He's Grown New Feathers Enabling Farther Flight

Our boy is off for the ISEE (the standardized test used by private schools the way the SAT is used by colleges and universities).

We chose to have him attend a small alternative public school in part because he gets stressed out by tests and frankly the word "test" means something completely different when you have diabetes. On the threshold of high school and in the midst of the application process he's embarking on a rite of passage this morning. He's done lots of preparation and is completely ready for the "ordeal," but that does not really change the fact that it is a test, but not of what he knows intellectually like those administering the ISEE or the ones who will receive his results, might think. No, this is a test that in part marks his growing up.

He would not have to take this test, nor do test prep every week since August if not for HIS desire to be able to choose his next step. For the last 13 years, we've been making those choices for him. We've decided where he's going to school and what's important and right for our boy. Now, he's stepped up and wants to participate in those choices. He's not a little boy any longer, one for whom we make the best decisions we can for him. He wants to do it for himself.

I can't help but think of the rite of passage ritual and ceremony that occurs in this time of life for teen boys who identify themselves as Jewish. My boy does not. His father is Jewish and I'm an equal opportunity ritualist who welcomes each Jewish holiday with the zest that is hard to match when you've been raised with such traditions and they may have lost some of their excitement. So our boy is half Jewish, but does not think of himself as Jewish, nor any religious identification really although I have heard him refer to himself as more Buddhist than anything (could it be that taking him on a pilgrimage to the sacred sites of Buddha's life along with a Tibetan Rinpoche made an impression?).

But I diverge. My point here is to comment on the journey of the Bar Mitzvah. According to the website Judaism 101's page on Bar Mitzvah (http://www.jewfaq.org/barmitz.htm), a boy automatically becomes a "bar mitzvah" at age 13 when he is now seen as old enough to be responsible for his own actions. The ceremony is a relatively new creation to mark this automatic relationship with God and the community. For that ceremony, it is common for the teen to study long hours for many months if not years so that on the day of his (or her in the case of a bat mitzvah) ritual, he is able to prove his knowledge of Judaism through a recitation of, at minimum, a blessing in Hebrew to as much as performing most of the religious service. All this is to demonstrate to the community the young person has taken on the religious obligations of an adult.

Our boy did not go through the rigorous study I've seen others do as they prepare for their ceremonial Bar Mitzvah. He did however, prove (to us at least) his assumption of responsibility. He made a heartfelt commitment to studying for the ISEE, even when it wasn't convenient or worse, interfered with better options. It wasn't easy and was, for the most part, self directed. Once he set his sights on the power he wanted to have over his options for schools, all we had to do was get out of his way and provide the logistical support to make tutoring happen. He struggled. He often hated it. And, he never stopped.

While the ISEE doesn't exactly mirror religious rites as there is very little that could pass for sacred, it mirrors rites of transition quite closely. In our mostly profane culture many things, including test taking, have become a form of sacred...something separate from the normal everyday life, that holds in it a certain magic and mystery. (But I certainly know many who would argue that point with me.)

Regardless, the journey our boy has taken with this process has mirrored the stages of Van Gennep's rites of passage as defined in his book aptly named, The Rites of Passage. The first of these stages include the "rites of separation" which in this case involved the hours spent removed from other activities to prepare for the test (Van Gennep, 11). He was separated from his friends, his brother, his parents, fun in general, all for the purpose of preparation.

Today, he embarks on one of the major steps in the center rites of the journey, "liminal rites (rites of transition)" (Van Gennep, 11). These rites will last for a time and in some ways are themselves preparatory. Yes, today he takes the test for which he has been preparing for months, but the test in itself is in preparation for the eventual transition to high school, which in turn is in preparation for adulthood. But this sort of thinking is part of what clouds the steps in themselves and muckies up the water so as not to see clearly the rites in themselves along the way. This test, today, is the liminal rite he's been building up to, working for and separating himself from others to ready himself for the ordeal that is this test. What he is doing right now while he fills in bubbles on the scantron is the test, is the time when he shows the community what he has learned and that in doing the preparation and the test, he has proven he is ready to take on more responsibility for his own journey. I have witnessed this fully and I have been both moved and impressed, while simultaneously knocked off kilter by the awareness that my little boy is transformed.

As he left today, I hugged him good-bye and wished him good luck. His head was next to mine, ear to ear. I felt his body within my embrace and he was different. It was one of those moments when you get surprised by something you already know. 

The final stage in Van Gennep's theory is incorporation. That part is yet to be seen. Who will return from this ritual trial of the intellect? How will our family, his friends and society embrace him? As changed? Altered? Different? With so little cultural understanding of passages and the value of preparation for and facing directly, challenges of the body, mind and soul, what can I expect? I know for me, these are often the rites for which my acknowledgement is weakest. Perhaps it is enough to let him know that I see him. I witnessed his journey with joy, awe and honesty. I have watched his struggle and seen his courage.

What more could I want for my child/man, than to witness him choose his own rite of passage, his own place of growth into strength and to see him step into the place that shows he has taken the obligations of an adult, at least in terms of the religion of education (in a culture that reveres science above all Gods, I think it is perfect to refer to it that way).

My job now is simply to get out of his way. That and to always let him know that I see him, truly see him, as he is today, not for the boy he once was, but for the young man he is.

That is no easy task. But, that is also where my journey as mother is, in some ways, a parallel journey, a parallel rite of passage. Mine is of ever greater trust and progressively letting out longer and longer thread, ever expanding my children's flight range so that one day, they are each totally free to fly off in the direction of their dreams guided not by me, but by their own deeply internalized True North.

