Kvelling

Before I became a mother, I had planned to enter the monastery. Or, nunnery, as it were, in Santa Barbara, California. It was a Vedantic Monastery and I felt called to follow a spiritual path. My dearest Swamiji, who passed on with a smile on his face ravaged by cancer, was a lovely and incredibly human being. He would hand me a hundred dollars when I came to the temple in Toronto. And he introduced me to Vrajaprana, a nun who was also an author. I was working as the assistant to a writer who was writing a book about the man who introduced Hinduism to the west, a disciple of Ramakrishna. I was filled with purpose.

And then I screwed it up. As usual.

But when I called Vrajaprana to tell her that I would not be coming, that I was, in fact, pregnant...she was full of wisdom and compassion. I was fasting and hiding myself from the world, devastated and confused. I was not only pregnant but I was pregnant with my boss's child. And he was a married man. I could not have screwed up bigger. Like so many other women who are insecure and vulnerable, I fell for a sob story straight from a cheap novel. And within a week, I was pregnant. I wanted to go out with a bang. No pun intended. It was just my last hurrah. I did it out of compassion for someone who felt unloved and lost. For whatever reason I did it, my plans were now destroyed. Vrajaprana told me that flagellation was no longer sanctioned and would not help me. Guilt can only destroy. She also told me that she had had a child and when her child was old enough to be independant, she entered the monastery. So, all hope was not lost. I had a decision to make and I needed to focus on the present.

And so, I began eating and meditating. The realization that motherhood was in itself a spiritual pursuit came from those meditations. But I still screwed up. I was now knee deep in a situation that had so much capacity to hurt and to kill the spirit that it took me many years to crawl out of it. An affair can be exciting and you find yourself caught up in it. In the end, nothing good comes from it. Except in my case, I found myself married to my ex-boss and with five children. It took almost dying to wake me up from the illusion I was living. It was almost dying that taught me what a gift life is and how short time is. When I almost died, I began to live.

I can see the path I have walked clearly and am filled with gratitude for lessons that I have learned. But sadly, every mistake that i have made has been lived not just by me, but by my children. Children are fresh slates and if I were to keep a record of every time one of my decisions caused my children pain, I would not be able to face each new day. Yet, whenever I think that in some way I have caused my kids irreparable damage, that they will be confused adults with no sense of purpose, they will parrot something I said to them or show such incredible depth and empathy and compassion for others that I can only rejoice. Somewhere, in the confusion of the last fifteen years, I taught them life lessons that will give them a foundation.

I like to call myself invincible. An everyday, average conquerer or the universe. A viking. An amazon. I never give up. I am nothing if not tenascious and sometimes that kicks me in the ass. I will never be knocked down to the point where I cannot get back up. If I have to crawl on my hands and knees, I will. Every set back is an opportunity to grow. Stepping outside my comfort zone is something I do with a sprint and a leap. I see this in my children now and am so grateful that they are not seeing my life as a defeat and are in their own way finding ways to grow and do not give up. Last year, when Isabella was told that she would spend the next year with a teacher that she feared, I told her that I would try to get her out of that class if she wished. Isabella said to me that she WANTED this challenge. Not only did she want to face her fears but she wanted the chance to be the one student who made this teachers job worth working. She would be the student that reminded her why she became a teacher. It was taking a lot on her shoulders. I worried. But I stood by her and together we learned a great deal that year. She learned that she can't be responsible for someone elses moods. Or stress. Or anger. She is very sensitive, very intuitive and she always wants to do her best. If she is doing her best and someone is STILL upset, she takes that personally. As the year progressed, I watched her stand her ground and go thru her day with a smile even if she broke down in tears later at home. Crying is ok, I told her every time. A little nervous breakdown won't hurt you. But get back up. Take a deep breath and swallow is my mantra to my girls.

