the end of the year

so here we are at the end of the year, and I am thinking about what i have learned. I learned I need to create, in ways that feel creative to me, as I am doing the work, letting the work through me, it is not optional. it is nourishment. it is essential. I have learned that too much work is not the blessing it may appear to be, but can impact everything in ways that feel like suffocation. that right work in right amounts is delicious. i have learned that my body and mind are brave and that my panic was/is pain trying to express itself. be heard. be understood. be accepted. and pushing it down and away is impossible. pull up a chair and listen, katekate. That is what it needs. after panic I need rest. full rest. sleep or distraction. I need to refill. i have learned I am not good at that. I bullshit myself. I am excellent at that. time to trade a little of my excellence in bs into excellence in self care. unapologetic. simply necessary. i have learned that I need connection that is simple. and I need conversations that are complex. that I need beauty that is simple. and beauty that is beyond imagining. I need to make space(s) for myself and within myself to hold who I am growing into, so I don't take the shape of an old container like a pot bound plant. I define the shape by my growing. i have learned that loving others is what I am here to do. and that others includes me. i have learned that doing my best work means telling the truth, even silently to myself. i have learned that I can speak, and that the listening is not up to me. but that I can speak in ways that make it more likely to be heard. I have learned that my enthusiasm can be a deterrent. too much. and the best I can do is laugh and call it what it is, and know that it is a filter. if I am too much, then maybe the work is not the right work, or the person is not the right fit, or the time is not right. my enthusiasm is a gift. but so is my conscious awareness of others. let me bring both together more harmoniously in the new year. i have learned that my changing body does not mean I have to reject myself because I am no longer familiar. it is an invitation to renew my own familiarity with this place I call home. recognizing I am in a time of rapid and chaotic transition. my needs will change as fast as my topography and my chemistry, and i need to cultivate self compassion, curiosity and fluidity in adapting. I have learned that love can be deep and distant, can be simple and complicated. that I can love and be loved and not understand or be understood. and that understanding is simply not as necessary as acceptance. If I wish to be accepted as myself. i need to accept others as themselves too. it goes both ways. both. in and out. out and in. like breath. i have learned that my mosaic of friends and family create the reality of my support system. that no one can hold the whole of my needs and no one should. I have learned to be a better piece in the mosaic of others'. I cannot be everything to anyone else either. i have learned that i know shit about parenting and my history of abuse and codependence makes this so so hard as I dance the crazy impossible certain to fail dance of conflict avoidance... but am doing my best with a smart sensitive spirited sprite whose energy outpaces mine like an Australian sheep dog. i am learning the difference between reacting and responding. this, my friends, is slow painful learning. i have learned how much of my life is tethered by a self I tend to so rarely. the one who is me. not the roles, the duties, the actions, the work. but this kateness, this one. this one who sits and writes and words come out like salty water of tears of joy and relief, face turned upwards toward whatever is out there, that connects with all and the everything, including all that is in here.

non-linear: on eventual child-led toilet training

Oh my good god/goddess/all-that-is, just when I thought Della would never potty train in any way, ever... she did.

Backstory: Over a year ago in daycare she was using the potty there. She would occasionally use the little one here. But just occasionally.  We always celebrated appropriately, and I thought it would just be that way. Then she was pinched by a toilet seat at daycare, and that was that.
The end.

We live in a small carpeted apartment. The whole, let her go nekkid thing was never going to work. Also, while she is smart and wily, rewards (stickers) were of no interest. Not even chocolate chips...
But then...
Suddenly (and I do mean suddenly), a few weeks ago during a visit at my sister's, something clicked and she just started using their toilet.
Not that it has been linear-- a week of perfectly perfect perfection then a strong desire to be back in diapers... somehow (like her momma) taking a few steps forward and a few backwards, maybe afraid of letting go of being "little".
A few pees in pants when distracted, and then days in underwear with no issue. Then a few days in pull ups again...
and
well
wow. It is happening, finally, but non-linearly, and this is all about bending my knees and riding out the bumps without freaking out. (But why can't you use the potty today? You used it for the past week? what the heck?)-- well, it comes down to poop.
Poop.


