Kharmic Distribution

First, let me say that I do NOT believe in kharma, but I do think SOMEONE SOMEWHERE has a sense of humor.

Helpful: read in the voice of Sophia Petrillo from the Golden Girls:

Picture it, Toledo, 1998, a young girl, ravishing, no body fat (ok, I'm ebellishing on all accounts, here), falls in love (again, embellishing) with beautiful boy. Doesn't work out. Fast forward.

Now, picture it, Perrysburg, OH, 2009, Giant Eagle parking lot, Friday night at 6:oopm. Middle-aged girl with sappy chick flick pauses in parking lot crosswalk. Nearly gets hit. In the midst of avoiding a collision with a Dodge Ram, girl sees man and woman in a Jeep Cherokee, watching her event unfold. Middle-aged girl recognizes man in driver seat. Doesn't know how or why. Remembers. Becomes embarrased. Realizes what she's wearing. Becomes mortified.

Old, ripped Adidas sneakers.

Fuzzy blue slippers with butterflies made out of applique beads on the outside, stuffed inside her sneakers like socks, but bulging out of the sides under her jeans.

Jeans that are stretched out and too big and bunched into the tongues of her shoes.

A dressy ruffle Caribbean blue shirt, too dressy for the jeans.

An old hoodie, ripped on the arm, army green, too casual for the shirt, whose ruffles are pouring out of the zipper, which is zipped up unnaturally high to avoid the cold.

Hair: one side matted down because of a nap, the older side taking flight; the back is a whoosh of abyssinian guinea pig and then abruptly flattened against her head because a portion of the nap must've been spent laying oddly on back.

Realizes she's standing in the middle of the parking lot crosswalk with other cars waiting for her to finish her cross. Realizes that the man behind the wheel is staring at her.

This ought to teach that girl a lesson to never never never leave the house looking like this ever ever ever again.

consuming

She's quiet, sleeping. Her mouth gapes open and her arms are draped over her head. The whooshing sound of her breath is rhythmic and regular. I can hear it. For a full minute, all I do is listen to her. You would think I was listening to a violin concerto, the way I'm mesmorized by her.

I stand above her. I resist compulsions to touch her, to kiss her. It would mean this moment would end, and I'm not ready.

She sighs and rolls over to her side. My breath catches, and for a second or two, I do not make a sound, move a finger, fearing even the unnoticeable rise of my chest filling with air will lure her to consciousness.

Her hand reaches for her sucky blanky, to find its security, even in her sleep, and its texture is instantly wrapped up inside her fingers. It's become reflex, her need for her sucky blanky. With the few reflexes our babies are born with, it is our world that creates new ones, and extinguishes the old. Her hands are still tiny, her body is little. The outline of her shape rises like a moutain chain under her princess blanket, and I am struck by how much I love her. She's four, and yet I want to envelop her into my arms, a swoosh of consuption, and hold her close like when she was a baby.

I kneel down and look at her. Her dark eyelashes. The tiny visible pulse in her neck. Right now I realize the weight of losing her, and I stare at her. She is a miracle. She is MY miracle. Even now, as I watch sitting silently next to her, she is growing, changing. Right now, she is bigger than she was a minute ago. She is moving in a black tunnel, in a cavernous force like the Bernoulli effect: as time is marching onward, she is moving away from me, faster and faster, seeking independence and abilities her own, separate from me. And, the humor in all of it is that I am encouraging it. I am fostering it.

With every victory, I cheer her, I clap. Can she see that there are times when this is false? When my heart is breaking because her victory means she needs me a little less?

*********************

He is predictable. It is 3:52pm and, though I am sitting and reading a book on the couch, I have detached from the novel. I am on autopilot, listening. For him.

A noise.

No, it's just a dog barking in the distance. Wait... there he is. His voice is scratchy at first, growing clearer by the second.

MOMMY! DONE!

It is functional, what he says. His calling for me has less to do with love than it does function. He wants out of his crib, a wooden cage that prevents him from exploring, or digging, or empyting cabinets. He wants out.

I open the door a crack, peeking in, trying to provoke a smile out of him. His smiles are like prozac. They bring a rush of endorphins that make me feel like I want to burst. He cries and says, "Nooooo." My heart sinks a bit, but I try again. I know him. I know there is a reason.

"Where's your blanky, Mak? What happened to it?" In the darkness, I see he hasn't moved from his spot standing in his crib, and as I turn on his light and open his shade, I see he's pointing.

There it is. It's on the floor. I stoop to pick it up, and he is rushed with smiles and coos. This blanket of his, it's special. It's a rung on a ladder that leads to the tunnel. The one that directs toward independence.

I pick him up and rub his back. He is tiny. He lays his head on my shoulder, heavy and unmoving, and he is still. He is limp, and I feel the rise and fall of his breathing against my body. I feel his shoulder blades, small on his back, and rub my lips over his fuzzy head. He smells so good, but it doesn't smell like clean. It's his very own scent, better than any other, and I wonder if someday he'll have a wife who'll love this smell, too? I'm not ready to share him, yet.

