Harried with Children

I haven’t written much lately because:

a. We went on a trip

b. It is the end of the year and there is a lot going on and this is our month of birthdays and all of a sudden my ‘free’ time is being spent making lists of ‘who is comings’ and pricing out animal cupcakes

c.  There are always a million more good reasons NOT to take time to write than reasons TO write.

d.  I am just tired, and once you (I) get out of the habit of something it is harder to get going again—it is always easier to maintain something then get it off the ground.

Nonetheless,

I am sitting here this morning feeling hampered by a whole bunch of things I have chosen.  I am committed this morning to going into my daughter’s school to work on finishing the book project I started with her class ‘just for fun.’  I am also planning out the 20 minute yoga session I teach them on Tuesdays.  I also just realized that I need to find or make (find) 22 banana muffins today because tomorrow is Jasmine’s birthday in the class and with this new move toward nutrition in our school the old faire (some nice gloppy cupcakes in colors you would not find in nature) will not suffice.

I am imagining a day/a world where I don’t have to do these things and I can just go into the office (where I feel like I have a lot to do) and work with no interruptions.  That, I am imagining is my perfect world whereas I am here in this one where I am doing all these things this morning—and not even exercising is what I also am complaining to myself about.

In moments like this I feel like I am receding, I just want to curl up and do nothing—I want to ‘get out of it’  (At 40, I am wanting to ‘get out of’ the things I have created, planned, thought up, committed to.  I feel like I am 12.)

But I know I am missing something—obviously gratitude for the life I have—seriously, but also something else.  There is something about aligning values and actions that gets lost to me in moments like this. My friend in NY forwarded me a copy of her son’s preschool picnic/fundraiser announcement with the note:

I was going to complain that I just can’t handle any more of these things – like it’s sooo much to do all the time.  But, then decided I would say that it’s nice that life is so full.

Note that she is a gov. official and has way less flex time than I do.

So, today, life is so full, so full of ALL of the things I want and I get to walk my talk about what is important, all day long.  So, I am writing about it, because that makes me feel better and I am going to sign off, get Dylan some breakfast because he keeps asking and then run headfirst into this day and headfirst into a gaggle of rowdy second graders.  (I am saying headfirst b/c it feels good–headfirst feels active, not receding, embracing–I like the image.)  So, I’ll go headfirst into my work and try being grateful that everything is so full because full is fun and exciting and interesting and honestly, I’ve had ‘empty’ and I choose this.

My father has been married 3 times:
#1.  To my mother

#2.  To the mother of my 4 brothers and sisters

#3. To the mother of my stepsiblings—Married just a bit after I got married.

My father and his wife get along with her ex and his wife and they all do things together etc.    A lot of bygones being bygones there.

At the holidays, we do a Secret Santa/Hanukah Harry with the extended family and whomever is attending is in on it.   Last Christmas we happened to have in attendance my mother (#1 up there) and my stepsiblings’ Dad and stepmother (#3’s ex-husband and wife).

That stepmother (of my stepsiblings) drew my mother as her secret gift person and remarked:

“Well, what does one get for one’s husband’s ex-wife’s husband’s ex-wife?”

The answer is potpourri

And, it’s official:  I’m my own grandpa.

I sat tonight in the crowded civic auditorium to hear Maya Angelou—I guess just to be in her presence.  Here are the most important things she said:

We have to read/experience poetry, art, all of it—It is for us because we have to know that someone came before.  Someone suffered like this before us, someone’s heart was broken—crushed, someone called out alone…and survived.  Thrived.

She started by talking about a passage from Genesis ‘Just when it looked like the sun wasn’t going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the sky.’ A poet later changed the reference to “clouds’  a ‘rainbow in the clouds’ -–to bring home that in the cruelest time, the meanest time there is still a possibility of hope.  She spent the night talking about that rainbow, being that for others and who had been that for her.

She said that courage was the most important of all the virtues, because without it, you can’t practice any of the others consistently.  She also said to try it in small portions—you wouldn’t try to just lift a 200lb weight without working up to it.

She said that as humans we are more alike than different. And that truly, if we hear of someone who has done something heinous, we cannot say ‘I would never’ because we too are human—We can say ‘I intend not to do that’  But also, think about what this means in the positive—What anyone is capable of, so too are we.

She said she had family in our area, Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and she asked to have the lights turned up so they could stand.  At first everyone was just clapping and looking around, then some people started standing, then more and more and then the whole auditorium—‘That’s right,’ she said.  “You, you are my family.’ And she meant it.

I am stirred and inspired, and thinking we should have made Jasmine’s middle name ‘Angelou’ instead of Tubman…do you think she’ll mind a little switcheroo this late in the game?

I woke up with that ‘oh no food poisoning feeling’—both kids had climbed into bed with us so I quickly slid over them and headed to the bathroom

Bam!

Flat on the floor.  Whole Body.  Not going anywhere.

“Rolf,” I say trying to convey urgency w/o alarming the kids—hard to do.

“Rolf”

“Yeah—what?’

“I can’t move.”

To his credit that man was out of the bed and surveying the scene of me spread out on the rug in a millisecond.  ‘I need to move you into the other room.’    He is nothing if not decisive.

“Wait here,” he says and heads out. I hear him starting to make a call in the kitchen.

I also hear the kids stirring.

I am having the feeling that if I move, I will go unconscious, but if I lay still, I am almost myself.  Well, other than the panic.  And the specific concern that I might start saying ‘chair’ when I mean ‘water’ or something.

“Jas.” I whisper up toward the bed.

“Yes.”

“Are you freaked out?”

“Yes.”

“I’m freaked out too,” comes Dylan’s smaller voice.

“Um, its ok, I just feel a little sick.  I am ok.”

Rolf is back.  I roll/crawl out of the room.  We’ve called my Dad.  We are going to the ER.

Vertigo.

That’s what it was.  Everyone, including the paramedics were ready to pronounce it Vertigo and as though that kind of took care of it.  And, hey guess what, there is a medication.  Apparently this is just something that just happens sometimes.

Evidently I have been way taking my equilibrium for granted.  These little balls in your ear canal are the most important things we have for maintaining an appropriate relationship to gravity.

It could happen again, or not at all–ever.  The fact that I am an extremely healthy (knock wood) 39 year-old with no history of this was not interesting to anyone.

In the hospital a tiny slip of a woman as old as time was wheeled by on another gurney.  All I could think from my debilitated state is that is really the desirable outcome; that we get to be paper-thin renditions of ourselves and nothing more dramatic takes us out before our bodies are just done.  Aging, it beats the alternative.

I did not/have not taken the medication because since it only affects the symptoms, I want to keep an eye on this and not mask anything for the time being.

I am really grateful it was ‘no big deal’ relatively speaking and since I move between the physical and the more ‘energetic’ explanations for things, I am now on a bit of a mission to see where something like this comes from—from any perspective.

Though, if someone says premenopausal one more time there’s going to be a throwdown.