Gifts

"Life and death are a continuum and this is revealed in initiation: that the end and the beginning are back to back, that life is circular. A great trust is required, often in the face of tremendous doubt or skepticism, for we have been well indoctrinated by the fear of the unknown and our own inner voice of guidance may be the last we are used to heeding.

....Facing our worst fears and meeting these powerful and often painful points of transition in a human life is to consciously connect with the mystery, with the order of the cosmos, with existence itself, and to be opened by its infinite potential.

To call on this greater power is prayer. To make ceremony to invoke it is ritual. To connect with it so deeply that it passes through you and leaves you irrevocably changed is initiation."

--from the www.Shematrix.com website


So many words, and yet so few, can describe how I feel upon my return from my weekend retreat on Whidbey Island: transformed, empowered, opened further than I ever thought possible. Every time I experience The Gift retreat, I am amazed, and this time I was on the organizing team and discovered more of my gifts (pun intended? no pun intended? doesn't matter!) by doing such mundane tasks as writing letters, talking on the phone, joking with the team, cutting and arranging flowers, replacing toilet paper rolls and wiping the bathroom sink, washing dishes and slicing cantaloupe. I grew up believing that whatever I did it wasn't enough, either for myself or for the one whose approval I sought. The day before the weekend when we all rushed around in frantic preparation, and the first day of the weekend when we welcomed 15 participants into a space where they could feel safe in their vulnerability and pampered with food and beautiful surroundings, I fretted over my ability to deliver.

All of us bring an intention we want to fulfill for ourselves to the weekend. I lit a candle to my intention to "feel into my power": not hide myself, speak what I needed to speak, be silent when I needed to, go with my instincts and trust my gut. By the second day of The Gift, I was there, and continued to blossom.

We formed a circle for talking about ourselves, and when each of the women spoke, they had my full attention. When I spoke, I felt heard by every one of the other 22 women there. This dynamic swelled into a compassion and companionship with every participant, whether during their rite of initiation or on a break when we could casually chat while marveling at the abundance of delicious food.

We all created this abundance through potluck and catered meals: chocolate, dried cherry muffins, granola-yogurt-cantaloupe parfait, fresh mango and pineapple, strawberries and raspberries, banana chocolate chip bread, lemon bars, deviled eggs, tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, chicken satay, smoked salmon, all the tea and coffee we could drink, all arrayed before us, for us.

I could walk outside or to another room alone on breaks to get some reflective quiet. Some breaks we took in silence as a rule. Then we would come together again and I would feel lifted up.

I've called on my strengthened sense of self through this work many times. I can let myself feel as much as I need to in times of upheaval. When it was time to deliver Elise, my doctor asked me if I was ready. I said I was scared, and she asked what scared me. "I'm afraid I'll die of heartbreak," I told her. I was scared also to look at Elise after she came out. But as soon as she did, I wanted to see her and hold her. When she came out, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wanted all of the Labor and Delivery ward, the whole hospital, the whole world to hear me screaming my rage and grief.

I told the women in our circle last weekend that I left my job and all its stifling expectations behind because Elise showed me the way. She shows me the way to myself, in my writing, guitar playing, yoga, walking, in SEEING and connecting with those around me.

When I returned from the weekend, it was dear Felix's 4th birthday. That morning as the sun warmed me, I ran with Genki on Peet's Hill and stopped to take pictures of Genki and of a brilliant red cotoneaster. The song that Felix's classmates sang to him as he walked around a candle lit to represent the sun echoed in my head: "The earth goes round the sun, tra-la, the earth goes round the sun. The earth goes round the sun, tra-la, another year is done." A sweet, simple ceremony, invoking such power.

Whatever It Is

"I am not the sort of person to quote the Bible, but I'd hang my hat on "Be still and know that I am God": Be still. Be aware. Let the big picture come to you, so you'll know the right course of action. What more could any higher power ask of us than that we stop, listen, and then act to the best of our abilities?"

--Dana Wildsmith, "Survival Guide"




Today I am grateful that the snow has begun melting and the sun came out. I am grateful that my disappointment at discovering yet again that I'm still not pregnant after 16 months of trying has not broken me.

This Wednesday I travel to Seattle, Whidbey Island to be exact, to attend a weekend retreat for women called The Gift. This will be my fifth time at this event, and my first time on the organizing team. While in the area I'll also visit Seattle Reproductive Medicine to meet with a doctor about attempting in vitro fertilization.

