HAIKU FRIDAY

  “Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.” -Arthur Shopenhauer

Come play along!  You can write a Haiku, too!  Hosted by A Mommy Story.

The Seasons’ Gift

In the graying dusk

A mutual acquaintance

Brought you to my dream.

 

The change of season

In lost ancient corridors,

Opens doors thought locked.

 

In the waking day,

Of another life chosen

You stay with me still.

 

This gift of haunting,

It will not let me forget

This piece of myself.

About My Big Kid

I hate CVS.  No, not the drugstore chain, the syndrome.  My oldest son started having frequent bouts of vomiting when he was about 2 years old.  It was only late last year when we finally received a diagnosis that put a name on these episodes.  That name is Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.

Last night he began his 17th episode of vomiting this year.  Just before Tommy went to bed, he suddenly sat down on the sofa with that far away look on his face and told me that he was sick.  He would suddenly get up and go into the bathroom, come back out and sit down, and then go back to the bathroom…

It’s hard to know when it’s a case of CVS, or if it’s some other thing that’s bothering him.  His father wanted to give him one of those antacid, upset stomach medications, an idea I have discouraged in the past.  This time I gently told Ed that I didn’t think it was a good idea, but let him follow through with it anyway.  I understand the need to feel like you’re doing something to help, to briefly hold on to the idea that you have a solution to your child’s pain.

We sent him to bed, and sat down in front of the television for a few minutes.  It wasn’t long before the door at the bottom of the stairs cracked open and Thomas called out, asking for us to come clean him up.  He was standing naked at the bottom of the stairs with all of the color drained from his skin, covered in his own vomit.  He had tried to clean himself up before he came to us.  The stench of the undigested and fermented contents of his stomach hit us as soon as we went up the stairs.  Ed began running a bath while I stripped the bed and carried the soiled clothing into the basement.  I went back up the stairs to pick up the mess in the hallway, and Ed was cradling Tommy in his arms, covered in towel.

I remade his bed, and covered the sheets with towels, in an effort to minimize the work I would have to do if he did get sick again.  I grabbed Sean, who had been toddling around us during the whole episode, and took him up to bed while Ed stayed with Tommy.  From the bed with Sean I could hear Thomas getting sick again.  By the time I got back down stairs Thomas had, in effect, lost consciousness.  His skin was pale and damp, and I kissed him on the forehead. 

And it was over.  Until tomorrow, or next week, or next month.  I am hoping he doesn’t have to be medicated for this.  I am hoping he won’t get sick in school, because it might embarrass him.  I hope he outgrows this syndrome without it turning into lifelong migraines.

During an episode last winter, from his place on the sofa Thomas said to me, “I don’t want to be sick all the time!”  I know, little boy.

I wish I knew, I wish someone could tell me, how to make this go away.

Where The Wind Takes You

This is not my first blog.  My first was four years ago, one that I wrote through my pregnancy with Ryan.  I had another blog after that, and after months of not doing any writing on it, I deleted last year. 

I didn’t want to blog at all, for a long time.  There was no joy in it for me, so I found other things to do to fill in my time.  I baked bread.  I found my ancestors. 

I have always had political/philosophical/moral leanings, and then my leanings became a little more firm.  This new firmness of belief left me out in the cold when it came to many of the people I associated with via the Internet.  I began to see more clearly the importance of being thoughtful in my opinions, and had less room for people who would throw their assumptions around like facts.

I became more and more disillusioned with some people that I had thought of as intelligent, as I came to the realization that though they may be intelligent, their opinions were formed from a place of pure emotion.  The problem of pathos in lieu of logos.

People can disagree, even about things that are critical to the core of who they are as people.  We can disagree, and we can get angry.  Then we can turn around and find solace with those we do agree with us, to take us to a place of calm; readying ourselves to disagree again on another day.

What I am realizing now, as I look at my blog roll full of all kinds of different people, artists, Christians, Catholics, and moms; is just what it means to live in a free society, filled with the benefits of being free.

We don’t live under the auspices of a totalitarian regime.  There aren’t any morality squads ready to pull you off the street for wearing a low-cut blouse or an anti-Bush slogan on your t-shirt.  There isn’t a government committee for deciding what books we can or cannot read, there is no committee on the preservation of culture.  We each have a right to our opinions.  If you choose to listen to Britney Spears, and I choose to listen to Beethoven, neither of us is wrong.

That is why living in a democracy is such a huge responsibility.  We must decide for ourselves what culture we want to pass on to our children; McDonald’s or home cooked meals?  Madonna or The Madonna?  Home school or public school?  Day care or mom care?

What does it say when a person holds so vehemently to her opinion, that she must reduce the holder of the opposing opinion to less-than-human status?  When the vitriol and the hatred reaches such a level that people are no longer defending their opinion, but are answering some imaginary voice in their head, some imaginary threat?

It says that we are all human, and as such are subject to human frailty, to being wrong.  This kind of being wrong, this kind of mob mentality that feels so good in the moment, is pretty innocuous in this sort of engagement.  In reality, though, it is no different than the mob mentalities that lead to lynchings in the South, or the rise of Nazi-ism in Europe.  It is a feeling that spreads amongst people that the values that they hold sacred are being threatened by a powerful outside force; a powerful outside force that justifies any amount of violence in its eradication.

When we become unable to disagree with each other, passionately but humanely, we are in danger of coming to this ugly place in our human hearts; a place that diavows the humanity in some other person or persons.  When we come to a place where we are unable to disagree, unable to honor each other’s humanity, we have already sacrificed all that we are fighting for.

