A Writer's Soul

The humidity is staggering today as I sit confined to my bedroom, one of the only places in our home that actually has air-conditioning.  You have been on my mind a lot, lately.  Yes, YOU.  My lovely, intelligent, sensitive, dynamic, unique blog readers, especially the ones who have stuck with me during my unplanned, unannounced, fade-into-the-ethers blog hiatus.  I love you for sending me private notes, for continuing to check in on my blog, for knowing what I mean when I discuss my "Angel Daughters" in other places on social media.  I adore you for cajoling me, for gently poking at me, and for not forgetting about me.  I am not exactly sure why, but something shut down inside of me about a year ago.  I began to seriously lose/doubt my writing voice and it started to  frighten me…A lot.  I believe that I was born with a "writer's soul" meaning that it feels very natural for me to paint my life in words and for most of my twenties and thirties, I kept that portion of my soul buried deep within my life of domesticated, wedded, maternal, Orange County lifestyle bliss.  I put everything, and I mean everything, into raising my Angel daughters and maintaining a lovely marriage, family and home, but there was definitely a price to be paid for all of that loveliness because when the roles began to shift and I was not needed as much, I did not have a place to turn my attentions to.  I am not at all saying that I would choose a different path if I could go back to those decades when being a wife and mother was more than enough.  I am not even saying that in retrospect, I would have done very much differently because the product of all that I put in is a very successful husband who still loves me deeply after almost thirty years of marriage as much as I do him, and four incredible daughters who really are angels in so many ways.  But, the thing about being in my early(very early) fifties now, is that I do have the luxury of hindsight and reexamination and reconsideration which is forcing me to take inventory as to what worked and what did not work so well.  And one of the things that might not have worked quite so well for me is what I gave up as an individual and as a soul on a singular journey alongside a tribe of other souls whom I adore with all my heart.  It really is not so much about what I gave up because what I gave up in some areas, I gained in other areas tenfold.  It is much more about the things that I did not do for myself.  I allowed myself to get lost in the mix of the lives that surrounded mine(and this includes those outside of my immediate family) in a way that caused me to forget who I am, who I was before I became a devoted wife and mother.  I immersed myself so deeply, so fervently into who I always knew that I wanted to be, that I lost track of my own spirit and the things that called out to me as a singular person.  I lost hold of those other things that define who we are and what we should explore in order to still remain relevant to ourselves.  I completely ignored my writer's soul when I should have taken the time to nurture that part of myself.  I dismissed my own needs as a separate entity when there was someone or something else that seemed more worthy(or more needy) of my time and attention.  I allowed the voices of those around me to drown out that of my own.  I allowed myself to wilt as they blossomed.  None of this was intentional on anybody's part.  It just happened.  I am not placing the blame for this on anyone, including myself.  Self-blame would only continue the pattern and that is something that I do not wish to continue.  I will acknowledge the fact that I became who I am, who I was, because I did not have a proper role model.  My own mother would tell you that she was a "stay-at-home" mother meaning that she stayed at home when my brother and I were in school, and then mysteriously disappeared on the days when we were actually at home.  She would flit around with her friends going shopping or to lunch, never doing anything much of substance.  Or she would send us to camp during the summers, much to my protest…Anything to get us "out of her hair".  It felt like outright rejection to me and although I cannot speak for my brother, I do believe that the effect was even more profound for him than it was for me.  Even my father, who did take the time to show me affection and attention when he was around, often made me feel insignificant by spending so much time away from our family by going on "business trips" and also by pursuing women outside of his marriage to my mother.  He was a very strong father figure but he was(is) also extremely expert at compartmentalizing the different aspects of his life which is something that I realized and understood at an unusually young age.  My earliest memory of this was when I was around eight years old and my dad would bring my brother and I into his office once in a while.  He had a lovely secretary named Jennifer who I was also particularly smitten with.  She was young and beautiful and smiled at my brother and I a whole lot when we would go in to visit.  And even though she was seemingly wonderful, I would get a very strange sensation in the pit of my stomach when she would greet us, for I somehow knew that it wasn't just the fact that my brother and I were exceptionally adorable children that caused her to be so Popsicle-sweet.  She was trying to impress my father.  And as I look back now through much older and wiser eyes, I understand that Jennifer's focus was on my dad and not what pinchable cheeks my little brother had.   I liked her and I felt abject contempt for her all at the same time.  It is sad that an eight year old child was placed in a position that caused so much ambivalence at such an early age.  It is sad that my parental role models taught me more about how I would behave as an adult not through their positive behaviors, but through the selfish behaviors that I would most adamantly try to avoid as an adult, wife and mother.  I became just about everything that my parents, most especially my mother, were not.  Extensibly, I worked very hard to encompass the qualities that my parents lacked the most, so that I would be a good wife, mother, daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt and friend.  I would include my daughters in my social activities.  I would spend summers participating in outings along with my children.  I would be present and not just pretend that I was.  These were the most mindful years of my life.  And yet, like my parents who successfully failed both my brother and me, I ended up failing someone very important too.  Myself.