I've passed through the Why Me stage: Why do I have to go to these lengths to have a second living child; Why do other people, even losers who don't even want them, get to conceive babies so easily; Why, above all, do I have to go through the grief of infertility when we've already gone through the hell of losing our Elise to stillbirth? We will never know. That's the way it is. I said to a friend recently that I never realized until now what a profound phrase this is: "THAT'S THE WAY IT IS." You can say it a million times, but it won't sink in until it knocks you over and kicks you while you're down.

So this morning while Felix was at his Kindermusik class, I spent a half hour waiting on the phone while the clerk for our insurance plan tried to find out whether my visit to the doctor on Monday is covered. Otherwise, it would cost 350 dollars (!). The clerk wanted to know the zip code of the doctor's practice, because she couldn't find him by name. "The doctor is in Seattle you said? What state is that?" she asked.

Talk about a broken health care system.

I sat in a window seat at a cafe while making the call, since I didn't have time to go home while waiting for Felix. The table next to me had a woman holding a newborn. While I spoke with the idiot clerk, the baby started crying. It was a very sweet cry, not screechy at all but the kind that went straight through me. The woman's friend who had been holding the baby handed it to the mother, and the baby quieted. As I stared out the window still waiting on the clerk, a couple with a very large pregnant mother and a father holding a toddler walked by. "Hm. Fucking ironic," I said to myself.

And then the feeling passed.

The last few minutes of Felix's class, the parents join in for a song and a little performance by the kids. Attendance was down by a couple of families today, so the other parents who were there each had three kids they'd brought with them, both sons and daughters. "VERY fucking ironic," I said to myself again.

And the feeling passed, and I held Felix on my lap as we sang a "Goodbye" song to end the class. Other people have their realities, and I have mine. There's no Fate or Destiny or Sin about it: it just Is. It's a lesson I recite to myself every day, along with my blessings.

Dressing for Fall

PHOTO at right: a drawing of Mama and Papa
BELOW: "Now I'm going to add a kid--that's me!"
Felix is wearing one of his "gowns," as he terms them: this is the spaghetti-strap one, held up with a clothespin so the straps don't fall down.

Monday Sept.22nd: The first official day of autumn is here. Mornings have been chilly, 30s-40s, for weeks, but on this morning I'm sitting at a picnic table surrounded by lovely potted plants and flowers: the outdoor seating for a downtown restaurant (only open for lunch and dinner). I'm waiting here while Felix is at a Kindermusik class.

Felix was particularly lovely this morning. He came out of his room after waking and ran down the hallway to hug me before I got dressed. He pinched the squishy flab around my belly button with both hands and giggled. He played his kiddie
music in the kitchen CD player AGAIN--"The More We Get Together," "Michael Finnegan." I have to admit I couldn't bear hearing that same CD again and went upstairs to the guest room until it was time to leave for Kindermusik class.

Ten minutes before we had to leave, he called up to me: "Mom, I'm ready to go-oh!" But he was still wearing the over sized pink velour "gown" I bought him at the Salvation Army store (yes, I bought them for him myself. You can call CPS now, or wait and see how he turns out as an adult. Obviously I'm betting he'll turn out to be a FABULOUS grownup). So I told him he needed to change into shirt and pants before we went. Earlier he was saying he wanted to wear his dress to class. "Dress-up is for home, Felix," I told him. "Why can't I wear my dress to Kindermusik?" he asked, thankfully without whining. I hesitated. I didn't want to put the kibosh on his gender playfulness, his un-self-conscious 4-year-old joy. After all, he likes the way the skirt of a dress twirls around, flips up, flaps against his legs. "Here's the thing, Felix," I sat down and looked him in the eye. "For some reason, where we live, girls wear dresses and boys wear pants." "Only girls wear dresses?" "Yep, for some reason, that's how people dress where we live. So when we're at home you can wear your dress, but outside you need to wear pants and shirt." Was I squashing his creativity? Encouraging secretive, shame-filled cross-dressing instead of fun? Caving in to conventional ideas about gender, or protecting him from a future of bullying and ostracism? The likeliest scenario is that he'll grow out of it. But if he didn't, I wanted him to know society's rules, arbitrary though they may be.

Like a true 4-year-old, he wore his dress until it was time to change. Then he put on some blue long underwear and a gecko T-shirt his uncle Jeff gave him last year. Perfect: his uncle Jeff is a hero of creativity and the spirit of Be Yourself, his Claire de Loon alter ego a fashion plate of fun and exuberance. I wouldn't have chosen the long underwear for him to wear in public on an 80-degree day either, actually. But as our friend Shirley said the other day of Felix's pink dresses, "If I'm gonne be four I'm gonna have fun doing it!"