Last Rites (from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle)

I think this is darling

"God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So god said to the mud, 'Sit up!'
'See all I made', said God, 'the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars'
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job god had done.
Nice going, God!
Nobody but You could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank You for the honor!
Now the mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait..."

lots of stuff rollin' in my brain

i am pretty sure this whole blog will be disjointed because the major things on my brain seem disparate.
the first has been plaguing me for a while - well, since i found my joy really. i have these momentary panic attacks. they aren't frequent or incapacitating. but i am sooooo grateful for the people in my life right now and for my life in general that i flash on instances of tragedy involving my loved ones and i experience panic. it's ironic to me that through some of the darkest, most dangerous times of my life i never experienced this panic. through some of the pretty bad stuff i have experienced i never worried about the future like i do now. even though there was probably a far higher statistical probability of something bad happening i was too embroiled in what was going to worry about it much. but now that i have something good i am at times TERRIFIED of losing it.
that brings me to another issue i have been dealing with. no one following my blog knows this about me, but i am remarkably free of guilt most of my life. i have always chosen to view things that i would classify as mistakes in my life as tools that helped shape me for good or ill and not to waste time regretting things. but that has been changing as of late. i keep having flashbacks of things that happened when cass was younger and i have intense flashes of guilt. i view guilt as useless emotion because we can't change the past, we can only make choices from this point on - yet here i am assaulted by guilt. i did horrible things.
the next thing is about my mother. she is working on releasing cancer right now. and over the past - well since i got prego - my mom and i have developed a pretty cool relationship. i think our relationship is pretty symbiotic at this point. so especially lately i feel like i am getting these messages for her. i am glad that our relationship is such that she listens to me when i have these revelations. i don't feel at liberty to discuss them because i feel like i get messages for her because she listens to me. but i can say that i think she needs to come live with us on our farm whenever we get it.
this brings me back to my guilt feelings surrounding cass. i know my mother struggles with guilt as far as her kids are concerned FAR more than i do. so once again i hope that through all the things i wish i could do over that i someday have the open and loving relationship that i have with my mom, with my daughter.
and finally - sometimes i am scared of losing my mom. i hesitate to say this in print because like a dear friend told me - fear is like a negative prayer. in the sense that i believe that the brain is capable of amazing feats - but when i give in to fear for my mom, i am sending energy that is not healing. it was kinda brought home to me today when i was talking to my mom and she was telling me how most of the time she could stay positive, but the pain interfered. so iam going to break down right here and say it -
I DON'T WANT MY MOM TO DIE a hundred thousand million times infinty

giving and taking

kevin has been wanting me to read a book called "the vision" for quite some time now. it is the story of a native american shaman and scout who decided to take on an 8 year old white kid as his apprentice. the book is written by the 8 year old as an adult about his experiences being taught by stalking wolf (grandfather).

anyway, i have been reading it today. and i am touched to my soul at the descriptions of the reverence the author holds for our planet and for all life on our planet. i see now why pookie wanted me me to read it - because that's the sort of rapture he feels. that's why he wants to be an organic subsistence farmer. i am a very book oriented person, and in reading this book i get a feel for what kevin feels.

part of me in reading this feels a loss because i do not experience the joy of nature very readily. i am a city girl through and through, and i live in my head A LOT. i am also a little sad because though i know that our earth is my kevin's deity, it took someone else's words to bring it home to me. i also love that my kevin knows this about me and that's why he wanted me to read this book.

i am grateful to kevin for opening my eyes to our responsibility as stewards of the earth. and for helping me be more aware of how my decisions affect the web of life. i am still learning to open myself to the myriad beauties of nature and how incredibly wonderful our amazing planet really is.

i am well aware of the gifts that kevin brings to my life (other than the obvious one of loving me), but i started to think about what i bring him as well (besides the obvious one of loving him). when he came to visit on friday he was all sorts of bent out of shape but didn't know why. i think the gift that i bring the relationship is my carefree spirit. kevin worries A LOT. and i rarely do. i have my moments - just recently i posted on FB that i wanted to sleep until thigs didn't suck so much. but when i was polled by some friends about that post i revealed that i was really just pissed about money, but not in a serious way. i have a genuine ability to roll with the punches and come out smiling. and i think that is my gift to kevin - to help him see that you don't have to worry so much because mostly it's a waste of your energy.

