We’ve had a silly weekend together, my parents, my brothers and I and our families. The cousins have all had an exercise in “getting along.” There are little cousins and big cousins and they all have to get along with one another; make room for each other at the table. We big folks must accommodate each other’s disparate parenting styles; support each other and (when appropriate) gently take each other to task.

There was at least one literal rescue mission. My youngest brother took a sailboat out in a strong wind yesterday. It became too much for him in the broad lake. LightHusband and LightMom had to take the motorboat to bring him back. There have been other virtual rescue missions. Votes taken on whether or not “big” beans or “little” beans are better when baked at dinner last night. Family folklore retold to the little ones and the big ones. Familial relationships rehearsed and retold so that the children will remember who belongs to whom and when and why.

The “boys” have gone home now. Back to their regular lives. It’s just my parents and I at camp now. We had a good weekend together. Yesterday the weather was terrible, today, beautiful. There was fishing and tubing and snarking and laughing and somehow we packed 14 people around the dining room table. This afternoon as LightUncle2 packed his daughters up to to home, I overheard a conversation between the cousins as they laid claim to bedrooms “when we grow up.” They were making plans for the house in the future and how they would fit into it with their own children. Discussing which rules need to be continued and which they might decide to do away with. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on the matter. I’m sure that at 13/14 and 10 their ideas will change over time, but they understand this place in their legacy and that they must negotiate with each other into the future.

I hope that they will traverse those waters with greater skill and grace than I have been able to manage with my cousins. The break that came with them was brutal, sudden and without end.  I have given up hope that I will ever see them again or be in relationship with them again.   There are parts of me that don’t desire any relationship any longer because the sense of betrayal runs too deep.

No, that’s not exactly right.  It’s a sense that there were wrongs done by all parties.  Wrongs that must be set right somehow.  But those wrongs cannot be set right until they can be owned.  Therein lies the rub.  I may be wrong, but my instincts lead me to believe that my cousins are not interested in that road.  Down that road lies the difficult task of mutual confession, forgiveness, redemption and trust.  None of us is willing to proceed to that place.  We all have issues which make it easier to live in this uneasy place of grief, than to work out our differences and face each other’s pain, sorrow, hurt and shortcomings.  This familial battle which is my brother’s and yet is also mine left me wondering about how to work out those issues of hurt and forgiveness, grace and redemption.  Yet, I always told myself, it’s different … my cousins aren’t “believers.”  If they were part of the Body of Christ, it would work better.  Jesus-followers understand how all this works, so they can work these things out.

So, earlier this year, when the separation with my CLB came so brutally, suddenly and equally unendingly, I was taken by surprise.  Again.  There were wrongs done by all parties.  Wrongs that must be set right somehow.  Wrongs that cannot be set right until they can be owned.  Confessed.  Forgiven.  Redeemed.  And trust rebuilt.  But no one is willing to go down that road.

It was, effectively, a divorce.  Now this is metaphorical … and in the metaphorical sense, I was accused of having an affair.  I was accused of having other gods, of being a threat to those in leadership.  I had two choices.  Leave.  Or ‘fess up to something I wasn’t doing.  It was a Hobson’s choice.  Either way, the trust was broken.  If I left the relationship was destroyed.  If I ‘fessed up to do something I hadn’t done, the trust was broken.  So … we divorced.  I left everything behind.  There are some few people who I struggle to maintain shallow relationships with.  But we all know where everyone’s primary loyalties lie … and must lie.

Power brings a terrible pall to the church.  It corrupts even the most genuine and faith-filled leader or follower.  Machiavelli had it right … power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Where there are no checks and balances on our greedy selves, we will become that which we most despise.  When we surround ourselves only with people who agree with us, we cannot learn.  We cannot grow.  If we do not build in boundaries to restrain ourselves, we will hurt those about us.  That is where the church has consistently failed its congregants, by failing to understand the evil within the hearts of men and women who lead it.  By crying out the sin of the sheep and the perfection of the shepherds.  What kind of family is this?

