Beautiful Things: May 12th, 2016

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One of my most important purposes for homeschooling is to fill my children’s lives with beauty of all kinds. At the same time, I sometimes have a hard time noticing and holding onto the beautiful things that dapple our days. (To be fair, I just learned that there is neurological evidence that negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences imprint instantly on us, whereas positive ones need to be savored for a minimum of 15 seconds to attach).  So, I am keeping lists.

-a canopy of tree shade in our yard, sunlight softened as it filters through
-baby girl sifting mulch at the playground with her fine fingers
-my middle boy smelling the baby’s head, and telling me it’s a different kind of sweet than me
-first boy’s counting to 100 by I-Love-You’s at bedtime (I-love-you 1, I-love-you 2, I-love-you 3….)
-hearing each of my loved ones breathing in the still of night
-the poem Pied Beauty, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, taped to my bathroom wall
-reading Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
-a giraffe’s slow grace at the Zoo, and how I enjoyed the little train ride, with my arm around my boy
-second son asking me what my favorite part of the day was, and when I answered about his giving me a card and book, he said with satisfaction, “I thought you were gonna do that”
-dancing and singing with my kids and remembering when my mom did the same with my sibs and me
-how burying my nose in my kids’ hair can change me and the trajectory of my day in a moment

Spill

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All my anxieties spread before me
in that two-feet-square slick
of sludge on the tile. Even after making
up with my boy for my overreaction
to the upset tumbler, I still grieved
having broken the beautiful
morning. Felt I had shattered
some pristine crystal sculpture.
No,
my husband gentled me
in his arms. It’s more like the water,
the rock thrown does not ripple
it forever. Calm returns and the whole
of the body of water is unbroken
again, the deep envelops, embraces
and covers, absorbing the impact,
stone sinking until it joins
the soil and sediment, the foundation solid
and undisturbed beneath.

Year of Beauty

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The morning is a rare gray, air cool and moist as I trod to the open dirt at the end of our neighborhood. I am looking for uneven ground, the better to challenge my muscles and joints.

My eyes, unaccustomed to the softness, still want to squint. Then I see the weeds. I feel like Rey in that scene: I didn’t know there was so much green in the universe. I need the clouds in order to truly see it. I look for more, and find the mesquites with their new spring growth. Diminutive fronds shower soft from their branches, a green whose name is unknown to me, almost the same as the pastel I chose during the therapy session last week. Inner resources. I closed my eyes and searched, questioning. What does the resource that is continuously renewed look like inside me? A tendril curling within, bright green and growing. Needing nurturing, thirsty. An ocean of water surrounding, feeding it. The depths of that ocean dark and calm underneath any tumult at the surface.

I reach as though to shake hands with the branch, pull back at the last moment when I notice the thorns, a good half-inch long, ivory colored like perfect fangs smiling at me. I test one carefully, half expecting it to be soft and undeveloped, but, no. It resists with a hardness that is surprising.

I so often feel overexposed here, a photograph blown out with too much light. I breathe deep, eyes open but still wary. The haze greeting me on this morning walk is ethereal, otherworldly, the sun’s light diffuse.

By the end of the walk I am in tears. There is so much beauty, and I need to see, and seek, it. I do not know what this will look like. I do know that I struggle to hold onto the beauty. As soon as the misty smudges across the sky register, I am caught in longing again, wishing for more of these mornings and glowering at the thought of the return of the usual desert harshness. Like the ones in the Snow Queen story who have got tiny shards of the magical, distorting mirror in their eyes, the ugly and painful magnified in their sight.

My baby is nine months old on this morning, her arrival in July in the middle of a storm, in the first hour of the morning. I will tell her yet again how beautiful she is when I get back from my walk. Year of Beauty, the words beating a rhythm in my head to match my march across the sand. Quail skitter from one mesquite to another. The soft mixing with the hard.  Beauty and thorns.

What I’m Learning

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That breaking inertia is the hardest part
That you can’t argue with feelings
and yet motion changes emotion (see Amy Cuddy’s TEDtalk on posture for one example)
To ask for time to process, to give him a script for asking when I’m ready to discuss, and know that my response doesn’t depend on him saying it perfectly
That the times when I most feel like I want to lie in bed are often the times it’s the worst thing for me to do
That my Type 4 attachment to identity and feelings can be turned into a strength (hello, growth mindset!)
That The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s theme) is great for getting Big Feelings out
Bubbles help, too
That singing is the best use of my voice with my children
To seek the uneven ground

Practice

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  I am only just learning about practice. I mean that life is all a constant learning and growing, and not to hoard supplies or wait until we’re better. To just do. I used to stress out about not wanting to “waste” paper or paints, not understanding that they are never wasted in learning, experimenting, discovering–only in not being used.

Now, all of my life is practice.
I practice being grateful for the low early rays and cool air of the morning, for the excitement with which small children greet the sun and each other.
I practice asking for help and calm before I rise.
I practice taking a moment to take care of myself.
I practice sticking to my grocery list.
I practice being gentle with my family, taking a calming breath and reminding myself a mess is not an emergency.
I practice naming my anxiety.
I practice, every day, the life I want them to learn.

The pressure of trying to get it right every time lifts a little each time I remember. Every day is an experiment, something which my kids seem to know already. Like the person who practices yoga or meditation, practice is not for an upcoming test, or for the “real thing” later (whatever that means). The practice is the thing, the step every day on the path I want to live.

Sacral

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The chiropractor presses
my pelvis, coaxing the bones
back after they’ve spread
their boundaries. My hips protest
every morning as I pull
myself from bed, lift from a game
on the floor, shuffle down
the drive. Spaces are growing
inside me, ligaments and joints
stretching their borders even
as things become tighter, more
crowded in my stomach, my ribs.
I want to realize the wonder,
even as I swear I will never
do this again.
Someone said we never
want it to be over, even
the difficult parts. Voices
compel me to seize
the day, enjoy every thing.
But sometimes that which is sacred
holds little pleasure:
sitting with my son’s
raging, witnessing the wounds
of a friend, walking through
a spiritual shift. These joints
tearing and stretching
and becoming more
open to the point of almost
breaking. I feel ancient
with it as I swell and sway
my back on all fours,
seeking some ease.
Os sacrum.
Holy bone.
Protecting, holding
a space set apart.
An offering.

Enjoying These Moments

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Navel oranges, their juice bursting in their skins

Painting my nails while all my boys are out

Bees busy in the honey-sweet blossoms

Sketching from a favorite photograph

Listening to Beatrix Potter stories while the kids paint

Reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time

Baby Girl’s movements becoming larger, fuller

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Hone

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Skull slams my glasses, the bridge
of my nose screams and tears erupt.
This child barrels through his days,
cranium a cannon shot propelled across
the room. Parenting is a contact sport, full
of all that salt water of sweat, tears, gore
and brokenness. He exposes my weak
spots, seems to be programmed to hone
in on them, pointing out just where I need
to care a little more kindly for myself, the places
I’m tender, sensitive, bruised and wounded.

Note to Self

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I am giving notice:
my home will be more
messy than I like, our meals
will not be as balanced
or fancy as I used to make,
my makeup will be mostly
nonexistent, my clothes
will be simple and not likely
trendy. But I will see more, catch
the exact tenor of my child’s
giggle, will trace the slight
curve of his calf as he jumps
and jumps, will note the clouds
sinking like a too loose skirt
over the mountain range, the way
my son exclaims over the tiny
point of light blazing
through the marble’s shadow.