HOLY CRAP PEOPLE, this child is textbook retentive.
We're talking hours of intense crying, arched back, tiptoes, terror, holding it in with all her might. Don't touch me! MOMMA! horrible ness. She does not want to sit on the potty ever when she feels anything like anything that may mean poop is moving.... WILL NOT. Any sensation associated with it causes fear. It is horrible. HORRIBLE. I hate it. I do not use the word hate lightly.

We have had to take action (aka "butt medicine"/suppository intervention) once to avoid a trip to the ER one late evening when I thought they might actually need to go in there and get it out.

This has never been easy for her, but lately it has been just increasingly dramatic in terms of withholding and fear.
So she will only poop in her diaper (fine, I just want her to poop)-- and we are now supplementing with some good soluble fiber after an epic fail with
-all things food (prunes, plums, pears)
-all things gummy (fiber)
-all things that are miralax-ish (thick, slippery, salty, eww)
-all things small and chocolately and bear shaped, and magnesiumy (she ate them but not happily, but they did nothing)....
-all things small and fake-watermelony (HA one lick and it was over, salty badness)

so
we are doing what we can with our camel of a non-drinking child.
No juice passes her lips.
So water, yes, and yes we are still nursing but let's leave that alone for now, shall we?

We hide the fiber in a few bites of chocolate pudding, feel like heros, and spend time in prayer that she will poop before it becomes too painful and just reinforces the horrible cycle of badness.

So today, I celebrate the good: she is at daycare in underwear. Wow.
and today I celebrate that she pooped yesterday, so we can all just relax.

Journeys: the day after

waking to a flat cloudy sky

the long dark morning of late fall, the slowest dawn

a stillness

it hits me that it was not a dream

my grandparents used to live on long island sound, on a bluff with a view out over the water. one cold winter, the sound froze.

and where there had been motion, there was suddenly a jarring stillness.

yesterday when I came home, alone, my eyes moved to all of his places-- seeking a glimpse

the kitchen under the highchair

the strange spot on the shoes by the door

the closet

the bed

the bathroom rug

the tub

all night my eyes kept vigil, seeking the tell tale slink or flicker of him.

"I see his tail" Della said once. And then said she was just pretending. But in that moment before she confessed, my heart leapt, as if.

as if.

today, I am busy and grateful for the busy. but my eyes seek the motion that has always been. the quiet company. My friend Lorraine reminds me that he is here differently now, and "here" has expanded into everywhere. But my eyes and heart ache for the familiar, the furry presence, the small reassuring movements of breath and tail and whisker.

non weaning, yes, another update

after that shitstorm of emotion, that instantaneous shift that I was clearly not ready for...
well,

she's nursing again.

so.
what does it mean? it means I got a front-row preview of my actual process, and while it does suck, I will live.
tears don't kill us, thank god/goddess/all-that-is
but oh! there is grief
and gosh darn, how much I don't want to slog through that.... but I will, and I will live, even if it is astonishing in its complexity

but since i am in the habit of looking for hidden gifts, it also means I got a glimpse into what it might be like to sleep without the weight of my not-so-little-one slung across me, and, well, in some ways that will be nice. hello deep breath, I remember you.

it also means that I am aware of the fact of my own complexity, and at least I can practice (and practice and practice) self compassion...

thank you for your kind support while I struggle my way through this

remembering how to walk.

Each season, my eyes learn something new. This spring, I learned that the papery leaves on the beech trees that last, miraculously, all winter-- get pushed off by these long spiny spiraled furls of new leaves. The old leaves are parchment. The new ones begin as dark red tips on gray brown twigs.

I walked. I walked in the woods.

In the old days, this would have been nothing to remark on. The walking I mean. The beech leaves would have been worth remarking any day.

But the walking. Remember how i used to walk? I hiked every day, or most days. I spent time outdoors every day. Sometimes in the garden. Sometimes in the hammock. But outside. looking long and far (sky and stars) or close at flowers and roots and dirt.

