Freelance

What is that? It has the word free in it so it must be good. There's nothing like feeling free. Freedom. My lovely Janis Joplin always sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Even put that way it must be good.

This new freelance thing. It's a bit scary. I'm not sure I can continue my babysteps and freelance at the same time. I'm too black and white. I'm all or nothing.

Luckily, I'm able to really enjoy and appreciate the time I spend writing and I haven't quite begun freelance writing yet.

So I think I'll stay here for a little while longer. The blogosphere is a fantastic and a wonderful place but with so many facets. Some I like and some I fear.

In any case. I'm going to write. I have an actual deadline for an article.

Bonsoir.

Safe Havens

We all have our places where we can go either figuratively or literally to feel safe. For some of us it is a place that's easily accessible and we live our day primarily in a safe place whereas for others it's only a state of mind or a brief moment that is not easy to get to.

I am writing from a place of privilege. I'm a minority only by being a woman. I have shelter, a healthy family, a supportive and thriving extended family, and the means to provide well for them. However, I still feel like the world I present to my kids and my family isn't the right one. We're living in a time and a culture of frenzy. I often feel like I was born in the wrong era. I think the hard hands-on work of being a pioneer woman is more "me". Yes, I wouldn't have modern medicine, a car and all the "luxuries" of my life, but when I really look at those luxuries (except maybe modern medicine) I would happily trade them to be able to feel that I'm living my life and living life as a family without feeling that we've been tied to a horse and dragged through it.

I know I would also miss a lot of the freedoms that women have now and definitely modern plumbing. Truth be told, I actually like camping and going to the bathroom en plein air (unless my father is there to yell "Bull!" after having passed a fenced in bull minutes before). I think it would be the fact that everyone else also uses the same facilities, or lack thereof that would bother me.

Back to safe havens. I'm thinking about this because for so long I have thought that with both women and men working full time jobs in many families that we have not found a solution for the children of these families. We don't take into account that every family needs caretakers and it's not an "on the side" kind of job. Our grandparents and parents age and our children, in sickness and in health, need us as they grow. Not only are our families spread out across the nation and the globe, but our time is spent at work, thinking about work, getting to work, and unwinding from work. With the recent Safe Haven law in Nebraska catching everyone off guard, a spotlight has been placed on families who have abandoned children that they have raised for up to 17 years. On the news you hear how shocked and horrified people are that children (not infants) are being given up. But if you think about the cost of medical care in this country, the lack of support for families of children with special needs in many parts of the country, and the pressures of every day life, I don't think it would be too hard to imagine. Take your life and start stripping away some of the privileges you may have (health, a job, health insurance, a home, family/friends to support you, a car or public transportation, food for your family, self confidence, dignity)add a child or several children and perhaps one tragedy (loss, mental health problems, addiction, medical problem, ailing family members) and you can quickly see that a difficult life could become unbearable.

As I said before, I am writing from a place of privilege. My country and state allows me to be married. I have all I need, and more, for a good life, but still I don't think I provide a safe haven or the kind of safe haven I would like for my family to have. I don't like that my children see their parents over-tired and worn out more often than not. It's ironic because it's their lack of sleep at the moment that is pushing the envelope on that front. I think we have to slow down and adjust our priorities a little bit. It's hard when the rest of the city and the rest of the country, and more and more the rest of the world is moving at hurricane speed around you, but I think it's important for me and for us to find a way to spend at least a good portion of our time in the eye of the storm. My goal this "holiday season" is to start trudging towards that calm still place. I'm going to try to bring as many people with me as I can, but I won't be able to do it alone.

On the food front, I'd like to have more family meals. The children love holiday meals because we're all together and we sit together and enjoy our food together. We'll never have every dinner together, that's not realistic for us, but we could try to have as many weekend meals together as possible and perhaps one or two during the week.

On the home front, it's going to take longer and it might not be perfect, but including the kids in the gardening, cooking, and house projects is the best way to get things done right now.

We'll see how it goes.

Running: Part II

I've never been great a keeping a diary. I loved the idea, but it just never happened. I think having a journal or scrapbook is such a nice thing to have, but it just isn't me. I have random poems and snippets of written stuff all over the house, but it is not consistent. Now, I easily realise something that I've known for a long time: I run from myself. Having children has made it more difficult to escape this fact. I have always kept a busy schedule. I thrive off of that. And in fact, I believe that I need that. I don't have any deep dark secrets or a terrible past that I'm running from. I just can't function when it's about me. It being anything. I'm learning slowly to take things for myself, but I'm not very good about it yet.

What I need most is time and space and to be perfectly honest being mom of two young children and wife to a wonderful husband who happens to be the opposite of me in this matter makes this difficult to say the least. It's a bit like a three-legged race, but I'm not tied to a peer of got the two kids and husband tied to me. The husband happens to be a triathlete, the two year old is running off happily in his own world and the four year old is trying to drag me along wherever she goes.

