Running, Ghost Hunting, and Salsa

Many of you know that I have recently started running. But you might be surprised about the reason why I took up this rigorous and often painful (albeit healthy) activity! I didn't start running necessarily for health, for weight loss, for muscle toning. I didn't start running to clear my mind or run away from something. I actually started running to get closer to something... uh, er, someONE. I ran for the connection Jay, my partner of over thirteen years.

Somewhere along the road our journeys, while staying parallel, split into seperate paths. We no longer shared many common interest. We disagreed about where to go on date nights, we didn't enjoy the same movies or books, we filled up our free time (what little of it there was) volunteering for different organizations, often going out with different friends, or reading different books on opposite ends of the couch. He wasn't interested in what was happening to Rachel in "The Red Tent," and I really wasn't too interested in hearing a detailed description of the Masonic symbols as recited from "Freemasonry for Dummies." Our road somehow forked, and we diverged.

When we realized this, I decided it was time for me to rediscover my relationship with my husband. How could I connect? Well, I couldn't become a Freemason... I'm pretty sure that's now allowed. But I could run. And I was pretty sure it would be good for me in more ways than one. So I told Jay to sign me up for running the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure with him! We'd for a team: Team "Will Run for Boobs!" He was surprised and happy, I think, that I was taking some interest in one of his passions!

It was slow going for me, but after a couple of weeks I was running 5k! I would call him with raspy breath and give him my new best time! We'd talk about routes through the neighborhood, or the vertigo you get when you hop off the treadmill. He's going to help me get my Race web page going. Meanwhile, I am getting healthier and feeling better about myself!

I know it seems like a small thing, but I'm sure this interest I started showing in one of JASON's hobbies has helped us reconnect to one another on a deeper level. It shows him that I apreciate him and am interested in what he does. In turn, he has gone out Salsa dancing with me... something that he would NEVER choose to do on his own! And we had an absolute blast!

Next week we plan on combining one of his favorites with one of mine... Salsa lessons and ghost hunting! So I guess what I'm getting at is this: If you feel like you are missing something in your relationship, don't try to ask your partner to find it. YOU find it! Try showing some interest in one of your partner's hobbies... ask them to show you how to cook that famous souffle that they make so perfectly, dust off the bikes and have him show you how to trail ride, take an art or dance class together, ask her about that online game she is so engrossed in or that movie he's been wanting to see. I guarantee, even if it's not your favorite activity, it will make your partner swell with love for you... just that you CARE about something important to them.

Okay, well, that's enough "Dear Abby" advice for today. It's just been on my mind so I thought I'd share my discovery with you... in case it might help you too!

Now, if anyone else is interested in ghost hunting and Salsa dancing.... ;)

Pieces of Peace

Last night was Goddess Night... Ahhhh, Goddess night... the second Friday of the month, from 7:30pm until (well, um... late) is a sacred time for me and the women who gather at the church to share this incredible journey we call womanhood. This particular Friday night happened to be incredibly moving for me for several reasons.

First, it was an amazing feat of time juggling to get the children coordinated for the evening. Jason was in Detroit for a masonic speaker for the first part of the night, so it was time to call in the troops. Hah! I couldn't be more appreciative for my friend in Livonia who took Kayden rollerskating and made some delicious popcorn balls for a late movie (as evidenced by the blue marshmallow lips :), and to another friend for hosting Chailyn for a fun play date! Thanks to our gracious friends, each of our family members spent an evening nurturing our spirits in our own separate ways! I went to sleep last night feeling such gratitude for the people that surround me, who bring me peace in so many ways. ((( yes, sigh here )))

Second, the content of the Goddess evening was very deep and meaningful. Mary lead the group in a meditation that drew out the light in each and every woman in the room and connected us in a circle of life. We went on to our check-in, as usual, but this time it seemed that each woman had a unique narrative of creating healthy relationships within their families that was truly touching and inspiring. At one point, when Jeanie was talking about her recent accomplishments with her work against puppy mills, an explosion of warmth actually erupted in my chest and spread throughout my body. That feeling of warmth and connectedness continued through out the night... from the conversation over plates of food to the closing when we shared what gave us peace at the end of the day. I went home feeling completely content, like a warm blanket wrapped around my soul.