Here’s one for the “Things the Brain Does That I Will Never Understand” file …

So … in preparation for our last trip to Vermont for the summer (okay, our second trip), we’re getting the laundry done.  I assigned LightGirl the task of sorting and folding the socks.  This has not been done for quite some time in our house.  We do not place a high priority on matched socks.  Especially during sandal weather.  Most of them are white, so … there.

While I folded other clothes she treated me to a litany of where the socks had come from and how they had passed from one family member to another.  The girl knows the provenance of our socks for heavens sake.

This is the same girl who cannot learn her times tables or how to spell to save her life.  She is 13 and I regularly get hideously mis-spelled e-mails from her.

But she knows the provenance of socks.  Socks.

She claims this will stand her in good stead when the great sock monster rises up to take over the world.  She will know how to defeat him.  In the latter days times tables and spelling will do no good, but the provenance of socks will be her weapon against powerful evil.  So may it be.

We had the x of y discussions with LightGirl the other morning. I’m tired.

It is the beginning of adolescence and I’m tired.

This has been a long summer of vague discontent for all of us … and we’re all tired. Something is stirring. We’re struggling to rewrite familial roles in light of having this half-woman in our midst. Our various ailments have not helped this process.

We’ve been cleaning quite a bit too. As I’ve been recuperating I find I can’t stand the house any. longer. So … we’ve been cleaning. In part this was precipitated by a pass through the livingroom in which I chanced to spy crumpled underwear on the sofa. That was

the.

last.

straw.

One should never find crumpled underwear on the livingroom sofa. Well … the good news is – it wasn’t underwear. It was a crumpled teddy bear hockey sweater (in hockey they are called sweaters, not jerseys). Still … the shock factor combined with the recuperation factor got me going. So.

LightGirl has found all sorts buried treasure in her room. Her brand new hockey stick bag. Her old cellphone recharger (she thought this was left in a hotel room during a tournament in March). Every hour brings something new. Christmas in August. LightBoy is experiencing much the same joie d’vivre.

Then LightGirl and I looked under my bed. Now this is actually a fairly regular occurrence because it is where we store wrapping paper. But this time we really looked. And found her old Barbie carrying case.

That is somewhat similar to the case that LightGirl had (notice the past tense). We pulled it out from it’s “storage facility,” she looked inside and relived some of her Barbie memories. Then she very abruptly said, “I’m throwing this away. I don’t play with Barbies anymore and there’s no reason to keep this.” I had to agree with her. And I was very sad. But in that moment I appreciated my father.

When I was little and playing with Barbies I too wanted a Barbie carrying case. I wanted one just like all the other little girls. One made of (basically) vinyl covered cardboard with a snap lock and handle. They looked like this:

I’m not certain what inspired my father. I don’t know if it was finances. Or if it was that he likes working with his hands and wood. Or if he just couldn’t bear to spend money on cheap vinyl-covered cardboard. There are some things my father doesn’t talk about, so I’m not certain of his inspiration. But he made a Barbie carry-case for me when I was about 6 or 7. I don’t remember when I received it. Honestly, it’s been around so long now, I almost don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it. But here’s the terrible thing. When he first made it for me, I hated it. I didn’t want some handmade blue and white wooden box, with lovely brass fixtures. I wanted cheap vinyl-covered cardboard … sleek and shiny (and light weight) with pretty shiny colors, and Barbie’s picture on it. Just like all my friends had. My friends had beautiful, cool carry cases and they often got new ones here and there along the way. I just had my same old blue and white work horse.

I still have my same old blue and white work horse. It doesn’t carry Barbie treasures anymore. Now it carries my mementos from a life well lived. It also carries something else. Something more ephemeral. It carries the love my father has for me. It speaks to me in ways that my father sometimes can’t. My dad has many words for many different things, but for things of deep emotion he keeps hidden away. So I must search those out and find them in a blue and white box hand-made for me some 40 years ago.

