16 posts tagged “tribe”
This weekend, my friends Jill and Jay, two of the most beautiful people I know, took the leap and tied the knot. A relatively small group of us gathered on a farm in Western MA to witness it all and celebrate with them. The weekend was glorious in more ways than one. I will need weeks to process what I felt there amidst old friends, great music and beautiful country. I will need weeks for it all to sink in.
For now I am just buzzing with the joy of it.
During my most lizard-like days over the last 3 years, Jill and Jay have been my sun. When I am cynical about love, relationships or silly notions of hope, I lie down on a rock next to them and just soak in the energy from their partnership, bask in the glow of the way they care for each other. Theirs is a simple, honest, modest true love which radiates out from their little inner world and makes us all feel warmer. But it also buzzes with tremendous passion, a hot white streak, a super nova.
It is something extraordinary to witness. It is simply light.
Yesterday, after Max's karate class, a quick breakfast and sweep up of the kitchen, Max and I tumbled into our car and drove 40 minutes to the airport. We were early. We checked the monitors with wild anticipation and staked out good seats right by the door where the arriving passengers enter. Max ran back and forth and checked the arrival stats every five minutes--He came back triumphant at last. "Mommy" he squealed with joy "Its arrived!". Five minutes later my dear dear Erica and her oldest daughter Olivia were walking through the doors into our our arms as tears welled up in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. We hugged for what seemed like an eternity. A piece of my heart lives with Erica. It was nice to feel it close.
We have been friends since we were four.
It was sometime in kindergarden when she slipped her arm through mine and we whispered to each other that we would be friends forever. We meant it. Our friendship quickly turned into something that would forever cement our whole families into one.
She lived just up the street from me--a 2 minute bike ride away. My bus stop was at the end of her road--Huckleberry Lane. Her house was just a quick stop off on the way into town on a hot summer day. Our mothers carpooled us to religous ed, drama class, dance class. We played for hours in each others backyards. Many a Friday night our families dined together. The grownups then retired to the living room for a cocktail while we hid away in her bedroom listening to Billy Joel records, whispering our fears to each other. We gave each other nicknames and practiced our dance moves.
When we got to middle and high school, Erica was considered a cool kid. She was pretty and athletic and hung out with all the jocks. I was considered a nice kid, a smart kid, but I hung with another slightly less in-crowd. No matter, Erica included me and brought me along, refusing to buy into the nonsense of silly cliques. She even introduced me to my first serious boyfriend, a dreamy Canadian hockey player with blond hair and a sweet smile, someone who was part of her gang.
The summer we turned twelve our families started vacationing together every summer, something we would continue to do all the way through college. We laid on the beaches all day working on our tans and then wandered the beaches at night looking for boys.
When my parents went out of town, I slept at her house. It was on one such weekend that we both got in trouble with the police--being at a keg party when we should have been at the movies. We both spent a lot of time in the church youth group after that.
She visited me at college whenever her school's hockey team played ours. We stayed up all night whispering confessions to each other and never once uttered a word of judgement.
Together we have been through three marriages and two divorces. I held her after her dad died, borrowing a friends car to drive up and be there for the funeral. Between us we have birthed 4 children.
When I sat and cried with a screaming infant on my lap, she consoled me for hours. When the newness of motherhood got to be too much for me to take, she left her daughter with her husband and boarded a train. She helped me give Max his first bath and she did my laundry. When she was on bed rest for five months with her twins I called her almost every morning on my way into work to check in on her. Max and her children have grown close despite the 300 miles between our homes. We try to see them for at least an afternoon a couple times a year. On one such recent visit, these four wee ones (ages 5,6 and 7) linked arms themselves and whispered to that they too will be friends forever.
But those visits never seem to be enough for Erica and I. There are mouths to feed, boo-boos to kiss, hurts to sort out. Neither of us is really able to finish a thought. Little ears are always listening
Every couple of months, the phone will ring at 9 pm. "Are they asleep?" we whisper to each other referring to our children. If they are, we then settle in and start to talk. It will be hours before we get off the phone, bleary eyed and yet we still feel there is so so much more to say. Hanging up feels like a betrayal.
Erica has a heart so big and wide open. Her generousity knows no bounds. She is beloved and needed by everyone. I see in her face how she is so tired from her constant giving--she doesn't complain as she reaches down into her last bit of energy to give it to someone else. I want to wrap her in my arms and protect her from the world which doesn't know how lucky it is that she is in it. She is one of my heros.
This summer was the first year since we were twelve that we didn't sit on the beach in Rhode Island together for at least one afternoon. My heart has been aching ever since.
