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Posts from the ‘Cathy’ Category

May 4

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Cathy: Mishap Tai Chi

My apologies if you read Korean, this is my first attempt

My apologies if you read Korean, this is my first attempt

Those of you who have been getting to know me here may have begun to notice a certain tendency toward being a wee-bit cock-eyed or shall we say, taking a lot of left turns off path. I think I read that old Robert Frost poem at a very young age and have taken the path less travelled in virtually everything I do ever since. Like trying to finish my book for instance, and all the various things I can so easily find to distract myself from doing so.

So there I was sitting at the back of S’s Taekwando class when Master Ko offered a sign-up sheet to the students for their parents for a free tai chi class at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. Master Ko and I have a lot of difficulty in communication. He apologizes for his ‘bad English’ and I apologize for too many rock shows in my youth leaving me relatively deaf at a relatively young age. Rarely do I come away from a conversation having completely understood what has transpired. I’m still not exactly certain the cost of S’s class from month to month, but he just smiles and takes my check, no matter what I make it out for.

Saturday, I arrived at 7:45 a.m. No one there, door locked, and my coffee hit. I really needed to pee. So I darted back home (around the corner, so to speak) and wondered if I should have shown up next week. Darn, when I was signing up with wiggly C on my lap, I didn’t look at the top of the page, either. When 8 a.m. rolled around, I hopped back in the minivan, and darted back around the corner. Four vehicles were in the lot, but still the doors were locked, and aren’t martial artists known for their punctuality? Could it be I am merely one among dingbats, or did Master Ko have an emergency this particular morning?

Well, I made a few cell phone calls, deleted some voicemails. I watched a couple of people start half-hearted and conversant stretching exercises outside the door. 8:30 a.m. rolled around and well, I needed to pee again. OK, I know — tmi — but these things are important considerations in about a year’s time after having a baby, when you’ve already had other kids, too. I got out of the van, practically dancing, to talk with the one guy who had a black belt, and he suggested we could go around the side of the building where he could get us started on some tai chi in the grass while we wait for Master Ko. So I corralled other reluctant participants from their vehicles, and we did just that. I was nervous the whole time that I would pee my pants with the exercises, but I survived by looking at my watch every thirty seconds or so. At 9 a.m. I asked, ‘do you think he’s here yet?’ It had been indicated earlier that he usually arrives by 9 for another tai chi class on Saturdays. Black Belt Guy peeked around the corner, and yes, Master Ko was unlocking the doors.

After my run to the ladies room, and I do mean run, The Four Dingbats and Master Ko straightened out the confusion re: the free class for parents of students business that was to start the following week to last through next month. Of course, I will be out of town for the ‘first’ class. Master Ko kindly merged the Dingbats into his usual 9 a.m. tai chi class, of which only one participant had shown up. He was very informative and really tweaked us into the proper positions. When all was said and done, I ended up with a 90-min intense beginner tai chi work out. It really cleared my head, felt great, and set me up for a day to prepare for that night’s slumber party of half a dozen 13-14 year old young men. I survived the party, too, even with the all-out Nerf gun war occurring at 1am.

Bottom line? I highly recommend tai chi for all of us who have been having difficulty getting that last 10-20 pounds off, or those of us with achy joints, or bad backs, or saggy mommy bellies. It’s a great all-around workout combining stretching, cardio, and strengthening exercise all at once, and works the core most of all. Throw out the dreaded treadmill, it’s collecting dust anyway. The weights and the exercise ball are taking up room in a corner or your gym membership is ignored. The yoga tapes are also collecting dust. And best of all, once you get the hang of it, tai chi is easy enough to do for the rest of your life. I know. I have had elderly Chinese neighbors in most of my condo complexes and even in this single family home neighborhood throughout my adult life. Even on chill winter mornings, they are outside, even up in their nineties, making slow graceful circles with their arms, cutting through their clouds of breath.