Gestating Our Journey

I guess it should be no surprise that I didn't do a single post in October. Yes, it was a busy month, but I think it had more to do with how I was holding the trip last month. In many ways, I wasn't.

We've been home now just over three months. And while I jokingly answered the question, "so do you feel like you've settled in?" with the somewhat crass and somewhat realistic answer, "no, I'm giving myself a year," in practice, October was when I settled "back" in. It took two months. In the first two months back, the texture and flavor of the trip stayed close by in memory, thought and action. Unfortunately, in October, I lost much of that. We had a birthday, a death, a wedding and the Walk. I re-entered graduate school, fully. The boys rejoined activities, school and tutoring. I added a part-time job called "exploring high school options for next year" (it feels like a huge task!). And, I jumped back into my work taking on a doula client, adding classes and building my website (www.embodica.com). Yes, the trip faded further and further into the backdrop as "something we did last year."

But, November is bringing aspects of the trip back to the surface and I welcome the visitor. Yesterday, we had brunch with another family we met on the road, also from Los Angeles and also traveling the world for a year. Our trips overlapped one day in Paris even though our overall itineraries were quite similar. Before they arrived for brunch, I asked Brent what was sticking with him from the trip, anticipating the kinds of questions I would want to ask of our fellow travelers. Asking the question to ourselves as well as connecting again with our "kindred spirits of the road," brought our journey back to life.

It's not that I want to always be living in the shadow of "our trip." It's more that I want to consciously integrate and grow from the experience. I do not want to simply "settle back in" as if nothing has happened and I/we haven't changed. If that were true, what would the point BE of doing a year away? For me, integration and growth are primary. There was a way that October was both settled, but also somewhat asleep. There is, actually, no way that our journey can go completely underground as it lives in my flesh now, but like a practice done every morning for a year that is then skipped, the ritual of it was missed. The effects of it were there, but the practice of noticing them had gone silent.

November already feels different. We touched our trip yesterday with our friends. We felt it last night as we all cuddled on the couch watching John Adams until it was well past bedtime. It was alive in our house this morning as Brent and I practiced Ashatanga while the boys puttered around making food, being silly and totally together. And then we went out to breakfast, ordered coffees and played cards.

It is not these particular activities that bring the experience to life, but the emotional quality of family and lack of routine that infuses our spirit with something...different.

Maybe for other people, those moments would be commonplace. For us, they require a certain amount of conscious effort. Not because we don't desire them, but because life in LA has other plans for us. Take this past weekend for example. One of my boys was gone all weekend due to a birthday sleepover party and a long desired night with his grandma. We had no such conflicting plans for a year. No one needed anything of us. This fact alone was a huge difference to life here.  Saying no is a practice and one that does not come easily for us nor receiving it easy for those around us. Every weekend could be like this past one. I don't think it is any coincidence that today, a holiday, we felt so free to be in trip mode. Today was not a weekend. Today, like our trip, fit nicely into liminal space, space that is neither normal nor sacred. Totally ours.

In fact, as I reflect today on what was different about our time on the trip it can be summed up as that, liminal...it was neither this nor that, but other. Pregnancy is like that too. It is neither the time of being without children nor is it like full parenthood. You could say that we were pregnant for the year we were away. We are still birthing ourselves as new beings every day. And like it often is with newborns, the first three months were altered and other.

Perhaps now, as we enter our forth month home, I will actually begin to feel how my new skin is shaped and shaded rather than only feeling its newness. Perhaps now, I will be able to step into the liminal space that feeds me so deeply when I desire it and with consciousness. Perhaps now, I can move forward knowing that the changes gestating during the trip have been born and I am transformed with or without awareness of these shifted parts of Self.

I am back. But I am not back to normal. I no longer know what that is. I am settled in. But I am not settling.

I am altered forever and I am grateful.

~Britta

P.S. It is my guess that this blog will become less and less about our trip, re-entry and family travel in general. I plan to still blog, but more of the content will be about my journey with dissertation writing, birth work, and of course family living. Feel free to change your subscription status if you no longer wish to receive blogs of that sort.

Sharing with you all in this way has been a huge privilege and joy. Thank you for following along.

When the Tentacles are Gone and I am Left with Myself

It hit me while we were in Tuscany this summer, that now with my graduate course work done, I would no longer have three day school trips to mark my month and give me two nights a month in a hotel room, ALONE. That obligatory time away was over even if the amount of work will still be high all the way through the dissertation labyrinth. Could it be possible that part of my joy and certainly part of the stamina that got me through all three years of grad school was the image on my Google Calendar of a band of color stretching across three days? The image yes, but more likely what it represented. For me, as a mother of two school age boys who highly values her alone time, getting away for two nights every month was not only self-satisfying, it was necessary.

It was also in Tuscany where it became strikingly clear to me that the Upperworld was calling me to re-enter and deepen my focus on career. Enough time spent frolicking in the Underworld of child rearing...time to come up and share what I have learned! Brent got it too. Together we would inch my career up on the priorities list of our lives. It would require both of us.

Unlike some couples, we rarely are able to go out of town at the same time. If Brent goes away for business or pleasure, I'm home with the kids and he does the same for me. One of the two of us has to be home to tend to nighttime diabetes management for our eldest. Planning our travel calendars is a complicated business. Last year was easy! With the exception of Brent's one trip to Africa (while the boys and I roughed it on a beach in Thailand) we were always together. We've been home almost 2 months now, and that has already changed.  We knew it would and planned for it as best we could.