I was thinking about that blue and white work horse when I read this article about girls in India. This article made me very sad. The intersecting curves of progress and tradition are making the lives of girls very tenuous in India. The female infanticide rate is highest in the wealthiest districts. I wondered about the fathers there who are reducing their paternity to a financial bottom line and missing out on the opportunity to build a lifetime with a daughter. I understand that the cultural mores are very different in India, but father and daughterhood are universal familial ties. What is the impact of reducing familial ties to a financial bottom line? How will those thousands of individual decisions ultimately effect/affect Indian culture? No one knows at the moment. But when I think of the inestimable value of a human life and how we assure our children of this each day in the thousand small and large bits of time and conversation, I think that the children of India are learning to evaluate life based on only one facet of human interaction. I wonder how this will play itself out. How will these cultures who have progressed so quickly on one face handle the change? How will the rest of us handle it as well?

… a week makes.

This morning I woke up at the regular time.  Having only been woken by a spectacular thunderstorm in the middle of the night.  There was no pain in my mid-section.  I did not feel like clawing my body in half.  And I had slept all night.  This was in marked difference to last Thursday night.

I am on the mend.  It’s very slow going and that makes me a little crabby.  I don’t recuperate well.  I may have mentioned a time or two in the past that patience is not one of my gifts.  Nor do I want it.  I understand that it’s a fruit of the spirit.  But as far as I’m concerned it’s the grapefruit of the spirit.  You need to add a lot of sugar to make it palatable.

My doctor told me to add foods as I felt able and to keep them low fat.  Oh bother.  It seems this sludge in my gall bladder will respond to low fat.  So I’m calling this my sludge free eating.  It sounds less mean and stingy.  The very last thing I’m to add back is dairy.  This is presenting a problem because dairy foods are my comfort foods.  I love milk, cheese and yogurt.  LightHusband teases me that I’d make a great Middle Ages woman … just give me bread and cheese and I’m happy.  Soy is out because I’m allergic to it.  So that leaves fish (yuck), chicken and beans for sources of protein.  I guess I’m going to learn to like fish.  I’ve rediscovered Jello.  I love red Jello and forgotten it.  And LightHusband found an organic applesauce that comes very, very close to a replacement for ice cream.  Now, if you knew how much I love, love, love ice cream you’d know how astonishing that statement is.  I’m still going to “need” ice cream once in a while, but this applesauce is darn good.  I see a gastroenterologist in early October to begin the process of figuring out why this happened.
In other news, LightGirl had a followup with her orthopedist yesterday, and he gave her the green light to start skating again.  NO PLAYING HOCKEY.  She can skate, but she can’t play.  She can practice, but she can’t play.  He was very specific about her boundaries.  But he was also very, very pleased with the progress she’s made.  She’s doing a lot of walking now without her brace or crutches.  She still can’t completely flex her leg straight, but she’s very close and she’s much stronger now than she was three weeks ago.  However, I do think she may have lost some of that tone in the last 24 hours because she’s just been floating around the house and not using her leg at all 😀 she’s been so happy.

Sooo … all in all we’ve been given the green light to return to Vermont for the last week of the summer.  This is good because my brothers and their families will be gathered at camp the last weekend of August.  So we’ll be having a mini-family reunion then.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the nieces and the nephews together.  Laughing with my brothers in the way that we only do when we’re together.  Teasing my mom and dad.  Watching my brothers be uncles and getting to be the auntie to their kiddos.  Life is good.

Conversation as LightBoy studied for a Latin test this afternoon …

“Mom! Look! Isn’t this funny?” Pause for him to bring his textbook and show it to me.

“See here … nimbus, it means cloud. Don’t you think that’s funny? You know … cause Harry’s broomstick was the Nimbus 2000.”

Me (trying to keep a straight face and absorb all of this earnestness), “No, I don’t think it’s funny at all. But I do think it’s pretty cool.”

We high five.