So Erica invented a new tradition. She realized we needed more time for late night whispering. While we craved two weeks away on a beach somewhere, we both knew that this thing called life meant we could not do it anytime soon. So she decided that she would bring each of her children down for an overnight visit. Each child would get one-on-one time with Max--and leave us to huddle together and talk. No men, no sibling rivalry to sort out. Just quality time, wine and chocolate. And so, yesterday she arrived for the first of these visits.
We wandered through downtown yesterday, Max showing off our little community to Olivia. We walked into the movie rental place and I told her a long and complicated story while the kids picked out a video. She looked at me with a wry smile on her face and interrupted me. "So essentially what you are telling me is this..." and then went on to sum up in 10 words or less a secret held so deep within my heart I had not dare say it outloud to anyone not even myself. After 34 years she can not only read my mind, she can read my heart. And she does it without an ounce of judgement.
Today when it was time to return them to the airport, her daughter lay on the floor by the door and cried. "I don't want to leave" she sobbed. I wanted to join her begging Erica not to go. I wanted to lay my body across the door and hold on to her ankles. I thought to myself, "Livie and I could take her..." But after all these years I know she will be back so I decided to instead support Erica as a parent and I picked up my keys and loaded the car, holding Livia by the hand. It was all I could do to leave them at security. Max and I secretly prayed that they would miss their flight and have to come home for and live with us "for a million years" or at least one more night.
They are home now, safe and sound. Back in their lives as we are back into ours. I will see her at Thanksgiving. We will drink coffee while the kids run wild. It won't be enough time. It never is.
And when it is time to get in the car, I will slip my arm through hers, rest my head on her shoulder and whisper to her that we will be friends forever. And I will count myself among the lucky for the gift of a true old friend.
I am back from another magical romp in the woods.
The children self organized and made the campground their kingdom. While they ran about feral and free, we adults did the important work of cooking, tending the fire and napping. This morning after breakfast we sat around the campfire all of us, strumming guitars and singing. A pastoral Von Trapp family moment twisted only by the children's choice of songs. (I couldn't help but wonder what Child Protective Services would think about the fact that all of our children know this Johnny Cash tune by heart). No matter.
I am unpacking now. I carry the camp chairs in and put them away for the season. They smell like smoke, smoke from the glorious fire, tended by Eric, a blacksmith-wanna-be stoking a furnace fit for smelting. We sat around this fire as the night grew chilly, laughing, telling stories, nursing stout and tequila, sneaking brownies the children never knew were baked, sneaking cigarettes they never knew we smoked.
The little children have been tucked into bed in the Tent-Mahal, lulled to sleep in by the whispers of a father who's own children have grown too old now to be comforted by the cadence of his voice. Teenage fears are not easily chased away by fairy tales but here in this tent at this moment, he is a hero to seven wee ones, a hero with the power to keep the darkness at bay. Covered with children and sleeping bags he is able to relive a memory and to relieve those of us who are too weary of nightly stories, who just need a beer and some quiet. It takes a village...
The little ones are sleeping now. Soundly. The smoke blows in our face as the wind shifts direction and so do we, moving around the circle, shifting positons to talk, to pour a drink, to play. We laugh and sing to homemade music, two guitars, one harmonica. Red wine. Tequila. A few contraband cigarettes. Shake thoroughly. Instant bliss.
One by one sleepy people get up and drift away to our tiny tent city. They drift away until it is only three of us, the roaring fire turned to bright cooking coals now. My dear friend and I lay on our backs in the dirt and gaze at the seven sisters twinkling overhead. Another friend fingerpicking a guitar, Texas blues for the girl with boots, bending strings that connect right to a piece my soul.
And then it is just me, I sit at the fire, shifting the coals around, encouraging them to cool now. I breathe in the smoke, feel the soot settle on my face. I sit in the space of gratitude watching the embers. I am thankful for this trip, for the laughter, for the new people, for the joy my son felt when running free, for the easy hike, the communal dinner, for my dear friend and her family, for all the families together, for the music...for the sweet sweet music.
I lay back, the seven sisters on the other side of the sky now. I can't help but feel that everything is exactly as it should be at this moment. That I, sitting alone by the fire, am exactly where I need to be. That I can relax here in this space. That neither the past nor the future really matter all that much. That the now, these warm coals, this autumn wind, this feeling of rightness is what matters. I think this feeling is called grace. I touch it and wrap my fingers around it. I tuck it into my hair.
I hear my friends stir, shift in sleeping bags. I wish them deep sleep and sweet dreams while I stir the coals. Then, minutes or hours later, I pour water on them and watch the steam rise.