I sit down at the computer to check my email, and while I'm typing, he is playing, he is a boy. Straddling me on my lap, he is leaning in, touching my nose with his nose. He is giggling. It is a game. His eyes are so happy. I stop, see him, look at his smile, and he becomes shy. Throwing himself against my chest, he is waiting for me, hiding, beckoning me. "Will she do it?" I know it, so I squeeze my fingers around his sides and he wriggles with delight and laughter.

My boy.

*********************

Do they know?

Do they know that when we kiss them, when we hold them, when we sniff their little heads or trace our fingers around their fingers that it is not for them?

It is selfish; it is for us. It is for me. It is because my love for them is like a consuming fire, and unless I unleash some of it, release it to them, it will consume me. It is because there was a moment when she was all mine, when he was a part of me. They were in my body, and I didn't have to share them with anyone. Now, they are growing and changing, and as I sniff, or trace, or kiss, or hug, or tickle, it is for me: because it is a wonder that they are becoming all that they are outside of me, apart from me, and I am filled with awe.

They are marvelous little creatures. I am so selfish, I want to freeze time. I want them to stay little, for their hands to fit inside of mine for forever, for their voices to call me indefinitely with the trust that I can fix anything.

This is impossible, but today, this is what my heart is thinking.

Teaching compassion

You know, when you dive into the motherhood thing, you worry about eating and sleeping schedules, dry skin, or diaper rash. You just don't immediately contemplate the depth of the mysteries you'll need to teach your children. You don't list out the virtues that you'll need to instill in your children to make them well-rounded, good people. You really don't think a lot about all of this when you're pregnant, let alone when you're dealing with sleep-deprivation at 3am, or their refusing to eat their vegetables when they're 16-months-old, or when they're throwing temper tantrums at your feet when they're two while you're cooking dinner. You manage each hurdle, obstacle, trial as they come, thinking most of the time on your feet, instantly second-guessing yourself at some turns. And, you pray that they let you have a 10-minute phone conversation, or behave well while you go to the grocery store. You manage, minute by minute, task by task, and try to be consistent, even though you're too tired to remember how to spell some words. But, how does it happen that we teach our kids kindness? Or, honesty? Or hope? Or compassion?

It seems that in the balance of what we do, the amount of US that we pour into our kids, the times that we sacrifice for them, that they learn it. It seems that in our conversations with our friends (reminder to BE A GOOD FRIEND!), in our kindnesses to our husbands, in our concern for their hurts or the needs of another, we impart it to them. When we stop what we're doing to kiss a scraped knee, or when we carefully tape a ripped picture back together, or when we pause to undo a knot or broken toy or stuck gamepiece, or when we give them choices, we teach them compassion. We teach them understanding. We teach them sacrifice. We teach them kindness. We teach them concern. We teach them to be peacemakers. We teach them to be gentle. We teach them to love. They love like we do. They repeat what we say. And, someday, they will mother (or father) like we do. We teach them these virtues in the "between the lines" parts of the day. They become a concert of our best and worst features, character traits, and qualities.

My reminder for today, this day:

That, although my daughter will forgive my mistakes, she may learn them and repeat them. As much as I need grace to accomplish mothering her with success, I also need to remember there is no other job as important. My character is both on display and on trial in who she is and who she becomes.

Yesterday, Sophia gave me a picture with stickers on it. She was so proud. She pointed out "the six stickers JUST for me". I had been angry with Bri and yelling. I had found quiet and solace upstairs on the computer (of course). She was upset that I was yelling, and so she brought me the picture and said, "Mom, this reminds me of you. And your heart. And, inside, that is love. Does that make you feel happy?" ...to the point of bursting, Soph.

Compassion... check.

And the future of keeping up with the Jones'...

I think that we have a problem here that no amount of government intervention can rectify.

It seems to me, as I've listened to friend after friend tell me about their new computer, or new stainless steel appliances, or new tv, or new _________, that many of us have been so disallusioned to believe that we are as great as what we own. And, what floors me the most, I suppose, is that these people who have a long laundry list of recent BIG purchases are those who have the least amount of money to burn. These are also folks who are in debt up to their ears and still feel entitled to own more. So, is this what America is composed of?

Forget "the home of the brave", because we've avoided paying our debtors what we owe them, forget abiding by the confines of our paycheck because we have credit cards with high limits; we certainly ARE "home of the free" because we have opposed every effort our government exercises to promote peace in other parts of the world, yet we want all of the freedoms and accoutrements of high spending habits not limited by a yearly salary. And, of course, we can continue on our road to destruction because our peace-loving, freedom-ensuring goverment would NEVER kick us out on our asses for not paying our mortgage, right? They will institute programs to buy back our over-due home loans, lowering our interest rates, lower our monthly payments, so that we can continue on our road to load our shelves with the latest, greatest whatever.

Of all things these days, America is "the home of the entitled", and I am becoming more and more embarrased that we that have forgotten that the BIG things in life come as payoffs to a lifetime spent of hard work, saving money, living frugally, understanding perseverence, appreciating "the wait", and feeling the pain of going without. Shame on us, all of us, for feeling like what we've had isn't enough, that we want it sooner, now, and that the rewards of our parents' hard labor should be at our fingertips without a single drop of sweat dropping off of our brow. Shame on us.

God help us all if we do not recognize this.

I'll step off of my soap box, now. Thankyouverymuch.