Soul Gardening

To See The Sky

Sometime last fall, I realized that I could read while I was breastfeeding Myles. I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me in the five months prior. I think it was partly because my head had been in such a fog that I couldn't focus long enough to digest much more than a magazine article. And once I started reading, I couldn't stop.

I was a voracious reader as a little girl and some of my favorite books were those that people wrote about themselves - a little girl who beat cancer after having her leg amputated, a Belgian family sent to concentration camps for hiding Jews, a woman who became a paraplegic after a diving accident, a man who was burned over 80% of his body.

Stories of survivors of all kinds were fascinating to me because I was struggling to survive as well, although I don't think I ever made that connection. I was obsessed with learning about people and how their experiences shaped them, forged and tempered them, made them stronger.

It's been a long time since I've read a memoir. Somehow as I got older, it didn't seem as important to me to focus on the experiences from my past because I wanted so desperately to move past them. The lies we tell ourselves to survive as children of abuse do not serve us well as adults and once we overcome them, it's difficult to go back.

I recently read Felicia C. Sullivan's book The Sky Isn't Visible From Here as a review for the Parent Bloggers Network. This true story took me in and didn't let me go until I had read it in three days and then picked it up and read it again.

Felicia's story is harrowing and terrible and so familiar in parts that it was hard to read. She recounts the story of growing up with a mother who was not only an abusive addict but most likely also a borderline personality or worse. 

In reading it, I had to constantly remind myself that this book was not fiction. These things actually happened to a little girl who not only lived through them, but beat every single odd stacked against her to become a writer who is able to tell her incredibly sad and sometimes terrifying story in a way that makes you understand exactly how her life was shaped by the horrible things she endured.

As someone who has struggled with my own parental demons, although not nearly to the extent that she did, I can completely relate to Ms. Sullivan's fight to not become just like the mother (in my case it was my father) who took so much away from her.

Like Ms. Sullivan I wasted a good portion of my twenties denying that my father had had any influence at all on my life, denying that I was angry at him, denying that I needed help to learn how not make the same mistakes he did.

More than anything else, this book made keenly aware of what an enormous responsibility it is to be a mother and how much our children's lives are shaped by what we do and who we choose to be for them.

The reader may have a hard time following the time line of the story. Ms. Sullivan skips back and forth between her childhood and adulthood quite a bit and it does require you to pay close attention or flip back and forward to get the proper perspective. But other than this small thing, the book is really an amazing read.

Thank you to Felicia Sullivan for telling this story. I know it could not have been an easy thing to relive. And thank you for reminding me of the strength, forgiveness, grace and courage it takes to be a survivor.

Other reviews of The Sky Isn't Visible From Here can be seen at the Parent Bloggers Network.

The Memory Keeper

Yesterday I took Myles to a portrait studio to commemorate his first Christmas. I'm not a big fan of posed pictures, but once you become a parent, you end up doing a lot of things you never thought you'd do, like eating on the toilet and leaving the house covered in saliva with baby shit and snot on your clothes.

Anyway, looking through Myles' Christmas pictures made me think about some photos I have of myself as a baby at Christmas time. There are two pictures that I'm curious about. One is me in a velvet plaid dress in a photography studio looking angelically up at the camera. The other is a department store Santa with me on his lap looking more than a little dubious about the whole situation. 

I was born in June, which would have made me about six months old for my first Christmas. Both of the photos are presumably of my second Christmas because I look to be more like a year and a half, definitely not a baby. I suppose I could be two and a half.

The point is, I'll never know. There are no dates or ages on the back of the photos and I don't have anyone to ask. These are the times when I really miss my mom with an ache that sits like a stone on my chest. There are big holes in my past that will always remain unfilled.

Christmas was her favorite holiday so I'm sure she loved getting me all dressed up and taking me to sit for portraits or waiting in line for pictures with Santa. And more than anything I wish she could be here to do those things with Myles. I never even thought about Christmas pictures until Jeff's mom mentioned it to me.