I am so gritty, so grimy from this trip. I have finished unpacking and slip into a warm shower, before I head out to pick up the take-out we will have for dinner tonight. Before I throw in the laundry. Before I check my email.
The smell of smoke wafts through the bathroom--it is washing out of my pores and running down the drain. I want to stop it and capture it. I do not want to let the smoke go. I want it to cling to my skin forever.
I am a little nervous about writing so openly about these issues of faith and my view of God in such a public forum. I am not a churchy person--it is one of the few things I keep close. But today it seemed approrpriate so here are a few of my thoughts...
Several months ago, Max came home from a playdate depressed and sad. It took a little prodding, but I finally got him to tell me what was wrong.
Max: (with indignation in his voice): Mom...Jake says we aren't Jewish. He says we are Christian.
Me: We are Christian. Actually we are Catholic which is a kind of Christian, although we sometimes worship at the Episcopal church. (I think to myself...IF we actually go to church.)
Max: WHAT? (with sadness and disappointment in his voice) But...we celebrate all the holidays...
It's true. We do. The New Year with his best friend Jake and family, Yom Kippur with our dear friends Stephen and Marilyn. We light Channakah candles with several different families each December, and we have sat at many a Passover Seder table in his young years. We have been to so many Shabbat dinners that Max actually can say the prayers over the candles along with our host if he or she prays slow enough.
And its also true that we are really bad at celebrating the Christian holidays--other than the big holidays of Christmas and Easter, which frankly feel so commercial despite my efforts to combat this at home. Aside from these two, there are not many Christian community celebrations that ring true for me. Lighting Advent candles and opening Advent calendars are quiet at home family affairs. We are not great about getting to church--in fact we are really bad at church. And those saints' feast days do not call out for big loud family dinners.
And Max and me, we are great at big, loud, chaotic gathering that involve food and bread and wine and apples dipped in honey. It is part of how we sing our prayers of thanksgiving. The Jewish holidays call to us in this way and so we find ourselves often worshipping alongside our Jewish friends who so lovingly welcome us into their homes.
I have struggled alot about how to raise my son in faith, how to give him a framework upon which to hang his own understanding of the mysteries of the world. And while I have never struggled with my own faith and my spirituality, I do struggle greatly with institutionalized religion and the Catholic Church in particular. I struggle with the limited role for women in my church. I struggle with the church's position on the love shared by my gay friends. I struggle with power-hungry bishops and money-hungry pastors and a bureaucracy that let so many children get hurt to protect priests who were sick. I have issues.
But my God, I have no issues with Him. I see Her face in the face of my friends, my loved ones. I see His hand in the tremendous people I know who work very hard for justice, fairness and kindness in the world. God is omnipresent to me in the laughter of children, in the bloom of a flower, in a blue blue sky and in the kind words of a stranger. But my God is also most present to me in the face of my loved ones, in food prepared with love, in big tables around which our most cherished ones sit. And that is why for us, these harvest holidays, the lighting of candles around a table, the breaking of bread and the introspection of the new year celebrations are what call us to worship.
I find myself thinking about something my neighborhood grandma once told me...something that rings truer each day. Grandma was the wise older woman in our neighborhood who looked after all us kids and loved us all as her own. She is Jewish and she and I were talking about her own children, one who had converted to Catholism in marriage. We were also talking about another of the neighborhood grandkids who had become a wiccan.
"Meggie," she said. "Yahweh, She is so big. None of us humans can understand how deep, complex and awesome He is. But God wanted to know us all. She/He gave each of our cultures a little window to look upon Him with, to communicate with Him/Her in a way we could understand given our culture. Religion is just the window--no one view is more or less correct. Its the same loving God. And thats the only thing that is important."
Perhaps I am a spiritual traveler, one who enjoys the view through many windows. In that spirit, I say to all my dear ones and all the strangers who pass this way, those who celebrate today and those who chose to celebrate in other ways or not at all: L'shanah Tova! --May your new year be filled with love, community, nourishment and joy!
It feels like ages ago that I started this little blog. Hard to believe its only been months. Time plays funny tricks on me these days, reminding me that it really is all relative.
When I started this blog, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. It was a place for me to write, to experiment, to be newsy and practice being brave. I expected that I would write stories about our life here in Maryland and that maybe through those stories I would reveal something about the journey that Max and I are on, a journey of loss and recovery, of independence and reinvention and grief and grace and that maybe someone would like them. I expected that some of these stories would be deeply personal and that I would need to make decisions about what to share to protect my own heart.
