'm discovering, or re-discovering, is my passion for learning and inquiry. I am surrounded by impossibly young women, whose curious eyes follow me on campus; they can't figure me out. But, I know them and I realize how important it is for them to witness me doing what I'm doing cuz this is what a lifelong learner looks like. I know that some of them are inspired, because they've told me so. My instructors are my peers, which is terrific fun, and they really appreciate having me in the classroom. I love the synergy and excitement we share for the process in which we're engaged, which naturally pulls the more motivated students in and gets them going, too. I'm finding the leader in myself, finally.

I'm happy.

Riding the Wave

It is a time of great change: school has started for both Rain and me, I have scaled back my hours, considerably, at the cafe, my birthday has come and gone, and Summer is making way for Fall. Of course, there are smaller shifts happening all around these bigger changes, as the cascading effect of change is inevitable. Being in school means that I am less available for all of the other activities I either enjoy doing or have, over the course of time, become responsible for. Fortunately, we humans are amazingly adaptable. Week three of school has arrived and I am starting to feel as though the aftershocks are subsiding and the ground beneath my feet is settling again.

Still, it took tremendous effort to get myself to that first day of school, which was not everyone else's first day of school. I haven't been a student in a handful of years and never at this level, so I just had no idea how much preparation was involved in starting college. Summer came and went without me knowing I had long ago been assigned a school email account, so unbeknownst to me emails full of important information had piled up all summer! Several of those emails were on the topic of medical forms (all of you former college students can sigh in commiseration here), more specifically the issue of vaccinations. Good heavens! I had no idea that it would require three whole weeks of bureaucratic hoop-jumping to resolve this issue, but it did. A multitude of phone calls made and received, a dozen visits to my doctor's office, a flurry of faxes sent and received later, my medical hold was lifted and, on week two, I walked onto campus, a college Junior. Talk about a happy woman! I was giddy! It amused me to glance about the room at my classmates, most of whom are 18 and freshly graduated from high school, and see their faces glazed with either boredom or incomprehension, their bodies fidgety and flighty, while I was totally relaxed and utterly absorbed. I am there to learn and to apply what I learn to very specific goals, which gives me focus, excitement, and energy.

Rain came home from school a few days ago and said, "You're studying the Constitution, right?" I nodded. "Yup, in two of my classes. "He smiled." We're studying the Constitution!" "Oh, cool!" I exclaimed. "I guess we'll have a lot to talk about." He smiled again, nodded knowingly. "We certainly will." School has the power to bring me even closer to my son's daily reality, instead of dragging me further from it, and perhaps it can give each of us opportunity to see ourselves in the other, to find empathy and correlation.  Anything that keeps me connected to my son is a blessing.

I have loved the Fall my whole life, and I guess for many reasons. School has always been "my element," so Fall has always been "my season," with back-to-school being a welcome imposition of structure, order, and focus. School forces me to harness and channel my energies in very productive and illuminating ways and provides me great opportunity to express myself in ways that are helpful to others. It creates an environment in which I am not only free to indulge my curiosities, my analytical tendencies, my expressive drive, but required to! What a luxury! What a joy! Fall is also the season of my birth, so it feels like the beginning of my new year each and every time. I get so energized and excited about possibilities, dreams, goals. Not only do we harvest in Fall, but we glance forward from that harvest with a sense of what will be required of us to succeed in the following season. At the threshold of every ending is a new beginning.

The nicest thing about not being at the cafe so much is that I get to wear my hair down. It's a silly thing, but I'm ready for the freedom of it. I feel liberated! Also, I get to put on clothes in the morning that are still pretty clean when I take them off at night (not infused with the scent of chili and cupcakes or streaked with stains of every sort), and almost no one asks me to do anything for them. If they do, it's not because I am standing behind a counter that infers my subservience, but because they see that I have skills that can help them get where they want to go. A welcome change. What I have found difficult is letting go of all that has defined me for so long. I walk into that space, any space really, and see all of the details which add up to a feeling of harmony and order, all the little things that make a space welcoming, and I attend to them efficiently and with vigor. I perform about six people's jobs! Knowing that no one else does what I do has me concerned that those things just won't get done and I know how important they are. Lately, I've been taking note of those almost unseen tasks and teaching others how to see and perform them, too. I guess it's one way to stave off the nagging notion that I am abandoning something that truly needs me. But, maybe it's only ego that has me believing it needs me. Perhaps it really doesn't. I guess I'll find out as time passes.