And indeed, I have been finding peace in my life lately. But I didn't find it in one place, like a treasure chest buried in the sand. Instead I found little pieces of it in many different places. One surprising place I found a piece was in my own body! I have been running. I started running because I registered for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in May, so I thought I'd better prepare myself. But once I started, I couldn't stop. For the first time this week, I ran three miles in under forty minutes! It felt GREAT to reach that milestone. Not to mention that the exercise, combined with a little bit of food control, have helped me lose eight and a half pounds since the beginning of February. I am discovering first hand just how connected are the body and mind. When I don't at least take a very long walk on a given day, I feel drowsy and down by night fall. The body and mind go hand in hand, or even closer! They are just two part of one organism... our self!

I found another piece in ritual. My family started an evening prayer ritual that has helped us connect to one another, and to really be introspective in regard to our own thoughts and behaviors. We gather in the meditation room. The children light a candle and Kayden usually says, "I have a light in me." Chailyn recites a prayer that he made up about peace, love, and light. We ring a chime for a short silent meditation on a topic that the kids come up with. We have had peace, the light in us, respect, etc... Then we talk about our thoughts. We reflect on how we could have behaved more according to whatever principle we meditated on. We forgive ourselves for mistakes and vow to do our kindest the next day. We end with the chalice meditation, a squeeze pass, and a collective extinguishing of the candle. This short ritual has brought our family together in so many ways. It has put "the spiritual path" directly into the course of our day, which can often become forgotten alongside the megahighway of daily routine.

The last piece was found scattered among my friends and family. Truly, the relationships that I have are like that warm blanket wrapped around my soul. I have been closer to Jason than ever (as he is also working on his inner peace). We are sharing an understanding, respect, and joy that can often drown under more than a decade of marriage. And after last night, I realized again how amazing it is to have a network of support in a practical way... but little do all of the amazing people in my life know that the practical support has an underlying layer of love and caring that shines through each and every time they reach out a hand to help. True friendship... that is what completes my circle of peace.

As the old adage so profoundly states: The size of a heart is not measured by how much one loves, but by how much one is loved by others. Hmmm, I feel my heart swelling just now...

May peace be with you... body, mind, and spirit.

It Takes a Village

"It takes a whole village to raise a child." This African proverb makes so much sense in the context of a rural village... small huts with thatched roofs, fire pits where women roast vegetables and pound grains, men hunt and build and worship, grandmothers weave baskets and share stories while children play about their feet. We can visualize this village. But what is a village in America in 2010?



I gave birth to my son when I was twenty-three. One of the first gifts I received was Dr. Spock's "manual for raising children." I was also in Montessori training at the time, where I was introduced to Waldorf, attachment parenting, and the Montessori method, just to name a few. I had no shortage of experts instructing me on the best way to be a parent. But in spite of hours of study on the subject, when my mother left my home to go back to Chicago, and I found myself standing in my living room with a week-old son, I felt unsure of myself and very alone.

It wasn't until my daughter was born that I really identified that feeling of solitude. We had just moved to an apartment in Northville, Chailyn was three, Jason was working, and I knew no-one. I wanted to pack up everything I owned and move "home!" Well, at least back to where I had my career, my work community (which was a school), where I knew the stores and the parks and the routine. But I knew that was not possible, so I set out to make friends. I began to take the kids (double stroller and all) to the coffee hour at our complex's clubhouse. This is where I met the four women who got me through the next year... ahhh, but my memory fails, and now I can't even remember all of their names. But Marla was from northern Michigan originally, like me. We began to work out together and have play dates. Priti was from India, and I can still remember the deicious smells in her apartment and the way she entertained the children with her piano. Then there was the woman from Mexico, whose children barely spoke English... but they had a traditional Mexican birthday party for the son complete with an indoor pinata!! Chailyn loved that! Finally, a fourth woman from Finland who moved to a condominium in Novi before we moved to Livonia.

