Listening

Do we know when our children are listening to us?

Sometimes I wish I had different words for my daughter to hear and other times I wish she'd listen to the ones I've spoken. But only the one with the ears in question knows what she's heard unless she gives an outward sign of hearing.

Last Sunday our little church ordained (or celebrated the ordination of) its first deacon in, maybe, forever. I don't know him personally. But he shared a nice homily. Being "Christ the King" Sunday, the gospel reading retold the story of Christ addressing the 2 criminals on the crosses beside his. My daughter drew pictures on a piece of paper during most of the homily, other than the moment when she pulled all the coats on top of her, or asked me what a word was on the envelope. She was interested momentarily in who the new guy was and in why the priest wasn't wearing green during Ordinary Time. (I'd say she's a precocious 5 year old, but our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program teaches the children so much.) I assumed, as others probably did of their children, that she had not heard a word of the homily ("sermon" for my more Protestant family members). Then, at the end of mass, she showed me the picture she'd been working on so diligently and explained it to me. It showed a cross with one man standing on either side and a smiling spirit-man leaving the cross and going up into the sky. She told me it was Jesus rising from the dead and the men beside the cross were the ones he'd been speaking to.


They do listen.

When Words Fail

Sometimes silence is best. I tried to blog yesterday, but it felt forced, so I chose to be silent.

There are times my daughter asks me questions and instead of keeping it simple and then being quiet, I expound as if afraid someone else will fill the void if I stop. Sometimes she picks at me to get a response, and instead of ignoring the jibes and showing her how to be present to someone in quiet, I bite and the decibels climb.

Sometimes when it is too quiet, I become aware of the size of space. In this place sometimes I feel fear. Sometimes curiously observant. And sometimes I try to fill the space, even if only with a gasp.

Handy Woman

Well, I fixed the dryer last night. Talk about satisfying. I've never done it before; never even seen the inside of one before. There's not much in a dryer. It's interesting to see what makes them tick. Kind of like pulling the curtain open on the Wizard of Oz. "Well, isn't that interesting. It's got a heater, a barrel, a motor, pulleys, and a belt." Kind of like the cartoons with squirrels on treadmills making cars run.

If I hadn't heard others say that dryers were fairly simple machines and if I hadn't been offended by the Sears service department's policy of charging $55 to show up and tell me what was wrong (when I already knew what was wrong) on top of charging for labor expended for actually doing something to fix it plus cost of parts, I wouldn't have tried to figure out whether I could do it myself. So I guess I owe them gratitude for the impetus.

The repair cost about $32 in parts, a bit of time to research the issue on the internet, drive to the store, and do the work. Not much time actually. Perhaps, if I figured my hourly rate the deal wouldn't be so great. However, I enjoyed the process and the success. And I would have had to sit home between the hours of 8 and 12 to wait on the repair person otherwise. Replacing irritation with enjoyment pays for itself.

If you've got a squeaky dryer or one in which the tub doesn't roll, check the idler pulley assembly and the belt. (Squeak = idler pulley and assembly on mine; belt = no tub rolling on mine.) Here are some links:

http://www.applianceaid.com/whirlpool-dryers.html#belt
http://www.applianceaid.com/images/inglisbeltchangehelp.JPG
http://www.applianceblog.com/mainforums/showthread.php?t=5604

The only problem I had was drying a load of towels after fixing the dryer. I kept going down to the basement to see if it were running. It was QUIET, and I'd grown used to the squeak.

What I Did for Thanksgiving

We went to my parents' house in North Georgia for Thanksgiving. We left on Saturday the 17th and returned on Friday the 23rd. The Day After Thanksgiving turned out to be a good day to fly. Even though we flew in and out of Atlanta, the curb check in was a breeze, as was security. Mind you, they seemed to be checking everything. There just didn't seem to be many folks flying. The airplane was MAYBE half full -- for a direct flight to Seattle!

What's with the dearth of food on Delta nowadays? A 5 hour flight served up a 2 packs of (2) cookies, 2 packs of crackers with cheese spread, a mini box of raisins, and 2 drinks. "Snack" used to mean a sandwich, chips, and cookies. We learned on the way out (nearly starving, except for the last minute banana bread I threw into the backpack.) So we took sandwiches for the return flight and ate a big breakfast.