I have dropped in on a wave of change and I am falling, feet beneath me, heart giddy with excitement, down its face, feeling the pull of its power. I have committed myself to change and, soul surfer that I am, I know that once we've committed all we can do is ride that wave.

Such A Week I'm Having!

It's been fascinating to watch myself fall apart as the first day of school has drawn closer. Because I didn't get all of my medical forms returned on time to Health Services, I have been on a medical hold at my school. This means I can't go to classes, or even access important information regarding them, until Health Services lifts this hold and gives me a slip of paper to show each of my instructors which indicates that I am not a health menace to the herd. I have cried a fair amount every day for the past week.

Of course, work has to also be stressful because, well, because! Because I perform at least five people's jobs, and because no one capable of taking over for me applied for work over the summer, despite all of the advertising we did to recruit someone, it has been impossible to find my replacement. Which means that I am up to my eyeballs in school-related tasks (and about to be attending five classes) while simultaneously managing the bakery (i.e. managing commercial accounts and vendor relations, baking full-time, and making deliveries) and training others to do some of the work I do. And since I perform a multitude of "unseen" tasks, which are almost impossible to tally, delegating my work-load is a daunting task. One that, it seems, I am going to be doing bit by bit.

Wouldn't you know it, I'm also traveling to California tomorrow, to attend the wedding of my longest-time and dearest friend who, after decades of single-mom-career-woman-supergoddesshood, has found her true love. I am honored to be included in her wedding bash and so, just as I am starting school and transitioning out of the work I've done for so many years, I am boarding a plane at 6 AM tomorrow and flying across the continent to make merry with many, and feeling pretty happy about it (even though it means I'll be up before even the worms, let alone the birds). Still, preparing to travel cross-country and be away for three nights has not exactly been my priority, so I have been feeling panicked about all that I need to get done.

And, let's not overlook that today happens to be my baby boy's fourteenth birthday! Have I planned a party? Decided on the perfect gift? Um. No. No I haven't. He just walked out the door with his buddy, off to his first day of 8th grade. Wow. He's several inches taller and quite a bit more slender and angular than he was on his first day of 7th grade; looking oh-so-like his father and every inch the young man. His summer was unspectacular, except for the fact that he demonstrated tremendous maturity and poise in the face of adversity at sleepover camp. He was ill-placed in a cabin full of boys much younger and less mature than he and got caught in the crossfire of their foolish choices. As he didn't stop any of it from happening, he was complicit and was placed "on contract," which means that he couldn't go anywhere in camp without a counselor present (yes, even the bathroom) and was quite close to being sent home. At that point, instead of lamenting his bad luck, he turned his frustration toward canoeing and, with a cabin mate, earned his first canoeing rating, his Tandem. He is now endowed with significant canoeing skills and, perhaps more importantly, knows that, most often, you've got to grow where you're planted. I have watched with wonder as my son has grown to young adulthood and feel so proud of the person that he is. Last night, he said, "I don't need a party, or presents. I just want to chill at home with you." Then he gave me a big hug and told me how much he loves me, which induced more tears.

Yesterday, I was at the end of my rope, feeling desperate and sorrowful that I wasn't able to start school when I was scheduled to, feeling cornered into getting a vaccine I didn't want to get for fear of it making me sick just as I'm preparing to travel, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of effort involved in performing the simplest tasks at work as it involved slowly showing others how to do it, feeling regretful that I wouldn't be able to properly celebrate my son's birthday with him. Today, I've decided that I'm going to drive down to my school, buy all of my books and supplies, pick up my parking permit, check in with my admissions counselor to thank her for all of her help and support, drop in on my instructors to introduce myself, and put everything into place for me to start classes next Tuesday. My medical hold will be lifted late this morning, so I could attend afternoon classes, but I'm going to pass. Instead, I'm going to get a present for my boy, make him a card and a little cake, get a pedicure (my one girly indulgence, I admit), then go home and pack my bag to ready for tomorrow's flight. Today, I have freed myself from the stress and the fear and the frustration.

