Don't know mind

There are times when I start feeling that the stress of all the hats I'm wearing is becoming, well, stressful.  There are moments when I don't, such as last night, when Andi & I went to go here this group called the Revels celebrate the fall solstice on the Charles River last night.  We took Ari, who did indeed revel in the music, while we watched the flickering display of a boat that was the sun and a boat that was the moon converge upon the bridge, as the group sang an atonal chant about walking in beauty, "Beauty is before me, beauty is above me," that reminded me of the blessing we Jews say on Shabbat about the schechinah.  It was gorgeous and relaxing and we strolled home feeling as though Beauty had really lit on us for a little while--that is, until Ari started to holler.

The stressful moments come when I can't seem to adjudicate between the different parts of me that have different roles to perform.  The part that does errands, for example, splinters into so many parts--the part that makes food, orders tupperware for Ari's lunch (didja realize how expensive that stuff it?), does laundry, gets the headlight fixed on the car, etc.  I find all those things incredibly difficult to do and even more difficult to plan.  (Which is more important?  Which tupperware should I buy?  How much time should I spend looking?  I researched tupperware for an insanely long time, trying to find some that is ecological and not dangerous in terms of BPA, and ordered a bunch of pretty stuff that arrived today... without lids).  It is NOT my bailiwick.  Fortunately there's Andi, but there's only so much of Andi to go around and she has her own life too.  And then there's all the other hats--being a mom (the hardest part is still the weaning, which I now feel may go on until Ari hits first grade), being a student, having all the different courses to decide about, doing my placement, getting my clothes ready for said placements, doing Little Buddhas, etc.  I don't know if it really is a lot, or if I am just being whiny.  I just feel tired today.

But as I was procrastinating and glancing through Andi's Maurice Sendak coffee table book I found this quote from after Sendak had a near-fatal heart attack in 1967.  He says that the book he undertook in the wake of his recovery was fascinating to him:  "I feel my work has permanently changed tone, color and meaning, without my yet having put pen to paper.  I am as curious about me as though I were someone else."  

That to me described so well the mindfulness experience--the point of it, if one can say there is such a thing as a point to something that is so not driven by goals and agendas.  That we are experiencing ourselves every day in a fresh way--as curious about ourselves as if we had just met some new, attractive, interesting acquaintance we were eager to get to know.   I have no idea who I will be today.  Each day I have thousands of chances to discover just who I am--who Ari is--who you are.  Isn't that exciting?  Such an openness of mind?  And even if it doesn't feel like that, just opening up the window a crack--a little bit--to let that curiosity in.  What am I feeling?  What is actually happening in this body of mine?  What am I about to create?

"I, too,"

said Ari today, as I was carrying him down the street. There was something so adult-like about this. He was eating tofu and offering a bit to Andi, a bit to me. He would say, gravely holding out the tofu, "A-di," and then Andi would take a bite, and then, "Mama," and then I would take a bite. And then he said, "I, too," and took a bite himself. It was quite sober and very cute.

He has, in the past, said, "Ari, too," but this seemed different, somehow. Andi and I marvel at the fact that he seems to grasp basic grammar concepts so well--this with the fact that he doesn't have the widest vocabulary--it is advanced, but it is not mind-boggling. But his grammar is quite, quite proper, and it amazes us. In the best of ways.

Lehman brothers, bad bets, regulation, and self-regulation of mamas and babies

Today is a sparkly sort of day, all golden and underlit and shiny. Andi looked out of the window at breakfast and remarked that the light was glittering under the leaves on the (still green) trees. A fairy day.

