Someone To Watch Over Me

I spent my life trying to find shelter for my heart. Growing up in a non-religious and non-spiritual household, I had shaped my ideas on Christ and church through Sunday services at my best friend's house of worship, my children's Bible- because although we did not talk about God, books were the ever present elevated beings in our home- and a small, simple and tender book called The Child's Book of Prayer given to me by my Nana. Lying in my bed alone at night, six, seven, eight years old, I found that by simply reading sentences about things that mattered to me to a higher power called God I felt better. I didn't know if I 'believed' in God. I wasn't worried about finding out if I did or not. What concerned me was finding solace in my pain, relief from my constant anxiety, love when my family was as distant, as mysteriously scary and sad as the full moon.

“I don’t follow it. I wish I could get with it. It would be a big help on those dark nights.” - Woody Allen said this in an interview with the NYT, regarding the Jewish religion, but based on the totality of his comments in interviews, this applies to all religion. " We all need some delusions... " he said. I had Dakota at 19 and turned my desire of sanctuary inside out, needle by bloody needle thread, sewing myself together by mothering my son, by creating a world in which he knew beyond any doubt that I loved him unalterably and that I would do anything to help him through life and to keep him safe. I can say I succeeded in passing this on. He knows. And for a while, I felt safe. It's amazing the vast difference between I was safe and I felt safe. In life, you can never be promised safety. But feeling safe? What can offer this? What can create an 'invincible summer'? Mine passed as my short lived faith in God was replaced by sheer terror with the thought that instead of creating safety in my love with and for my son, I had now created a way to experience new levels of suffering I had never imagined in my traumatic childhood home. The death and suffering of ones self is difficult to come to terms with, find peace with; the same for our children? Unthinkable. The only way I have ever been able to contemplate how this could be bearable is to imagine that there was something I could offer my children so that they, no matter their fate, could harbor a place of peace.

Holly Mcrae, Kate's mother, has said in her blog that Kate's faith that she will 'go home to Jesus' if she dies is the only thing that keeps her from losing herself to panic completely. This is not simplifying the enormous terror and pain I hear in her every word in her every post. Her faith is not healing her pain, saving her daughter, or making everything OK. But it is a ballast against the vast and terrifying darkness that can descend when a human being believes that life is a meaningless chaos of matter and energy clanging into each other.

My desire to create this safegaurd is intensified a thousandfold because I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder- GAD. Or PTSD. Or panic. Whatever particular psychological labeling I fall under, I have had enough fear, panic and sheer terror of soul in my life to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of how to avoid it, which brought me quickly to the realization that situations this awful can't be avoided. The only way out is through. The only answer is to re-learn my entire view of the world, the Universe, and the meaning of life. In modern society as we search for peace or happiness we forget that philosophers and dreamers since the beginning of time earned their great wisdom and peace through great trial, through great study, great effort.

We forget that peace is not a well run household or smart and kind children or meditating twenty minutes every morning. True, deep soul serenity is the work of our lifetime. It cannot be bargained for suddenly when tragedy comes to our door. As Mr. Curry and I held Ever in the Pediatric Oncology and Respiratory Unit, I desperately wished for something to give my children to lean on while they waited for us in the outside world. Especially Lola. You know she struggles at times with a fierce and keen anxiety. We need something more to offer them than platitudes and loving thoughts, I told Mr. Curry. He agreed.

I have always struggled to give my children a depth of real to lean on, walk on, learn through. In small ways, Mr. Curry and I have done good work for our babies, taking in friends who had bad situations, feeding and clothing the immigrant workers in our neighborhood, mentoring a foster child that has grown into a wonderful adult, talking about the belief systems of the world, and over and over in every way that occurs to us emphasizing that the ultimate meaning of life is love, and that to love deeply and well is what brings meaning to life and ultimately, inner peace.

What is missing is a community, and the chance for them to explore if they believe in God. Because we cannot truly say we have allowed them to explore what we are not enabling them to learn. And if I can't have an abiding faith, I have to say I'd be delighted if my children could, because of the peace I have seen it bring so many. My aunt E. rejoined the Catholic church after leaving it some 20 years before, and the most fundamental reason struck me not as cheap or shallow, but as beautifully simple as a child's: she wanted the beautiful music and ceremonial gatherings in her life because it made her feel better. And she wanted it for her children. Boys, my cousins, who have now grown into young men who are liberal, pro-gay rights and pro everybody's rights- but are also Catholic. And have faith, with all the doubt and confusion and human problems that go with is, surely, but still, faith.