Though change is the one constant, it's never easy, is it? As mentally prepared as I feel to make this change in my life, I'm still subject to all sorts of mixed emotions around it. I've cried more this week than I have in a while, even as wonderful things have happened. I started working with a physical therapist who is helping me make the next step in recovering from being assaulted. I celebrated a most special anniversary with a dear friend. I got to spend a couple of nights with the most adorable 11-month-old and his beautiful, wonderful Mama who just happens to be my beloved friend. It's been a great summer and I'm really happy to have the opportunity to embark on this new life path. And, sometimes, we've got to fall apart so that we can put ourselves back together again and maybe do it in a way that gives us even greater access to what matters most: joy.

Survival

Yesterday, while awaiting the impending tropical storm Irene, I began rereading a book called Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. It is a fascinating and well-written book by journalist and author Laurence Gonzales, which compellingly combines neuroscience with stories of people of every stripe embroiled in great battles for survival. As the title suggests, the book explores what it takes to survive such challenges as being lost at sea or in the wilderness, natural disasters, and accidents- who lives, who dies, and what decides it? I won't reveal too much of Gonzales' findings here, for I highly recommend reading this book and think it makes much more interesting reading if you approach it with curiosity and innocence. I do, however, want to touch a bit on what reading Deep Survival is bringing up in me, for while it largely relates to surviving extraordinary, life-or-death experiences, the same mechanisms seem to allow us to get through the challenges of life intact, and to enjoy a long and fulfilling life.

We are constantly confronted with experiences and environments that don't match the images our minds are projecting onto them, that defy our "mental map" and the resulting expectations associated with it. We are challenged to adapt to the realities at hand (a changing environment, an evolving concept, shifting perspectives) in the face of our disappointment or fear and sometimes this can be a difficult thing to accomplish. This applies not only to physical challenges but to emotional or mental ones as well. What allows "elite performers" to survive high-intensity challenges is the same thing that allows we regular folk to survive the heartbreak of loss or the disappointment of failure, or to successfully transition into new environments. Adaptation. When we fail to adapt to the realities of life, we bring unnecessary harm and pain upon ourselves and we challenge our very survival.  

I am embarking on a new life path and I am scared. Elite performers and survivors aren't devoid of fear, in fact they allow a healthy dose of fear to simultaneously sober and motivate them as they take gigantic risks. I find that I am almost overwhelmed with anxiety when I pull back and look at the enormity of the task I am about to undertake: two years of full-time school while co-parenting a young teen and working at the family business, all the while attempting to maintain a web of intimate relationships. I have seen others take on similar challenges and watched as they depleted themselves of every resource. I wonder, "Who do I think I am to believe I can do it any more smoothly, or even do it at all?" Mostly, I just wonder how the hell I'm going to find that much energy to perform to my own high standards on every front. I think that the answer is, "I'm not." Something's got to give. I'm in transition and life isn't what it was just a week ago, nor is it how it's going to be next week. I have to be in the present to attend to the decisions and take the necessary actions which will allow me to begin school next week. If I go too far out, get too far ahead of myself, my confidence gets shaky and I am enveloped in anxiety. 

What reading Deep Survival has done for me is to illuminate something very basic: survivors adapt. They don't hold tight to a fixed mental image of a situation while the reality stares them in the face. They get with the reality at hand and take action to survive within it, attending to small tasks which will keep them alive (like a shipwreck survivor spending an entire day catching and eating a fish while floating on the open sea) without allowing themselves to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation they are facing. If I can keep my mind focused on what needs my attention in any given moment and not be overly concerned with the complex set of demands I am facing, I have at a shot at not only surviving this transition but thriving within it. It's just one moment, one day, one task at a time. 