One change we made was to make this year no different than my years doing course work. I would go away every month for three days, even stretching it to three nights. We put two such "writing retreats" on the calendar a few weeks ago and I crossed my fingers that they would actually happen.

Yesterday, I was due to leave at noon. Brent was having a rough day, the boys were cranky, the house was overwhelmingly in need of more focus and I was due to leave at noon. It would be my first of what would hopefully become monthly excursions. I'd like to say that at 2pm when I was debating the sanity of leaving, it was because of the external forces nagging at me to stay, but mostly, it was my own resistance. I would have thought I would dive headlong into the car and send a wave out the window as I sped off down the driveway into "my time." That's not what happened. Instead, I deliberated. I asked if I should go. I looked at all the reasons to stay including the fact that I'm not even ready to start typing words and writing my dissertation! What would I even DO on this "writing retreat?"

Brent and I had a great talk that afternoon, connecting and sharing as we haven't had the opportunity to in some time. During our talk, it became clear to me that I had to go on my "writing retreat" just to communicate to my system that I am worth it! This particular few days away have little to nothing to do with tangible results in research or writing. This retreat, was about carving out the time for myself and making that a priority even when it is not a good time (doesn't every mother know there is no such thing anyway?!). I had to pick my butt up, pack some stuff (yes, I did load a bunch of books for good measure), and get myself on the road for no reason other than it was scheduled time for me to devote to ME.

I drove to Mammoth, a far longer drive than the ones I use to take to Carpinteria for school. I listened to a wonderful travel memoir as I drove and hung out with myself. My co-pilot, Nanna and I made good time as she never wanted to get out of the car and I was able to just drive. It was maybe three or so hours into the drive when I suddenly felt truly alone. I was grateful for Nanna's company as I was surprised by the sensations rising within me as the distance between me and my family grew.

It's been well over a year, closer likely to 18 months since I have truly been alone. Being alone was once like a vitamin that needed to be taken regularly, but since traveling, I must have recalibrated my system. I found as I drove and the night fell more vast in front of me that I was off kilter, anxious almost. The sky was dark, not Los Angeles dark, but dark like the inky shadow that falls to the east of the Sierra on a moonless night...kind of dark.

The road was familiar enough, but I was not. Who is this woman that lives in my body now? What is she like when the tentacles that move outward from her body and masquerade around as her family have come dissociated from her? What is she doing all the way out on the 395 in the middle of the darkness with only her dog and a suitcase full of books?

The condo was cold and comforting, welcoming me as a place that truly is my other home now. Nanna bounded up the stairs, happy to be here. As I pulled out heaters and lit a fire attempting to warm the space, I had to watch my thoughts. Every strong wind set me on edge, I was careful to lock the doors, and decided that heavy set of books could wait 'til morning to make the journey from the car.

This nervous woman was unfamiliar to me. I love being alone, remember! In the still energy of the night, I was vibrating like electricity... not the good kind! My entire system was reacting to being alone and so far from family. I remember a similar feeling after KK was born and I left him for the first time. This was not very different.

Part of it was being away from my loved ones, but a bigger part was being alone with myself. What would I do? How do I make the most of this time? Could I just open a bottle of wine and watch period pieces? Do I need to have something to show in order to justify this time away?

I've now been here almost a full 24 hours. The darkness has fallen again and I'm far more settled. I did watch a period piece last night and the wine is waiting for me on the counter now. I've spent much of the day on this computer doing what I could for my dissertation, the sort of stuff that has to do with emails and formalities rather than writing and research. I worked on my website,  while not related to my dissertation, is part of focusing on my career. Inanna and I took a walk to the Village for happy hour, only to learn that my favorite place for sangria outside of Spain was closed (note to self, Sidedoor is closed Mondays through Wednesdays whether that means future "writing retreats" should or should not happen on those days is yet to be determined).

Tomorrow is set for a full day devoted to re-entering my dissertation: book exploration, quote extraction and re-reading my concept paper. I don't know if I'll get it all done or even if it really matters. For this trip was mostly about re-entering what it means to be by myself.  In that area, it has been wildly successful already.

The Gift of Seventh Grade

There are many gifts we've received from our journey away, some were expected, others less so and some were complete surprises. Currently, I'm very aware of one...or better said, two such gifts; my children.

Yes, this is going to be one of those type of posts so if you're not in the mood, just don't read.

First off, I hated seventh grade. I mean hated it. It was a rough year for me on so many levels; my sister left for boarding school and left me alone at home with just my mom, I didn't have the nicest of friends even though I was the second best friend of the most popular girl in school (at least for part of the year), and that was the year I experimented with rule breaking way more than any other year of my life. Yeah, it wasn't a great year, but likely even worse for my mom. I figured that part out pretty quickly when I saw how hard she was working with herself after I broke into her tiny stash of booze without asking (her main rule) along with said "popular girl" best friend. Yes, this was seventh grade. And while it's hard for me to imagine my now 8th grader doing the same sorts of things, I remember it vividly and have dreaded his 7th grade year for most of his young life.

I guess that's why I decided to spend every s i n g l e moment of his 7th grade year with him. Clearly...WHAT was I thinking?! Seventh grade had to be the worst year ever to spend with no release from togetherness! How would we make it through?