Buddhist, Catholic, Christian, Universal Unitarian, Nature as God-

What can I give my children that will be there when I am not?

I don't know the answer, but I am about to begin the journey to find out.

Which is why, on a Sunday soon, when we are all well and the skies clear and the winds feel right, we will be taking Lola and Ever to church.

Justice for Henry Granju

Most of you know I've closely followed Kate Granju's journey since losing her son Henry at age 18 to a combination of drug overdose and an assault that resulted in brain injury. Kate is fighting for Henry, to see that the people who were involved in his death are brought to justice. So often, we see horrible things and wish in futility we could do something to help those suffering. This is a case where you can do something, you can help, simply by leaving a comment on Kate's posts about Henry- start here. The authorities are paying attention to her blog posts and the collective voice of readers urging the investigation to continue is important. Please take one minute of your time to leave a simple comment of support for the investigation to continue to justice. Thank you.

Welcome SPONSOR: The Little Pea

Welcome Flux Capacitor's sponsor The Little Pea, a children's shop with absolutely gorgeous 'couture' children's dresses ( advertised as flower girl dresses ) tutus and baby bottoms

** Oops! Forgot to add: Save 10% by writing 'save10' in the message box, and free shipping on all orders over 30$**

If Carrie from Sex In the City had a daughter as a flower girl, the dress would look like the above!!!

Yeah baby!

Sigh. Dreams do come true. Buy a little dreamy dress here.

Everything Hard, Harder

We moved to a motel in Pacific Beach, up against the alley that snaked grey and sad with homeless. I was in the 5th grade, my sister two years behind me. We were white headed girls plucked like cotton from Jackson, Mississippi and set to wilt in the briny aired community, stuffed into the single room with our parents and two cats. In Jackson, I had been one of a few white kids in my school, the only one in my class and on my block. I had to earn love- but it was there for the earning. I had skipped rope and roughed up my white freckled arms with black skinny arms for the right to skip rope with the neighborhood girls. Abject poverty lived next door, the difference between us and them only that we had the money for maintenance, whereas Loralee next door couldn't afford to fix her molding ceilings, cracked tubs and crazy sideways porch. When I arrived at our home for a year in Pacific Beach, I felt some kind of alternate universe descend over me, like a great bowl turned upside down. This was a different kind of poor.

The teenager who roamed the complex's center was more ghost than girl, eyes spinning in vacancy, her tiny waist tucked into leggings and tanks. We ate lentil soup more nights than not, but I wondered if she ate at all. Wanna one? she slurred at me, smoking her fat Marlboro Reds. I nodded no, slunk away. I was less afraid of the crazy man in the alley way than I was of her. She was too close to my kind of pain. The homeless man in the alley had a long, white beard stained with tobacco and food. I snaked down the cement path to the alley and lay on my stomach, watching him. I wasn't allowed, but I was fascinated with him. He lived in a box. He never changed his clothes. He talked to himself. Until he saw me. My wife was a pig, he screamed. I ate her for Thanksgiving dinner! I moved so quickly away my arms were bloody from scraping the pavement.

Each person in the motel gave away their suffering differently. The single mom upstairs had one daughter and a rotation of dates. She wore thick purple eyeliner and red lipstick underneath which her face sagged and complained. She played Neil Young on Friday nights and slept all day Sunday. The two men living together directly across from us were obviously gay but called themselves roomates or pals. I didn't know the word gay but I knew the way the one with the glasses put his hand in the tall one's pocket wasn't palling around. I watched them at the laundrymat down the street, where I went to get candy from the vending machines. They always came out of their apartment separately and arrived home the same. I thought the way they laughed and leaned together was sweet. I heard them complaining that they couldn't go to the community Christmas drive together at the tall one's work. I wondered what it meant when two men loved each other. I wondered what it meant when they had to call the one they loved a pal and couldn't go to the community drive together.

My mother was beautiful with red red hair and a mysterious smile, and I kept a particular eye on the one I thought of as Mr. Chinese because of his constant take out from Chopsticks. He wore oversized suits that puffed femininely at the shoulders. His hair was glossy with gel and he smelled like cheap chewing gum. I hated the way I could see his socks when he moved and the false turn of his mouth when he smiled. I hated the way he looked at my mother. Mr. Chinese never had a woman over that I could see, and he often knocked at our door to deliver some useless piece of helpful information or drop off a newspaper no one had asked for. At night when I prayed, I prayed hardest for him, because I was stricken with guilt over my suspicions and his lonliness. I imagined him making coffee in his badly lit kitchen with the pale yellow backsplash and it was so sad and horrible a feeling I cried.