And that is where I need to become much more proactive. I have every intention of being around when Myles is my age to help him fill in the blanks, to tell him about where photos were taken, to reminisce about how he was as a baby for all the things he's too young to remember. I'm sure my mom never considered that she wouldn't be here to do the same for me.

This is the legacy of being a motherless daughter. It's up to me to make sure that Myles' history is documented in photos, written down for him on the backs of pictures, in baby books photo albums and journals in case Jeff and I aren't able to share those things with him when the time comes.

 

Someday Myles will turn this photo over and see written in my messy scrawl: "December, 2007 Myles' First Christmas, 7 months".  It is my fervent hope that I'll be there to tell him what a ham he was for the photographer and how I forgot one of his shoes at home and had to buy him a new pair.

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There's a new post and a review of the amazing HP Photosmart A626 photo printer up at The Full Mommy today. This printer, along with the new HP Photo Books (currently on sale at HP for 20% off) is going to make my job of chronicling Myles' life a lot easier.

This has been one of my all time favorite product reviews because the printer has been so fun and easy to use. Seriously, if you're in the market for a printer for yourself or for a Christmas gift you should check this out. And as always, you can read other reviews at the Parent Bloggers Network this week. 

*Photo courtesy of Portrait Innovations

 

Absolution

I've heard that the son must bear the burdens of the father
But it's the daughter that's left to clean up the mess
And I don't want you to think that I'm asking for absolution...

- Cowboy Junkies, First Recollection

I fear I'm becoming the one thing I have most dreaded since I was old enough to know that it was what I never wanted to be.

I've written before about my father - his anger, depression and emotional unavailability. Somehow, this post-partum mix of sleeplessness, the hormonal roller coaster, minor family issues and major life changes is causing me to be just like him. And I can't take it anymore.

I don't know what I expected post-partum depression to be. I suppose I thought as long as I wasn't crying all the time, unable to get out of bed or thinking of hurting Myles, I was okay. I never expected the crushing anger and frustration that have blindsided me and seem to be the most pervasive emotions in my life at the moment.

It's getting to the point that I can't stand being around myself. I can barely find the patience I need to deal with Myles. I'm short with Jeff. I can't relax. The simplest things make me either overwhelmingly frustrated or on the brink of flying into a rage. And it's getting more and more difficult for me to control.

I have an appointment to talk with someone this week because I can't do this on my own anymore. If need be, I'll start medication. I need to get this under control now. Before it gets worse, before I get worse. I'm not myself and I can't let this go on any longer.

I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to feel like this. I don't want to be angry at my husband all the time. I don't want to be frustrated with my child more than I am happy with him.

But more than anything else, I don't want Myles to have any memories of me this way.

I thought I had laid my feelings about my father to rest, but every time I find myself feeling out of control, I start to hate him all over again even though very little of this is a direct result of anything he did. I just feel so out of control.

Hate, anger, negativity, frustration - these are not words I want to use to describe myself and my life. I'm not going to let this happen. I've already let it go too far and there are things that I've said and done that I can't take back and that makes me feel incredibly guilty.

Maybe I am looking for absolution after all.

I'm Not A Fashion Victim, I'm Just Sentimental

I've owned this chambray shirt since the dawn of the Grunge era. I wore it almost every day back when Siouxie and the Banshees was my favorite band, Dr. Martens were always on my feet and a gravity bong was a fixture on my coffee table.

It's not hip, or fashionable in the least. It's frayed and has holes in the cuffs and elbows. I've worn it to paint the last four apartments condos and houses I've lived in so it's stained with no less than six paint colors. 

Including this red that makes me look like I just hacked someone up with a chainsaw.

I love this shirt. It's worn to just the right softness. I wear it all the time, even out in public. In fact I'm wearing it now as I type this post.

Its very existence reminds me of a time in my life that, while a bit hazy (see: gravity bong) was a lot of fun. And all the paint stains serve as reminders of the many places I've been since then.