Me – “So what does the name Nimbus 2000 tell you about the author of Harry Potter?”

LB – “Well … she knows Latin. I can tell that because all the spells are in Latin too.”

Me – “And what does the name tell you about Harry’s broomstick? Does it tell you anything special about it?”

LB – “OH! That it can go high up into the clouds. And Harry needed that A LOT!!!”

And he was off weaving spells and flying on his own broomstick.

Terrible … that Harry Potter. Teaching my children that Latin is fun.

My friend, Doug, who peregrines around the land hath tagged me once again. It is the dread 8 random facts meme … but I’m not so into random facts lately. I don’t know what to do here. I want to point people to 8 … somethings. But in the end that’s really pointing to me and what I like and there’s something about these memes that are ultimately very self-centered. Of course, the whole blogging thing is too for that matter.

So I am tasked with coming up with 8 items of note about something, someone, or etc. Soo … here are 8 things I am thankful for today:

1. I am thankful that LightGirl’s temperment is not at all like mine. This is not because I have self-image issues, but because I am enjoying watching someone with an entirely different outlook explore and enter the world. I really love talking with her about different episodes in her life and hearing her perspective on them. She is so completely different from me and I am enjoying that very much.

2. I am thankful for antibiotics. I seem to have inherited my maternal grandfather’s predilection for sinus problems and so I’m thankful for the drugs that cure these ills.

3. I am thankful for coffee. I love coffee. If I could travel back in time, I would go back to the time when people first discovered coffee was good to drink and I would kiss their feet. Well … maybe not their feet. But I would hug them and kiss them and tell them what a wonderful thing they had done!

4. I am thankful for cotton. It’s one of three fabrics that feels good to my allergic skin and the other two are frightfully expensive. So I love cotton. I especially love it when it comes in the form of quilting fabric and I’m working on a quilt for someone I love (yes, GreatPea, your time is coming soon 😉 ).

5. I am thankful for BlazingEwe and TexasBlueBelle. They have kept my feet on the ground and helped me put one foot in front of the other more times than I can count.

6. I am thankful for the gift of creativity. The joy that comes from experimenting, designing, doodling and creating is without words. I love to play with color and words and shapes and make them all come together and “say” something using very few (if any) words.

7. I am also thankful for words, because I love to write. I love giving voice to the stories and ideas that wrestle in my head. I love to study the evolution of language and how words have depth, texture and meaning beyond what we think they do. That our language is not flat and two dimensional, but rich and deep and even four dimensional as it changes with time.

8. I am thankful that as I get older I am more and more able to embrace being an introvert. As a woman it is unacceptable to be an introvert, so I had to interact as an extrovert my whole life. But I’m learning how to balance cultural expectations with my own needs a little better now. Interpreted, yes, this means I’m learning to not care what others think quite so much anymore and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful that I’m growing more comfortable in the skin God gave me.

Sooo … the rules state that I’m to tag eight more people and they have to do this too.

WHATEVER!

Rules … schmools. Did I also tell you that I’m somewhat rebellious? I’m going to tag a few people … I don’t know how many … for the all new Thankfulness Meme … You have to list 6 – 8 things you’re thankful for and then pass it on to whomever you think might need this little exercise in futility … Here are my victims er friends:
Doug
JJ the Smu
Makuta
Lyn
Mak
Erin

The past couple of days have been hectic. Saturday saw the return of the GrandPea to camp and an unanticipated visit to an Urgent Care clinic for LightGirl. It seems that she may have torn her meniscus while at hockey camp last week. She’s on crutches now and we’re wending our way through the medical system to see how we should best proceed. Sunday began with a family breakfast then packing, sorting laundry and good-byes. Good-bye to GreatPea (my aunt), LightMom and GrandPea, as LightChildren were off to a week with their other grandparents. LightHusband and I are back at camp. And peace. And quiet. And phone calls to doctors. And just a little bit of worry.

