When will it be enough?

Why aren't they enough anymore? Why don't I find joy in all that used to bring me deep fulfillment?
Now that I have extinguished the relationship with any readers I may have once had, by always posting such gloomy stuff, I can simply vent all over this blog and it is my own space..for which I am thankful b/c it seems that lately all I have to say contains a thread of sadness. No one wants to read about sadness all the time...

I can't get past, cannot accept within myself, this deep sorrow...and there isn't a damn thing I can do to rescue my heart, to make it right again within my soul.
I periodically read a few blogs written by those who have lost babies, either before birth or shortly thereafter, those struggling to conceive, plowing through numerous attempts at IVF only to have their dreams fall apart time and time again - situations totally out of their control. Their grief is justified, I feel like an invader when I read those blogs, although the feeling of loss I can now relate to.
It is a living nightmare, one that never goes away and taints my , well, everything...
I go to the store, I see babies with their moms..I go out and see women with pregnant bellies everywhere. The stab of pain never really becomes less...so many times a day, so many I lose count...24 weeks it would be, 26 weeks it would be, and so on...I would know the gender of the baby (though i knew his gender the moment I realized I was pregnant - so strong was the connection already), I would be able to feel his movement, my belly would be round and fruitful...I would soon be able to proudly show off five kids, instead of four.
I look at my children, their sweet innocent faces. The nightmare, it seems it will never end, I will never be the same as I was, whatever that was, whoever she was...is gone. Replaced by a robot who can mimic the motions of daily existence, can take care of the kids, do what has to be done - but totally void of real feeling anymore, real joy has left my world...

Just when you think you have it rough...

Please visit a blog I came across while chatting with friends on facebook. It is an amazing journey this family is on...and a precious life of a small baby boy with remarkable fighting spirit hangs in the balance. The strength of the mother is second to none. If I were her, I would be a ball of mess....

I have tried three times to insert it as a hyperlink - blogger isn't allowing it atm.
So, here it is:
www.mycharmingkids.net

edited to add: I did manage to add Stellan's button to my page - just scroll down on the right and click on it - it will take you straight to the blog..pass it on, please.

Master Rumi's timeless words

Poems from another time...

Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy true human beings know.
The moment you accept what troubles you've been given,
the door opens.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by the friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets
that serve to cover and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath,
is the sweetness that comes after grief.




This being human is a guest house.
Every morning, a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and attend them all,
even if they're a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture!
Still treat each guest honorably.
It may be clearing you out for some new delights.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Team Spirit

Pictures of the end of season game, All-Stars games begin this Monday. The boys had such fun this year! And how 'bout that Serenity with the cotton candy, eh? A girl's gotta have a little fun too! Yum!

The Soul's voice

Sometimes the soul DIRECTLY challenges the structure of our personal life.

Below is a poem included in Rodger Housden's book Ten Poems to Set You Free.

THE LAYERS

I have walked through many lives
some of them my own,
And I am not who I was
though some principle of being abides,
from which I struggle not to stray

When I look behind
as I am compelled to look
Before I can gather
strength to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned campsites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections
and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the the way
bitterly stings my face
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go
and every stone on the road
precious to me

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers
not in the Litter"

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

In the pain there is healing

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

Altered perceptions

The picture: My brother and I with my mother. Circa 1981.

Over the holidays, we gathered together at the table one evening and poured over old family photos. It was so much fun and very humbling at the same time. It is so funny to compare the memories we hold in our minds to an actual, tangible record - the indisputable, old-fashioned Kodak color print. My how they differ! There were moments I was in total hysterics and could hardly breathe from laughter, and other moments where the reality of how it really all was struck me deep to my core.

Being a parent, I do more than just match recollections with photos, I look back at the pictures through a filter, comparing my childhood with that of my own kids. Do they look like I did? Do they like the same things I liked back then? Am I parenting like my parents did (and that can go either way, people)? What will they rememeber? What are their high points and low points?

Concerning the picture above, I vaguely remember that vacation. I was six. It was Disney World, a desitination that my family was fortunately able to enjoy more than one time and I have a lot of happy memories from those vacations. As an adult, and hearing the perspective of my mother - these vacations that my father was so keen on taking was in exchange for college educations as it turned out. At least the kind of college educations that parents pay for. He focused on the big childhood moments while my mother stretched the dollar to buy food and clothing for us kids. So, pictures can be misleading, you see. By appearances, we had extravagances, lavish motorhomes and boats, big Christmases, but behind the scenes, our clothes came from garage sales, my mother grocery-shopped with a pendaflex of coupons, we lacked home decor in every sense of the word, etc.

You just never know with pictures.

Hangin' by a Moment

Ever spend any time contemplating a moment?
What does something as innocent as a mere moment entail, connote, mean?