Perhaps the biggest shock of the year for me had to do with the reality of our time in close togetherness. Yes, we witnessed our 12 year old become 13 in all the ways that manifests and some days it was beyond rough! Even still, the majority of time was pretty good verging on great.

But the biggest shock is how our time together has sent ripples into our lives at home. I truly enjoy spending time with my 13 year old! The same is true of my ten year old although far less shocking as he's still cute, tender, and likes to be read to at night. But to be close, connected and enjoy the company of a teenager, my teenager? That's, well...magical! That's the word that sums it up best, the trip had a magical effect on the relationship I share with my older boy.

It was the time we spent together yes, but it was more than that too. Being together for so many uninterrupted days also allowed me to see him more clearly. I got that he's no longer the super cute little blonde-headed boy with the sweet way of talking, but rather a good human being growing into a wonderful young man.

When he turned 13 he asked for privileges, specific privileges and laid them out for us to discuss. He gave us time to consider them and get back to him. Even in the way he approached his birthday and his own aging process showed me his deepening maturity. How could we NOT grant him his requested privileges? I wanted him to know that I could see how he's grown. Giving him more responsibilities as well as privileges was a tangible way to say to him, "I see you are growing and I trust who you are now." I want him to feel that from me.

What changed? I'm not sure exactly. I'm not sure when it changed or exactly how. We started by letting up a bit on what we thought was right and wrong based on what's comfortable outside of our family unit. What mattered to us was only what mattered to us as no one else was ever really around. Clarity of our personal family values was deeply aided by only being around one another.

For example, we really don't care much about swearing and my boys will be the first to tell you that "Granny has the biggest potty-mouth around." We talked about swearing and when and with whom you are allowed to swear (Granny was OK, but older generations in general are not). We found that letting a few F-bombs and so forth go at times of stress or frustration actually cut the intensity of the situation for all of us. The kids kind of enjoyed hearing us catch ourselves tongue in check in the midst of a good old fashioned curse session. For the kind of potty mouth I have, I'm really impressed how clean my language has been around my kids for the past 13 years. And as a result, when the reins loosened a bit, it was enjoyable for all of us.

We watched things together that families (particularly in our Waldorf-inspired school community) would find beyond inappropriate and loved it. We laughed, discussed and allowed boundaries to expand. Same was true with our audiobook selections which did create opportunities to explain, express and swallow our own best intentions.

More than how we broke our own rules was how we showed up for our boys. We weren't their friends, but we were their parents and we were always there. They watched us and we shared nearly every moment. We taught them our favorite complicated, highly-strategic, card game and they learned to beat us. We struggled to get along. We fought. We argued. Doors were slammed. But after every fight, we were still there and so were they as there was no where else to go. We were forced to figure our how to make up after a fight better than ever before. Upset could not hang around long... there just wasn't room in our suitcases!

Now as a result of these struggles through the moments where we wanted to run away, I have found that I really like being with my kids. We still argue and my 13 year old still drives me crazy, but it feels different. Mostly now, when he's driving me crazy, I can still somewhere find a smile on my face to go with my irritation and frustration.  I see him beneath his upset and often it makes sense.

One of the exercises we did at Thich Nhat Hanh's community in France called Plum Village was what they called "Beginning Anew" ceremony with the teens.  During that ritual teens got to speak to their parent in a particular way and express what they may not have expressed previously. I had always thought I knew what my son thought of me and our relationship. I thought I had a pretty good sense of what he liked and didn't like. I knew we triggered each other pretty easily and that neither of us liked that much. But what I didn't know was that one of my favorite parts of our relationship is also one of his and that he values it possibly as much as I do. Now, when I find myself with time to just chat, like I did tonight, I let myself fall into his space, his speed, his rhythm and his story. I ask, but mostly I listen. We laugh, I get laughed at, and we connect.

It's been helpful to me to remember being in eighth grade. That was the year I left home for boarding school. It's an easy year to remember as I was only on that particular campus for one year and it was my first year away so the memories are stark, vivid, and close to the surface. I was 13. He is 13 now. I was soooo grown up. He's...well it is highly possible that he feels as grown up as I did back then and maybe he's more mature than I might believe is even possible for this child-man who was a newborn such a short time ago.

I know I'm messing some things up. I know I'm imperfect as a mother, especially a mother of a teenager! I'm new at this. I remind him of that. Just as his being older is newish to him so too is it new to me. We're figuring this whole thing out together. One thing is certain, we aren't done growing yet! I'll do my best and fail a lot. He'll do what he can to be patient with me, but he'll suck at that too. But this bumpy awesome ride is the nature of adolescence. It isn't boring.

My main question now...where are we going when our now ten-year-old enters seventh grade? That much dreaded year has come and gone relatively smoothly for one and is but two years away for the other. I don't know...how about another lap of the globe?

Audiobooks, Routines, and What it Means to be Home

Audiobooks are a part of our life--before, while traveling and again now that we've returned. While traveling, we listened to audiobooks (most often referred to as "books on tape" proving the age of the parents carefully selecting books for our family's education and entertainment). We listened to many while in Europe as that was where we most frequently rented a car and therefore could share in an audio experience collectively. We attempted to choose books that through the use of history and fiction could bring a place to life in an historic way for our story-devouring children.