There was a surreal moment on the outbound flight when they were playing "Mr. Bean's Holiday" on the movie screen: the segment I watched was in French (not counting the incoherent mumbling of Mr. Bean) and subtitled in Spanish. It was absolutely brilliant. Not the movie. I mean, realizing the movie was in French and subtitled in Spanish for a primarily English speaking flight. The movie itself didn't interest me enough to crane my neck over the seat in front to watch, so I returned to my book, "The Golden Compass".

There are anecdotes from the trip. More later. Today's subject, for the moment, is the fun of helping our daughter put together a book and photos to present to her class of her week-long vacation to Georgia. Frank though it up this morning and got her started. Then I took over supervision, helping her spell the captions for each of the pictures she drew of whatever stood out in her mind from the trip. We folded printer paper down the middle booklet style with two pictures per spread. We took a long thin rubber band and looped it round the middle of the stack as a binding. The photo album we were going to use for the photographs we printed (she chose the ones to print) had too-small photo sleeves, so we labeled the photos on the backs and put them in a plastic bag to keep them together. She was so excited. It took a while to assemble it, but it was so much fun. I hope the class presentation went well. I'm sure I'll soon know. Time to get an idler assembly for the dryer and pick her up. She can tell me how it went while I fix the dryer.

Dilated and Delusional

Today's visit to the eye doctor at Costco ended with dilating pupils. There is NOTHING like wandering Costco while your pupils slowly expand to saucers. Who wants to see MORE of the Costco SUPERSIZED product packages? It's terrifying.

To pass the time waiting for my eyes to bloom so that they could be examined with piercing bright lights at their most vulnerable, I went searching for a new uniform sweater for my daughter. As I fingered through piles of navy blue chenille sweaters trying to read sizes with glasses on, then off with the item held up to my nose, then on with the item held at arms length, I decided the experience was like being cast in a real life version of a 1970's tv movie in which the heroine has been unknowingly drugged and staggers through downtown ________-ville trying to find an antidote.

The new contacts have 100% UV protection, though, so after the doctor blasted her floodlight into my wide-open-pupils, I was able to put the lenses in and gain a little relief. The world's still a little disoriented, but last time I checked, it was disoriented for reasons other than dilated pupils. Maybe now I see straight.

Bullies

Do we live in a Bully Culture? What does that mean? Is it desirable?

In the government and political arena, we witness elected officials creating and enforcing policies, laws, systems of getting what we want, when we want, the way we want. The "we" being vaguely defined, if at all, sometimes. And even though sometimes we, as indidividuals, are sometimes hailed as the beneficiaries of these actions, we can as quickly and easily be condemened as the brunt of them. There are systems in place to deal with when you are on which side...

At school the school board makes rules which it passes down to families via administrators and teachers. It sends notes home that say, "if you/your child does/doesn't do X, your child will be..." trounced, essentially. There's this looming threat spelled out: expelled, suspended, written up in the "permanent record" which will be used against (they never how it is used "for", interestingly) your child. The idea is to instill fear to get order, which means minding all the rules exactly, without question, all of the time.

At home parents sometimes spank, ground, punish, discipline, redirect, scold, scream at, abuse, neglect, avoid, threaten, cajole, hover over their children. Sometimes to help the child avoid injury or danger. Sometimes to help the child learn manners. Sometimes to keep the child from hurting someone else. Sometimes because the parent is tired, angry with someone or something other than the child, drunk or drugged, being abused by the other adult in the house, at the end of her or his rope about who knows what. Sometimes because that's what their parents did and they don't know another way, are fearful someone will think they're a bad parent and may take their children away.

There is a top-down, the biggest wins, playground bully aspect to all of this. It keeps coming to mind day to day. I keep finding things I do or others do to be less pure than they seem on the surface (if they seem so at all).

I'll muse on this more later. It's not whole and present yet. But the thoughts are forming.

Halloween

Oh, what an event! Our first BIG Halloween party. It took place on October 27, 2007, a Saturday night. The Theme was Hogwarts Halloween (Harry Potter). Adults and children. Families and individuals. Co-workers, friends, schoolmates, fellow church members, family. It was gloriously fun, way over the top, and worth every moment of preparation and hosting and cleanup.

Sure, we raised about $50 and got around 22 books for Page Ahead (a local literacy charity), but that was icing on the cake.