My wardrobe is in desperate need of retooling at the moment. Most of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me, but that doesn't mean I should still be wearing them. Half of my closet is filled with suits and formal clothes from my past corporate life that I'll likely not wear again for a long enough time that they'll be out of style. The other half is filled with things that just aren't "me" anymore.

So as soon as I'm done breastfeeding next spring, I'll be doing a complete overhaul. But I can promise you, this shirt won't be be among the piles of clothes headed to Goodwill.

Chances are they wouldn't take it anyway.

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This post is brought to you by the Parent Bloggers Network. They're launching a review campaign of The Little Black Book of Style by project runway's Nina Garcia, who would be mortified at the very idea of my chambray shirt.

Write a post of your own by Midnight tonight PST with a photo of your worst fashion faux pas and you can enter to win a $250 Coach gift certificate. 

   

Goodbye, Princess Buttercup

When Jeff and I first moved to Columbus, OH in January of 2004, one of the things we loved best about the house we bought there was the sunken cement koi pond in the side garden. By the time spring rolled around, the weather thawed and we had a chance to get in there and see the state of things, we realized it was in serious need of some tender loving care.

We spent hours on weekends cleaning out gallons of dead leaves, detritus and other effluvia. It was like a pet cemetery at first. We removed at least 10 dead fish, three dead bullfrogs and even a squirrel carcass. We bought new filters and plant life and a heater so it wouldn't freeze over in the winter. Jeff got the fountains running again. Before long, the pond ecosystem had normalized and the fish began to thrive and breed. 

By the time we were finished, it was a lovely little habitat and a beautiful place to sit and relax, watching the fish and listening to the trickle of the fountains.

When we moved in, there were nine surviving fish. By the time we left 2 1/2 years later they had bred six times and there were over thirty. I named the original nine - Pacino, Einstein, Bea Arthur...

They were really beautiful fish.

When they sensed my vibrations, they would swim up to the surface for me to feed them.

When we sold our house, I made sure the realtor asked the buyer if she was interested in keeping the fish and maintaining the pond. We wouldn't have been able to take them with us - the trip was too long and it's too hot in southwest Florida to keep koi. If the new owner hadn't wanted them, I would have given them away. There were hundreds of thriving koi ponds in our neighborhood.

Before we moved, I spent several hours writing detailed instructions on how to care for the fish and the pond. I felt like we were leaving our pets behind and I hoped that the new owner would get as much pleasure and enjoyment out of caring for them as I had.

Recently, my friend Adrianne, who also lived down the street from us in Columbus, ran into the new owner. She invited Adrianne in to see what she had done to the house and Adrianne asked her about the koi.

They're all dead. Every last one of them. She told Adrianne she couldn't keep up with it and they all died.

I'm so sad, not to mention angry and disgusted with the woman who bought our house. If she couldn't take care of the fish, she should have given them away or sold them as soon as they started dying; I'm sure they didn't all go at the same time.

I know they were just fish, but I really got attached to them and they were beautiful living creatures who didn't deserve that fate. What kind of a person would do something like that?

I'm probably extra sensitive from all the hormones, but I just can't stop thinking about those fish.

 

   

What If There Was A Party And No One Came?

Have you ever experienced something or witnessed an event in which you thought to yourself: "Wow that kid is going to need some serious therapy someday to get over that."? Yeah, me too.

For my sixth birthday, my parents threw me a very lovely, but ill-advised birthday party. I say ill-advised for several reasons:

• We had only recently moved to a new town and I had only been at my school for a few months.
• The school was a fundamentalist Christian nightmare, just a few steps removed from the Jehovah's Witnesses who don't celebrate birthdays or throw parties.
• My dad was extremely  anti-social and my parents didn't have a lot of adult couple-type friends.
• My birthday was in the middle of June, right when most people take family vacations.

So, as you might imagine, there I was in my birthday finest, the house be-decked in crepe paper, the table set with a cake and paper hats. And no once came to my party. Not a single person.