I'm a survivor.

Questioning My Sanity

Classes haven't even started and I'm already procrastinating. I finally logged into my school email account today and was horrified by the number of messages awaiting me. Important information here, people! Who knew? Right now, instead of filling out my overdue medical forms, I'm eating green olives marinated in garlic and lemon juice, and writing this. I'm setting the bar high. Each morning this week, I've felt fall in the air as I greeted the day and a feeling of doom has settled in my gut that not even these delectable green olives can assuage. People, I'm scared. I keep thinking, "What have I done? What was I thinking? What have I gotten myself into?"

But, then I go to work and poke holes in cupcakes, filling them with vegan cream and topping them with smooth chocolate ganache and I remember. No matter how much I appreciate what those humble cakes have done for me, I'm most ready to bid them adieu. Really! I've got a callous on my right index finger from poking holes in cupcakes, a little reminder that I am on the right path. Star told me recently (making me cry), "You've earned this. You've paid your dues. You deserve this more than anyone I know."

School. I really love school- the structure, the challenge, the synergy, the constant stream of information, the irrelevant tangents made by professors during lectures. Actually, that part annoys me to no end, but the rest is delightful. I'm taking these next two years as a kind of large, living crossword puzzle designed to stimulate massive synapsis growth and reverse the effects of what feels like middle-age dementia. My brain feels dried out and crusty, desperately in need of an energizing zap of ideas and concepts. I'm terrifically excited. And, shhhh, don't tell anyone, I'm terrified.

How the hell does anyone hold it all together while they're in school? Parenting, job, health and fitness, some semblance of a social life, personal hygiene? My mom went back to school full-time when I was a kid while she worked a couple of jobs and things didn't go so well, really. I've watched women much stronger and wonder-womanly than I fall to pieces in the face of what I'm about to take on and, yeah, I'm a little unsure of how I'm gonna pull it off, but I'm guessing I'll need a lot of hugs.

The Call

Today, we got "the call" from Rain's overnight camp. Star called me afterward and we had a long talk, as most parents would upon receiving word that their child was choosing not to participate in camp activities and was behaving in a disruptive manner. My first question was, "Oh shit, what did he do?" But by the end of our conversation, I realized that what Rain had "done" was less important (as his infractions seem very minor) than the fact that we had gotten the call in the first place. It is said that idle hands are the devil's workshop and I want to ask, "Why is anyone allowing my son to be so idle?"

On drop-off day, as we helped Rain get set up in his cabin, Star and I saw immediately that there would most likely be problems with his cabin assignment, as he was obviously the oldest in his cabin. Rain is a sophisticated only child who grew up in his parents' cafes, surrounded by adults. He has traveled a fair amount, lived on both coasts, and seen the difficult realities of life up close. While he is still a child, he is no babe in arms. He has always, always most closely resembled a cross between Lenny Bruce and Bambi- equal parts scathing, dead-on, witty social commentary and too-long legs skittering wildly across glittering ice, big eyes wide open and awestruck. Because he missed the cut-off for starting public school by a day, Rain has always been the oldest in his class, which meant that every-other year he would be a full two years older than half of his class. While his actual peers (the kids his age to whom he is naturally drawn and relates, all of his closest friends) are about to start high school, Rain will enter 8th grade this fall, a chasm too great to ignore. For Rain's entire life, we have watched as systems have continually failed to serve him- unwilling to place him with his peers unless he shows that he's "doing the work," unwilling to accept that it's only when placed with his peers that he will "do the work." This camp session seems to be unfolding in a similar fashion and I want to know, Who is going to step up and show my son that they care enough about him to engage him in the program, instead of allowing him to opt out of activities or loiter and cause trouble? If I'm getting the phone call, who's not doing their job?