LightMom and I went to a quilt exhibit together.  She loves to look at quilts almost as much as I do.  The difference being that I like to also make them.  We saw these quilts at the Shelburne Museum.  The exhibit was called:  Something Pertaining to God:  The Patchwork Art of Rosie Lee Tompkins.  Rosie Lee (not her real name, she took a pseudonym so she wouldn’t become too proud) said she would think of something important when she pieced, you know something pertaining to God … I really liked that.  I think about those things when I’m piecing and quilting too.  If I’m making a quilt for someone specifically, I pray for that person or their family.  Or I weave thoughts and dreams for them into the quilt.  This is likely not unique to me and/or Rosie.  I think that many quilters weave hopes and dreams into their quilts.  I liked the way that Rosie put it “… something pertaining to God.”

Rosie’s voice is tied up in her quilts (and quilted book pouches … she made some to match the quilts).  She died a couple of years ago.  I wish her voice was verbal instead of fabric.  I have no doubt she has some wonderful earthy wisdom to pass on.  I’ll bet it’s colorful and interesting too … told with a twist.  Born and raised in Arkansas, then she raised a family of five in California.  I’m certain she had stories to tell.  What a treat it would have been to sit quietly, stitching and listening as she sewed and talked … just to hear her voice and learn her technique.

I have sat and stitched with other quilters; learned their techniques, talked with them, cried with them, shared secrets with them.  I’ve learned over the years which voices to listen to.  Which have knowledge that I can profit from and which are fun to chat with, and which will give me support.  Who to call for help with applique or help with quilting or help with tricky set-in seams.  I’ve learned how to sort out the voices … who will tell me what is tried and true.

I’ve been thinking about that today.  I’ve been thinking about voices and who I listen to.  And who I don’t.  And why.  I’ve come to love the internet.  It’s a great place.  You can find anything there that you want.  For instance, I scared myself skinny (well … almost) about LightGirl’s meniscus tear this morning.  You have to be selective about which voices you’re going to listen to out on the big wide internet.  There are voices out there which will scare you and cause you pain.  I’ve found over time that when I keep going back to those voices (getting scared and/or hurt), that the authors are not the inflictors of the fear and/or pain … I am.  The site is static.  I am going to it.  If I keep going to it and getting scared, then I need to stop.  So I do.  As in this morning, I stopped looking for information when it was causing me too much worry about LightGirl’s condition.  I’ll wait til we get a definitive diagnosis from a real doctor, instead of the dr. dolittle on the internet.  I love the fact that I have control over who I listen to and when and why.  So that if I’m in pain or fear I can stop listening to that voice.   And listen instead to the voices of quilts or quilters … or even, the Holy Spirit.

Tuesday we spent the day on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain. We were neither here, nor there. Not in Vermont. Not in New York. We were in international waters! Well … not exactly. We were in sub-national waters. Or something. But we were on an island that was not subject to any state law. Very interesting. We didn’t break any laws, so it didn’t matter.

We spent the day with LightHusband’s sister, her husband and their blended family. There was fishing, swimming, hot dogs, hotdogs, wet dogs, a temporary aquarium for the caught fish, an adventure on a tube, and sundry other activities … all law abiding.

I got to have several really good conversations with LightSIL. We re-connected again. It was good. But something she said has been rattling around in my head for the last couple of days. We were talking about some of her interactions with her first husband and working out custody arrangements. Things get dicey sometimes. She mentioned some boundaries she needed to set that were entirely for her children’s safety.  Her ex-husband is a practicing alcoholic and the court has set some stringent standards for his behavior that she needed to remind him of.  She said, “I didn’t want to threaten him, but he needed to remember what would happen.”  I reminded her that she wasn’t threatening him; if he broke the standards set by the court, it was the court which would take action against him, not her.