When, after four years, my partner ended a relationship that I thought would last forever, I knew that I was not the only one hurting. My kids thought of L as their mother. And they were devastated. It was important to me that I hold it together. But to deny that I was also hurting would have been plastic. I made sure they knew that I felt their pain but also that I was not going to stop living. Tears were ok but quitting was not. Determined that this would be a life lesson and not a defeat, I told that that people will always come and go. But they come with a gift. And we have a gift to give them. When we hold onto something after its purpose has been fulfilled, we are going upstream. We are not supposed to chain people to us. We are only postponing the next phase that the universe has for us when we hold onto something that should really be set free. If we impacted my partner, if we sent her with our gift and we grew from the experience then that is enough. Time to move on and see what spirit has in store for us. We might not understand another person's path but it is not our place to judge it. We must let them walk it. We are on our own journeys and why would we want to stop in the middle of the path when we are meant to keep walking? I know that we all felt that pain and that we grieved but we are healing every day and by learning this lesson I pray they will avoid unnecessary heart break in their own lives. They have learned that heart break happens. And that a broken heart won't kill you.

I am not living behind the walls of a nunnery. But my home is my sanctuary. When I see my values reflected in my children, I kvell. I swell with pride. I am filled with gratitude and love. I wanted to change the world. With five children, I AM changing the world. I have watched other children and I have seen the very worst that life can throw at us. My children are still children and they are still learning. They are not always kind. They are not always compassionate. Definitely they do not always respect the people around them. But I see how gentle they can be and when I compare them to many of the kids on the playground, I am comforted in the knowledge that they are going to grow up to be adults that I am proud of. Seth is the most goal oriented, driven fifteen year old I have ever seen. He lets his little sisters sleep with him. He wakes up before the sun just to enjoy those very spiritual, quiet, still moments as the world wakes up around him. Seth is filled with a wisdom usually reserved for those twenty years his senior. He struggles just like every other teenager but he searches his mistakes for the silver lining and then he works to not repeat that mistake. Riley is the most affectionate child I know. He still wants to be snuggled and hugs the people around him. Often. Ian is a gifted writer. Because he is autistic, he can look at a situation and find a solution that most people would never see. He is the bravest kid I have ever met. Even when he walks the halls of school alone and deals with comments that would sink me to my knees, he holds his head up and he goes back. And Sage...Sage has an imagination and way of looking at the world that will change everyone around her. If someone is sick, she will lay her hands on them and close her eyes and heal them. She talks to spirits. She sees angels. She is of a new generation that is born remembering Who They Really Are and she reminds me every day that we are God "godding". Isabella is still taking under her wing those who are broken and filling them with love and acceptance. I do not need to discipline Isabella because she is always immediately sorry when she reacts like a normal girl with hormones and works to repair any hurt she has caused. She is beautiful in every way.

I don't take this job lightly. I am their teacher. I am their example. I am not healthy and need to rest often but even this is a blessing when it enables me to be here full time for my family. Being chronically ill also teaches the kids to be kind to those who are not well and to give of themselves to people in need. Of course, this is hard for them. And some days it is not easy to find the energy to be fully available to five growing kids. But I am here with my arms wide open and ears to listen. And advice that I can already tell is not all bad. I can only be who I am.

OMG is a four letter word

Chaperoning the fourth grade field trip to Letchworth State Park was an eye opening experience. I have such fond memories of riding the bus to the zoo with these same children as Kindergartners, wearing Little Princess t-shirts and velcro sneakers. In three short years they have grown into the equivalent of my own seventh grade class twenty years ago. When my junior class attended our class picnic at the same park, in the same pavilion, I saw a CD for the first time.It has been said recently that our the life are children live is experientially as different from the twentieth century as our lives were from the eighteenth century.
The kids riding the bus yesterday were sporting iphones and digital cameras. I broke up one fight between boys and confiscated an Ipod when I discovered the fourth grader holding it was watching x rated videos. The girls were catty and it was obvious which clique was holding all the cards. It was more obvious who the ring leader of the group was and she easily drew tears when her minions did not follow orders. I try to see the little girl inside and wonder if it is insecurity that forces her to create a circle around herself. If it is insecurity that persuades her to do whatever it takes to keep that circle intact. The other girls were willing to forsake their own ideals just to stay in her favor. She was the Queen and they were her ladies in waiting. When they started singing together in the back of the bus, I was able to look beyond appearances and see the children still inside of them. Until they started singing, word for word, the latest pop singles. They definitely were not singing girl scout songs. And the boys were not talking about soccer or baseball, they were discussing the latest Grand Theft Auto xbox game.