It is my belief (you may disagree), that this is what the framers’ of our constitution had in mind when they gave us the freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Pretty lose construction, but deliberately so.  We must keep the right to fight for what we believe in, but it is just as important that we fight for everyone to have the right to do so.

Otherwise, there is nothing left to fight for.

Haiku Friday

  Come to A Mommy Story to participate!

Anniversary

A pot where I steamed
fresh corn from the farmer’s field
Sits soaking in suds.

I wake to you gone,
coffee now cold in the pot,
the children hungry.

Now these days grow short,
the pumpkins in the garden
turn shades of orange.

Red tints the maples,
As a sign of season’s end,
In this our sixth year.

On The Verge

My house is in unsatisfactory condition.  There are piles of “stuff” everywhere of unknown origins.  Over the years I have straightened these piles, tried to find homes for the stuff, and moved on.  Until the stuff shows up again, covered in dust, in awkward places, preventing me from cooking on my stove, eating on my table, and cleaning off my counter tops.

So perhaps, I think to myself, perhaps it is time to become a bit of a totalitarian in my own home.  There are certain parties who will remain unnamed, parties who are not my children, who bring stuff into this house uninvited.  Stuff like many, many pads of construction paper and bottles of finger paint, truckloads of magic bubbles, and stapled packets of printed articles on anything from childcare hints to advice from consumer reports.  At its worst the stuff has included old and used furniture and large plastic lawn toys that just show up one day, the only clue being the sheepish grin on the culprit.

I’m thinking of becoming one of those people who just freaks out whenever anyone brings anything over to my house, or goes into a temper whenever anything has been moved out of its proper place.  An easy-going approach is just allowing myself to be walked upon, and my home treated as a depository for unwanted items and the culprit’s yard sale finds.  I’m considering an inner regime change, to a despotic totalitarian dictatorship.  People will be searched upon entry, and will be advised to carry nothing on their person that might be left behind in a box or pile.

I try to keep the behavior of others from shaping my own behavior, but isn’t that so much easier said than done?  I have fantasies of building a small house just beside this one that no one is allowed to enter.  No one is allowed to bring anything through the door and their will be no telephone.  In this house I will finally have peace and privacy and a place to put my books.  It won’t be a place that others can freely think of as a communal home where we all come together to raise my children.  It will be my space.  A room of my own.

Wordless Wednesday, The Art of Thomas

My 5 year old sees the running water and snaps a shot.  Go Wordless!

Even Land-Locked Lovers Yearn…

We are getting ready for our yearly pilgrimage to the coast, this year it will be a week in an old farmhouse near the beaches north of Boston.

I am preparing for the trip by cleaning the bits of the house that I usually go out of my way to neglect; tidying, laundering, disinfecting.  My mind is quiet, my hands are busy.

Each year there is little question in our lives as to whether or not we will return to the ocean.  There are finances to consider, but we usually find a way to squeeze it in.  It’s beyond being an obligatory family vacation, it passes closer into the realm of the spiritual.  It’s a hunger to be near the sea; to smell it, to gaze upon it, to touch it.  We are good all year long.  We rise, we work, we deprive ourselves.  Then there is this week in the summer that is spent near the waves, eating seafood, buried to our necks in the sand.

Ed and I became engaged on a vacation to Cape Cod.  We took our first camping trip as a family there the next year, and we haven’t missed a year since.

During the summer I was pregnant with Ryan, we had resigned ourselves to missing the ocean that year.  One Saturday morning we put the then two-year old Thomas into the car for a little drive, and found ourselves in Newport, Rhode Island four hours later.  It was late in the day when we arrived, and we rushed to find a place to eat dinner and a bed to sleep in.

The next day we awoke early, went into town where we bought shirts, diapers, toothpaste, and a disposable camera.  I went into the Gap and found some flip flops, a pretty sarong, and of course, a pair of underwear.

Then we went to the beach. 

Thomas was at one of his most difficult phases at this time.  He was over 2, but just finding a select few words and phrases.  He was still hitting his head with regularity, very much to my dismay.  He screamed the entire way to Rhode Island, and he screamed the entire way back to New York, but at the beach, as always, he was peaceful.

And I was very pregnant!  Eight months with Ry. 

The water was cold, but Tommy had a blast running in the surf with Ed.  It was worth every screaming moment.  After a couple of hours we got an ice cream, packed ourselves back in the car, and made the trip back home. 

Because going to the ocean is pretty much a must, no matter what’s going on in our lives.

We Interrupt This Quiet Blog

This is a little piece of advice for those who might happen, albeit accidentally, across these silent pages.

Do not, in a hazy fog of morning servitude, haplessly place your mostly empty cup of coffee in the cupboard with the other, clean cups.

The result will be waking on a similar morning, many weeks later, to a smell that decidedly does not belong in your kitchen.  It’s a smell that does not belong anywhere, a smell my dogs would gladly roll in given the chance.  It’s a smell you don’t want to find the source of, but find it you must, so that you can rid your home of its overwhelming, sickening power.

You will discover, after cleaning out the entire cupboard, that the source is indeed a coffee cup that was put away many weeks prior, because it was thought to be one of the clean ones.

This is a cautionary tale, frightening but true.  Wash your cups, and keep an eye on them.  You never know when one is going to turn on you.  No matter how careful you are to regularly clean under the sofa cushions, to move the furniture and come face to face with what’s beneath; no matter how often you throw out the leftovers, pull up the rugs to sweep beneath, and scrub the floors around the toilets, the stink has a way of finding you.  It has a power beyond all motherly diligence.

So go, tell this tale to all who will listen, about a woman who fought the  funky stink and won, and remains to fight another day.  Soldier on, one and all.