Confined

Life is an unpredictable sort of thing.  This can be difficult for me because I am by nature a planner.  I make daily lists and agendas.  When my expected course of a day is destroyed I sometimes stand like a deer in headlights paralyzed by the unknown approaching.  But, I am learning (maybe that is the point of the unending stream of unexpected events that keep arising) that life simply will not conform to my plans much of the time, particularly in the primary work I have chosen right now – mothering.  Turns out I will spend today trying to balance tending a sick child with writing and housekeeping.  Since I spent a large part of the night awake and stroking my uncomfortable child I must do it on a half-awake brain.  My tired self is neither my most patient nor resourceful.  I struggle not to feel confined because one of my children is home sick.      

 Dictionary.com offers the following definition for the adjective confined.
1.  limited or restricted
2.  unable to leave a place because of illness, imprisonment, etc.
3.  being in childbirth; being in parturition (the process of bringing forth young)

I could not repress a smirky smile at the irony of typing the third entry from the above definition!  I had forgotten that meaning of confined.  How appropriate for my musings today.

Equally appropriate I suppose is the desire for things to move in an orderly way according to plans.  Schedules make work and school days progress effectively for large numbers of people.  I am too spacey to give up the lists altogether.  They really do help me.  But, perhaps I could consider if my lists are what sometimes keep me confined?    I am acutely aware that my day of cancelled plans is nothing like evacuating for a hurricane or, worse yet, recovering from its destruction as so many residents of the eastern United States have this week. 

My deliberation then for this day may be about keeping my Aries head up and looking instead of lowered and ramming my horns into the day trying to keep the goals as the steadying force when the healthy rearing of my family is my central, overriding ambition.

Her, Ram Child

Run, ram child in your fence feeling mowed
clover lying limp under foot
scenting the air green and pink
pillow clouds make pictures you imagine but
cannot breath.

Pray, ram child that your pickets parading right
angled edges abruptly turn
changing the path, dirt clods and rock
rambling hills hide other sides stillness thinks
might be greener.

See, ram child in a pasture perfect postcard
pictures mate and offspring, food
and stream calling home to what is
expected, projected safe and known with
restful heart.

Relax, ram child while shears shape you to
your skin see yourself as more than
just free to go because a fulfilled ewe
gave people in your meadow wool to keep
them warm.

Adventure

I recall boldly announcing to my four housemates at 2:00 in the afternoon, “Let’s just go for an overnight trip.  We only need a toothbrush, underwear and clothes for tomorrow.  We can be in the car in thirty minutes.  I’ll get CD’s and snacks.  This is an adventure!” 

Is this memory from the undergrad years of my life?  Were the CD’s Adam Ant or Cyndi Lauper?  No.  It was two days ago.  The CD’s included an audio book about Ramona by Beverly Cleary.  The cooler was packed with organic milk and crackers.  The peoples’ ages did average 21 which cracks me up since I am double that as is my husband (nearly) - clues that the other participants were our kids, none of whom have reached the teen years! 

The Collins English Dictionary 10^th Edition entry retrieved from Dictionary.com defines the noun adventure:
1.  a risky undertaking of unknown outcome
2.  an exciting or unexpected event or course of events
3.  a hazardous financial operation; commercial speculation

Our adventure included stops at the state line rest area to use the facilities and pick anything we each wanted from the vending machines.  Along our drive we bought fast food burgers and milkshakes.  We arrived in time for several rounds of Boggle and tuck in stories before bedtime.  We ate cereal, apples, cheese or peanut butter crackers, tuna salad and prepackaged pudding for our remaining time away.  What was it about this descriptively ordinary undertaking that made it adventure?  The attitude.   We named it adventure, therefore it was.  Fabulous! 