In Peru, we listened to Turn Right at Machu Picchu which beautifully brought to life the story of the controversial Hiram Bigham III as well as the landscape of the area we personally explored on our own trek. In England we listened to The Constant Princess a quite fictionalized story of Catherine of Aragon and her life both in Spain and England. This one was our first big stretch of inappropriateness as the narrator discussed details of her wedding night as well as other less child-friendly forays. I quickly learned that my quick-twitch action to turn the volume down as adult scenes arrived only served to bring attention more fully to them. I soon gave up my meager attempts at censorship and let the story expand young minds beyond the bounds of history. After that, we got looser rather than more restrictive and launched into two Dan Brown novels while in Italy, Inferno and The Da Vinci Code. We followed those up with the heart-wrenching and beautiful one two punch of The Book Thief (set during the Holocaust) and Angela's Ashes (set in Ireland during the Great Depression). What we listened to wasn't easy stuff. It made us talk. It was too much at times for not just our kids, but for all of us. AND our books brought to life through story some of the intangibles of history in a way that facts, figures and even photos have a difficult time doing. Our connection to people (fictional or factual) gave more heart and context to otherwise somewhat distant experiences. All our stories were just that, stories...based in some historical time and place, but stories.  We were enthralled and connected to history and to each other. 

Here in this ordinary life, audiobooks join us on long road trips, carpool and for me as I tootle around town running errands or returning from carpool without the car-load of kids. Currently, my carpool is devouring one book and I'm listening to a few others, one story one, one more of a self-help type, two to work with different audiobook moods.  Today, while listening to "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" by Katrina Kenison (recommended by a dear friend as a memoir she thought I'd like in both style and content) I found myself drifting off while she spoke about what home really means to her and drifting into what it means for me. For her, home was the routines and structure that defines a life being lived wherever it is rather than a house. Home, she says, can be created anywhere. This last part of her musings I agree with, home can be created anywhere, but for me I am bristling with the whole concept of routine especially as a cornerstone of home.

It has been over a month now since returning to L.A....five and a half weeks since we collected our suitcases at LAX for the last time on our nearly year-long journey. The first few weeks I was floating on the joy and fulfillment wake left by the experience of so long away, away and together with family. My first real break, the first real moments of slipping away from that current that allowed all to be well with the world even when it wasn't, happened when the kids started school. It was the routine associated with home that splashed water into my mouth while I floated and sent me thrashing around sputtering and flailing.

I have fantasized about the boys going back to school, of languid hours of "me time" awaiting after school drop off, opportunities to attend yoga classes I love and the simple routines I have adored in the past like making my tea or coffee and making my way back to my desk to immerse myself in the project of the day. These mental fabrications and travel-rough-spot-salves are based on a way of life that use to exist in some form in a time before. Like the author I'm listening to, I found solace and joy in regularity, routine, and an organized calendar. Today, these things seem to make my skin bristle and I ponder the change.

While it use to be that routine and rhythm gave me and I know my kids comfort, a predictability to life. Things around could get cacophonous and we could all grab hold of the side-railing called routine. Our lives were busy, crazy, overly-filled, but we had our routines and they steadied us as the rest of our busyness dodged us this way and that.

Craziness has met us here...much of it self-inflicted. We rented out our house for a year and came home to the challenges that follow leaving our quirky Topanga home of 15 years in the less than caring hands of others. Knowing we needed a car for our trips to Mammoth, we sold mine requiring a new car purchase within a few weeks of our return. And, we gave away most of our living room furniture along with the Sharpie on the pillows and food stains on the cushions, ready to make the break from the sofas of our children's childhoods to ones their more grown-up selves could maybe, just maybe appreciate and enjoy without the love that requires personalization of a juvenile type. Without anywhere to sit and the acquisition of first a rug and then a highly unique, albeit beautiful, coffee table in Morocco sent us to hiring an old friend who is also a designer to aid with what we thought would be refinishing the floors, painting the walls and buying a few pieces of furniture, but grew into far more. Yes, the craziness of life here met us full on!

What surprised me though, was that the routine of regular life back here didn't offer the comfort it usually use to. When I could look on my calendar and see YOGA on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I knew I had "me time" carved out and scheduled. That use to give me a sense of joy.

Today is Wednesday. My calendar reminded me this morning that I had yoga at 9:30 with one of my favorite instructors. It is the most organized of my days; I drive carpool, do yoga, shower, run a few errands including grabbing much needed groceries and head back to drive the other side of carpool. Organized, reliable, steady, and today...rather than refreshing me I felt parched as I unconsciously drove to my awaiting appointment with myself. My energy started to drop, a dark mood cloud flowed overhead, and Katrina Kenison read on and on about home and everyday life. Unlike last Wednesday when I felt this same response to a similar day, today, I caught myself. I got off the freeway early, found a Starbucks bathroom in which to change out of my yoga clothes, got back into my car and sat.

That was the moment of truly gifting to myself "me time." What did I want to do? What would truly be self nurturing? Most often the answer to that question is yoga, hence the reason it lands on my calendar as a place holder for personal time. Today, however, the effort of yoga felt like too much. In yoga there is a lot of surrender, but there is also quite a bit of effort, the two the ha and tha. Life is offering plenty of opportunities to exert effort. What I needed today was surrender, care, attention and a chance to express myself.

I drove my nurture-needing-self to the salon. I got my eyebrows done and picked the more expensive "spa-pedicure" complete with massaging chair and surrendered. Letting go into the moment, I closed my eyes and felt into the care being offered to my body by the mechanical hands at my back and the four hands touching my body--two on my feet and two on my hands. In the past I might have been busy with my phone or my thoughts while such luxury was bestowed, but not today. Today I practiced the yoga one of my primary teachers assigned to me years ago, but that I doubt she meant it for a spa day, I "presenced" each moment. This meant no judging, no good/bad, no preferences, just being and receiving the gifts offered exactly as they were being given, fully. The yoga of spa day and routine breaking. My mat stayed rolled up in my trunk and my yoga practice so far today has been deep.

