I Went Fishing with My Boy and My Love

I went fishing on Sunday with my boy and my love.

I woke up before the sun and untangled myself from two strong arms and the warm tumble of a goose down comforter. I shivered myself into too many layers of clothes - long underwear, turtleneck, sweats, wool sweater, thick black Carhart coveralls, cotton socks, wool socks and fleece lined waterproof boots.

My irritation grew with each layer.
Long underwear and sweats bunched at my knees. Turtleneck and sweatshirt crept up my arms, leaving my wrists to face the wooly itch of my sweater alone and unprotected. My roomy Carharts decided to masquerade as skinny jeans and the straps hung down my back, tantalizingly out of reach.

“I hate layers!” I whined, stamping my feet in a stunningly good impression of a two year old throwing a tantrum.
“You get cold,” my love reminded me.
“But I’m un-com-for-table,” I argued.
My love sighed. He’s heard this tape before.
“My clothes don’t fit right!” I shouted at the shoulders that shrugged out the door. “FINE!” I grabbed my favorite olive green Pashmina out of my closet and wrapped it around my neck. I may be a stuffed, black denim sausage, but that didn’t mean I had to forego the soft elegance I was born to enjoy.

I clomped down the stairs and was greeted with a smile and a steaming travel mug of coconut chai tea.
My boy grinned from behind his mug of hot chocolate.
The toaster dinged.

Toast was hastily buttered and jammed.
My love grabbed fishing poles.
The dogs were shooed into the garage.
We piled into the car and zoomed into the sunrise.

Less than half an hour later we were navigating through the bramble to our favorite winter fishing spot on the Sandy. The water sparkled past the rocks, rushing around the bend into a diaphanous blanket of fog that had been trapped in the space between night and morning.

My boy baited my hook and we plunked our lines into the water. The current grabbed my line and swept my hook into a dance with the rolling pebbles at the bottom of the river. The dance ended when my hook settled into the quiet eddy just below the drop off.

“Winter steelhead find quiet spots for resting,” my love instructed. “They swim up river in schools and pull off to rest in the slow moving water. If they’re here, that’s where they’ll be.”

With my line set, I settled in for the wait and discovered a dip in the boulder that hugged my round and well-layered rear end perfectly.
My boy sat on the bank above me. Confident that his fingers knew enough to telegraph the unnatural bump that indicates a hungry fish is nosing the bait, he allowed his eyes to wander.
“Mummy, look at this rock,” he exclaimed with an excited grin that showed off his still gappy smile, “it’s orange.”
He pushed it toward me with the toe of his too big canvas fishing boot.
“Wow, it is orange! I wonder how that happened.”
My boy wasn’t listening; he was finding another river rock. This one was smooth and grey, and fairly common looking, but oh, the sound it made when he banged it against the boulder, like a muffled steeple bell glorifying all that is good in this world.

My love stood lure fishing on the bank, ten yards down the river.
Cast and reel, cast and reel.

Each time he threw out his line, he cast years of worry to the river. Within moments, I saw the young boy from Eastern Oregon come to life within the man that I love. When you meet someone in midlife, you miss the childhood moments, the life defining events. When I fish with my love, I am allowed a glimpse into those missed moments and I know him as a child and I understand him more as a man.

We left the river with no fish in our bags, but our hearts were full and our souls were fed.
Definitely a morning well spent.

Hands

“You can tell a man by his hands.”
My mother’s words knock against the edges of my consciousness.
Tap.
Tap.
It is so subtle that I don’t even notice them. I don’t even know that this is what I think.

But I can tell you exactly what my father’s hands look like. Because my mother’s words tell me that it is important. That these are the kinds of hands that I should look for in a man. That these are the kinds of hands that will tell me if a man is a “good man”.

My father has ali’i hands, hands of royalty. His fingers are long. His nails are square and perfectly shaped, with lovely half moons at the bottoms and clean white crescents at the tops that stop just a whisper shy of his fingertips. His hands are smooth and the lifelines dance a pleasing pattern across his palms.

I commit his hands to memory, and I notice hands.
And I measure hands.
And I form opinions about a man’s character based upon his hands.

I married a man with my father’s hands.
I divorced that man.

The man I love today, does not have my father’s hands.

The man I love today has the hands of a worker. His fingers are short. His imperfect nails are thick shields, permanently discolored and misshapen. His hands are rough and the lifelines are buried under a crust of chapped, cracked skin.

And yet…

These are the hands that love me.
These are the hands that comfort me when words have no meaning.
These are the hands that melt into my skin and touch my soul.

My body commits these hands to memory.

Yes, mother, you are right.
You can tell a man by his hands.

.

Boundaries

JustMehas been talking about boundaries lately.
What she talks about strikes so close to the bone. I want to stick my fingers in my ears and scrunch my eyes tightly shut and yell, “la-la-la-la – I can’t hear you!”