Flash forward to today, 29 years and many successful birthdays later and the thought of birthday parties, or any kind of party in my honor still makes me break out into a cold sweat. Case in point, the night before my first wedding shower, I was so overcome with anxiety I got a migraine headache and had to go to the emergency room.

In addition, or perhaps because of that childhood experience, there are two types of parties in particular in which I make it a point never, ever to participate.

1. Parties at which I am obligated to buy something - candles, baskets, jewelry, kitchenware, lingerie, what have you. I don't care how good of friends we are. Don't ask me to come to your basket party because I just won't. And in return you will never be invited to my home to listen to someone talk about vitamins for two hours.
2. Showers of any kind - the idea of a party with the express purpose of getting lots of gifts from the attendees makes me cringe. For more information about this, see my post on needless consumerism involved in getting married/having children.

So keeping all of this information in mind, you can imagine my consternation when Jeff's mom and her friends are offering to throw me a baby shower.

Please don't misunderstand. I truly appreciate the sentiment and the effort, I do. But the idea of this shower is making me want to dig a hole and climb in for all the reasons mentioned above plus a few more:

• Again, we've only lived here for six months. We don't know that many people.
• All of our friends live in far away states like Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania and I didn't feel comfortable inviting them to buy a plane ticket and take vacation time to come to a party in which they are further obligated to buy us a gift.
• Several of our friends, in addition to living far away, either have small children or are expecting a child within a month or two of our impending birth.  (I know, weird)
• Because of my discomfort with asking people to come to a party in my honor where they are obligated to buy me a gift, I am also very sensitive to the fact that several of the people who would like to come cannot afford to do so and it makes me even more uncomfortable to invite anyone who I know can't come for various financial reasons.

So after trying to gently explaining to Jeff's mom why it's not a good idea to invite my cousin who lives in Pennsylvania and has been suffering through numerous brain surgeries over the last 18 months (I wish I were kidding) I am already exhausted and emotionally overwrought at the idea of this shower.

I did manage to make it a "party" rather than a shower. Which basically means I threw Jeff under the bus and made it a co-ed affair. But copious amounts of booze will be served. So at least all of the guests and their husbands get to have a few drinks. Ironically, if I were able to do so, this whole thing might not be so anxiety inducing. 

So, the invitations have been sent. As I predicted, the few out of town guests that I included on the list, can't make it for a variety of reasons and so it looks as if the attendees will be made up of Jeff's parents and all of their friends, who are all really lovely people and very fun to hang out with, but you get the point.

Somebody hand me a shovel.

Elephant

Why is it the harder we try to pretend something doesn't exist, the more difficult it becomes to ignore? There is this thing that's been hanging over my head for months. In my attempts to act as if it's not there, it's suddenly become the 6,000 pound elephant in my brain.

My youngest sister is developmentally disabled due to a hereditary neurological disorder. I've written about my relationship with her before. For the most part, she does pretty well. She lives on her own in Maine, has a boyfriend and is planning to get married this June.

Normally, we talk on the phone a few times a month and I help her as much as I can from a distance. It's not always easy to communicate with her because her emotional intelligence level is and always will be about that of a thirteen year old. It takes a lot of patience to deal with her at times.

Here's the thing. Since I've been pregnant, I've been having an especially hard time talking to her. In fact, I've been avoiding her calls and cutting back on our conversation. I'm not proud of this, but it's true.

It's not because I'm having a more difficult time finding the capacity to talk with her on her level. It's been this way since she was born and after 29 years, you learn what works and what doesn't. The truth is, I am terrified our son will have a similar disability and talking with her is just too much for me to handle on a regular basis.

In reality, these fears are totally ungrounded. The disorder that caused her cognitive development to be delayed is hereditary and I don't carry the gene. My baby has just as much of a chance of being healthy, or disabled as anyone else's. Yet that fear, which I usually keep folded up tight in a tiny corner of my brain, is much harder to ignore when I'm talking to my sister. It unfurls into a magnificent, colorful monster.