Ari is (gradually, I think) sleeping more at night, which is a good thing because I have just about gone crazy with lack of sleep. The challenge of not getting enough sleep coupled with the new stressors of school, Ari's school, and placement--and with Ari's own being tired--were starting to feel almost dangerous. Ari is naturally pushing limits and exploring what he can and can't do, and this was always going to be hard for me. I so hate to set the limits when he explodes with angry tears and begs to have me change my mind. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but inconsistency makes a hobgoblin of your toddler. Yikes! I don't have the natural patience of so many of the wonderful mothers that I know, so I find myself getting into petty power struggles with him and then sometimes letting him get away with something because I don't want to fight about it anymore. Especially when I'm tired. Last night, he kissed me a soft kiss goodnight and then curled up like a little puppy against me and went to sleep, and I reacted by nearly snarling. (I can't remember what I said, but I made some sort of protest that was senseless.) In the night, around 3am, he woke up screaming and kicking, and again, I responded with contraction and anger. Whoa, Mama! Finally waking up enough myself, I was able to pick him up and hold him and he dissolved and went limp against me, falling back asleep as I sang to him. I realized that he had had a nightmare, and that his waking had nothing to do with clamoring to be nursed. I know I can't help getting angry sometimes, but it just doesn't feel good when that is the first reaction toward him--especially since he is under so much stress, too.

By the way, here is my very slightly altered Buddhist-lite version of the Free to Be You and Me song that I sing to Ari when he cries in the night:
"It's all right to cry
Crying might get the mad out of you
It's all right to cry, it might make you feel better
Raindrops from your eyes
Washing some of the sad out of you
It's all right to cry, it might make you feel better

It's all right to feel things, though the feelings may feel strange
Feelings seem like real things, but they change and change and change
It's all right to know, feelings come and feelings go
It's all right to cry, it might make you feel better."


I did get a chance to hear Michael Greenberger talking on NPR about the national financial disaster that is here and that is to come. Be warned, everyone who believes their savings are safe because they are FDIC insured. The FDIC does not have enough money to bail out all the banks that will likely go into crisis because of the real estate lending mismanagement. If Greenberger is to be believed, that is, and I thought he made a very cogent argument. We may wind up bailing out the FDIC, but that will cost taxpayers billions or maybe trillions of dollars.

Here's his website. Go this and click recent media and then you can get to a podcast of his recent npr interview on here and now:

http://www.michaelgreenberger.com/

I started getting very scared about all of this, but then I realized that we are all in this together. Either we will help each other out, or we will fall into some wolfish lord of the flies decline. I can't know, so all I can do is keep going forward as if all will be well. Right? Here's another related link:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/09/is_it_time_to_grow_your_food.html


Change and change and change.

Israel and Iran

OK, in looking for a very scary article I read in The Nation about Israel, I found this post by Akiva Eldar of Ha'aretz, which heartened me up a little. So I include it here so that we won't all have to be terrified as I had been when I read the Eric Alterman article in this week's print issue of the Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/eldar

This article about Israel at age 60 scared me especially because it highlighted only a few issues that I know are concerning Israelis, and it felt true to me based on my last visits 8 years ago--so I can only imagine that the worries are total terrors to Israelis now. And thus for all of us--not just we Jews, as you will see if you read it.

http://www.thenation.com/sections/israel

I'd be happy to hear what the rest of you think.

Of course, we're all occupied with the fiasco of Sarah Palin and the possibility that all of her self-serving stupidity may be exactly what gets McCain elected. And with good reason. But this article highlights the scale of the Israel/Iran nuclear war crisis that will unfold in some form in the year to come, no matter who gets elected. I don't have any faith that Obama is any better equipped to handle it than the NeoCons. This is not a lack of faith in Obama, per se, just persistent doubt because I, at least, don't have a clear idea of what is the right way to handle it. Do you? Obviously, for many people, a threat to Israel's safety is no threat to the rest of us. But for those of us who consider Israel's existence to be vital, it is deeply unclear what is the right course of action surrounding Iran. Israelis do deeply resent American Jewish intervention in their political scene, and with good reason--many pro-Israel lobbies in this country really do nothing but pour money into the Likudniks and may be responsible for getting Netanyahu back in power--ugh. But similarly, many people in the U.S. are quite rightly furious at how Israel has vested American interests with their own and thus dragged all of us into fundamentalist war-hell. Any thoughts?

Anyway, read the article. It's good.

ari counts

So as we're watching Elmo's Potty Time together, Ari is saying something under his breath which Mama is not astute enough to get, as usual. Mama says, "Tree? Do you see a tree?" But Andi, always more adept at Ari Interpretation, says, "No, he's counting to three."

