But Its Hard to Stop Eating Bananas

"You might consider how it can sometimes seem as if a great deal of what it means to be human has been stripped from our daily lives and how something as simple as the way we eat has the potential to restore so much of what we've lost." Ben Hewitt, The Town that Food Saved.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be human lately, and I can't stop thinking about this quote from the book I've just finished. Just before that one, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Both teach a lot about farming, and this national food crisis that still too few people care about. What? We're in a national food crisis?

Consider how much irreplaceable fossil fuel is used to bring bananas to every town in America, even during seasons when there is plenty of fresh fruit in a given region, waiting to be picked.  Or how much it costs in today's gas prices, to bring all the produce from California to the Northeast. Consider why it costs so much less to buy that food from California than it does to buy food grown locally at a farmer's market. Who's growing that food in California, and how are they doing it so cheaply? We can thank the families of illegal immigrants who are willing to toil for slave wages, for growing most of the food that America eats. The real crisis, even worse than those things, is that a few giant companies have a monopoly on how crops are grown, and they are overproducing a few crops like corn and soy in a way that ravages the soil, yielding thousands of acres of current farmland to be wasteland in the near future. The solution seems to be for more average, every day people to start growing food.

Sounds good to me. Its interesting that the way we've grown accustomed to getting food now leads us away from the humanity of food. We like the package. We like the price. We like the taste. It seems like we've lost the appreciation that food keeps us alive. That we depend on food, and that food depends on the land, and people to grow it.  The people growing our corn and soy, and raising most of the meat, aren't putting any love in it.  There's a vulnerability there, that's hard to admit. Hunger feels vulnerable.  You and I did not create the giant corporations, or drive the Chiquita truck from El Salvador to Rode Island. But, now that these issues expose themselves to us, lets let them sink in for awhile, gently nudging ourselves back toward a more human existence.

The Circle

I'm following this path toward a more fully engaging human experience, and I believe doing so has attracted a circle of women into my life that is so supportive, it makes me feel nervous.  I feel so excited it scares me, like falling in love.  Here's a story about that:

I have a little hernia that I am to have surgery to fix this Friday, May 11.  I asked my parents to come help with the kids, and Jimmy is nearby and willing to give extra help with them as well.  So, since that was all in place, my anxiety should subside.  But I felt so fearful.  I allowed myself a good cry, and spent some time entertaining those nagging feelings.  The truth that came out is that I felt so alone.  Asking for help is hard, and I was already depending on everyone I thought I could depend on, for the kids.

So,  I was stunned when, moments after my good cry, I read a message from a newish friend, asking if she could come with me.  She wanted to insist.  She has small children, but a mutual friend had offered to watch them, to support the first in supporting me.  It may not seem like much.  In my hour of need these offerings literally shocked me. 

A place opened in me that had been closed for some time.  A wounded place.  I was having such a strong reaction.

I'm sitting here, trying to think of words to explain how it feels.  I take care of my boys.  I adore being with them.  I can handle being a single mom all day. And, I know I have friends and family that love me, even though I may go weeks without seeing a friend, and months without seeing my family.  There is an intimacy that I long for.  I can't seem to get there with people, in spite of my best efforts.  I take what I get, and I appreciate it.  And I do understand.  I myself desperately wanted to go with my friend to chemotherapy this past winter.  I would make a plan to go and things on my end fell through every time.  I wanted to show up for her.  I did other things, whatever I could think of to give her a little boost, but I'm just saying, I know as mothers of small children, it can be very difficult to show up for your friends.

But in my quiet, reflective moments, I can admit that sometimes, I could use more care.  And, wouldn't it be nice if, sometimes, I didnt have to seek it out for myself.   I feel like, after getting the kids squared away, I can't afford to have anyone caring for me.  I just don't have enough close people to go around.  That's not the truth, but that's my slanted belief.  My wound.

The sisterhood insisted on supporting me.  I didn't have to ask.  They just showed up for me. It feels vulnerable.  I'm going to sit here with my feelings of vulnerability, and not do anything to relieve this discomfort.  What if we could get used to feeling vulnerable again?  What would that do to our relationships?  Heaven sent me a message, through these women who are amazing vessels of love. 

You are not alone, baby. 

Perspective

My spirit daughter is over two years old. Someone I hadn't seen in longer than that,  delicately asked how all that had been for me.

Looking back, I can quickly admit that I am a happier person because of the perspective I've gained.  I'm happier than I've ever been.  I'm honestly grateful for the experience.  Loving Brynn, and experiencing that deep sorrow, and exposing my most desperate self has softened me. I have been largely freed from worries. I survived what I thought I could never survive.  So I will survive it all, until I don't, and then it won't matter. 