Instead of running off on my own creative path, I'm taking some laps on a track. So here I find myself doing a small job which I love. I'm making someone else's scrapbook. I get to do the creative thing. It's a real job (real enough for me anyway) and it's not about me or my family. Their things are in a box (slightly nicer than the Bazooka gum box my childhood memories are in at my parent's house).
I'm also finding that this blog and now my examiner articles are the closest I'm going to get to a journal or diary right now. I'm okay with that...because this is for me a little and I can share it with friends and family.

I'm going to keep running. That's what I do and that's how I function, but I will take moments to warm up, do a little breathing, and stretch myself.

A Little Sun Peeking Behind the Clouds

This morning I woke up to the sounds of Henry screaming. I'd have to say that I hate waking up to an alarm and I usually woke up before it went off when I had one, but the most jarring way to start one's day is to the sound of your screaming child. Apparently there was a juice cup issue that was of monumental proportions for a couple seconds.

I've been feeling ill for two weeks because I have a cold that my asthma lungs cannot shake and I woke up to another humid, dreary morning.

I walk down into a warmly lit kitchen with the children seated at the table having their breakfast with daddy. They are both already dressed, Hallelujah, this means we can get out the door on time.

After breakfast, the kids snuggle up on the couch for a "morning show" and we hear a baby crying on the monitor in the playroom..then we hear a faint "Head and shoulders, knees and toes...and a baby laugh." I point out to my children that there is a baby crying on the monitor and they hold their bodies still and listen carefully. They hear the mommy singing and the baby stop crying and laugh. They both explode with giggles. This lightness, compassion and happiness envelopes me and takes me out of myself for a little while out of my cold, somewhat frenetic, racing life. We sit there together listening and giggling. That sound of laughter as a reaction to laughter is exponentially lighter and more joyful than any other.

Then, I swear it really happened no lighting or special effects, as we gathered our things to walk out the door, the clouds floated by and the sun lit our day.

Happy Thursday.

Running Part II

(soon...but not yet).

Running Part 1

I've been running all day every day for at least the last four years and really as long as I can remember.

As a child I remember loving hallways and big open fields to run through. The feeling was one of freedom and space and pure bliss. Once I started school I remember running at recess with my friends. We were always inventing games, running around the small school yard that seemed enormous at the time. As we got older, we played organized sports: hockey on the makeshift ice field, baseball, races. When we were a bit older we ran to tackle "keep-away" was the game of choice and it encouraged a lot of physical contact.

At Bates dance camp, I began to run before classes just for the extra work-out since one of my dorm-mates wanted company. Summers in between college I ran at home to stay in shape until I realized that running made me feel like @#$% and I hated it.

Most recently, after Henry was born I chose to enter a triathlon with my friends and relay-mates Megin and Sue. I thought I'd have no problem training for a triathlon so long as I just did the run. I had a single stroller and a double stroller for the kids and I'd just go running. I see moms in the 'hood doing it all the time. Well I never did run much with the stroller. I trained a bit on the treadmill, worked with a trainer and tried to run. But in fact, I realise now my running has never been primarily on the track, at the gym, or around the neighbourhood. I'm much to much of a philosopher, an over-thinking, a critic and a judge to be the child I was running through the tall grasses or shiny hallways. I can sometimes re-create that feeling when I go for a run/walk at the track nearby or playing with the children in the fields at Danehy. I loved to run as a child not because of the running and the speed. I loved to run because I was celebrating the space around me...I relished the feeling of being alone in the world with no strings attached.

Judgement Days

Today, I learned a bit more about myself and have perhaps found a little key to change and to free myself. I know that I'm judgemental. It is part of who I am. I remember in my senior year at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, NY that we all took the Myers-Briggs test. My results were ridiculous looking, but probably quite true to self. Each bar barely left the center, except for two N and J. The N was for intuitive. The longest bar was the J: Judgemental. I wasn't surprised by any of this. I'm honest and think that I see things as they are, but really that's not the whole picture. I thought seeing things as they are and highlighting all flaws and noticing "perfections" was seeing things as they are. In fact, what I now know is that I don't have to judge everything.

What brought this to my attention was seeing my daughter be tentative about trying new things. After ballet class, she'd say "Mom, I didn't know how to dance like a dolphin. How does a dolphin dance? Do you know?". She's judging herself before she even gives herself a chance. She "over thinks". At home in just the right setting and with the right activity, she lets loose and is herself; her carefree self. Our best times together are when we both let loose, dancing in the kitchen, laughing about a moment that just tickled our funny bone.

The moments that I enjoy most myself are when I'm watching the kids' play alone or with one another. These are magic moments and I know now, they are moments without judgement. I'm not looking to improve, modify, assess, valuate anything. I see, I hear, I smile, on occasion cringe, and sometimes I swear I can feel my heart swell.

So now along with baby steps, I am going to try to have more moments without judgement.