I walked and breathed fresh air and felt my muscles push me uphill, and slow me down on the descents.  I walked and walked and walked.

I walked.

I have missed it. OH how I have missed it.

Della and I climbed into the thicket beside the big overgrown apple tree, up behind the garage thingy that holds the tools for maintenance here at our apartment building. We made a hole through the branches of the tree, the branches of the bushes next to it, and suddenly were under the tree, a mystical umbrella of branches and sky. Oh loveliness.

Then up behind the tree into the woods.  Woods with tiny tiny pinecones. Woods with fallen branches to step over. Woods with fallen leaves. Woods filled with deer poop.  Woods that smelled like woods and dirt and life.  Up the hill toward the clearning I could feel by the light.  And to the edge of the back side of the golf course! What a surprise that was. I did not know that is where this property ended.  The rustic local course that feels like it is far away. I realize now, the roads fold back, and the clearing makes sense now that I know it. But it felt like a surprise, like I was expecting sheep up there. Not greens.  

We turned back and came downhill again, back under the tree, through the branches, and back into the small slice of grass before the parking lot.  It was a small walk, but a very big walk. I spent so much time thinking about it. How the woods have been there much longer than I have lived here (of course), and of course I look at them and look at them and look at them.  But then, that day, something shifted. The light maybe. My perspective. The woods, I realized, could be hiked through.... it was like an epiphany. And it felt *possible* for the first time. A walk! Yes, with Della. Yes, holding hands and lifting over logs and under branches, and no don't pick that up it's poo. And yes....

And up there, a beech tree. Parchment leaves littering the ground underneath, with a few still on the branches...and new furled leaves waiting.

***

Totally gratuitous Della photo and me, smiling, and leaning wayyyyyy over to compensate for the DellaGrande.  From friday at my Mom's.

light, in three parts

Am sitting with sun coming in
tea warming me after an unexpectedly COLD shower (ug)
and just am trying to gather myself together.

I was going to be taking a goal oriented trip today, a solo trip. A long-ass drive trip. An all-day-in-the-car trip.  An at least one-part-shitty, one-part-maybe-healing kind of trip. But then I realized I was not ready, not really, and I am trying to be ok with that.  I try not to dwell here on shitty history, but sometimes it just is what I am dealing with. This year will be the 10 year anniversary of Jeff's death, and I realized, somewhat to my own surprise, that I was maybe ready to do some things I was not even able to think about a short while ago. One is to find a place to have a marker. A touchstone in the most literal sense. And this must be in the upper reaches of the state, in a place I know he loved. And I was going to go today to meet with a cemetery sexton to talk plot selection, etc. And it turns out, not surprisingly, that the place I picked from the map, upon further reflection, is not the right place. And yes, there is a right place. I have been there before, just long ago and far away. I will remember it when I see it. But I need to go, first. I need to go and look and feel my way toward the place I am remembering. And that will suck differently. Then I can talk plot and narrative arc and denouement. I was to leave well before dawn today to get there for a meeting time, then home again I hoped by dinner. Instead, I am here.

Here.

My beloveds are off eating pancakes, and I am needing to work since I can (I cannot when Della is here, our place is too small, and we are too interactive), and instead of diving into work I just played a bit with something I've been wanting to learn to do-- text along a curve

And I am stoked since it just simply worked.
Yes, I am an engineer by training, but I know no one more persistently thwarted by technology. So when I have success, it is like the biggest surprising YES ever, since my view of technology is that it should either be completely transparent (JUST WORK), or delight me. And this view persists, oh how it persists, in spite of my repeated experiences to the contrary.

So while I gather my expectations for the day while practicing more than a bit of self compassion, I wanted to write since I have been missing words here for a while. Sharing lovely images of Della is wonderful, (see below where Doug helps her look little for just a little longer), but words heal me differently and sometimes I forget that it is important not to hold it all back and down and hope it just magically resolves. There is healing when I let the light in.

another from easter

Luscious retreat.