I know this makes me sound like a selfish, self-absorbed asshole. I wish I knew how to not feel this way, but I can't stop myself. My sister had an incredibly difficult time as a child and her life as an adult is not a picnic either.

Generally, the world is not kind to those with disabilities. After my mother died, my sister lost her only advocate at much too young an age. It's still a daily struggle for her to cope with her physical and cognitive limitations and it's heartbreaking to watch. I would never wish that kind of life on anyone. There were times as a child when as much as I loved her, I was also ashamed of her.

I know that whatever happens, whatever kind of child Jeff and I have, we will love him unconditionally. We all want the best for our children and I know that having a child with a disability isn't unsurmountable. People can do amazing things with what they are given. No one is perfect. Children with disabilities, who have the right kind of support and help can have wonderful, happy lives.

I just can't stop myself from not wanting to ever have to feel the pain of watching my child struggle with the simplest things and of knowing no matter how much I love him and help him there will be things he can never do. Having a child with disabilities tests the limits of a parent's strength, patience, endurance and unconditional love. It's a difficult thing for a couple to go through. My own parents, because of my dad's guilt over the hereditary aspect of the illness, didn't manage it very well.

The truth is, I'm not sure I'm a strong enough person to deal with this kind of a challenge and I never want to find out. This makes me a coward, I know. I'm doing my best to come to terms with why I feel this way.

But so far, the elephant is winning.  

Images

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in September of 1986. She was 38 years old.  This year in June, I turn 36.

For years, with each birthday that has passed bringing me closer to her age at her diagnosis, a vague feeling of uneasiness creeps over me. That feeling is now compounded by the fact that when I look into the mirror, it's her body I see in my reflection.

My mother was never shy about her body with me. She bathed and dressed in my presence. I knew what she looked like naked from an early age. Even after her mastectomy and countless surgeries, I was intimately familiar with her scars and the smooth void on the left side of her chest. It's one of the things I treasure most about my memories of her because I feel it gave me more confidence in my own naked form.

I was five and six years old when my younger sisters were born. I remember my mother's pregnant body with clarity. It's that same body I see now when I look into the mirror. The curve of my breasts, thighs and belly is hers. The shading of my nipples and the freckling of my skin is the same. It's like stepping back in time twenty-five years. And the nebulous feeling of uneasiness, once much easier to push away or at least to put off, will not be ignored.

I have always been acutely aware of my increased risk for breast cancer. To compound the issue, I have a condition of dense breast tissue that makes it difficult to get a clear mammogram and small benign tumors called microcalcifications. I've had biopsies which, while negative, have still wreaked havoc on my stress levels.

It's different now. With biopsies and mammograms, it's easy to only think about it once a year. I'm living daily with this changing, growing body and there is a strange duality to the way I feel about myself. On one hand, I am so thrilled to be here, with a healthy child growing inside me, a place I wasn't sure I would ever be. But then, there is a small piece of me that is terrified every time I look into the mirror and see my mother reflected back at me.

There's no easy answer or simple wrap up to what I'm writing here today. Just an acknowledgment that I'm feeling this way and that it's okay. It would be so easy to get bogged down in feeling of guilt or shame and I don't want to do that.

I want to love what I see when I look in the mirror. I want to revel in all parts of my naked self, inward and outward. So I suppose that is what this post is about for me. 

 

Practical Magic

The most enduring legacy of losing a mother at a young age is that when you become an adult and begin looking at things from a completely diffferent perspective you realize there are things she did for you for which you can never thank her.

It's not the first time I've had this experience, or even the most profound epiphany. It's just another small realization of how much mothers can do to make childhood magical and special for their children.

From the time I was eight or nine years old until she became too sick to do it when I was 16, I remember helping my mom bake Christmas cookies. She had three standard cookies that she baked every year, rarely deviating from these faithful recipes or the order in which they were made.