No scary costumes were allowed. People were welcome to come in all sorts of other costumes, and they did. Our little girl dressed as a Peacock. It was a creative challenge to make. She wore a peacock blue dance leotard, and at her waist, a sequined belt with peacock colored silk "streamers/feathers" and real peacock feathers attached to the back. Upon her head, a headband with peacock feathers and a bit of sparkling fabric at the back. Around her wrists and ankles, feathery bands of peacock blue trim. She was enchanting.

One little girl came as Hedwig the owl (precious -- I found yet another white feather from her costume yesterday), several as witches or princesses, one as a flamingo. A little boy came as a dragon or dinosaur (depending on your point of view). Adults came as: an explorer, an enchantress, Hagrid, a very silly ballerina with WWII flying goggles, wizards, an alchemist, and assorted "muggles".

We set the dining room table with a festival of homemade treats and candies (chocolate frogs, peppermint toads, licorice wands, pumpkin pasties, sugar quills, a cauldron of polyjuice potion...), the kitchen table with more savory and healthy fare, and the buffet with mixings for drinks. The living room was converted into the Great Hall of Hogwarts, complete with a night sky sparkling with stars, lit pumpkins floating just below. Several "classrooms" were set up: Transfiguration, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts...

As the children arrived, they were sorted into houses with the Sorting Hat. I played Professor McGonnagal and hosted the children for many activities: indoor quidditch, owl spotting, treasure hunt, dragon egg identification, witch bingo... Frank dressed as "The Alchemist" and led Potions class (a chemistry lesson). They craved more, especially the potions, and I had it ready, but there comes a time when it's time to stop and sleep.

The surprise to us all was how a simple paper mache egg lying in a nest of shrub vines could capture the chidlren's imaginations so thoroughly. I thought it would serve as a fun decoration on the way to the fire pit, but the children wanted to see it, touch it, ask questions about it, believe that a dragon had flown into our neighborhood and laid an egg in the backyard. They convinced themselves that it was going to hatch, and nothing I said would disuade them. They dragged the egg indoors, took it back outdoors, made several pilgrimages to study it. We took out the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and read the description of each type of dragon's egg; then determined what kind of dragon must have laid the egg. Who says children don't love science? They RELISH it.

So many lessons. We could have done with much less. But I will say that everyone seemed to enjoy the over-the-topness of it all. Many of the decorations served to entertain the adults more than the children. For instance, for those few who really investigated the "books" set out in the various classrooms discovered that many were private jokes: e.g., potions books were cookbooks, one transfiguration book was a New Testament (is there any other transfiguration? Not to me. But I still enjoy the fantasy of fiction), the spell books were law texts, the History of Magic book was a History of Mexico book...

Why a big party? Why so much? Because the world has gone crazy with blood and antipathy. The children are showing signs of stress because their parents are feeling the stress of tighter budgets and the worldwide stench of fear and distrust, of "otherness" and alienation. I figured we all needed the release of pure fantasy, of a night of ridiculous frolicking, of community, of loving those we love in a big way, of reminding ourselves of fun and the light within our hearts. I wanted to hold close and love all these people. I wanted to entertain the children, to give them a great childhood memory because they only get to be children once.

At one point during the preparations, I thought to cut back and tone down, and then we got the news that our daughter might have some frightening illness involving her abdominal lymph nodes (further tests showed she is fine). We didn't know if this would be her last Halloween, her last one for a while, or one of decades upon decades of Halloweens. Suspended in that limbo, I knew I'd go over the top no matter what, because life is precious, and our time together sacred.

Oh, so much

It has been too long since I've written here. The thoughts and ideas have come, but the will to set aside the time to write in lieu of other activities has not till now. Some days life seems like constant triage. A triage of constant emergencies, simple moments, or of inconsequential events; sometimes we can tell the difference. Other days seem pre-written, and we walk through them with stage directions, our places marked, well-trained actors, if not brilliant. Still others flow through us, and we through them, and at the end, we reflect that for one day we lived outside of time.

Days track with a calendar and a clock by which we've chosen to measure what we call Time. But I've walked through part of my life outside of the agreed upon precepts. Some days have more or less hours than others. Some weeks have more or fewer days. I remember a roadtrip taken with a friend to Maryland. She kept thinking we needed to get somewhere to meet someone, only to look at her watch (I did not own one) and find that very little time had lapsed despite how much we had done. She stayed bewildered by the suspension of time on that trip, until at last, she stopped looking at her watch.