I am entering my fifty-third year of life as of about two weeks ago.  Even at fifty-two years old, I know that I still have so many lessons to learn, only during this second half of my life(give or take a few) I believe that the lessons will be meant to be more about fine-tuning myself.  My parents are getting not just older, but old, and with their progressing years they are becoming more like abhorrent teenagers who are definitely not as cute as they used to be.  They are teaching me to be much more self-protective and much, much more forgiving…to myself.  I can no longer languish in the self-serving nature of the expectations that they have set for me without also allowing myself to expect a certain level of respect and honor for me, their only child.  I am, I have been, and I will continue to be a good daughter, step-daughter, wife, mother, daughter-in-law, friend, etc. as long as there is the balance of reciprocation in these relationships.  I am not even requiring that the reciprocation be equal, just present.  There will be a lot for me to muddle through as I decide where, when and how the boundaries will establish and reestablish themselves, time and time again.  And if someone wants to be exceedingly angry with me for no valid or apparent reason I will no longer beg for their forgiveness.  I will only forgive myself for not being the person that they would like to try to make me into.  I will float above the guilt that I used to drown in.  I will let them do them, and I will do me.

I will say it here as it will force me to be much more accountable from now on out.  I am going back to exploring my writer's soul.  Writing brings me clarity and balance and peace.  Seeing my own words reflected back at me on a page allows me to feel validated in a way that nothing else does.  It makes me feel heard and uninterrupted.  I cannot be cut short by spasmodic breaks in my train of thought when I write.  And because I am also a good listener, certain people cannot resist the temptation to take advantage of the spotlight that I seem to provide when they inadvertently interrupt what I might be saying out loud.  Writing allows me to be heard without constant fits and starts that cause me to give up trying.  One of my goals is to write a book.  In order to accomplish this, I will have to honor the part of myself that is a writer.  I will need to become more authentic about how I present my own story and if there are certain people who are a part of my story who might not like or appreciate what I have to write about them, then that will have to become a part of their life-lesson, no longer mine.  Maybe it would have done them some good to have behaved better, kinder, more thoughtfully, or more respectfully.  My story is about me, not about them.  We are all adults here.

*If anyone has any suggestions about how to get started in a regular writing routine, please do share them with me!  I would love some feedback about this as a fledgling writer whose wings are still quite wet!

And now, a few photos of the Four Angel's Momma family to catch everyone up a bit!  I promise more in the near future.  I hope that everyone is well!

So happy together. 

Angel Daughter Number Three and my beloved Angel Husband, Mark.

Angel Daughter Number Two and her sweet boyfriend, Justin.  AD4 is holding their puppy Layla Rose.

Angel Daughter Number One enjoying her 27th Birthday in June!

Angel Daughter Number Four is still dancing her heart out!