My best friend is a teacher and she told me a story about taking her class to see the famous Cleopatra exhibit in Philadelphia. In order to go on the trip, the kids were missing another activity at school that day in which they were being given cookies. The kids were bored and listless and complaining constantly that they were not getting their cookie. Our local kids don't have the chance to see such famous museums but it is quite possible that if they did, the same would be true. If it does not have multimedia or lasers or a coffee house, it just is not going to excite the kids of today. It is a sad phenomenon and I wonder why we would encourage it. All I hear is "mine" and "want" and "bored" from my children and it was not that way just a short year or two ago. Things are different now and by different I do not mean better. Don't we want them to think for themselves? Don't we want them to be KIDS?

I expect to see the high school kids sporting cell phones and Ipods but when did it become "the thing" to put expensive technology in the hands of kids so young that they cannot stop themselves from running to the edge of a cliff or into a patch of poison ivy? These days, facebook and cell phones ARE poison ivy in the hands of children too immature to think before they hit "send". When my own daughter asked me for a cell phone and told me that most of her class had one, I did not believe her. I did not think it could possibly be true that nine and ten year old kids had phones. But they do. I understand wanting to keep track of a teenager but at ten, I know where my daughter is at all times. And if I need to talk to her, I can call the parent of the child she is with. If she is at school, I can email her teacher. I don't need to search for her and I WANT her to have adults she can go to for help. It's important that she be able to talk to her teacher and she does not need me on speed dial. Being able to text me at a moment's notice may make us closer but it separates her from the rest of the world. It changes the way she communicates. It make SEEM to make her more independent but I think in fact that the opposite is true.

Texting is changing the way our kids interact. It is changing the way they socialize. My teenager can have long, deep conversations with his girlfriends on facebook or with a phone but finds he can't talk to the same girls when they are face to face. And when I try to understand them when they ARE forced to talk, they speak with abbreviations and monosyllables. OMG. WTH. LOL. I would rather have them actually laugh out loud then substitute that with a three letter word. In this case, 3 does equal 4. What we have done to our children with this so called progress IS a four letter word. Rumors spin out of control. Bullying is no longer hand to hand, it is done with the ease of a button. Kids are killing themselves over this.

I want to encourage my children to explore themselves. Express themselves. PLAY. Playing this game of who has the best phone and who has the most contacts is taking away their childhood. It was easy to spot the offspring of the parents who still believe this. They were making up games, collecting leaves, looking for wildlife and playing on the playground. Most of the boys seemed to be phone free and they teamed up to play baseball. My daughter wanted to take as many pictures as she could of a little girl with a life threatening illness and created memories that she would be able to cherish. She tried to protect the kids who were feeling sick on the bus. She was not alone entirely in this. I saw a few girls covering their sick friend with their own jackets and stroking her head to make her feel better. I saw little boys excited over holding a snake and my own daughters best friend brought home two little snails. She protected them as best she could on the ride home until another child was dared to eat one. I watched in awe as this sweet little girl bit into a snail just because the popular crew was chanting her name. She wanted desperately to fit into this group.

Bella's best friend was wearing a shirt she made herself and still had bits of face paint on her cheeks from the day before. They didn't compare labels on their clothes and they did not spend their time shooting texts. Later that day, Bella's best friend made her very FIRST phone call to our house (using her MOM'S cell phone) just to say "I love you, Bella". I saw them caring. And sharing. And expressing concern for the girl's in the back of the bus who only seemed to care who had the best phone. Bella is still a little girl. She finds joy in hula hooping and still takes baths with her little sister. I see her growing up but it is ok with me if she takes her time. She will only be a child for a few short years and there is plenty of time for her to stress about things like phones and blogs and social pressure in the years ahead. If she wants to ask a friend to play, she can walk down the street and knock on their door the old fashioned way. She can have fun with a garden hose or in the creek. She can run in the sun and pick flowers without worrying about her tan or her hair. And she does not need to stop what she is doing to check her text messages. Life should be simple. Carefree. Fun. If that means she deals with not having the latest of everything, so be it.