This is an invitation to check out my upcoming October retreat if you might be interested. I will not be harping about it here, I promise.
I'll probably mention it just a few more times.
Early bird pricing goes until May 15th.
I am about to do a bigger advertising push.
But you, YOU are my people. And if this calls to you, let me know. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. For example, there is a fridge for meds. Dartmouth and Boston are both 2 hours away. There is a local hospital for bloodwork if needed.

decluttering my own self

The start of the new year, and so many folks take to decluttering and resolutionating.
One of my decluttering projects is very personal: I am trying to see how I am getting in my own way and trying to see how to change that.  As such, today I meet with my new wonderful coach. I am excited but it is hard to know that I will be facing some of my longstanding demons.  I already have begun that sort of site excavation in the pre-work.  I know that it will be messier before it declutters, but it is a really awkward time in any project like this where things look much worse, feel more out of control... and then, it starts to come together.

I am so great at helping other folks do this, and I *so suck* at doing this for myself. Luckily I found a wonderful coach to assist me.  I cannot recommend Lorraine highly enough-- she is very smart (VERY), no bullshit, very intuitive, and I just want to curl up in a big chair and talk to her all day. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to make that happen.

As with so many transitions, just deciding it is time to make changes puts things into motion.

I already am on a better track.

I am happily taking some new risks that feel very very right-- one is a retreat I am planning for this coming October here in New England. Details are not complete yet (still deciding on a venue), but a lot is ready and up if you want to go check it out. Write me with concerns or questions. This will be introvert friendly and not at all a funky-artsy-competitive-who-is-cooler gathering.  This will be funky, to be sure, but playful and soulful and supportive and good.  Think about it. Pass it on. I can't wait to see what unfolds!

language spigot

"Tammy and Mason are coming to play tonight".

Suddenly, sentences.
Earnest, whole, and wow.

We've had a few before ("this one is momma's pillow"), and loads of fragments... but it is as if some language spigot was turned on and whoa baby, SENTENCES!

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of abbreviated communications: "Nurse, Ferb, TV" (she wants to nurse while watching Phineas and Ferb on the TV)

But the ratio suddenly shifted radically.

Coolest.thing.ever.

***
Hey, there's a Free Campfire Weekend coming up over on Heartwork January 11-13!
If you haven't stopped by that blog for a while, I'd love it if you'd check it out-- my new design makes me happy and I'm having some fun over there. Today's post celebrates small changes.

BIGNESS, mercy, unicorns and babies

I'm sitting in the dark office with only the light of the computer. I need to be in bed now, but am having a hard time wrapping up the day.
It was a good day, really. A busy day. A mad rush intensity day at a client site. But it was good. So why am I off kilter wanting to procrastinate letting it go, letting tomorrow come?

Della is in transition from the baby room to the toddler room at daycare. Tuesday we had our formal transition meeting,  and next monday is her first official day in the toddler room. I did not truly realize that parenting would be so much about change and letting go whether or not I'm ready.
I'm feeling nostalgic? yes, nostalgic.  Loving where we are, but shocked at how quickly time is flying by. It has no mercy at all, time. Sort of like gravity. Merciless.

I hold my now big girl and sort of feel astonished, really. I have not even truly believed that she is here, and here she is, BIG and almost a year and a half old already.  I remember holding my hands over my belly while she somersaulted and wondering who this person would be, and here she is, wildly smiling joyful full of life ALIVE and growing in every moment.

We have moments where she looks me deeply in the eyes, or holds my face for a moment (stillness is so very fleeting in this one), and says momma, and I can barely breathe from it. I feel nearly crushed with the bigness of this, the BIG NESS of this.

I hold her and say, holy crap, look at me, holding a baby. Holding a real, whole person. Holding DELLA. It is just as surprising as holding a wild animal, or being in space. Astonishing.


I hear other parents talk about their kids, and they seem to be so at ease with the truth of it, of the fact that they are parents, that they have a kid or kids, that this just is what is. I confess to envy for those who seem so sure of the truth of their lives, effortless belief.