Until Brynn died, I was unsure that people could really communicate with the dead.  But now its undeniable.  She is with me.  I hesitate to talk about it, because its hard to understand until you've experienced it.  Years ago, I would have thought the suggestion to be unchristian.  Here's how I can best describe it.  When Brynn died, the top of my head opened in direct connection with heaven.  I moved closer to heaven, and heaven moved closer to me.  I just know now.


Last night Noah was taking my tea cup to his mouth and making sounds with it, then he'd put it to Shane's mouth, then my mouth, and around again.  I thought about when I bought that mug, an earthy blue, that it reminded me of the baby I carried within, a most serene being.  Its my Noah mug.  I thought about how happy my then me would be to see this sight, the three of us, laughing and playing with it.  My happy, adorable, children with bodies that I can hold, cheeks I can press mine against.  I don't miss one moment like this.  Every moment like this makes me grateful.  This perspective is Brynn's gift to me.

I am an unemployed single mom, with one ghost baby, and I'm completely in love with my life.

When we See What we See

Weekends can be tough for the single parent.  It feels like everyone else is having family time.  Some days, I want to have something family-fun to do so badly, it gets overwhelming.  And, I really must take care not to add any unnecessary whelm to my already overwhelmed brain.

A few weekends ago I thought of the herring run.  Every spring, adult herring swim from the ocean upstream to make babies in fresh water by the droves.  They often jump out of the water in their enthusiasm for the trip.  It's an event that draws a nature-loving crowd. 

We had been sick.  The swine flu took us down one by one, recovery was sloow.  I was out of work for two weeks, which, indirectly cost me my job.  I did not see that coming.

So there I was on a Saturday morning, having hardly left the house at all for the past month, and really wanting to leave the house.  Someone on facebook mentioned that seagulls were hovering around the watershed in middleboro, hoping to catch some herring, so that was it, we jumped in the Grand Caravan hot on the trail.  By the way, I love that name for a car.  Grand Caravan.  How regal, how caravanny.  How Grand!

Well, we stopped at one place first.  None.  I drove on into Plymouth, I knew the place that never failed to reveal herring.  Fail!  I pushed the sit and stand stroller with my gigantic child and baby the length of the river ( I have a feeling "river" isn't the correct technical term).  Then we returned to the herring hot spot.  We maybe saw a handful of blurred fish parts.  Not enough to impress.  Shane was annoyed. 

I love being in Plymouth, and I was so happy to keep pushing my heavy children up the street to an awesome little coffee shop called Kiskadee for some hot chocolate and pastry, as consolation prize.

The Grist Mill, aka herring run hotspot, was on the way back to the car so we decided to stop one last time.  I was enjoying the pace of the day, and that everyone was still happy just wandering, doing nothing, really.  Nobody was whining or wanting to leave.  This felt so significant to me.  And then, we saw them.  Hundreds. We could suddenly make out that every ripple in the water was actually a fish.  There were so many fish, we had previously seen their outlines as little waves.  Now, I could not find a space in the water without a fish in it.  I was overcome.  There's a lesson here for me.

We see what we see when we're meant to see it.  Could it be that, without a job or its income, there is an overabundance all around, which will make itself available to me in God's time?  Could it be, that through all of the difficult change our family has undergone, I may have failed to notice all the blessings connecting themselves to us?

I recently read to Shane the story of the fishermen whom had been fishing all night and had caught nothing.  Exhausted, they humored a man they had just met named Jesus, who told them to put the nets back in the water.  And they caught so many fish the nets were ripping apart!  I'm on that train.  This is my story.  Wait and see, my friends.

Wind in the Willows

I was reading to Shane tonight.  By some sweet circumstance, I got Noah to bed earlier and it was just Shane and me.  This fact made me giddy, its far too rare a seen nowadays, and the simplicity of earlier years flooded me with nostalgia.

Before school.  Before I worked.  Before Jimmy's injury or layoffs.  Before a 2nd and 3rd pregnancy, before the death and the birth of a new sibling.  Before our marriage ended.

Shane and I would snuggle in my bed in the middle of the day and I would read him The Wind in the Willows.

He asks me tonight why it has that title.  I read from the last sentance of the first chapter, where Mole was relaxing in his boat, just listening to the wind blowing through the willow trees, sure that he could make out what the wind was whispering.  I explain that it was a simple and peaceful time, when there were no other cares but to listen to the sounds of nature around you. 