Day to day predictability can keep us plodding along.  Monday brings school, work, a meeting, an afternoon class, errands, blah blah . . . whatever.  What can we do to make these things feel exciting or imbued with unknown outcome?  I’m not advocating trashing decent dietary living but one day with unexpected food plans felt great!  I don’t assert that a single pair of panties in a plastic grocery sack is proper preparation for most days, but this one time it was fun.  It felt like we were taking a risk, albeit a small one.  I’m wondering how to feel open to unexpected events or outcomes in my approach to life which seems necessarily directed by schedules and lists to keep everyone where they are supposed to be promptly and prepared.  If I examine my existence the whole thing could be adventure if I consider how often planned things really do have unknown outcomes – marriage, motherhood, writing, a new recipe, Zumba.

We returned hungry for substantial food.  But, we reveled in the simplicity of unloading the car, usually a monumental chore after a trip.  We carried one light bag and a handful of trash apiece.  I didn’t mind being the one to go back for the cooler because it was only my second trip and it barely weighed a thing!  My youngest child quipped as she trotted toward the house bare-footed and clutching her sneakers, “That was a good adventure.” 

School

School begins today.  As a child, a teacher, a parent I have loved the first day of school.  New notebooks and point-perfect pencils, untouched lines on unopened paper, smudge-free erasers collected next to pens in a pouch.  What possibilities lie ahead!

Yesterday I attended open house at my local middle school to ready myself – um, I mean my daughter – for sixth grade.  I resonated with memories.  It surprises me that I couldn’t tell you what I had for dinner Friday but I remember the walk to my homeroom in junior high, math class, the band room, the lunchroom, the school spirit t-shirt, the shape of the endless lumpy field around which we ran in PE.

The definition of school from dictionary.com is as follows.
noun -
1.  an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age
2.  an institution for instruction in a particular skill or field
3.   a college or university
verb –
1.  to educate in or as if in a school; teach; train

I’ll be honest – it surprises me that so much mental photography of something I finished over thirty years ago remains in storage in my head!  Many of my school memories are positive when I examine them.  Angst is there because, well, it is.  But it would be wrong for me to present those years as nothing but a misery.  I made some quality friends in middle school who continued to be pals through high school.  I read Judy Blume, wore braces, did my homework, listened to pop music, prayed for boobs.

Perhaps that is why there is an urge for me to get into my daughter’s life and give her a heads up that the choices made now matter because she will remember them.  I want to let my child have her own experience while giving her a little of what I learned without tainting the activities and opportunities with my own feelings about what is cool or not, who should be trusted or not, what emotions may come up or not. 

With striking clarity I am aware that I am still learning, even now.  I have not completed the book on living and cannot just hand its pages to her knowing the resolution of “it all” and the way everything ends up.   It is my first day of school again today, too.   

School

Remember the tile geometric squares
squeegee clean with bleach and yarns
twisted at the end of a mop like hair
ready in a closet to clean up messes
that surely arise with many feet passing
though and around corridors toward
teaching, charted and graphed to allow
learning among peers who watch
see who messes up, dresses down,
makes good grades, kisses the boys,
does what they are told instead of being
bad enough to break rules with hope of
earning cool for a day or a week the
flood of firsts in the months of school.

Fruition

This morning offers my normal routine after a weekend near the North Carolina Pisgah National Forest.  My family inhabited a place with no TV, shunned the iPhone, email, internet and iPad.  We had food, family, sweet mountain air, babbling water sounds.  I am preoccupied with a focus on fruition I found in myself.

Fruition is defined at dictionary.com.

1.  attainment of anything desired; realization; accomplishment
2.  enjoyment, as of something attained or realized
3.  state of bearing fruit

One of my “mountain time” fantasies before the trip involved a big table and my new 550 piece puzzle depicting a black bear cub.  What could be better for woodland relaxing? 

The first day I executed phase one of puzzle making - clear table, spread felt puzzle mat, sort edge pieces, assemble flat sided pieces to create the perimeter of my bear cub scene.  The tasks were pleasant and imbued with progress.  I began phase two - sort remaining pieces. 