The problem is, I hear all too well.

I hear my personal boundaries crashing all around me.
And, I have to admit that often, I am the one who is leading the charge to dismantle them.

So I ask myself why and, as if by magic, my friend Wanda emails me, providing me with both the answer and the inspiration.

Bitchology

When I stand up for
myself and my beliefs,
they call me a
bitch.

When I stand up for
those I love,
they call me a
bitch.

When I speak my mind, think my own thoughts
or do things my own way, they call me a
bitch.

Being a bitch
means I won't
compromise what's
in my heart.
It means I live my life MY way.
It means I won't allow anyone to step on me.

When I refuse to
tolerate injustice and
speak against it, I am
defined as a
bitch.

The same thing happens when I take time for
myself instead of being everyone's maid, or when I
act a little selfish.

It means I have the courage and strength to allow
myself to be who I truly am and won't become
anyone else's idea of what they think I 'should'
be.
I am outspoken,
opinionated and determined. I want what I want and
there is nothing wrong with that!
So try to stomp on me,
try to douse my inner flame, try to squash every
ounce of beauty I hold within me.
You won't succeed.

And if that makes me a bitch,
so be it.
I embrace the title and
am proud to bear it.

B - Babe
I - In
T - Total
C - Control of
H - Herself

B = Beautiful
I = Intelligent
T = Talented
C = Charming
H = Hell of a Woman

B = Beautiful
I = Individual
T = That
C = Can
H = Handle anything

Woo hoo!
Just the kick in the rear I needed.

I'm reclaiming my boundaries and re-introducing them to the people in my life.
And if they want to tell me I’m being bitchy, they certainly have that right. And I have the right to be a Bitch In Training Clearly Hearing herself and striving to be a Beacon of intelligence Totally Centered and Honoring of herself.
What kind of bitch will you be?

Proper Medical Care

OD called me. She's worried about a weird rash on her back and she wants me to make an appointment for her with her doctor. I gloss over the facts that she doesn't live with me, that I don't know her daily schedule and that she knows exactly how to make her own appointments.

I don't remind her of these things because I am over the top excited about the fact that, after years of no primary care physician and months of searching, I have found a doctor.
She is a naturopath and she is fabulous!
She listens to me.
She makes suggestions that are non-invasive and fairly easy to accomplish.
She works with accounting to make sure that I am billed in such a way so as to make the most of my medical insurance coverage.
I can’t say, “I love her!” loudly nor often enough.

I tell all this to OD and ask if she wouldn’t rather see my doctor.
I suggest it because OD’s doctor, is a pediatrician.
A wonderful woman who has held our hands through years of ear infections, bouts of the flu, chicken pox, strep throat, tonsillitis, warts, mono and any other of a number of childhood illnesses. We have relied on her through all of it, and she has never let us down, but, at nineteen, many of OD’s ailments are no longer really within the realm of a pediatrician’s expertise.
I point this all out to OD.

OD shakes her head into the phone, “No thanks,” she flips.

“Why?” I plead. “You’d really like her.”

“Because she’s a naturopath.” OD says this in a sing-song, Valley-girl lilt, as though no further explanation is needed.

“Uh-huh...?”

OD sighs. “A naturopath will want me to change my diet, which I already know is bad, or take herbs, which take too long to do anything, or give up tanning, which will never happen…I jut want some good ol’ western medicine that will give me a pill or a cream and push that rash right back down where it came from.”

LOVE that girl.
LOVE her self-awareness.
LOVE her honesty.

OD will be visiting her pediatrician next week…and she made her own appointment.

A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place

Mo, my dragon, is omnivorous. Her diet is mostly greens but she enjoys an occasional side order of bugs.
Sometimes, I harvest earthworms for her from the garden. This evening though, I head to the neighborhood pet store and buy a bag of crickets.
I shake them into her aquarium home and Mo becomes a wily hunter. The crickets scatter. Mo follows, on the tips of her toes, a dancer. She catches a cricket in mid leap and smacks her lips with satisfaction.

The Buddhist in me feels guilt over Mo’s delight.
The mother in me blesses the creatures that sustain my baby.

Usually, Mo is a dancing fool until she is once again the sole inhabitant of her aquarium. Tonight, though, Mo tires of chase and she leaves two crickets behind. They hide in the shadow of her log. Mo pulls her heavy body to the top of her basking rock, close to the heating lamp. She is asleep almost before she stops moving.
The crickets lie silent.

My house is quiet too. My children are with their father. I am looking forward to an evening of tranquility, an oasis of calm amidst a week of turbulence.

I snuggle into my comforter and reach for The Antelope Wife, the novel that has been waiting too long for my attention.
The cover is stiff. I gently ease the book open and the round smell of freshly bound pages surrounds me.

Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirpity, chirp, chirp, chirp.

The crickets begin to sing.
I smile and imagine a wide-open meadow. A creek bubbles in the distance. The moon is full and her golden halo softens the world’s sharp edges.