These women, from all over the world, became my little "family." While my mother, aunts, and mother-in-law were reachable by phone, I had no women (sisters, cousins, friends) close to me that I could turn to for help walking this tightrope that is mothering. And the pages of a book provided no comfort. But these women gave me with a taste of what I needed to make it through those really tough years. Sometimes it was as simple as suggesting a toy, a food, or a relaxation technique. Other times it was sharing a glass of wine and some quiet time without the kids. These connections meant so much to all of us. But, as apartment living often dictates, we all moved away into homes or to different states following husbands' jobs. Our little cluster of women broke apart.

I found myself in Livonia, once again in search of a "community." I was determined to create my own "village" no matter what it took. Nearly four years ago, when my family walked the gravel parking lot into a little white chapel on a hill, that is exactly what we did. We began to build relationships that would fill the gaps in our family, which is spread all over the country. We have made close friends that are like aunts and uncles to our children... I have met women who have become like sisters to me.

I have also developed relationships with women who have experienced life, who share their stories and their knowledge with such openness and honesty. These women have given me a shoulder to cry on, advice when I sought it, laughter to rejoice in, and a smile or a hug to greet me on Sunday morning. These are women who have been through so much, who have so much to give, and they hold a very special place in my heart.

My family has also become close with several families in our neighborhood. We help eachother with child care, with home projects, with rides to basketball practice or bus pickup. We watch out for eachothers' homes, pets, children. Sometimes we just share lemonade on the back porch while kids play together in the yard. Sometimes we share sorrows and cry. They are also a part of my village.

This village is a place where I feel safe, where I feel loved, where I feel accepted for who and what I am. This village is a place where I give just as much as I receive... where I give my time, love, and energy with an open heart, and without keeping a log of what I have spent. And that is what I receive in return.

Without my village, I would not be who I am today... as I would like to think that without me, my village would not be the same. Together we become just exactly the community we need. Thank you, sincerely, for being a part of my village.

Tree of Life

Last night my children trimmed our Christmas tree... a little fake fir tree so small that my son could reach up and put the star on the top. They loaded it with handmade ornaments, and ornaments given to us by various people throughout the years. I strung the lights and then sat back, watching them. They divided the ornaments into three piles... Kayden's, Chailyn's, and "the rest."

Chailyn picked up a cinnamon stick with red ribbon crossing it horizontally, creating a tree effect. He smiled and said,"Mom, mom, my cinnamon ornament that I made last year in Mrs. Moritz's class!" Kayden hung a gingerbread girl that she recalled making with her friends two years ago at our house... during the "kid" holiday gathering. Ornaments went up that I couldn't remember receiving, but the kids knew. Kayden "awwwwed" at the picture ornament of her, five days old, curled up and crinkly like a new petal with a pink ribbon on her bum. Chailyn played with the nutcracker that dances when you pull a string... that his grandpa brought him home from Italy a few years ago. I hung a wooden santa that my friend, an artist, made for me before Chailyn was born.

Our tree tells a story of our life. It reminds us who has come and gone, and how we have spent the moments up until now. The memory of making that marshmallow ornament with the kids at the Novi Holiday Night is what we hang on the tree... the giggles mixing gingerbread dough... the cuddle we shared at Grammies, now framed in silver and tied to the branch with a red satin bow.

As my son hangs a faded rocking horse with the words "JASON 1970" scrawled in red marker on the back, we are reminded of our own youth... that time before this family, when we were a part of another family. When we were children creating memories and hanging handmade ornaments on our first family's Christmas trees, we had no idea that we would be remembering with our own children decades later.

This morning, as I ponder the hour we spent together last night lighting up a small corner of our dining room, it reminds me that the parts of childhood we remember are not the ones we might suspect. It's not going to be the toys or the gadgets, the new fads that "must" be purchased or the kids just won't be happy. It's not going to be whether we disciplined the kids the right way (if there is such a thing), if we had gourmet dinners or fancy cars or big houses. What is going to be remembered are the moments of being together, of loving one another, of sharing our lives with people that are close to our hearts.

