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.”

Daughter

My oldest child and I are living a changing, complicated relationship as she enters her middle school years.  I remember sixth grade.  Clearly.  Vividly.  She and I are now in life territory I recall living myself with equally intensity.  Unlike earlier memories which are generally indistinct and Crayola scented, I can recall so much detail of my life from age ten up.  I watch her at this life place and am amazed.  

The definition of daughter offered at dictionary.com sounds so simple.
1. a female child or person in relation to her parents

2. any female descendant

Her Legacy

first we are daughters
drifting in the dreams of
daughters who draw into themselves
the dance of life and develop
filled with fluid and joy and invisible
growth we believe but cannot control. 

we grow
in bodies bulging to bear fruitful fruit – a daughter
born stunning as the first star system glistening and amazing
we cling to each other for life in the moment
when we are still one body having just divided and become two
we learn to sleep and do without sleep
eat and do without food
sob and sigh and laugh and cry
listen for each other’s breath and heart beat to know life continues.

daughters grow
mothers don’t always know
what to say or do and daughters usually think
it doesn’t matter anyway
It takes twenty-five years for daughters to know mothers were right
then we hope to speak so well as to make our daughters
listen more attentively
but they won’t.

mothers grow
watching daughters become beautiful un-babies
wanting to keep them in our laps sometimes
singing songs
smelling of lotion and soap
seeing their brilliance beaming from random expressions
wishing to avoid heartaches, bruises, disappointments.

daughters go
maybe into drifting daughter dreams
and mothers know they must
but we hope
to keep just one moment on a camera so we can remember
being a young mother of a new daughter
who every now and then
became the entire world.

Will

As a member of a family I am exposed to the daily will of a group of humans, large and small.  Each person in my household – one I chose, three have my DNA – seems to have their own ideas about the way the kitchen should look or if broccoli is compulsory or what the day should offer or what music plays on the radio or if mommy should go to the gym!  Similarly at work, in community groups, church committees, classrooms, etc. every person has their own will. 

Dictionary.com defines the second form of will.

1.  the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions:  the freedom of the will

2.  power of choosing one’s own actions:  to have a strong or weak will

3.  the act or process of using or asserting one’s choice; volition:  My hands are obedient to my will.

 

I am pondering how to cultivate strength of will.  Knowing when to dig deep, to assert your choice and when to allow for openness, to listen and acquiesce to others and that life requires both.  I worry that life in my household is often so comfortable – meals are accommodating to everyone’s tastes, activities are scheduled for entertainment and joy of all – that when the will is called upon not for choosing a TV show but to face something unpleasant but necessary it may break down and fail. 

I am interested in the role our mind has in controlling our actions.  To put pressure on our own minds to do something is an internal experience.  Sleeping despite fear of the dark.  Eating a new food.  Allowing a messy game to be left for days scattered on the floor because kids “are still playing with it.” Pressing through a challenging exercise class.  Getting up on time even if bedtime didn’t come as early as needed.  Our mind must assert our choices over our physical state and our body must obey.  There is so much will required, what if we run out?  I know when I am tired my will runs out much faster.  

My hope is that I learn along with my family that we can be strong yet pleasant people who understand that life may sometimes be difficult and that we can control our actions even if they are challenging.  We can finish a necessary task even if we don’t want to.  We can walk away from an insult slung by a sibling instead of joining in a verbal assault that gets everyone banished to separate rooms.   

It seems a murky matter.  Over-assertion gets us in trouble, too.  Actions with no regard to their affect on others typically garner negative results.  We must consciously and deliberately stand up against a rule or situation we deem immoral or incorrect.  Will is used to assert one’s opinions and to accept the opinions of others.  Strength without belligerence is a balance I long for. 

Nothing

Let’s say you are a writer who has been away for the weekend.  And now you’ve returned home in an altered state of mind scramble.  Your body arrives in Monday morning with an unusually full agenda for which you have not allowed yourself any psychological prep time.  After making a detailed list of all the places and times that require your presence today, jotting notes for what you have to take to each place and scanning the fridge to see if there is indeed enough there to sustain your offspring for the morning until you have time to grocery shop, you sit down to ponder what is on your mind.  After all, this is Monday morning - the time for musing.  Computer is humming.  Coffee obediently perched at your side.  Online dictionary open for business.  Fingers poised above the keyboard ready to type the thoughts that come.  And your mind offers you . . . nothing. 

Nothing, the noun, is defined at dictionary.com.

1.  no thing; not anything; naught

2.  no part, share or trace
3.  something that is nonexistent

So, despondently, that is what I’ve got today.   Nada.  Zilch.  Zero.  No creative juices flowing.  No ideas at all.  Blank.  Zip.  Nil.  Empty.  Vacant.  Void.  I’m reduced to the list of my tasks at hand in a strange limbo state between the ultimate fading realization of a weekend away and the reality of a fun-filled yet frantic day ahead. 

I’m not afraid of rolling with nothing for today.  I know it will not last forever.  I’m going to embrace it both because it seems like the right thing to do and because what choice do I have?  Allowing room for thinking nothing may be just right for today.      

Independence

I have wonderful childhood memories of Fourth of July celebrations.  As a kid in a military family I was privileged to hear patriot music expertly performed by musicians and singers in uniform every year.  I remember stretching long on a blanket for picnics with cold watermelon on soft grassy hills.  The celebration always ended with fireworks exploding our emotions in bright blasts in the dark night sky.  I was offered a sensory opportunity each year to feel the pride of being an American.  Today I am thinking of what is beneath that emotion, independence.

Dictionary.com lists the following meanings for independence.

1.  the state or quality of being independent

2.  freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others 

I am struck by the final paragraph from the Declaration of Independence found at the U.S. National Archives & Record Administration site.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Independence is neither easy to come by nor inexpensive.  There is always sacrifice and often growing pains in the path to independence.  This can be said for a young group of united colonies striving to be a free nation or a young person striving to become an adult.  Not only do we remove ourselves from control of outside authority but often from their aid and support as well.  But what a gift it is to have control over oneself, one’s future, one’s livelihood. 

One thing I love about the bravery and assertions of the U.S. Declaration of Independence is that the culminating sentence acknowledges how essential we all are to the success of the country.  A mutual pledge offered to each other of Lives, Fortunes, and scared Honor is the binding force for success of our nation.