A siren breaks my reverie, reminding me I live in the city. A police car rips through the night and red and blue lights spin across my wall.

Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirpity, chirp, chirp, chirp.

The crickets go on. They fill my room with their talking and my book rests open on my lap.

My neighbors come home. The car idles in their driveway and my mind wanders as I wonder why they don’t park. The engine is a gravely rumbling, a large cat stuck in a satisfied purr. It fills me with warmth. I pick up my book.

And the crickets go on.
Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirpity, chirp, chirp, chirp.

I can’t read. I can’t sleep.
The city and the country are waging an all out battle in my bedroom.

I root for the city.

It’s not that I don’t like crickets.
I love crickets…in the country.

I love their soft touch upon the earth as they join together and weave music through the stars.
I love they way they make the air feel crisper and softer at the same time.
I love the peaceful blanket of calm that envelops me when I breathe in their song.

In the city, though, the chirping is jarring and unsettling.
The noise fights against the city sounds, hammering with heat and pins.
It is a burr under my skin that itches and stings with its incongruity.

I blast out of bed and flick on Mo’s light, hoping she will wake up and eat. Her eyelids flutter as the light screams at her to open her eyes and, for a blessed moment, the crickets are silent.
Mo settles back into her dream.
The crickets overcome their silence.

Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirpity, chirp, chirp, chirp.

The noise bangs into my body and knocks against every nerve as it echoes endlessly down through my toes.

I slam my bedroom door and thump down the hall to my daughter’s empty room. I slam her door shut too and then open it once more so I can slam it again. I stomp my feet and clench my fists and shake my head.
It doesn’t help.
The muffled sound of the crickets slides under the door and explodes into the room.

Chirp.
Chirp.
Chirpity, chirp, chirp, chirp.

I collapse into a puddle of prickles.
Morning cannot come soon enough and Mo had better be hungry.

In the Moment

The woman’s tired, watery eyes grabbed my eyes with a ferocity that contradicted my assumptions. “You are my miracle,” she whispered with a voice so powerful it shook my soul. Her grey head shook slightly as she nodded an exclamation point.
This woman had survived such horrific abuse that the very fact she was sitting in front of me was, itself, miraculous and she was calling me her miracle.

I have “officially” been working with survivors of domestic violence since February, but I have “worked” with survivors for two years. I know that advocates have an enormous responsibility, but yesterday, I literally came face to face with the reality of it.
And, I was humbled.
And frightened.

What if I fail?

The process of leaving an abuser can be the most dangerous point of a survivor’s journey.
It is also when she is most frightened and vulnerable, angry and frustrated, sad and lonely, confused and overwhelmed.
And sometimes, it is when she calls my organization.
And sometimes, we can help.

This woman made that call.
This woman, who had left everything, who had left behind her entire life…again.
She called.
And we met.

She was not asking me for resources or contacts or shelter. She was not asking me what she should do or where she should go or how she should get there. Nor did she tell me her story, though she circled slowly around it, each ripple getting a little closer to center.
She just talked.
And I just listened.

And that, to her, was a miracle.
And she felt humbled.

And I realized that I have it all wrong.
A miracle is not determined by the number of people who recognize it. A miracle does not need to be global to be valid.

Moments contain miracles.

Small, personal, individual moments.

Don't let them slip by without being noticed.

Up, Up and Away

My children are dribbling back to school this week.

OS started today.

This morning, he drove off for his last, first day of high school.

Drove off!
Without me!

This summer he finally found the time to get his driver’s license. His original life plan had him getting his license on his 16th birthday, but real life consumed him and the driver’s license window did not open for him until late June, more than a month after his 17th birthday. The delay turned out to be a good thing for him and he passed the test with flying colors on the very first try!

I was delirious with excitement at the prospect of having another driver in the house and I quickly bought us a second taxi.
OS and I chose a 1987 Mitsubishi Montero with a manual transmission – a sturdy, reliable, macho machine that had lived life as a tow behind vehicle. The original faded brown interior produced frown lines in OS’ otherwise pristine forehead, but a gear head friend assured him that the engine was in exceptional condition, even for a car half its age and that the cosmetic part would be a piece of cake.
The two of them have been busily “fixing” the car which OS has affectionately named, “the Beast”.

It’s not quite done, but it’s drivable.
And this morning, he drove it!
To school!
Alone.

For his LAST, first day!

Freed at last from the shackles of chauffeuring, I felt curiously unhinged.
My boy is growing up and away.
Too fast.

OS rolled down the driveway and I heard him grind the gears into neutral as he tried to make a statement by peeling off down the street. The engine roared, but the Beast remained at a standstill. OS whined the car into first and bucked into the start of a new school year.
His last school year at home.

I turned with a smile to finish getting ready for work and silently thanked the Beast for slowing my boy down…just a bit…to give me a chance to catch up.