So, I guess you could say there is a little love in every ornament on our tiny tree. When I look at it this morning, and each time I look, I am reminded of a lifetime of love, joy, laughter, friendships, family, and everything that the spirit of this season is supposed to bring. This is a tree of our life.

I remember writing poetry as far back as elementary school, rhyming words about the things little girls go through... most of which were fully illustrated, also by me. When I got to middle school and high school I wrote when I was feeling deeply emotional. My words turned dark, sometimes angry, but mostly they were reaching for something beyond what my rational mind could grapple with. My poetry almost represented my goth and outspoken alter-ego, in direct juxtaposition with my gently glowing, kind, and caring physical self.

As I got older, had a career, children, and more real life responsibilities, I sort of let my glowing self absorb that alter-ego until it practically vanished. I haven't written a poem in probably ten years. That is, unless you count the haiku I posted as a response to my status on Facebook. Is it that I my emotional edge has dulled with use? Is my life more monotone now that I have undergone and emerged successfully from many emotional trials? Or do I just not have time?

Well, maybe it's hormones or monotones or baritones... I don't know. Maybe it's lack of motivation. But now that I have more time, I am using it to write some short fiction, play on Facebook, and go through all the old stuff I used to write when I considered myself a writer. What I did notice was that, even in high school, I was really sensetive to things like social injustice and peace. I found the trip down nastalgia lane very amusing. Here, I brought you back some souveniers!

I think I wrote this one when I was about 11 or 12 years old:

Ding-dong the church bells cried
Hate has taken a bride.
Fear in her black wedding dress
has taken considerably less
time to take a groom than Doom
who screems up in the belfry room
and scares away Sir Gloom.
Happiness has slipped away
upon this Spiteful, Rageful day.
Joy and Love have lived in dread
since Hate and Fear were wed.

Wow, this has a lot to say. I am impressed with my younger self. Good job, little girl!

Here is one that I wrote my first year in college... before I met Jay.

Modern Love Story

Crowded room.
Nervous sweat.
Strangers share cheap beer
and trivial conversation
as the pungent smell of last week's liquer
mixes with inevitable sexual tension.

Stuck somewhere between youth and wisdom.
Somewhere between innocence and knowledge.
Blindly searching for something alien and strange.
Not knowing where to begin or how to end.

Uncomfortable silence,
as potential lovers search within their souls
and within the strained eyes
of each familiar stranger.
Search, passionately,
for something that seems
so empty of reverence.

I wrote this at party, on a bet that I couldn't write a poem about the party in under three minutes. I did it, and here it is recorded exactly as it poured forth from my pen... only in cyberspace instead of on the napkin!

Well, I have embarked on an interesting journey. We shall see where it takes me...

Peace in Apples

Yesterday was the International Day of Peace. It was not celebrated in our schools, I didn't hear any special music on the radio or see cards at the Hallmark store. My family, nor my community, has any tradition that marks the passing of this important day, when countries of the United Nations agree to cease fire for one day of the year, a brief but important repose in the tumult around us. When I searched on the internet, I did find some drum circles, concerts and get-togethers at your typical off-beat spiritual book store or artsy marginal coffee shop. But for the average, middle class American mother wishing to focus more on acts of peace than on symbols of those acts, I found very little by way of gathering or instruction.

Are we immersed in a society that only celebrates a holiday if there is a profit to be made from it? If this were a holiday that included the purchasing of gifts and cards, would it be more prevalent in our communities, schools, and media? Probably. And it's not as if I would be excited to see this holiday commercialized. Just as some people now "spread the Christmas spirit" by purchasing garlands and lights, sweatshirts with reindeer, and Dolly Parton's Country Christmas carols on compact disc, I would not want people to feel they could spread peace by purchasing T-shirts, buttons, and decorations sporting shiny peace symbols. These might be great ways to advertise our viewpoint, but it's not how we spread peace, not how we nurture the seeds and help them grow. The way is much simpler than this.