But an interesting thing is happening here in our world. When I started writing Max and I were on the tail end of what had been on a long dark hike through the loss of Juan. It was a lonely journey. Writing was a way to help me connect with my thoughts, beliefs and experiences as we walked into the sunrise of our new life. We are still on the journey of course, but it has changed. While it is true I am still struggling with issues around single parenthood, helping Max cope with not having a full-time dad, and the never ending juggling act of trying to do it all, these relatively lonely struggles are no longer at the center.
Day by day, my band of fellow travelers is growing. I have realized that my struggles are not any different really that so many others. I am lucky to have connected with some really interesting and cool people who are themselves reaching out, struggling, journeying--living really, just living, life to its fullest. Some are the people who have been walking with me silently through the long dark icky time when my marriage was going going gone. Others are new to us. Some have become a regular part of our everyday life while others are just passing through for a short time. But I am struck by how much in the last few months I feel connected to community, to a great body of others all trying to make it, not always succeeding, but willing to stand up and try (just try) to be brave in big and small ways. Each one of them is a teacher, a guru, and a partner (whether they intend to be or not).
I am awed by how much of what I am learning is coming from this interaction with my community. And so therefor I find it difficult to talk about my life without simultaneouosly talking about the lives of others. And so I find myself here struggling wanting so desperately to whisper stories to you that illustrate or punctuate what we are going through here in Maryland and yet desperate to protect the privacy of my loved ones who are my partners on this path. And as I sit to write I find myself dancing around the point a bit.
Some of the boundaries are clear--I would never share anyone's personal story without getting their permission. I wouldn't share something I had written just for them without asking their OK. But then once we move past black and white it starts to get murky... Do I need to get permission to mention their first name in passing? To post a photo? To share something beautiful or lovely they did or said? And how do I go about doing that in a way that doesn't seem self important? Suddenly the public-ness of posting on a blog becomes real to me--very real and apparent and scary and stark. I am embarrased and ashamed to ask them if I can share what I am learning from our friendship together here in this very public forum. Not because I don't think they will be giving or because I fear their judgement for asking but because the very act of asking permission means I need to claim the space of being "a writer"--something that seems scary to me. And it means admitting that I have a blog or that I think the blog is important or that someone might just be reading it. It means owning the fact that I am putting my writing out into the world--that I think it is good enough to put out into the world. And then I ask myself--Do I really? And this is a heavy thing indeed. I have put my writing out there not really sure if anyone is even reading it but now...now I need to assume they are. And this freaks me out as much as it thrills me.
And as I write here I am struck just how scared I am to claim this title so that I can keep going here, how I can keep going with the stories no longer of me--but of us.
We just returned home from West Virginia. The house is quiet now, the unpacking of dirty clothes, of camping gear and photos has been done in a burst of efficiency. Max is fast asleep. The crickets alone keep my company.
Last week when I woke to my 7th straight day of a migraine I knew something had to change. It wasn't just the migraines however that had me shaking. I felt like I was struggling, that nothing I did was enough to make it work. The balancing of work and parenting and being a good friend all seemed to be too much. I felt myself tightening from want.
It must have been the Universe who inspired my dear Jackie to call me and invite us to the woods. At the time she offered it sounded as though it was the only thing I should do. We dropped everything and ran.
I should know now that there is nothing that grounds me like eating and sleeping outside among the trees. The energy of the woods, the mountains, the river repairs me even when I am at my most frayed. Over and over again I rediscover this about myself. I am not sure why I forget so easily.
Indeed it was everything I needed to soothe my tired brain, my achey grouchy soul. It was like an amazing power nap, a kind of (in the words of Eric) reboot for the brain. I feel as though I have been away for weeks, I am so refreshed. The stresses that seemed to paralyze me last week have floated away, like leaves carried away by a stream. Joy is now running circulating freely once more--no longer stuck in the muck am I.
Indeed I feel the entire universe conspired to make this weekend perfect. The sky was the most intense cloudless blue, the air temperature was perfect. It felt as though the forest was in cahoots with our merry band of travelers. The river was perfectly refreshing for us. There were long stretches of little children laughing, shrieking, falling down from silliness. And beautiful moments of silence. And music. And endless firewood. And the perfect amount of yummy food.
Alone and together in shifting combinations we moved about the day, collecting, observing, creating. Each moment unfolded effortlessly as both chaos and community flowed as sweetly as the Potomac around the bend, rippling and bubbling and smoothing out the edges of our lives.