First was chocolate chip. By the time I was ten, I was doing most of the work on making these, with minimal supervision from my mom. As much as I loved the chips themselves, my favorite cookie in the whole batch was the last one, which involved scraping the dough from the sides of the bowl and making one perfect chipless cookie.

Next came oatmeal raisin, my least favorite as a child. The dough for these cookies was thick and unyeilding. My mother would have to put some weight behind stirring and mixing it. I have a clear visual memory of her wrestling with the large mixing bowl, wooden spoon in hand, almost breaking a sweat, a look of utter determination on her face.

Last were the sugar cookie cutouts. My mother would mix and roll the dough and I would cut the shapes with a myriad of holiday themed cookie cutters including a snowman, candy cane and a reindeer whose antlers always seemed to break off somewhere in the baking process leaving unidentified cookie head shapes with red noses.

There was a cabinet full of colored sprinkles, food coloring, candy jimmies and sugar crystals that we used to decorate the cookies. By the time we finished, several hours later, the kitchen would look as if a tornado had hit with bowls piled high in the sink, flour sprinkled over every flat surface and dozens of cookies to be stowed away.

What was the thing that struck me recently about this standard childhood memory; the thing I had never even stopped to consider before?

After the last batch of sugar cookie dough was mixed and the cookies decorated, the first of the chocolate chips would be baked and cooling on the rack. My mother would pour me a glass of milk, put two cookies on a plate and send me into the living room to watch television.

Never once in the eight years that we baked cookies together did I ever have to help her clean up the kitchen. 

Graduation

I have a Master of Arts degree in Organizational Communication. But if someone asked me, that would not be my greatest educational accomplishment. It took me eight years to finish my bachelor's degree and it is of that I am most proud.

After I moved out at seventeen, I was on my own in every sense of the word. I had already applied and been accepted to college in Pennsylvania, but I put off going for the first semester, choosing instead to stay closer to home, work full time and take classes part time at a community college so I could keep an eye on my sisters who were still living with my father.

It didn't take me long to realize that as long as I stayed, he would be happy to let me assume the responsibility of taking care of them. I finally decided to go after that first semester, to try to get away, have a normal college experience, and let my father do the right thing by his other daughters. He remarried less than two months after I left, ten months after my mother died.

I got as much financial aid as I could, found part time jobs and jumped in to college life. Living in the dorm felt strange to me after having had my own apartment and mostly it seemed I was just going through the motions, trying to fake normalcy and fit in with the other kids my age whose parents had dropped them off in the fall and who they visited every other weekend.

By my sophomore year, I was back to taking classes part time and working a full time job. Then I began taking semesters completely off and working to try to catch up on my bills and late tuition and rent payments.

Things got pretty bad and there was a three month period when I moved like a nomad every few weeks from my friends' summer-empty apartments, living on potatoes and candy and popcorn stolen from a part time job in the student union.

And the years went by. I drifted through my life, not present emotionally, not caring about the future and just trying to live day to day without falling apart. I was in a few serious car accidents during that time that I was lucky to walk away from with my life. I didn't feel lucky at the time. 

Eventually, I was in a semi-serious relationship with a guy my age who I didn't particularly care about but who was a warm body at the time. When he graduated in 1992, I still had at least three semesters of course work to finish before I would get a degree.

I moved with him to Charlotte, North Carolina. We smoked pot every day, several times a day, I got a job waiting tables and my aspirations of finishing college just faded further and further into the back of my mind. 

Eventually, as I've written before, I realized that everything I had been doing was not working and only serving to keep me stuck in a place that would never really provide me with a future. I made a conscious decision to change, to heal myself, to get my life back on track. Two years later, I finished my undergraduate degree.

It took me another six years to pay back all the student loans and financial aid. On the day that I sent the last payment, even more so than on the day I received my diploma, I felt free.

It was on that day that I truly felt as if I had graduated, in every possible sense of the word.