And Sometimes the Waves Will Block the Sun

It has been a rough couple of weeks and sometimes it feels as though coming up for a deep breath is something that might just never, ever happen.  Amongst a rise in blood pressure(at a regular monthly check with my pain doctor) which was precipitated by a seemingly never-ending conversation with my mother and her husband that stressed me out in a way that is not at all healthy and finding out that my best friend's father whom I have known for thirty-seven years passed away that morning, I became even more focused on the numbers flickering frantically at me from the monitor.  That caused the numbers to increase even higher which prompted my doctor to inform me earnestly that if she made me sit there for another ten minutes so that she could take it for a third time, it would more than likely rise even higher at which point she would be forced to send me to the ER just to be on the safe side.  Considering how much I dislike the ER, coupled with the fact that I have not had a problem with high blood pressure in the past, I hightailed it out of there.  When I reached the safety of my car, I promptly called my general doctor to schedule a long overdue physical for next week and then, I called my husband and cried.  I am not a crier by nature, but the toll that all of this had taken on my body caused a flood of tears to rush to the surface and before I even knew it, I was sobbing uncontrollably.  I am a very strong woman living inside of a body that I feel has failed me over the past ten or so years.  Each day, I wake up in pain following night after night of terribly disruptive sleep which is another reason that my blood pressure might have been high.  Pain causes elevations in blood pressure, but chronic pain can cause a constant elevation in blood pressure.  This scares the hell out of me.  My brother had high blood pressure for most of his adult life and although he was being treated for it, his heart eventually failed.  His heart failed.  Rationally speaking, I know that my brother and I have/had very different bodies and since both of our parents are still alive, there is a very good chance that I will be here for a very long time, as well.  But still.  I get scared sometimes.  And when things are extra hard, I absorb too much emotion from other people which really causes my heart to physically ache.  My mother is a master of bringing me to the edge of my own sanity with her constant guilt-tripping and it just breaks my heart.  First I become devilishly angry with her, and then my heart just throbs because it should not be this way.  She thinks that she and her husband should be my responsibility.  I have watched them behave in ridiculously financially irresponsible ways for over thirty years and now, they have reached near-bottom, yet it is not their fault.  Never their fault.  And even though Mark and I have given them $1500.00 in the past couple of months, it is never enough.  It can never be enough.  So the waves in my soul rise up with pain and anger and it can take days for them to calm down enough to show the sun again.  But I know that the sun is there and I will always bring myself back to a place in which I can calm the waves.  It just takes time and the older that I get, the harder it is to bring my body back into a state of balance after one of these incidents.  I see the lessons that I am meant to be learning in all of this, but how can I totally ever walk away from my own mother?  Especially when I am all that she has left at this point in her life.  After all of the tests that we must experience during this lifetime, why can't there be an answer key that we can refer to, just to make sure that we are coming up with the correct answers after each test is complete?  I want, so badly, to do this right.

More importantly, one of my Angel Daughters is going through some very difficult heartache of her own right now and since my heart is spiritually connected to each one of my children's hearts, my soul has been so heavy with her sadness, only this is a sadness that I would gladly carry for any one of my children at any point in time.  We have been taking it one day at a time and I know that she will make it through to the other side of all of this, but to watch her going through this has been heart-wrenching.  To observe one of my typically happy daughters experiencing this depth of anguish is almost beyond any other pain that I have ever had to endure.  The other night, I watched her rock back and forth on my bathroom floor as she expressed to me the amount of pain that she was feeling.  And although I could completely relate to the level of loss that she was coping with, there was so little that I could do to comfort her except to allow her to sink down into the treacherous waves of her own deeply wounded soul while acting as a lifeline if she needed it.  She is such a sensitive spirit and her pain has been so palpable.  But I have put everything else on hold for the moment in order to focus upon being her mother and in doing so, she has expressed to me that I am the only one who has been able to make her feel better.  Thank you, dear God, for endowing me with enough maternal instinct to be able to soothe my child's tender soul.

Of course there have been sunny moments in the midst of all of this.  There always are.  They are what sustain me.  There are just times when we must allow ourselves to exist in the middle of it all in order to prove to ourselves that we indeed, can.  None of this will kill my mother, or me, or my daughter.  It will just prove to those of us who are capable of understanding that there are lessons in all of it.  It will teach us to learn from the difficulty and the anguish and then to move forward on to the next lesson.  If there was not difficulty or pain in life, then how would we really know what it means to feel unbridled joy?

Time to get back to my sweet girl.