Moments drive the ever-encroaching shoreline of our lives.
Right?
We age, moment by moment, leaving behind youth, growing toward life's final epic moment.
When I was a kid - and yep, I was a weird kid - I used to sit and tell myself, "you are younger this minute...than now". Etc. For clusters of minutes, driven by an introverted perspective on life, I played these strange games with myself in my mind. I thought a lot; I didn't speak much. It just was.

In a moment, do you pause before running toward the ocean's foamy waves? Or, do you walk hesitantly, feeling the water creep over your toes and inch its way up your ankles, then retreat in a flurry, only to be repeated in a second or two.

What puts you at ease in a moment of panic?
We all relish, of course, those peaceful moments, the kind perfect for reflecting and 'smelling the roses'. Noticing the happenings in one's hum drum existence that are often overlooked in the course of the hurried moments every normal day brings with it, without our expressed permission. It just is.

What can a moment contain? What can be done in sixty seconds - if we are defining a moment as equal to a minute, which for the sake of this conversation, let's play it that way.
A moment can carry within it, say, the answer to a test question, a parent's unsolicited advice, a birth, a death, an epiphany, an orgasm, etc. There are activities that require clusters of moments, such as driving to work, or getting a haircut. Moments can be monotonous and indistinguishable, falling in behind each other like ants working toward a common goal of completion. Or moments can be life-altering. Everything changes in the blink of an eye kind of moments.
Sometimes moments can be wishy-washy and noncommittal.

Something as seemingly inconspicuous as a mere moment.
Crafty little buggers - those moments.

If all the Raindrops were Lemon drops and Gumdrops...

This morning, walking into the store:
Max says "Mommy, I wish the world were made of candy".
Journey chimed in and started singing "yea, all candy!"

Me: "Really? But then we would all melt when it rains (as it has done nearly every day for like three weeks now)."

Max: "No, all the raindrops would be candy too - everything would just be candy!"

It is possible that my kids have had FAR too many sugar-coated Christmas treats this year.
Ya think?

Ponderings

I absolutely must say, without hesitation, that I love my life. All of it. The high moments, the dumpy times, the heartbreak, the elation, the joys, the sorrows, etc. I want nothing more than to be positioned right in the midst of all that I claim as my life. All that it means to me and encompasses within its appearance to others and their perceptions. Most of the time my life and I, we get along quite well. The ebb and flow are natural and predictable. Having said that, there are undeniably times of course when it and I bump and snag one another, setting off a chain reaction that is anything but smooth.

Like most folks, when the new year arrives with all it's confetti-like splendor, I find myself pondering the year gone by ~ reminiscing and reliving it's moments one after another. Memories roll over me like warm ocean waves cascade over the golden summer sand. Of course, I succumb to it and allow it to envelop me with all its emotion and strength.
My only resolution each year is that I refuse to make any resolutions. I find them to be ultimately redundant and intangible devices with which we later torture ourselves. It never ceases to amaze me how fast each year passes. Why spend the first three months of it beating myself up about not adhering to my "resolutions"? Month in and month out, seasons come and go. In many ways, it is always the same - the days and weeks and months. But, within the shell of each one is transcribed a different story than the year before, thereby imprinting the passage of time uniquely.
A year older.
A year wiser.
A year spent learning how to embark upon the journey of one's soul.
A year spent making friends with the struggling and learning to welcome it with open heart.
A year spent learning to pay attention to the Now.
This Moment. It really is ALL there is.
A year spent admitting I was making huge mistakes with my kids, humbling myself, and learning how to be a mother my children will come home to when they are grown.
A year spent reliving old family patterns, passed down unconsciously through generations and coming to realize that living in the past is heartbreaking and serves no ultimate purpose except to perpetuate pain.
A year watching my children evolve 365 days closer to who they will ultimately be. And then questioning if we ever really become who we set out to become. What is that anyway?
A year spent wallowing around in the self-pity of unemployment followed by the liberation of coming full circle.
A year filled with firsts - preschool graduation, last baby out of diapers(!!), first try at baseball, first day of Kindergarten, first day of the last year of elementary school, and so much more.
A year spent trying to figure out what love really means and whether or not it must fall into a category or can be something all its own ~ deviant and indifferent to societal norms.

Sitting here, cuddling up to my cup of Hot Chai, I can feel it. My life is so full of energy, of happiness, of eagerness. I am so grateful for every inch. To look from the outside in, we don't have much. Many people would wonder how we can live on so little, so scarce, scratch by for what we need without going crazy. But they don't know the secret.It doesn't take the newest clothes, the best shoes, the fanciest car, expensive furniture, and all the other material things people hunger after, to be truly happy with one's life. The simple act of focusing on what you have and expressing gratitude instead of concentrating on what you wish for or don't have will illuminate your life in a totally different light.

As Byron Katie so blatantly put it: "Who would you be without that thought"?

(children fighting...more later)

More please!

I could say a lot of philosophical things about the past year, affirmations and hopes for the new year and so on. But, as I was formulating that post and searching through last year's picture archives, I realized something. Most of all in this upcoming year I want more moments like these, please.