so he helps me feel connected to our amazing planet and i help him take a chill pill. we both have a long road ahead of us in bestowing our respective gifts - but i am confident that our love is making the world a better place.

compromising on things that matter

ok, first some background to my dilema. though i have been a vegetarian for 12 years now, it has only been in the last year that i really started to think about the food i eat in depth. through my research, i have become increasingly convinced that it is the processing of foods that does the most damage to our health. i have also become an adamant supporter or organic foods, both for the health of my family and for the health of our planet.
my 10 year old, cassidy, has always been overly sensitive to not fitting in. so the fact that i raise her veggie has always made her feel like she stands out. but my newer convictions, about processed food especially, i think she takes worse. previously we ate A LOT of stuff i wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole now - even though they were vegetarian.
so, cass had a friend sleep over last night (the state of utah has a four day school weekend). and i want to help her not feel like her mom is a total freak, so i bought them pizza and cookies. then cassidy asks me for soda, and movie treats, and the list goes on and on! i mean, i am already trying to compromise with her by feeding her stuff i would never on a normal day, and then i get pestered with all these requests and i just want to scream. i mean, i am making many sacrifices in other areas of my life so that i can feed my family food without chemicals and preservatives and added sugar. i spend more on food a month than i spend on rent because what i put into my daughter's body matters a great deal to me. i was less informed for much of her life (plus she macks fast food crap when she visits her dad) i used to feed her stuff that i won't now. but it killed me when she had her friend over here. i was already trying to sacrifice something that mattered to me because i know that the more rigid you are about something then more likely they are to reject it on principle, but this experience made me not want her to have her friends over for the night anymore.
i mean, i have had to deal with the fact that she eats things i would prefer she didn't, but it has always been other places. i feel like my home is the last safe food place for my daughter, but when i say she can a friend over then my safe place becomes a war zone over food. i am at a loss :( :( :( i don't want to say she can't have friends spend the night, but i don't want this food war brought home.
and let me say here that the letting go of what she eats outside the house has been HUGE for me.
i know every parent has their things that they try to do for their child because they truly feel like it's the best thing for them. i mean - how pissed is my dad at me? at least my concern is for her health is in this life - my dad believes that he will be separated from me for eternity for my lack of following what he tried to instill in me, whereas he will get to enjoy my sis and her hubby for eternity.
i am just really struggling with this issue, and i'm sure this will not be the last time i need to write about it.

thinking about one of my best friends

i was reading a blog earlier written by one of my best friends (we actually think we supposed to be twin sisters *our birthdays are a couple weeks apart* but whoever was passing out the souls messed up). anyway, it got me thinking of her.
we met when i moved to dehesa from lemon grove at montgomery middle school. she was short like me, and we discovered that both of us had skipped a grade (though i think hers was 3rd and mine was 2nd)so we were both young for our grade. anyway, we were fast friends and from 7th grade through 10th grade i believe i spent more time at her house than mine. she was even my "date" for the 8th grade harbor cruise because we wanted to wear pretty dresses and go on a harbor cruise - boys be damned!
i am not going to go on a whole "everything i remember about the stuff we did" trip because that would take forever. *but watch out dana because i have a photo album in storage that is full of you and me in the early 90's and you better believe i'll scan them :)*
but in her blog she was talking about some hardships in her life and it made me think back on what a protector she has always been. we did some crazy teen stuff, but when i look back i see how much dana had her head on her shoulders even when we were being crazy. blonde jokes annoyed her because she is a natural blonde (with dark eyebrows - but i swear she is natural blonde) and smarter than most people i know. i have never been very authoritative and dana was definitely the driving force our duo :)she also looked out for me a lot. the first time i got drunk, a guy brought me into his room and dana immediately busted down the door and brought me bread. when i had a breakdown and left my house, she made brandon drive around his van until she found me and brought me to her house. there are many examples.
i guess why i have been thinking about this is because i have infinite faith that she will deal with her hardships in the best way possible. she has the best combination of level-headedness and heart of anyone i have met in my life. she is one of the best people in the world to have on your side. i left a comment to her when i read her blog about how i hope she remembers to take care of herself though. we have been apart a lot years now, so i don't know if she forgets to take care of herself - i could see it go either way. but, dana you are and have always been one of the most amazing women i know. our differences are superficial, but our sames go straight through.