Some Thoughts on Casey Anthony

I have been thinking a whole lot about motherhood today.  A whole lot.  I have been thinking about maternal instinct, about where it resides within our souls and if, indeed, there has been some sort of a disconnect over the course of the past several decades between what a mother should feel toward her own offspring and the selfish need to separate herself from them very shortly after they are expelled from her very body.  This is not to say that all or even most mothers suffer this disengagement from their own children but still, now being on the very tail-end of raising my own four daughters I have witnessed enough of it to call it a frightening trend as I see it.  And for the sake of argument and my own expert experience(I have a culmination of 81 plus years of practice as a mother), I am only discussing women here, as we are the vessels from which our children come forth, we are the ones whose bodies come equipped with the unique abilities to both birth and nourish our babies, and we are the ones who are supposed to protect our children with the force of a mother bear or even the instinctual anger of a mother bird whose young have been threatened.  Yet there is so much to the contradiction as to how we, as mothers, are internally programed to behave.  There is situation after situation after sad, unbelievable situation which leads me to believe that the predisposed instinct for a mother to guard her children with the strength of 1000 men, is somehow being mutated out.  Yes, mutated out.  And the more that I witness mothers placing their own needs before the needs of their young children, the more that I watch as babies are left behind so that mothers can fulfill their own desires, the more that I hear story after story about abuse, neglect and even murder, the more that I feel this inherent need to stand up for those whose voices can so easily be ignored or silenced.  Permanently silenced.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat and watched as this momma bird first taught her fledgling how to find food and then, how to eat without assistance.  Every year, we have several nests around our homes that we watch with great excitement.  The mother and father birds methodically build a nest tiny stick, by tiny stick finishing with the soft hair from our dogs that they somehow find from around our yard.  The momma birds lay several eggs on which they roost as the father birds stay close by and chase any predatory birds from going near the nest.  This is obviously all about instinct and survival as Finches are not really known for their intellect and rationality.  But we have observed as they have chased a bird that is four to five times the size of them away from the vicinity of their nest equipped with nothing but pure guts and instinct.  It is quite a sight to see.  Each night, after the eggs have hatched and the mothers return from foraging for food, they return to the sweet chirps of their hungry babies which they seem to feed with love and care.  It is after that stage of development that the mothers then bring the babies to the sources of food and teach them how to eat on their own.

Down at our beach home, we keep a feeder outside of our door and the birds have come to count on it as a regular food source.  As I observed this mother and her baby sitting on the top of the pole, the momma would also try to get her baby to follow her to the feeder.  After a while, the baby decided that it was much easier for its mother to feed it directly and so, the momma gave in.

She did not fly away from her baby.  She did not push her off of the pole for some hungry predator to consume.  She did not even seem to mind having to feed her growing baby.

She just instinctually, gently, and from my very human perspective, lovingly placed tiny morsels of food into the babies mouth.

When I looked at these pictures the other day, I had a completely different post in mind.  I was touched by the patient instinct of this mother bird.  I felt a sort of alliance with her.  This series of photos reminded me of what it is like to be a mother, of how at every stage of my children's development, I had the inherent desire to nurture, to nourish and to protect them from any harm that the world might try to perpetrate upon them.  This mother birds tenderness with her fledgling reminded me that I would always feel a sense of tenderness toward my own daughters.

After watching so much of the news coverage about Casey Anthony today, I was stunned, absolutely stunned by the idea that not only could a mother allow 31 days to pass without reporting the fact that her two year old daughter was missing, but also shocked and disgusted that there are 12 people down in Florida who could ignore this very basic, very non-disputable fact.  And although I do not usually use this blog to discuss my own sentiments about the conditions in this world, this one hit far too close to home for me to ignore.  You see, on the day that I had my first child 24 years ago, I became a parent first.  When I looked into the eyes of my newborn babies, we became connected for life.  For life.  No sooner could 31 seconds pass if one of my daughters went missing or was out of my sight than I would be frantic and absolutely panic-stricken with fear.  I would grab anyone who could help me by the collar and beg them to find my child, no questions asked, no tales spun.  I have heard enough about how we "all grieve differently".  I have heard enough about Casey's accusations of abuse.  I have heard enough about "fantasy forensics".  Have we truly thrown all common sense out with the evolution of so much me, me, me?