Now, I sit waiting for my lunch, finding expression in words to an audience of ether. I reflect down at my toes, unfamiliar now "done" as they haven't been in over a year in their previously customary silver polish and I question what it means to have a "home." No, for me, now in this new incarnation of myself, home is not found in routines or rhythm, schedules or well organized calendars nor in complete itemized to-do-lists.  Home is a feeling within my body. I found it last night as the boys and I played "Mille Borne"while eating a far too simple meal for my previous self of bagel pizzas and frozen peas. Home is the moment shared with a friend in a yoga studio on Tuesday while she hugged me and communicated her understanding of my altered state of being. Home is the moment this morning in the bathroom of the Starbucks where I changed clothes and didn't buy coffee. And home is now, in these moments while I explore the landscape inside me, when I slow down enough in the craziness and busyness that has been a hallmark of my life here, to reflect and listen to the voice and silence inside. Home is not in the routine, but the moments of truly living that routines often mask rather than bring fully to life. Home is this moment, this feeling in my body right now.

I like home...wherever and whenever I can find my way there. Location is not necessary.

While some places are easier than others, home can be with me anywhere. In fact, home was often easier to find while traveling, than it has been since I've been back. Too often I've responded to my day out of habit and routine and in so doing killing my sense of home. It has been the ways I've broken those and acted most differently to situations and people that have brought me closest to home here. So while I am still surrounded by boxes I plan to allow myself to unpack them slowly, impulsively when called for rather than adding them to a to-do-list. We'll see. I may not be able to hang like this for long...practicing responding rather than giving everything structure, but right now that sounds like good medicine.



 

The Alchemical Shift from Stuff to Treasure

Tonight, I'm so tired. I'm tired of living out of boxes. I'm tired of the smell of the guest house when there are four of us living back here with our dog and all our crap (both in boxes and oozing from them) where little bits of food can easily hide and worse, rot. My own home feels dirtier than almost anywhere we stayed in the developed or developing world!

I've been down right calm about this whole thing with minor breakthroughs of freak-out, but mostly flowing with the boxes, lack of cooking surfaces, dirt, chaos and mayhem. If you had told me a month ago that three weeks after returning state-side I'd be living among my boxes, sleeping on mattresses on the floor in our guest house AND that I'd be relatively OK with it, I'd have thought you were nuts. What's happening instead is that I'm the one going nuts!

It's strange actually as it is the returning back to "normal" that is the most unnerving. Today began the first full week back to school for the boys. I went to yoga, grabbed a few groceries so I have food items that could be made into lunches, and returned home. That was the problem moment. I came home. I walked into my room of stuff and I sank. I did what I use to do when I would return from a morning like I had today and I sat at my desk.

But what then? What do I do at my desk? I use to sit at my desk and respond to emails before diving into graduate school work. Yes, I have my dissertation still in front of me taunting me to begin...to dive in and join my classmates in the work most of them are already a year into at this point. But who am I kidding? I can't start writing or even taking notes for my dissertation in the kind of clutter that is surrounding my desk and my life.

Writing didn't even enter my mind today as a possibility. Instead I answered some emails and puttered on the computer before turning to the mountain of boxes and with a heavy sigh, opened one.

Yesterday and today I attempted to tackle "books." Books seemed like a good place to enter the mound. It seemed like a manageable segment of our stuff and one that I could easily purge heaps. I started off strong. I entered the cookbooks and cut about a third of those. Coffee table books too were sliced. Then, I opened the kids' books. Sound of tires screeching! I purged lots, but when you purge lots from mountains you still end up with mountains, just smaller ones. We have sooooo many books.

A part of me wishes I had no attachment to any of the books I went through today. That way I could just pack them up and cart them off to the library or charity and happily donate the lot of them. But instead, each box held treasures. Almost every night for nearly 13 years (minus the first few months or so) one of us would read stories to the boys at bed time. Most of the books left in the boxes are well loved, cherished and some I can recite by heart. These books mark moments in our lives with our boys. Odd Velvet, Mama Do You Love Me, Monster Mama, Cow on the Roof, Frannie B. Kranny, and of course, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...to name but a few, all are part of our story--our family story. They make me laugh, smile and a few can choke me up.

We no longer read those books to the boys. Now they like series. Not so much KK, but Ru still loves to be read to before bed even though he's blasting through books on his own reading over 50 books during our year away. Thankfully, he gets that being read to is different, special. Brent and I sometimes have to wrestle to see who gets to read to the boys. Right now, Ru and Brent are near the end of a three book series and I haven't had a single night of reading since they started. Looks like I'll be needing to find a new series as I might get a turn soon.

But this doesn't help with the multitude of storybooks we've collected and that have collected us. What do I do with them? We're tangled up together, these books, our boys and I. It's true our boys are getting older and their need for these books is or maybe already has shifted. It took me years to get rid of their favorite board books as I saved those in case my niece or nephew were around and needed a favorite story. Jamberry still floats rhythmically in my mind as soon as I mention board books..."One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry..." If how long it took to part with those is any indication, I'll maybe purge the remaining storybooks when my kids leave for college.