"Ari, are you counting?" I say, which usually is the surest ticket to stifling him.

Sure enough, he says nothing at all, just nods his head. But I wait a little while, letting him think it all over while Elmo is dancing on the screen with Grover, and finally Ari says, "Five!" The five is as clear as clear.

Of course, Mama doesn't like to quibble, but... it does sound like he has missed four, doesn't it?

For the next half hour that he is awake, Ari says over and over, "Two, three, five!" There is something that comes before the two, but it sure doesn't sound anything like one, no matter how hard you try to turn it into that. And there sure doesn't seem to be any four. Then he goes to sleep.

This morning he wakes up, smiles at me, and says, "Un, two, tree, four five!"

What, did he figure it out in his sleep?

What a funny little man.

Biking in the rain

Mama had a string of bad luck on her new biking plan--her attempt to be like the Roommates. See, the Roommates bike everywhere, and it has always seemed to Mama like a great idea for a million reasons--or at least two--mainly exercise and carbon credits.  Anyway, Mama has vowed to bike to her placement this year at least until it starts to snow.  I don't know if you know anything about Mama's vows, but they aren't worth all that much.  Unlike the Roommates--and, it seems, Ari--Mama is a wimp.  Mama really isn't the grimly determined type.  At any rate, Mama biked back and forth to her placement on Friday with no problems, feeling--Mama admits it--kinda smug.  But today, Mama biked to her placement and arrived all sweaty in her T-shirt and felt self-conscious until she went to change.  It was anxiety provoking.  Then, it turned out Mama was going for a training in another building, so Mama had to bike to the other location in the rain.  As it rained, she told herself it didn't matter, but the truth is, Mama did not like getting her new clothes--in particular, a linen shirt that Liz gave her that she loves and a silk shirt that Rachel gave her that she loves--all wet.  Then it turned out that Mama wasn't eligible to take that training because she had missed the previous training on a day she was not in at the placement and so would not understand the material at this one.  Meanwhile, the rain turned into a downpour. Mama had to bike back to her placement in the downpour--back up the hill--noticing over and over that she was wet and that the sensation was not pleasant.  She arrived looking like a wet cat.  Not a good look for Mama.  Mama squelched through the corridors emitting squeaks against the institutional floors.  She noticed lots of thoughts, including, "I hate biking."

On the ride home, her pants--despite being tucked geekily into her socks--got ripped.  Mama loves these pants, which she bought second hand at Abby's in Waltham with Jeanne--and then Mama felt truly grumpy.  Then when she got home the dog jumped on her and got footprints on the silk shirt and she noticed that there was a coffee stain on it too!  OK, that had nothing to do with the bike.  But it didn't help the mood.

Typing all this up, though, Mama realizes she still is committed to biking whenever she can.  Global warming or wet clothes--which is worse?  One is impermanent--the other....

words and music

Today when Ari was in the swing he looked up at the sky and I thought he said, "Lick."

"Leaf?" I asked craning my head to look at the sky.

"Stick," he said, confidently pointing to the tree.

"Oh, stick!" I said. "Yeah, stick!" My sleep deprived brain could not come up with the word "twig" but now I'm glad I didn't correct him. He seemed so pleased, and so was I, that he could see sticks in the sky.

It made me realize, too, that he knows words that have dual functions. "Stick" means sticker as well as part of a tree; just this morning Ari had been happily playing with stickers and talking glibly about the "sticker" and making it "stick"; thus in knowing "stick" he knows two nouns and a verb.

Auntie Papaya left a great message on my cell about seeing Ari this weekend, and how struck she was by how intently he listened when she, her mother and I all sang a little song, harmonizing as we went. I can't remember what song it was. He cocked his head and listened quite gravely. She thinks he is quite serious about music and assumed I had observed this quality in him. I guess I had, but what had struck me was his joy in dancing, something I assumed YoYo had cultivated in him, since YoYo is the consummate dancer. But the musical interest--I guess that much I had simply assumed would happen. I would have been surprised if it hadn't happened. It seems so much at the core of what it means to be human and happy.

As it does to have words to describe and make real that happiness, as long as those words don't become the whole story.