new perspective on an old hurt

so my kevin left to go dogsit for a week today. i was on my way to pick up cass from a birthday party (which was quite a drive because i can't take my car on the freeway) and i started to think about how much i felt like a part of me was missing because kevin was gone. and then it got me thinking about how i feel when cass goes away. when cass was smaller and wasn't with me, i REALLY felt like part of me was missing, but the older she gets, the less i feel like that.
in pondering this, i remembered an old painful memory. when i was maybe 13 or so, my mom met this "cool" guy named arne, i remember her coming to our house (my sibs and i lived with my dad) and announcing that she was engaged (to a guy she had known six weeks and we had never even met). and we were overjoyed for her - well at least i was - i can't speak for my sibs. when she took us to meet him i remember my little sis, who was probably 8, ran up to him and gave him a hug and said "hi new dad" and he stepped away and said to her "i don't DO dad". i was crushed for my sis and for us. it soon became apparent that arne didn't DO a lot of stuff (including get my mom even a token ring). it also became apparent that no DOing dad meant he didn't care much for any of us kids. so i decided if he wasn't going to DO a relationship with us, then i wasn't going to DO a relationship with him either.
at this point my mom had us two weekends a month and i told my mom that i wasn't going to come on her weekends if he was going to be there. and i remember her telling me "you won't be there forever. so if you are going to make me pick between you and arne, then i will pick arne" this killed me and our relationship was much damaged after that. i felt i had put up with a lot but her flat out telling me she would pick her new nasty boyfriend over me was a biggie. (he was a complete tool and she realized that after a few months as a side note).
to this day i think that is probably the most hurtful thing my mother has ever said to me (i have forgiven her by the way already). so, back to today in the car. i thought how different it feels when kevin goes and when cass goes. and i think i understand a bit more where my mom was coming from (not that i compare the situation exactly). i see that a mother can't build her life around a child forever. i mean, i am embarrassed to admit that cassidy's presence in my life has been the thing that has kept me going in the hardest times in my life. i feel bad that i have relied so heavily on her when i feel i should be the strong one. i know that many times it has been just her and i against he world. but i also know that part of loving her is allowing her to grow in the world. which means maybe being hurt, and most definitely being set free in the world.
i think my mother's comment to me all those years ago was coming more from fear, but i think i see a valid basis now. i think what my mom wasn't grasping is that just because your child isn't there to be your world when they grow, doesn't mean they abandon you. arne is LONG gone, yet my relationship with my mother has reached astounding depth that neither of us could imagine when i was 13. we are now simply beings, flawed in our own ways, who love each other and help each other in countless ways.
so back to the difference between cass leaving and kevin leaving. with kevin i have found the man with whom i want to share the day to day everythings of my life. and believe me - i know i have been rash with the falling in "love" my whole life. and that's how i know this is different. i am seriously making all the big, long-term decisions in my life according to what will best fit both my and kevin's dreams. so in one way i am bonding myself ever closer with kevin while detaching myself from cass. not in a love way, but in a plan for the future way. i am constructing my future with my and kevin's dreams, but cassidy's dreams are as of yet unformed.i am excited to find out what her dreams are and i will support her as best i can. but i realize that i cannot make decisions based on her dreams. and each time cass leaves it is a step toward our eventual relationship as true friends. i hope that we are close as my mother and i are when she is 32 and i am 54