And, maybe not. I still have a few books from my childhood that I've been able to share with my kids and as memory links for me to my own childhood. Yes, this is exactly the part of what makes my "pack-rat" tendencies thrive and it is also what helps create heritage. We don't have a lot of connection to things that last or that come from those before. New is best, but what makes something live is to use it.

My niece with some of my dolls that are now hers

I still have a box of Madame Alexander Dolls (the 8 inch ones representing different countries and stories). Like the books, I can't seem to let them go. I played with them, hard. They are collectors dolls, but not ones anyone would ever want. To the outsider, my dolls are in bad shape. I dressed and undressed, moved their arms and legs, gave them names, families and frequently took them on wagon trains to far off lands in our living room...one year we even decorated the Christmas tree with them. Now, the glue that holds their hair in place is gone, the elastic in their bodies connecting to their limbs is old and very few shoes are left in the whole lot! But these dolls and my sister's dolls are precious because they lived rather than stayed perfect on a glass shelf or their box. Just like my treasured books, I can't let them go. When loving energy has been spent and memories woven into the molecules of the dress or page the item becomes elevated from thing to treasure.

What then...Someday treasures will either lose their power, or the space in our home will no longer allow them to be saved, or a niece or nephew will come along and need that very doll or that exact storybook. Then they are passed, the legacy and heritage is handed on. Something about that form of purging feels better than OK, it feels right. When I pass on a treasure to another in my line they are not just getting a book or a doll, they are being handed a link to their ancestry, our shared ancestry. Perhaps it is through the sharing of treasures that I feel my stories continue to live...my dolls will find joy in being played with once again and the words flowing off the pages of favorite books will further sew families together as they have stitched together the bedtimes and hearts of ours.

It is a hope or perhaps just a delusion that enables my tendencies to "keep" when toss, give away or gift would be far more productive at creating space. I am choosing to be judicious. I will not make space simply to make space, especially if the cost in doing so takes a seam ripper to the fabric of some of my most precious of memories. At some point the threads will fade on their own, but until then, treasures will remain.

We might get back into our house tomorrow...or maybe Wednesday...or...

Soon all of the treasures will need to find a more permanent home. And the stuff will need to be further sorted as only treasures will be joining us on the other side of the yard. If I think about it too much, it's a daunting task. Today, I managed a box or two. That was it. That was all I could do when faced with familiar routine and out of control environment.

The ground is still rocking, shifting, settling. And it's time to go to bed.

Nomads and Memories

The strange truth of our re-entry so far is we are living all in one room not all that unlike how we lived much of our time away. Our home currently is a one-room, yoga-studio, guest house that has many boxes and a few crammed beds. The boys' bunkbed is at the foot of the one we're sleeping in and the close proximity does nothing for intimacy and everything for what my heart needs right now, family closeness. Meanwhile, across the yard sanding is deep in process and the familiarity is being adjusted. Even our house is getting a facelift as this year away did for our psyches. 

But, I am attempting to still get through boxes, opening, purging, dumping, sorting, tossing and keeping the treasures. Each box is a surprise, sometimes joyous and others a bit of a drag. Today, I opened two boxes sent from our travels back home for us to find, like I did today, and remember.

I loved opening the one from Vietnam as I couldn't remember a single thing we sent home from that location as Brent ran down to the post office just before we headed to the airport and therefore was a bit of a whirlwind in my memory. Such surprises awaited me! Inside were mementos from what was quite likely the very best, simplest Christmas ever.  There was the fabric we used to make our "tree" and the paper ornaments that I found in a small shop that I adored. They were worse for wear as the reindeer had lost its antlers and Santa needs some foot surgery, but the memories were totally intact, no glue gun needed for those! With a smile on my face, I packed them up in a box all their own and relocated the box to the garage with the rest of what is clearly labeled "Christmas." I look forward to having a rush of joy when, in early December, I find that box again when we begin to deck our halls for another celebratory season.

I also unpacked the large box from India. You have to understand, I have a certain set of problems with India. I love it, adore it, and shopping there is a magical journey unequaled in any other part of the world I have yet to experience (and I have experienced a LOT of other shopping meccas). I go a bit nuts. It might even be a bit of a psychological break as I buy things with glitter and sparkle, unlike anything I ever wear at home. My inner princess gets so happy and she must have been in charge of the rupees this trip as what I found when I opened that box was a hoot!

I had remembered the numerous saris I bought hoping to use them in my house for curtains, pillows and who knows what else. This is what I'm going to use them for and I'm excited to have some of India touching all around my home. But what else was in that box? Well, apparently, I like scarves. And ninja pants. And glittery bracelets and hair clips. And some ready-made top/bottom Indian-style outfits I wore everyday while there. And several fun tailored items I'd forgotten about that will be such joy to wear. And several tailored disasters likely never to see the light of day! 

Regardless, the boxes of travel trinkets have already served their purpose...they have connected me with memories of joy, connection, and play. I had worried that buying stuff along the way would just be a burden...we'd have to figure out how to ship it home which could get expensive, would we even want what we fell in love with while away, and might it just be more STUFF? This time, I have to say that the resounding answer to those questions is I'm glad we brought some of the trip home with us. Bringing it home helps us to bring it home. These little treasures are reminders of who we are and who we have been and become. I'm grateful to have them.

So if you see me wearing some strange outfit, just smile along with me and know that perhaps on that particular day, I needed to wear a different skin on the outside to match the one underneath, one that was made for me by a tailor in India attempting to do what I can hardly do myself...figuring out exactly what I want and how to make it all fit just right. 