I know (with some sort of semi-sheepish self-compassion) that I am still in the infertility PTSD mode of worrying I will lose her. Of holding my hand on her back while she sleeps. I can't help it yet. I don't quite believe she is here, and feel, somehow, it is up to me, up to my quiet constant vigilance to stay in this dream.  As if I might wake up,  find myself without her.

This sounds SERIOUS and BIG but it isn't. It is more like a haze, a wash; not debilitating, but it is my truth. I wish I could say otherwise, I wish I could say I've relaxed into poopy diapers and baby-sized food and crumbs down my shirt and the wonder of folding pairs of tiny socks... but really, no. There are poopy diapers, and baby food, and crumbs and wonder, but there is also this ever-present tinge of disbelief, this veil of something that feels like a kind of distance, like in the old days when I held myself separate to keep myself safe.  It is a little like that but with a big big difference.  I am also much closer to my own heart than I've ever been. So to call it distance is not quite fair.  I've never been this rawboned, this opened up, this filled with an inexpressible love.

I'll go to bed now. Holding the dichotomy of such huge cracked-open openness and this persistent disbelief or whateveritis that feels somewhat unreal. 

how about you? Those of you who have made it into the land of unicorns and babies, does this feel real to you? if not, how do you feel about that?

exhalation

The house is sold.
The new owner sent me the most lovely of lovely heartfelt notes, a true blessing, love, glitter, cavorting wild ponies. I felt more than moved, I felt shifted. Like a wonderful gift had been passed on to the next person who needed it. A talisman of sorts. The house saved me after Jeff's death. It was my declaration that life was worth living, creating, and gardens were worth planting. I am not sure the timing for the new owner, but I feel as if maybe, for them, it is just the right time too. And maybe, maybe, this is just the right thing for me in this moment, a gathering in, contemplation, hope set out like river stones, unread runes.

I am exhaling.
Feeling my knots loosen just a little. At least that knot. Those knots.
Beloved objects passed along to be beloved. Nothing is lost that way really.

I have a weird relationship to love. I tend to love with intensity, sometimes grudgingly, but then, with impressive tenacity.

Daycare begins maybe next week for my gregarious Della.
I am ready to have a more consistent schedule so I can work and create with a more steady foundation of knowing what days are for what... I do better that way, scaffolding I guess. The wire net under plaster.

So-- today, working. TammyLove is here after her vacation, and Della is so happy (as am I).

This morning, up before 4 to watch Orion rise over the trees, his belt vertical.
Me, I'm tired, my heart is sore, I have a LOT of work to do that I am avoiding but will plunge back into once I hit post.
I am ready for simplicity I think. Calm. A while of not frantically seeking work/packing/unpacking/freaking out...
I am ready to be for a while.

So, yes, exhalation.

amnesia

There are so many moments when I forget all that I know--
a crying baby, what do I do?
it's as if, for a moment, I am wiped clean of all prior knowledge and experience, and start again guessing, trying to find solutions. Sometimes it is all about incorrect assumptions-- Della hates the car seat, so it is easy to forget that the crying (oh how she cries!) might just mean that she's hungry.

I forget what works for me too-- go outside.
Walk.
MOVE.
Brew and drink (or just sniff) tea.
Stop everything I am trying to do, or wishing I could do, or whatever, just stop, breathe, be.
Whenever I try to move beyond what is possible in the moment, and come up against the reality-- too tired, too busy, cannot right now... I just frustrate myself. I am trying to learn to notice sooner, and ease into being in the moment as it truly is.

Della is just about walking, and is just amazing in her mobility, intensity, gummy grins, claps, and focus. She is the most wonderful companion.

This morning I tried something new-- we've been waking very early (5 somethingorother), and I lie there feeling like what I need to be doing more than anything in the whole wide world is sleeping when sleep is just not possible, we are AWAKE... it is a sucky way to start the day... so today! I got up! I unpacked boxes, raised dust, showered, got laundry ready to go in (not before 9! see what I learned?), went for a long long walk with Della in the Bjorn on a new path, a bike path, woodsy, great smelling, sounds of traffic and morning birds... a new place, a new normal, a new walk... we walked for an hour and came back, nursed, and went to pick up Linda Jane who has helped me since morning. We stopped at the grocery, came home, and, since it was just after 9 I put in laundry!