buzzing in my head

this is sort of a conglomeration of things that have been inhabiting my head mostly over the last week or so. some of it frustration i have over my job this year. the teachers i have worked with in the past have all treated me as basically a co-teacher. i helped them plan activities, pulled groups, read stories, and countless other things. this year i feel more like - oh, an office aide for the classroom. and yes, i realize that my job IS a classroom aide, but i used to feel more involved with teaching kids which is what i love to do. i don't even have an area this year and i spend much time collating papers, and even when i am working with the kids, it's as a wandering help-person rather than having any specific job to do. i don't know, maybe that's what most people who have my job do, but i was used to doing more and it makes me sad. i don't have a problem with the teacher; i just miss my old job.
this is a side note but also related to my work. every day at lunch if our kids do not want the hot lunch, they have the choice of totally packaged foods served in a plastic clam shell container (and no this is not going to be about the disgusting, preservative-laden food in our nation's schools - though i also have a problem with that.) anyway, i had seen the clam shells be collected by one of the paras at lunches the whole time i have worked at parkview, so i would collect my kids' also. i assumed we were recycling these (especially since unlike the plastic forks and spoons we also use every day, these clam shells never even touch food), and i would leave the ones i collected on top of where the kids get milk because i wasn't sure where the recycling bin for them was. earlier this year i handed the ones i just collected and watched as they were promptly put in the trash can. so i decided to see if we could recycle them. out on the playground i saw our secretary and asked her if it would be possible to get a recycling bin for the clam shells and was informed that the district won't ALLOW it. a teacher a few years ago tried and she said the district wouldn't budge citing federal health codes. WHAT??? so anyway, all that clean recyclable plastic cannot leave our cafeteria except in a trash can (except of course when we used to collect them for use in after-school art projects. too "toxic" to be recycled, but ok for art i guess. ) and my principal made it clear that she does not support the idea either, so fighting the district seems pointless if my own school doesn't agree with it either - so trash can it is.
with all this spinning in my brain i got an email about a possibility to go back to san diego. now at this stage it it purely in the "this floated through my brain - what do you think about it?" stage, but nonetheless there is now a ever-present burning desire to go home. i mean, i have always wanted to return to so cal, but had reconciled myself to the fact that i would never go back to live because i would never have the money. but i guess nothing is impossible, and the option, however slim at this point, of leaving utah makes me almost cry because I WANT TO SO BAD. i didn't realize how much i utterly dislike living in this state until the possibility of leaving came up. the other possible places we talked about were all about equally "meh" to me so i didn't think about it. i realize i had just resigned myself to the fact that i would never live anywhere i really wanted to again. i f i do get a chance to go home, i know it won't be forever because to have a farm in so cal is not a realistic dream and i am not asking kevin to forgo his dreams, but if i could get a chance to live once more in a place I love i think it will make a big difference in my life. also, i have wanted to get cass out of here for awhile.

sadness and gratitude

i went to the library today and got two of vandana shiva's books, water wars and monoculture of the mind. i became interested in her because she keeps appearing in documentaries kev and i have been watching. i am in the middle of water wars right now. the book begins with a hymn from the rig veda which i wouold like to reproduce.

waters, you are the ones that bring us the life force.
help us to find nourishment,
so that we may look upon great joy.
let us share in the most delicious sap that you have,
as if you are loving mothers,
let us go straight to the house of the one,
for whom you waters gave us life and gave us birth.
for our well-being, let the goddeses be an aid to us,
the waters be for us to drink.
let them cause well-being and health to flow over us.
mistresses of all the things that are chosen,
rulers over all peoples,
the waters are the ones i beg for a cure.
waters - yield your cure as armor for my body,
so that i may see the sun a long time.
waters - carry away all of this that has gone bad in me.
either that i have done in malicious deceit,
or whatever lie i have sworn to,
i here sort the waters today.
we have joined with their sap,
oh agni, full of moisture,
come and flood me with splendor!


the book then turns to water crises all over the world. my heart hurts for what is being done to our planet and to the people on this planet by greed. the contrast between the reverence suggested in the hymn and reckless and often downright evil ways use water now makes me want to cry. we take so much for granted. i said recently in a survey that if i could have a super power it would be an empathy ray because the world is sadly lacking in empathy.