I find, if I keep myself moving, it keeps the cobwebs out of my mind, so the muse doesn’t get hung up in them. I can make the connections between where I left off and what needs to occur next in my manuscript. So, for all us sedentary writer types, I really do recommend some kind of movement, and having tried it all, tai chi seems the best option so far.

Apr 28

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Cathy: And now for something completely different

I’ve been so wrapped up in the idea that I need to finish my manuscript, that the feeling has resulted in much the same as shooting one’s self in the foot, can’t win for trying, or a hundred other clichés. So when I saw the opportunity from Elizabeth Beck to be a part of Do Not Leave Unattended! by Judy Beckett of run4istrun.blogspot.com, I jumped at it.

It reminded me of last spring to summer when I discovered Kerri Smith’s Wreck this Journal. I was so stuck, I hadn’t worked on the manuscript since about three to four years prior, even though it had never left my mind. I had let life get in the way of art, and I needed to find a way back. I discovered the way back to art through Wreck. It has everything to do with being able to be free about it, make it messy, have fun with it and play. Because of that little tome and my use of it, I was able to return to the manuscript with a renewed sense of fun and inspiration about it. It didn’t matter if I made it work, what mattered was that I was writing about kids and what they go through in sixth grade, and that even if some of it is hard, it’s also fun to be a kid, have a family who loves you, even when they’re a pain, have friends who stick by you, even if you’re not exactly sure why, and that no matter who you are, you can do something great, maybe even change the world a little.

So, now that I really am right at the end of the ‘first’ draft (which has already been through practically word-by-word edits), like two to three scenes from the end, I find myself trying to make it work, or avoiding doing so, or whatever so that I won’t finish. I took a moment to breath, to get messy, to create something completely different and let it go out into the universe, especially not perfect. Here is the result:springjournal2

springjournal

I wanted to feel like a kid, so I played with markers, I wanted the sense of youth and fun and something new and had been thinking a lot about spring because it’s spring. On my dog walks and in my gardening, I’ve been noticing lots of itty bitty wildflowers, like confetti all over my lawn and around the public areas in my subdivision. I thought about them being fairy footprints left behind after a night of dancing. I wrote a haiku. Then I free wrote in the journal about spring, how it’s about change and new and color…

So it looks like a kid did it, and I’m glad. I needed to feel more like a kid to finish writing about one. And I put a lot more productive hours into my manuscript the week i did this page. Letting go and playing in creativity really can set you free.

Who wants to be next?

Apr 20

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Cathy: Spring Break in Writing

The boys’ spring break sucked any incentive to write in my manuscript right out of me. I figured my state of constant interruption would increase ten-fold, and I was right. Anytime I sat at the computer, Baby C started ripping books apart or K engaged me in pestered conversations that went something like this:

“Mom. (brief pause) Mom. Mom. Can I use the computer. Mom, can I use the computer. Mom, Can I. Uuuuse. The. Computer.”

“K, can you see I just sat down and am using it while nursing your sister to sleep? Please let me have a moment. You can use it later.”

“Mom.”

“Let me read.”

“Mom. (pause) Mom. Mom. Mom.”

“WHaat?!”

“If I can’t use the computer, can I go see if K2 and K3 are home and can hang out?”

“Mmm…” (still trying to read, nurse C to nap and tune him out)

“Mom. Can I see if K2 and K3 can hang out? Mom!”

“Ok, but walk Lucy first.”

“AAAhhhh!”

Dog tags jingle, claws click and scrape floor, the screen door ff-ths open and closes with a bang.

Then it’s S’s turn, just when I think I may have brokered some peace from the pestering.