I feel so inspired in so many ways but I feel I cannot unpack it all just yet. I struggle here, tripping over my own bliss as I try and write about it, about the way I feel somehow knit back to together around my frayed edges. I just know that I am. And that at this moment is enough.
For more photos of our adventure, click here.
It is cool and rainy today. An August Monday disguised as a rainy November Sunday. It's a sleepy sort of day that reminds me of bookbags, and rainboots and being 8 years old again, curled up next to the fire with a Laura Ingalls Wilder book.
For the third time in a week, something happened today where I thought I had been left out only to later realize it was a mistake and that I had been included the whole time. I have to admit, even though I imagine myself strong and tough, this week I have found myself touching a vulnerable part of my heart--the part that feels really hurt not to be included in the game. It surprises me how strongly it stung to feel, even momentarily, like I was on the outside looking in on my precious little tribe.
Even now, thinking about it, I wonder why I, someone who feels so well loved and cared for, am so in touch with the feeling of being left out. As a child it was the theme of my school day angst--much to the bewilderment of my parents. Is it the fact that Max will be starting a new school that has brought up all my own childhood anxieties?
I ask myself what I need to learn from it, as long as I am feeling it. I breathe in and think about all the people in my life who might be feeling like that right now. I wonder if there is any innocent mistakes that I make that leave others feeling a little more lonely. I remind myself that I need to be careful and vigilant to be inclusive and expansive and welcoming and not to treat my community as an exclusive club but rather to think of it like a mecca of connectedness.
And I smile a slighly bemused smile to learn that being included even now at the ripe old age of almost 38 I still long to be part of the gang and that my heart is still as tender as it was when I was 8. I marvel at how being connected and included and wanted and not forgotten still is powerfully important to me. And I find myself arguing with myself over whether this discovery is a good thing (self discovery, in touch with the tender inner part of our hearts) or a bad thing (I am too sensitive, not rational, childish). My inner mother ends the debate by declaring it just is and reminds me that this sensitivity is usually a signal that I need to hold myself with a little bit of kindness and love for awhile. That maybe I need to rest and drink tea. And be thankful for the big loving and expansive community that does hold me and has me feeling loved, cherished and appreciated.
Yesterday dear dear Dolores and her cute guitarist hubby Morgan sent me this picture from their party.
(Deep sigh)
I am still buzzing from the music. I have a bit to write tonight but wanted to post this separately.
Long live Rock and Roll!
Tonight is Boys Night at our house.
Alex, Julian and Max have been buddies since infanthood, sharing a babysitter, toys and their food. They fight and love each other fiercely. Like brothers. When Alex went off to Kindergarten, Max and Julian held hands and met him at the bus each day. When Julian joined Alex at the Spanish-immersion elementary school, Max waited patiently for that yellow bus to pull up for an hour of bliss each afternoon.
But now that school is out for the summer, they luxuriate in long sleepy days together under the watchful eye of their Nana. Building, running, climbing, hour after long hour wrapped up in imaginary play. Good hard physical boy play. Rolling on the ground, pretend fighting, all poopy jokes and pretend farts. And giggling. There is always lots of non-stop giggling. In the evenings it is hard to pull them apart.
So every now and again we don't. They will sleepover at one house or another. But our house has a special mystique--There are no big sisters here. Boys rule at our house. The will spend all night screeching with laughter, building blanket forts, and launching pillows at the mom at the computer and no one will roll their eyes or beg "MOM...make them stop!".
Tonight they wait at the door for me to arrive home from work like puppies, wagging their tails and begging for pizza. Please please PLEASE can we order pizza AND have a movie?!?. I pick up the phone and call for delivery. Who can resist making such dreams come true?
As I write this they tumble through the dining room at full speed. Strip off their clothes and pull on pajamas, and then explode back downstairs to finish the movie, pure joy and silliness. I want to bottle their laughter.
And tonight, when the movie is done they will curl up like the puppies that they are, together in each others arms in a big pile in the living room. Sweet sweet boys.
Some days its not all bliss with these three. There are hurt feelings, hurt limbs. But usually compassion rules the day. When one of them gets hurt, the other two run for ice. When there is only one icecream sandwich left, Max and Alex let Julian have it because "We know he loves them SO MUCH."
I pray that they will always have each other these friends who knew each other before the Boy Code reared its ugly head, before society tried to convince them that they shouldn't cry in public, or express affection for one another. I pray that when the storms of adolescence rock their world that they will remember the security they felt on summer days falling down laughing and summer evenings falling into each others arms.
everyone I know read this post by Jen Lemen, picked something on it and did it by Saturday next. I think the world would shift in small but amazing ways...I double dog dare ya...