I feel a lump in my throat.  We have been through some hard times.  Times that have taken us so far from those innocent days.  Through it all, I kept going, what else can anyone do?  But tonight, maybe mostly for Shane's sake, I feel a sadness wash over me.  And I long for that simple time every once in awhile.  Reading books to Shane under the covers in the middle of the day.

Forgiveness

Yesterday was Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church.  Its traditional for the entire congregation to form a receiving line, so to speak, each member asking forgiveness in case they've done anything to offend the other.  It is so beautiful, though  I've been too shy to attend one of these services for a long time.

One of the questions that keeps resurfacing for me since the beginning of the end is Whose to blame?  I'm a responsable person.  I like responsability so much, that sometimes I take it all for myself.  Whose to blame? I sit around and think about all the things I could have done differently.
The power of forgiveness, is that when we focus on it, then it doesn't matter at all whose to blame.  We are both forgiven.  I wish I could inject this message into every region of my heart and mind.  I will, eventually.  It is in my highest and best not to blame.  Not my husband, not my parents, not myself.  But to forgive my husband, my parents, myself.

The power of forgiveness is that it grants the freedom to move forward at quantum speed.  I feel weighed down by my inability to forgive myself, just in general, but I will keep my focus there until it is acheived.  Because I can see that being weighed down with blame isn't good as a parent.  I see it affecting my function as a parent.  I see it affecting my child.  And I will not lose one more member of this family. 

So, I will work to forgive as though my life, and stronger still, the lives of my children depend on it.  Because they do.

The Gift

In his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz says a lot of crazy things.  Really wise, spiritual things, but so far out, so surreal.  As I read, at times my mind feels lost, but once, my eyes trailed on a group of words that felt like they were just for me.

       If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you.  If the person doesn't walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her.  Walking away may hurt for awhile, but eventually your heart will heal. .. But if you are truthful with yourself, you will save yourself a lot of emotional pain.

Oh, it hurt for awhile.  I think about some of the phone calls I made over the summer, and I have to laugh.  I was freaking out.  I was sobbing to new friends and old.  In public.  Sometimes it isn't pretty, but, being unashamed of how fallen apart we feel, diving into the wreck, so to speak, speeds up healing. I speak from experience.

I do believe that its all a gift.  Jimmy and I were in love, and we both put a lot of effort into the relationship.  Life threw us a few, more than a few curve balls, and things slowly crumbled.  A choice was made, it wasn't mine.  Even so, I'm grateful for what he was able to give.  I forgive, and I ask his forgiveness.  It stung unbelievably, but my heart is healing.

I went to a birthday party last month. I love the parties that Kerri throws for her girls. The pinatas are something I'll always remember. They are paper grocery bags, stapled together, with a colored print-out of the party theme taped to it. We made musical instruments out of paper towel rolls. Down home. Anyway, I was chatting with a mom whose also one of Kerri's nearest and dearest, assuming she knew about my latest crisis. We talked about having more kids, and somehow it became apparent that she didn't know. After we talked about it for awhile, she said something that I knew to be true as well. She said she could tell I was lighter. I seemed light. I feel light.

Taken Me a Long Time to Get Back Here

I like confession.  I love it.  It's a useful and beautiful tool we have in the Orthodox church.  There's no penance.  Just, before God, tell me what is on your heart. 

During my most recent confession, my priest told me that this, confession, was actually a requirement for someone in my position, in order to, I don't know how he worded it, but get back "in" because my marriage has ended.  Marriage, he said, is a state of grace, and you are no longer in a state of grace.

Funny, it felt to me like the opposite was true.  In fact, talking to my mom over Christmas, I used that exact phrase to explain why I was doing so well, accomodating, forgiving, forging ahead.  Mom, I'm in a state of grace, I said.

I had gone to confession in April, the day Jimmy told me our marriage was over.  I went to confession as a way of taking full responsibility for my part in the failure, to own up to all that I'd done to drive him away.  In the months that followed, I blubbered, I begged, I took the boys to give him space, time to think, time to miss us.  Nothing changed.

When he moved out in August, I was in crisis.  Overwhelmed by the feeling of rejection, triggering deep insecurities, ones that told me that there was something inherently wrong with me that rendered me unable to love and be loved.  Equally overwhelmed that I had no job, no income, and two little ones to house and feed. 

Thus the healing began.  My home is a more peaceful place, a more beautiful space, and I am thriving.

 I'm going to write about my life here, in this blog named for my daughter.  And it will bring honor to her.  Anything that is pure, from the heart, true, and shares with others so that we all feel a little less alone, honors her.  Honors us all.