even though some of the stuff i am learning makes me sad, i am glad i am learning about it. and it brings into sharp focus how much kevin has blessed my life in ways beyond just loving me. before i was with him, i gave about as much thought to my actions and how they affect the web of life as the average american - little to none. but over the past two years, kevin's ecological conscience has opened my eyes to a lot of things. life, in all its manifestations, ais precious and every time i choose to spend more money on something organic - not just because its better for me but because i genuinely care that the farmland that created the food was not poisoned so that i could have bell pepper - i feel more connected. i realize that each choice i make has consequences, however small, and thank kevin for opening my eyes to that fact. i know i am not perfect, but every little bit helps. at first the thought of living in a cob house in the middle of nowhere with kevin's rain collecting and energy generating devices freaked me out quite a bit, but now i understand why he wants these things, and i am ok with that.

my god and letting go

this spring i was talking to my sister and had an emotional upheaval. we were talking about our dad and i began to cry as i told her that i have forgiven my father much, knowing that he's only human, but there is one thing i could not get over. that was when cass was 18 months old and i was back in san diego visiting. i called my dad because i was in an abusive relationship with a substance abuser and i needed to get out. i had about 2 years left to finish college and a near infant so my prospects were not too bright. i called my dad and told him the situation i was in and asked him if i could come stay with him while i finished college. i told him i would follow his religious and house rules while under his roof - and he told me no. having a daughter myself, i think there is NO WAY i could turn down my daughter in that situation and i didn't realize until talking to my sister how MUCH i was still hurt and angry over that incident.

this summer i went to the dreamtime festival and went to a women's guided meditation workshop and at one point we were asked to to find the hurt places in us and let them go. the place i went to was that conversation with my dad and i could NOT let it go. some fundamental place in me denied letting it go because it was NOT RIGHT. that sort of shocked me because i wondered why it so important to me to hang on to that anger and hurt - just because i thought i would have chosen better in his situation.

so i have been searching this out since that meditation. and i realized that when we hold on to hurt or negatvity we are creating spots in our being that can't be filled with love because hurt is already there taking the space. i was talking to my bro-in-law (who is very devout religious) tonight about how my god is love. i think love is what makes the world go round and our capacity for love is as infinite as we let it be. in that sense, the more full of love we are, the closer we become to divine beings. i also realized that forgivness is more about the forgiver than the forgiven. my personal hurt and anger isn't "punishing" my father; all it's doing is taking up space where joy could be instead. i can still not agree with the choice my dad made but i don't have to hold on to it - so i am letting it go. and now there is an open space ready for love and joy and i can feel it already filling in!

thoughts on love

with kevin gone, i really notice all the million little things he does for me. not that i don't appreciate him every single minute of every single day, but his absence really brings home to me how much he does to take care of me. i was having a discussion with a friend earlier about showing love, so i have been thinking about it. there are so many ways to show someone you love them, and it's sad when the other person doesn't realize your ways because they have an expectation of how one shows love. i need to make sure that kevin knows exactly how much i appreciate him and what he does to show me he loves me. i like to think of it as "pixie-proofing". most of my previous relationships have been someone falling on love with crazy me - then immediately trying to change those precise things that make me "me". kevin knows my crazies (my best friend is his sis - so when i was going through crazy pixie stuff i would talk to her and she would talk to him *as a neutral third party :) *). if i do things he considers might be dangerous to me he talks to me - but otherwise he just lets me be me. and i refer to it as "pixie-proofing" because he stands on the outside of my whirlwind and lets me whirl while he creates a "padding" so i don't get hurt. mostly i am just in awe that i found someone as great for me as him, but then i think of horrors i have been through and i think i deserve this. actually i think everyone deserves this because if everyone had love like this i think the world would be a better place.

now i have a blog again

hooray! i have missed blogging. i was just reading the blog of one of my surrogate mothers from jr. high/high school. it is so nice to be able to have these glimpses into the lives of people who would not otherwise be a part of my life right now. i am so thankful for the internet to allow me to have these connections.
though, i will be on the computer a lot less a week from now. i am a bit anxious for work to start because i don't know who i will be working with - i mean i am not even sure if they even found someone to fill the position. i am confident that it won't be worse than the beginning of last year (they had a retired exchange teacher form mexico who didn't really speak english and had never taught kindegarten - in addition to this she wouldn't take a suggestion to save her life - she went back to mexico in octiber). if i can survive that i can survive anything. it's just weird because if they haven't hired anyone i may be shuffled off to another job in the school :(
well, i need to go get some cat litter so i'll sign off for now.