I’ve really been thinking about that interchange for the last couple of days.  I’ve been thinking about how truth appears to people.  Some people see truth and it’s clean and clear for them.  They welcome it into their lives as a measure with which to measure themselves against.  They face truth without fear.  Others, see truth walking toward them and they pull out the fun house mirrors in an attempt to bend it and manipulate it and make it into something they can control for their own purposes.  If they cannot bend the truth, if they are faced with a truth they cannot manipulate, then they manipulate those around them.  But in the end I’ve come to realize that the only people who are threatened by the truth are those who want to manipulate it for their own ends.

I am, at long last, awash in the porch. I have my coffee beside me, the wind is rustling the trees, there is a robin’s nest in the rafters above and my beloved hummingbirds are dive bombing me to protect their feeder from my nefarious plans. LightGirl has gone to find her friends, LightBoy has gone to find his. Yesterday was a tedious drive broken by a hockey game and reunion with LightGirl at Penn State.

She was full of stories, escapades, and laments. The laments were about the food and the hard work. The stories and escapades were about the friends and the boys. She told us about the wonders of the pasta bar at the cafeteria. She had, apparently, sampled it for 2 out of 3 meals a day. This caused me to ask, “Did a vegetable pass your lips at least one time this week?” “Oh, yes, Mom.” said earnestly, “One day they had a vegetable sauce. … (long, loud guffaws from her parents) … and I ate fruit with every meal.” oh … I am now reassured.

After a long period of time during which I gritted my teeth and ignored the sounds which pass for music coming out of the speakers, I could not bear it any more. It was the post dinner hour and my last nerve had been officially reached … for quite some time. So I recieved control of the iPod. The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the back seat was hilarious. “Not U2, Mom … please no U2. Oh no … she’s going to put on celtic music, I just know it.” So I found it amusing that when Minutes to Midnight (Linkin Park’s latest album) came on, neither of them could identify it.

It has become the album of choice for our whole family to listen to. It’s somewhat amazing to me that we all like it. It’s just soft enough for me, and hard enough for the kids. It’s got enough musical interest for LightHusband. The lyrics of the songs are pretty intense. I’m gaining some respect for this band. But I think their song, What I’ve Done, is perhaps my favorite. I’ve heard that it’s their biggest hit. I wouldn’t know about that since I’ve only sort of discovered them lately. But the lyrics are intense and speak of a longing for forgiveness and redemption that seem to be universal. Then I found the video and was knocked off my feet. It is … intense, and beautiful and rich … it is a must see. So I’m posting it here. Enjoy!

Sunday afternoon I left LightGirl on the campus of Penn State University amidst hoards of other teens, all there for summer sports camps. There were boys there for wrestling, football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, swimming and etc. There were girls there for ice hockey, basketball, gymnastics, figure skating, softball, swimming and etc. Hoards.

I left her with a few of her teammates. They were standing outside of their dorm caught somewhere in between deer in the headlights and small children who had spied a fresh plate of cookies. They uncertain of which world to occupy, I turned and walked to the car certain that they would choose rightly. The ensuing phone calls have done nothing to disabuse me of this notion. She is, indeed, thriving.

In the meantime, LightBoy is attending a hockey camp of his own here at our home rink and is having a ball. I have no idea whether or not he is learning anything, but he is coming home tired and smelly so he is, in the least, active all day long.

It’s been an odd week. I came home on Sunday to shocking news. A friend’s husband had committed suicide back in December and my mother sent the obituary. Her children and my children play every summer up at camp in Vermont. She and I spend a good deal of time on each other’s porches dilly-dallying and chatting about everything and nothing. We look forward to each other’s company each year. We look forward to our families’ spending time together. But now there will be a hole ripped in her family and a hole in each of our hearts where her husband’s laugh used to be.

So much to process.

“Pink cards and flowers on your window,
The sun will set for you
Your friends all plead for you to stay.

Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple.
And the shadow of the day
Sometimes goodbye’s the only way.

Will embrace the world in gray
And the sun will set for you,

The sun will set for you.
And the sun will set for you
And the shadow of the day,

Will embrace the world in grey,

And the sun will set for you.”
Shadow of the Day (by Linkin Park)