I collected and categorized blue bits - sky.  Green pieces - trees.  Black bits - bear.  Numerous speckled gray pieces - tree trunk.  My thoughts seeped between the cracks of the broken image taking shape as colored cardboard piles formed to the right of my perfectly produced puzzle perimeter.  This is going to take forever.  I’ll never get this done.  How can I arrange these pieces in the most efficient way?

My thoughts horrified me.  I was fixated on the end, on bringing the puzzle to fruition!  I had to consciously talk to my brain like it was another person.  This is fun.  It doesn’t matter if you finish the puzzle; it is the DOING of the puzzle that is the point. 

Slowly, I began to have internal quiet as classified bits offered surprised glee when I found a piece that fit in place.  Although I was aware of my thoughts and could banish them they still felt like my natural instinct, something I had to override to enjoy the time of assembling the puzzle.  A memory surfaced.  In my early twenties I observed a group of Tibetan monks creating a sand mandala, a beautiful geometric design on the ground.  It was a colorful thing of great beauty painstakingly created with grains of colored sand!  It would be ritually swept away after completion.  I tried to bring some of their stillness, their meditation to my time with the puzzle.         

I did not finish the puzzle.  The sorted rows of green, black, and mottled grey remain guarding the periphery of the puzzle rolled in a yellow felt pad, strapped tight for travel.  I was able to enjoy the minutes here and there I grabbed from the days to sit with the puzzle even without thinking of its culmination.  My son shared some puzzle time with me, too.  I’ll save the puzzle for the next trip.  I will finish it and admire it for a day or two.  Eventually I know I will break it apart and put it back in the box.    

Happiness

I am curious about happiness.  Is it a myth?  Do I squelch it with anticipation of what is ahead (good or bad) instead of abiding fully in the present?  Can happiness be achieved by following a series of steps in a fashion similar to losing weight or starting a business?  Is our individual happiness a preprogrammed part of our personalities such that we are happy or not based on innate disposition?  Are we never satisfied?  Is happiness a constant state or something we get moments of?  Were previous generations happier?  Is my guilt in comparing my life to the children in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” a positive tool for seeing good fortune?  

Dictionary.com offers this simple definition of happiness:

1. the quality or state of being happy
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy 

Those questions buzz in my mind.  I turned to books to help with the GRE, planning a wedding, getting a baby to sleep (how could something so natural be so difficult?).  So why not for happiness, too?  On this day, Amazon.com lists 1,814 nonfiction books when I search on “happy” offering advice for happy babies, happy lawyers, happy housewives, happy retirement and much more.  Type “happiness” into the search box and another 2,898 nonfiction books are listed but seem more philosophical or spiritual in approach.    

There is no notion of the long or short lasting nature of happiness in the definition.  Perhaps my mistake is wanting to arrive at happiness and never slip out of it.  I feel it is human nature to want happiness.  I also feel able to influence my happiness.  And by golly, I feel I can work my way toward happiness like any other goal.  Plot a course, design a pattern, research the teachings of spiritual leaders.  But can all of that actually distract me from the happiness potential of a moment?  What of the mention of “good fortune” in the definition of happiness?  That is something that simply occurs by no doing of our own – where, to whom and when we are born shapes a lot of things. 

There are things about my life that detract from happiness.  But I am cognizant that their absence would also remove things that create the happy, too.  Cleaning my bathrooms does not add to happiness, but having indoor facilities does!  Balancing the checkbook is a bore but having money to pay my expenses creates happiness.  Living in a chaotic home with three kids and a husband is often overwhelming but one well-timed hug from any of them can improve an entire day.  My life is connected in this way that never lets the path to happiness seem quite as clear and designable as I might like.   

Mostly today I have questions about my yen for happiness.  I suspect I am not alone in mulling human happiness.   Even Aristotle is quoted at Thinkexist.com as saying, “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”