I am both disturbed and proud to admit that I can relate more strongly to a backyard Finch, than I can to a 25 year old mother, her defense team, and 12 jurors down in Florida.  My heart aches for a baby whom I never knew.  A baby whose grave was a watery swamp.  A baby whose body was picked away at by bugs and hungry animals.  A baby who knew too well, the juxtaposition of love and sheer hate.  A baby whose own mother spent 31 days dancing on her grave and now, gets to do so again.

To Notice

My four angel daughters.  Four individual people born out of a singular love.  Each one unique.  Each one beautiful beyond words.  Each one a pain in the tush from time to time, but each one, the love of my life.

Looking at these pictures, I can see the differences.  The distinct personalities.  The small nuances which make them all special.  Angel Daughter Number Two tilts her head in a subtly coy manner.  It is as if to say, "I'm full of mischief, but I will distract you with my adorable smile."  If not for this face, she would have been grounded for a whole lot more during her high school years!  Sweet.  Friendly.  But there is a knowing to how she lives her life.  An intuition that quietly reminds anyone who she meets, that this is someone who you should remember.  Someone whose name you should keep.

Angel Daughter Number Four with her unequivocal personal style.  She has to be the most self-assured sixteen year old that I have ever met.(and I have met a lot of sixteen year olds!)  Positively comfortable in her own skin.  Reasonable beyond her sixteen short years.  She not only received the benefit of two very experienced parents, but three older sisters to learn from.  She is the culmination of a very busy, very loving household.

Angel Daughter Number Three.  My blue-eyed girl.  Feminine.  Prissy.  My springtime breeze.  What you see is what you get.  There is a matter-of-factness about her that lets those around her know that they will be doing it her way.  She might get the joke, but she will only laugh if she wants to.  And when she does, everyone around her laughs, too.

Angel Daughter number One.  Poised.  Puts children inside of giant bubbles!  Takes on her Cinderella stance when her momma is serious about taking a picture that nobody really wants to be in.  She is lovely.  Kind-hearted.  Gentle.  And sometimes she forgets how powerful she truly is.  She recently landed a job in which there were at least one thousand applicants.  One thousand applicants!  She was one of twenty-three who got hired.  That's power.  Use it for good, my dear.

It is up to us to notice the unique characteristics in those whom we love.  Especially and most importantly, our own children.  The world is full of individuals who have been scarred by never being noticed for who they are.  For what they have to contribute.  For their anomalous gifts.  How many resources have been wasted just by being brushed over?  My heart breaks to consider the numbers.

With each one of my daughters, I envisioned a clean slate.  A solitary spirit with unparalleled capacities.  With each one, I observed.  I took in the details.  I nurtured the differences.

And with each one, I still observe as they evolve and grow and transition into who they will continue to become.  The essence of who they have been still remains strong, but the ability to thrive, to change, to embrace the gifts as they come, therein lies the future.

And as their momma, it is up to me to remind them that they are each not only one in one thousand, but one in one million.  To notice each and every new feather that appears in their wings.  To not compare them to me, or their father, or their friends, or each other, but to who they have been and who they are now becoming.

To notice.  To notice.  To notice.

And to acknowledge, accept and acquiesce.

I try to notice the gifts of not only my angel daughters, but of anyone whom I might come in contact with throughout the course of a day.  There is something to notice about everybody.  I am not saying that there are days in which I am feeling rather crummy myself, and I forget to take the time.  But most days, I notice.  And I say something nice.  And in return, I receive a very genuine smile.

Who would you be if someone took the time to notice?  To really notice you?

Meditations on Observation

I spend a lot of time in quiet observation. There has never been a time in my life, when I have done more of this than during the past eighteen months. When my brother died on February 17, 2008, something inside of me withered and crumbled, leaving behind a spirit that was scarred in a way that even I could not fully comprehend. And I am now beginning to understand how incredibly hurt my soul has been. How deeply damaging my own mother's behavior was to my fragile psyche during a time when all I really needed, was someone to mother me. I had never asked for or even expected it before. I knew that in so many ways, she was incapable. But oh how I needed a mother during that time, and oh how she betrayed such a simple petition. All has been forgiven. Because I chose to. Because I knew that it was the right thing to do. Because I could not be the one to leave my own mother, childless. But even now, I am writing through the pain. It runs through my body like thick mud through a very narrow canal, pulsating against the margins of skin. Thick with betrayal and sadness and confusion.