On that first day, I went to the camp director and asked, "Is Rain married to that cabin, or can something be done to accommodate him more appropriately?" I explained, yet again, that Rain functions better when placed with kids either a year or two older than he, rather than with kids either his own age or younger. When placed with younger kids, Rain backslides, seems to regress, goofs off, acts out, turns into a disruptive presence. But with older kids, he strives to keep pace and participates fully, because he wants to be accepted by his peers and because there's just no opportunity to goof off- he's too busy! Boredom is a great motivator of negative energy. I told the director, " It's not going to go well leaving him in that cabin with those little boys." I warned him, and I read his response as a willingness to accept responsibility for the situation and recognize and address the problem before Rain could show it to him. As with people of any age, if Rain's acting out, it's a sign that something's wrong, as well as a sign that we adults have some work to do to help him. When Rain is met for who he is, as a full person regardless of his age, and he is shown that he matters, that his individual needs are important, he will jump through every hoop, write every paper, do all the chores required, even go on that most heinous hike. He will perform to his very best when he observes that he is valued. By leaving him in that cabin, forcing him, once again, to be the "mentor" to younger kids (as he has been constantly called upon to do his entire school career), he was told that his needs did not matter. And, if he doesn't matter to camp, why should camp matter to him?

The camp director is going to call me tomorrow and I have some things to say from which I believe he can benefit. Most immediately, I want to remind him, without being didactic, that his job as a director is to direct. Most often, with kids (as we parents know), that means a whole lot of re-directing: noticing where a young person's energy is going and re-directing it to a healthier, more productive place when its careening off into negative territory. We parents start doing this from the get-go! If this director doesn't see himself as as sort of Meta Dad to 150 kids, we're all in trouble. Frankly, if the director is calling us (and my son is not huffing glue, smoking pot in the woods, beating up or bullying other kids, painting swastikas, or self-harming), it makes me wonder if he is the right guy for the job! Who's in charge? You or my almost-14-year-old? Whoever it is that is allowing Rain to opt out of participating in the camp program is doing him a terrible disservice.

When my child acts like a monster, I look at my own choices closely to see what I've done to create that monster. Nine times out of ten, it's pretty clear. When infanticide seems like the only option and my son clearly has too much power, the holding of which frightens him terribly and causes him to behave uncharacteristically poorly, I remember that I contributed to the situation at hand and ask myself what I am going to do to change it. How am I going to help that monster revert back to it's human form? This is the duty with which the director of Rain's camp is currently charged and, as Rain's Mom, it is my job to remind him of it.

Simple Tests

In his poem entitled "The Testing Tree," which he penned as an octogenarian, Stanley Kunitz writes of himself as a boy carefully choosing stones of just the right weight and size and aiming them at a tree whose might and constancy defines his place in the world and challenges and informs his notion of manhood. Recounting a recurring dream, which symbolizes the relentlessness of change, he calls up his long-dead mother and images of war. Finally, he closes, summing: "In a murderous time, the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and to not turn. I am looking for the trail. Where is my testing tree? Give me back my stones!"

I think of this poem often, particularly when I realize that the child I once was still lives within me and is more accessible than I sometimes remember. I tend to over-complicate things with mental gyrations, feeling challenged by the interconnectedness of everything. Sometimes it's hard to make a move, knowing that the ripples cast will span out well beyond the bounds of my perception. Dark times come, difficult things happen, and we wish to be returned to a time when tests were simply defined: can I hit this ancient oak tree, with every throw, at fifty paces? Making bargains with the tree: If I hit this one, I'll be kinder to my mother, more helpful to my sisters. Feeling the weight of the stones in your pocket but not knowing that this is the only weight you carry. The innocence, the simplicity, the honesty of childhood becomes a beacon as the body grows burdensome and the mind softens and everything intertwines with everything else. The wide-open, unquestionable courage of childhood calls to me, like Kunitz hears the trail, that tree, those stones. I don't want to go back. I want to stand here, in this time, imbued with the courage and clarity I felt sitting on the uppermost branch of the sycamore tree at the end of my driveway, watching the world unfold below me but knowing even then that I was a part of it all.