On Saturday my family went to a tiny orchard in Saline to pick apples. Lutz orchard was old, started by the old farmer's father in the 1930's. His sister lived in the house across from the barn, his nephew behind her in front of the corn field. His own home was a big white colonial with pillars anchoring the front porch to the shabby lawn, it's white paint peeling to reveal generations of graying wood. He had no use for television, he read mostly and milked his cows and took care of the trees. The little airport around the corner had no use for folks going anywhere. It was fine just as it rested. The air was clear, blue, and crisp and smelled of apples and Autumn. My family was alone with the farmer, picking fruit from trees over sixty years old. Conversation was slow and warm. My children were smiling. This is where I found a moment of peace. In this place that the times forgot.

I read an article in a popular magazine about simplifying your life. It gave very explicit directions about how to cleanse and organize so that you feel less stress... the whole "less is more" mantra, which is touted in so many of the magazines that clutter our coffee tables. We live in a world cluttered with consumer goods that are supposed to make our tasks quicker, easier, and more efficient. In the process we have forgotten how to do a task with intentionality, how to be in that moment and appreciate the peace that can be found in washing a dish or picking an apple. We have also lost the feeling of integrity gained by doing life-sustaining work with our own hands. We have traded sweat for convenience, peace for efficiency. In the process we have bound ourselves to a lifestyle that is often the fountainhead of our frustration.

It is my prognosis that simplicty is the key to planting seeds of peace. So, yesterday I did my best to commit simple acts of kindness. On my long walk, I looked passing strangers in the eyes and said "hello" as if they were friends. They smiled back and greeted me, and we parted ways carrying that feeling with us. I read my children the story of how the International Day of Peace was created, but they weren't so interested in it. I'm sure they were more effected by my soft tone of voice, my intentional patience and attentiveness, the love that I shared with them that day, the time we spent cuddling together and laughing together... and living together.

I'm not sure if Chailyn felt the peace when he washed the dinner dishes, as he has every day for two weeks now. But I'm sure he feels like an important cog in the clockworks of our family... and that will go much further in propogating peace than a symbol on a t-shirt ever will.

Salsa

Today I feel content. As I stood at my kitchen counter, the sun shining and a soft breeze drifting through the window, I felt content. I was chopping tomatoes and peppers that I picked moments earlier from the little garden at the side of my house. To those I added cilantro and onion, garlic and lemon juice... just a hint of ground cumin and a dash of salt. The bright red tomatoes were so plump and juicy, they claimed their right to be a fruit.

Next to me on the counter dried pinto beans were simmering in a crock pot. When they are soft I will toss them into the frying pan with a healthy cup of the chicken stock that I made last night from the remains of a roasted chicken we had for dinner. My family will enjoy a Mexican fiesta tonight! But the joy I was feeling was not in anticipation of a party... instead it was satisfaction from knowing that the work I was doing was sustaining the lives of the people I love.

Sure, I could run up to the store to buy salsa in a plastic tub for $4.29... Garden Fresh Salsa that has an expiration date and a bar code stamped on its side. My tomatoes didn't have a bar code. Instead they had the stamp of my love, the hours spent planting and watering and weeding, harvesting and chopping. My work is saving my family money on groceries, it's providing nutitious alternatives to prepackaged foods, and it's saving my mental health all in one shot!

Next year I plan to dig up more shrubs and grass so that I can plant onions and cilantro, potatoes and enough tomato plants to can for the winter. My garlic should provide healthy cloves next year, and the strawberries along the side of our patio should bear two harvests as long as the birds leave them alone. I want to plant enough fruits and vegetables to provide the bulk of our family's produce, plus some to share! I also hope to have my children more involved in the work of the garden, so that they too can feel this sense of importance, of knowing that they are needed, not just wanted.

This is my way of taking smaller steps toward a larger goal. Of course, communal living on twenty-five acres of carefully horticulturally crafted land seems a long way off. But next summer's planting is near.