So, I thin it down with forgiveness. I speak to her, I see her, I listen to her. I love her, but I just cannot like her. She has caused me too much pain over the course of my forty-seven years. And yet she clings to me. She tells me that spending time with me is like medicine for her, without even realizing that it is toxic for me. I hate this. I want it to be different, but it cannot be. She has done too much harm and all that I can offer her is forgiveness.

So, I retreat into the realm of quiet observation. I observe short vignettes into the lives that go on around me. I quietly watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of something that will heal my wounded heart. I know what a healthy relationship looks and feels like, because I have created and nurtured many in my life, but still, there is something missing that should be there. And I mourn its loss, even while it is still alive.

I have recently begun catching up on all of the health-related appointments that I skipped during the past year. Our family has been going to the same dentist for over fifteen years. When he asked me why I had missed a cleaning, I admitted something to him while admitting it to myself. For the past year and a half, I had checked out. I stopped going to all of the appointments that I was so good about going to in the past. I did not do it consciously, but in some ways, it was a mindful decision. I was not interested in dealing with the body, when the spirit felt so lost. My chronic illness exacerbated this by allowing me to wallow in the physicality of my pain. It began to feel as if I was giving up, fading away, giving in. And then I went to the dentist, and after finding out that he wants me to come back again sooner than normal, something in my soul shook loose. I realized that I was falling behind in my life. I began to realize that I was observing my own life from a kind of detached, other-worldly place, and that if I continued on that path, the result could be devastating. So yesterday, I went back to the gynecologist for the first time since 2007 and I now have plans to get my mammogram, get back to my hematologist/oncologist every three months for blood work and to visit my dermatologist to get checked for any suspicious sun damage. After sending my dear husband, Mark, in to find out how to combat any further sun damage, and then finding out yesterday, that he has a very mild form of skin cancer that must be removed from the bridge of his nose, my world of observation became an even more dangerous place. It is time to do more than just observe.

So as I slowly make my way back up to the surface of my life, here are a few of the observations that I made over the past year and a half. May they serve as reminders for us all.

Toss away negative feelings in the same way that you might throw a ball. Physically find a way to let them go, whether it be by throwing some rocks into the ocean, or releasing a balloon into the air. Utilizing a physical symbol to sustain the idea that we are letting go, is a good way to reinforce it.

Create lots of memories and then photograph them. I cannot tell you how comforting the pictures that I have of myself with my brother are. There are just not enough of them. Take lots of pictures. Be absolutely sure to include yourself in them. Oh and do not worry about scrapbooking or putting them in albums. It's the memories that are crucially important, not how you file them away.
Look for beauty in the beliefs and traditions of others while still honoring your own. There is so much to be gleaned from observing the things that give meaning to lives of others. This woman held my attention for quite some time. The way that she looked in her sari made me wish that I could wear one, too.
Try to view the time spent waiting, as perfect timing. Recently, a friend wrote about an incident in which she avoided being involved in a car accident that occurred a few cars ahead of her because she was running a few minutes late. The Universe has timing that we cannot possibly understand.
Accept your own beauty in the same way that you appreciate the beauty that you observe in others. I might not be the exact weight that I would like to be, at this point in time, but so what. I am here, I am alive and I am wonderful.(There. Now I said it, so you can, too!)
Take comfort in the arms of those you love and who love you. To me, there is nothing better than a genuine, heart-felt hug.
Enjoy the company of someone else. Absorb each other's energy. Discover the things that are important to the other person. Collect sea glass!
Never stop searching for more. We will never know what we can possibly know unless we continue to be curious.
As I move forward into another phase of my life, one in which I promise to be a better mother to myself, I know that I will continue to observe. It is what I do. It is how I make sense of the world. It is how I metabolize meaning. But I will also continue to force myself to become more proactive. It will still take some time for the dull ache which has consumed my soul for the past year and a half to subside, but I will remain more aware of it and what it does to my life. And like a good mother, I will schedule all of those appointments that I neglected in 2008, and I will get my blood work drawn whether it hurts me or not.(It does.) I will check back into life. Slowly, steadily with both observation and action.