Coming Back...Still living out of suitcases

Back.

Yes, we are back. It is a strange sensation really to be here and at the same point so very normal. We are altered and changed in ways we know and have yet to discover. We came home to an empty home, our master closet covered in cat pee, roots growing into our septic line that needed to be replaced, and more and more and more.

Somehow, I flowed with it all last week. I paused many moments in every day to reflect, look around or rest in the chaos. As the inevitability of living in the guest house with all our stuff for several weeks turned into a reality, we did our best to make it an adventure, just another one along the path of others we've walked before. I was feeling somehow incomplete that our trip was only 11+ months rather than the well rounded year, but now, I think we'll be doing great if our lives are more or less settled by the time we pass the year mark.

We are still living out of suitcases!

We're making it work. Yesterday, after no longer being able to take it, I broke out the cleaning supplies and went to town on the kitchenette and the bathroom back here hoping to make it all just a little more tolerable and a little less India-like. But who am I kidding! In India we had daily housekeeping that came with the apartment we rented so cleanliness was not an issue...here however, it just needed some strong elbow grease and with no housekeeper in sight, I tackled it myself!

Last week was actually pretty easy, especially all things considering. All around it was mayhem, dust, boxes and very very little space. Every day experienced appointments with workers helping to make the transformation from house to home. In the end, we got the kitchen unpacked and readjusted in the new more efficient way (glasses in a different cupboard!) and relocated to the guest house.

While we were traveling, we envisioned having a pool party this past weekend, thinking 5-6 days of being home and we'd be more or less ready to both host and receive our friends en mass. How wrong were we! The house is hardly ready, but perhaps it is just the outer manifestation of what's going on inside. Perhaps it is the chaos of the physical that can allow the mystical inner change to do what it needs to do.

We almost went to a festival type thing happening in Topanga last Saturday night. It sounded fun in one way, local youth bands playing a concert for local youth and parents in a way that happens seamlessly in Topanga. What's not to like about that type of event, especially with a teen now in the family?

In all frankness, nothing was to like about that for me. It actually, once here, the idea of that sounded like a unique type of hell. I couldn't imagine mingling socially, not yet. Don't get me wrong, I love people, but I haven't really had to be engaged with friends and acquaintances for a year. My "Social I" got a long well-needed rest. That part of me is not my favorite part of Self anyway. Too easily it can become hard or fixated, in Buddhist terms, "reified." If I were to go back into a social situation so quickly upon my return what would happen to that softened un-reified I've so enjoyed getting to know within myself?

Instead, I've been testing her out slowly, tenderly, acknowledging her newly formed skin. The biggest test was going to my family of origin exactly a week after our return. Perhaps because only 2 of my 7 siblings were there, I managed well. The overwhelming energy of the Bushnell Clan might have been my undoing, but instead I flowed, even expressed myself and my needs clearly when the opportunity arose to do so.

Even car shopping worked well enough. The details of that exploration is a blog in itself to come later! Suffice it to say, I went to 16 dealers in 3 days (10 of those on one day!). Finally, I gave up on the car idea, realizing that expecting myself to know which car is right for ME when I'm not sure who ME is, is a bit ridiculous! I'm borrowing for now and if I have to when my friend return wanting their car back, I'll rent. Why build the idea up that it needed to be tackled to drive carpool. Seriously, we've only rented cars all year and it's been great, easy and not a lot more expensive than buying/leasing when you break it all out.

All that said, the wave that I had been riding from the emotionally lovely arrival at LAX through this weekend that made it all seem like just another fun adventure...well, that wave started to go back out to sea and I was left wondering if I would have to tread water while waiting for another wave or if I might find myself a surfboard so that I could hang, in water-meditation-style, for the next wave.

As it became obvious that the fluid-joy-filled-everything-is-so-awesome wave headed out to sea my surfboard needed to be made from deep self-care. I noticed that I hadn't blogged or even journaled once since being back and the only time I stepped on my yoga mat was when I took a miss step and my foot found it all folded up, ignored.

So tonight, I write. I miss it. On our trip, writing became a form of reaching out to others but perhaps more importantly, to myself.

This blog is a purge, but also it is a reconnection. I don't really know how many people have been reading our blogs this year. Very few comment, if ever and they end up in people's inboxes to be filled, archived or deleted, but when that happens, before or after reading, is a mystery to me.

A Topanga friend stopped by unexpectedly the day after we returned home. She told me that as she walked up our driveway she got a flutter like one gets with celebrities when you know all about their life from reading headlines and they know nothing of you nor do they even know you know their stories. She had been following along all year, more or less silently and had become a part of our journey. Really?

And, my father-in-law (one I pretty much knew was watching our every move) said that I needed to keep blogging so that he wouldn't go into withdrawal as each morning, along with his cup of tea, he read our blogs or Facebook posts and view our photos.

So this blog is for me, but it is also for Dana and for Colin and for anyone else who enjoyed reading about our journey and would like to have a peek through the window of our re-entry. It has really just begun and as I realize the power of blogging for my own psychology, perhaps more will come...even after the airline miles ticking upward slow to a crawl and then to a stop altogether, the journey continues.

I continue to ask myself, "who am I now?" and "how have I been altered by this experience?" and more. Perhaps I'll discover threads to some of these here, in the written word with an unnamed audience in the strange community of cyber-space. We'll see.