I have unpacked many boxes, made the bathroom bathroomable, made the bedroom much more organized, unpacked 2,3,4 boxes in the kitchen, made insanely delicious pumpkin bread, did laundry and folded it and put it away!
sneezed 80zillion times, blew my nose twice that number, but really, truly, today I made progress in a lot of ways.

Sunday I felt a knot loosening in my gut, the house knot... the closing is monday at 11:00 and I do not have to attend (power of attorney, praise the real estate gods)...
and a complexity knot.

I like my part time job, and I have learned some important things: I like working there. not here. not here in the room next to Della. My attention always feels fractured and I love being able to focus, on her, or on work. I like being around smart people, I like learning new things. I am not sure if I will be able to stay there or not, as it does not cover gas (it is far away) and child care, but it is a great diversion and I am enjoying that.

Ok, Della asleep on LJ, and me, snotty but feeling a wee bit more Kate.
HURRAH

slices of sky

yesterday I coped by spending the day out doing errands.

today, rainy, errands planned that will take me until after lunch, but reality is planned too. I am here, and I need to figure out how to move in even incrementally. With my wonderfully busy and social baby, I need to work in small bits.

last night a rogue cat came visiting out on the porch thingy that leads to our door. Finn (see below in photo from old house with old-school elmo and MyMommaSally-made mustard jar toy):

well, Finn (who is still bigger than Della) went crazy with howling and yelping, and galloping window to window. I am *so aware* of not wanting to make extra noise for those whose ceiling is my floor, whose walls are my walls... good grief what a racket.

Good news: the sky here is big so dawn comes with wild abandon. I can imagine it would be great star watching if not for the light pollution of living with outdoor lights and so many lighted windows... there are woods out front, past the porch thingy, so I look out from my sofa into green. The porch thingy itself is actually quite wonderful in spite of the astroturf. No really I mean it. A place to sit with morning shade and fresh air, one story up above the parking lot so it is not the only thing I see. This does not suck, except it does.

We'll all get used to the noise, I know. the cars the traffic the doors opening the footsteps. now we all wake and listen, over and over. So much time in the woods, alone, and I am used to quiet and dark. I've gone a little daffy maybe. Good to shake things up, keep from getting too weird and eccentric.

I'll exhale soon, once i figure out the next few weeks of child care and work and creativity schedule

and move in a little more so I have space to roam

Della is helping type so I'll stop here

moved.

So there is some solace in having "moved"-- I no longer need to dread it, it already happened. I no longer need to imagine packing. I packed. I no longer need to worry about the cat. He's here and doing ok. I no longer need to worry how I'll feel or if I'll cry or how each of my "last times" will play out.

I am here in my new place. It is smelly which I find very discouraging. Old smoke maybe, musty, inside of drawer smell... it was hot and steamy today which does nothing to help with smelliness.

We're up to our necks in boxes in one room (this one where I set up my desk and a pathway, and I sit facing a window), up to our knees in boxes and piles everywhere else. With help from friends (TammyLove) and my mom, two mover guys and my love, today went very smoothly. My funky stuff looks funky here too, and things are starting to take shape through the mess.

Doug is home for the night, and leaves first thing in the morning, so I won't linger here. But I can say that in this moment, I am relieved that I am no longer anticipating the move. I may not be moved in, but I sure am moved.

hear me roar

I am an olympic caliber avoider.

I avoid like other people breathe.

I hate to confront uncomfortable anythings, and will spend months of time and oodles of energy uncomfortably trying to avoid the uncomfortable.

Then, there is a moment that comes, where "it" (the dreaded whatever) is imminent. Suddenly, I turn into something fierce and focused, I run at it, arms waving, roaring...

Today is a roar day.

A tired roar, granted. A lump in throat roar. A roar that sounds a little whimpery at the edges. But hey...

Here we are, the day before.

Home stretch (with a big ole emphasis on the stretch).