Our motel was colder on cold days and more forlorn in February. Everything hard harder, everyone weeping heard for miles. I felt the lack of nature more keenly than the lack of children. I longed hourly for the wet trees and fierce soils of Mississippi, the forest beyond the grass of my Grandmother's backyard, the long swinging ropes hanging from trees. The tick of beetles replaced with the buzzing of cars, the pushing of wind against shrub and flowers was now the pushing of wind against rain pipes, tile roofs, scattered pieces of paper on concrete. I hid behind the bush next to our motel room, scraping my face in the tangle. I imagined I was a wild thing, surviving on berries and leaves until I could find my home. Orange carpet. Linoleum. Crumble topped ceiling. Yellowing paint. Every play structure was built against a backdrop of sprawl, and every tree underfed and looking stark naked in the middle of a block of sidewalk and business.

Everywhere I turned there was a hollowness and an illness of silence, the kind of silence that arrived far away from peace, that arrives from poverty of the soul. This was the final tide that dragged me deeply inside myself. I began to create a world that could keep me alive until something broke it open.

Say What? SAY 100: Flux Capacitor made the Say 100 Top Bloggers That Matter List!

I was excited to be informed this morning that Flux Capacitor made Say's Say:100 list as a top ten voice that matters in the Parenting catagory, picked by Dana Wood, author of the book Momover: The New Mom's Guide To Getting It Back Together and blogger at Momover

It's wonderful to be in the company of the great and powerful Dooce, and how cool that Jane Pratt ( founder of Sassy, oh I loved Sassy! ) is the Style judge? Go see the ten lists, which include Thought Leaders, Food, Technology, Games, Travel, Design and Business.

*I always wanted someone to say I'm edgy. What a cool thing to hear when your writer's brain is being swamped by a mother's life. Thanks for that, Dana!

new shit has come to light

In a house dominated by children one woman stands alone. She is partially shaven. She is leaking. She is bent over. Not a porn star. Not a cat ready for a hysterectomy. Just a woman who holds on to her beliefs with integrity, with passion, against all information and common sense.

Beliefs like, I will lose the last ten pounds of baby weight, and it won't all be from my breasts. I will still enjoy sex even if it's with condoms and the wizened face of my baby five feet away. I will simultaneously have two teenage boys, a pre-teen daughter, a baby and remain interesting, engaged with my friends, sexy, a good conversationalist, and someone who can return phone calls within a reasonable time period. I will revel in all signs of age with feminist glory and self-love. I will forsake all cultural distractions which are not nourishing to the mind and spirit. I will eat healthy foods that spring from the bosom of the earth. I will not use products sold with a bald pirate wearing an earring on the front. I will use Earth friendly products only! I will perfectly balance the needs of my family on one hand while wearing clean underwear on the other. ( ? ) I will finish writing my novel with the 5% brain matter currently available for my use. I will not be concerned when the only thing to make me smile all day is a crude fart joke with vaguely sexist undertones. I will stop dropping off my children and hauling Ever to Starbucks in my slippers while pretending to myself that no one can tell they are slippers.

I Pity The Poo- Mr T
(my idea of what should be written on the butt of baby bloomers)
( these are the kinds of ideas i have now )

I CARE if I do something that's SPECIAL!

*another* Top Ten Reasons It's You and No One Else

1 When it rains, he dashes through the rain, maybe with a newspaper over his head. No umbrella.

2 He drinks his coffee black, in a styrofoam cup, like Spenser, or Johnny Cash.

3 He reads while cooking. Wearing a pink apron. With a heart on it.

4 He carries Ever in a Bjorn.

5 He reads in the bath and I find piles of wet paged books next to the tub because he couldn't
decide on a book.

6 He calls me from work every day.

7 When my Grandpa M.D. was in his seventies, he wasn't supposed to be walking far. Of course, he did anyway, and one sunny afternoon he fell walking down the big hill on the main road. Mr. Curry happened to be driving by. We weren't married yet, but he recognized my Grandpa and pulled over and gently helped him up. When the ambulance drivers arrived, he was the one who could talk my contentious, arguing Grandpa into calming down.

8 He believes it's unnatural to let a baby or a child cry it out. He doesn't believe in spanking.
He thinks the right place for a baby to sleep is with or very near the parents, not in a crib
in another room.

9 He watches the news every morning.

10 His hands are large and callused.

Ta-Da! Our Blanket Fort