“MOOMM! CAN (have I mentioned he has a problem with volume control?) I USE THE COMPUTER TO WRITE MY PIRATE PLAY/LOOK UP TITANASAURUS AND BARAGON SO I CAN RESEARCH FOR THE MONSTERS IN THE MOVIE I’M MAKING IN THE GARAGE AND…”

Baby C pops off, turns to see the source of the racket, and there goes any kind of nap as she has just become interested in anything, particularly S, besides napping. I yell at S “Can you see I’m trying to get C to sleep here? You can use the computer when I’m done and she’s asleep, now please go find something else to do QUIETLY while I try to get her to nap.” After some begging and plenty of the cute face, he eventually ran off under threat of no computer ever again in his life.

We had some fun, too, especially the day we bowled and my mother-in-law kept picking up the ball with the wrong size finger holes, so it would fly backwards off her hand — a real hoot! And the bumpers were up, so what would have been gutters galore, ended up being advantageous, as the boys figured out how to make the bumpers work for them toward strikes.

So this week, as the boys head back to school on Tuesday, I will get back in the rhythm and actually type in those parts I longhand wrote a week and two ago, and fill in researched parts. I also have decided I need another name change for that character I’ve already renamed, as well as changing another name, which in effect changes two character names for a total of three. Snaggly little annoying details as I run the first read through of the completed plotline. Phew, almost there, really. Think I can finish before April ends? It’s only my third projected finish line.

Apr 16

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Cathy: Blog Mom Award

awardBrittany Vandeputte bestowed an honor upon me at her personal blog. She has nominated me for the Mom of the Year Award.

Here are the rules:
First, admit one thing you feel awful about involving being a mom. Get it off your shoulders. Once you’ve written it down, you are no longer allowed to feel bad. It’s over with, it’s in the past. Remember, you’re a good mom!

Why was my first inclination one of guilt when I saw it? Because earlier the same morning I made the discovery on her blog, I was internally lamenting how I am so torn between my children and my writing and its (my) need for peace and quiet. This is an oft visited topic on Creative Construction, by all of us who contribute. I was thinking I spend a lot of time in front of my computer telling my kids to or wishing my kids would go do something else besides try to interact with me, whatever their purpose in doing so is. I wish I played more board games, did more crafts, etc with them. I even promised K I would take him out for sushi during Spring Break for some one-on-one, which I feel we desperately need, but didn’t ‘get around to it’ until Monday after Easter, the very last day of break. I even commented on Miranda’s post about her art closet that I look forward to the day that K goes to college so there may be a wee bit less chaos and crowd around me as C enters kindergarten at the same time. I may actually have more time and space to myself. I also wish I generally showed more patience for S.

Okay, now that’s off my chest, I’m sure I’ll revisit the paradox plenty more, but will do my best not to beat myself up about it.

Rule #2: Then, remind yourself you are a good mom, list seven things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you. These are the things to remind yourself everyday that you rock!

1. My kids love that I bake cookies, cakes, treats and always eat ice cream with them often.
2. I don’t totally get on their cases about the post-apocalyptic disaster zones that are their rooms, except about twice a year. It’s my tiny nod to their free expression.
3. I encourage them in their creativity without hovering: K is writing novels that he knows I would hate all the violence therein, and S draws comics and makes short films based on the Godzilla franchise. I may roll my eyes, but I never tell them they can’t do it their way. And C loves placing abc blocks in her stacking cups to rattle them and prefers to sit on open books like a cat than actually read them.
4. I cuddle Baby C nearly constantly and play, read, tickle, etc her above all else.
5. I am mesmerized by what goes on in each of their heads, how they express it, and what developmental stage they’re in: teen, asperger pre-teen and new toddler.
6. I do my best to ensure that S’s special needs are met to the best ability of the school district. I am the PIA mom.
7. I revel in activities with them: flying kites, breaking waves, going out for a treat or dinner, hiking, taking them to movies, renting for family movie night, going to the zoo, aquarium, visiting relatives, any kind of adventure we can think of.

Finally, I am supposed to link 5 other mothers across the Blog-o-sphere, to nominate them for this award.

First and foremost:

  1. Miranda Hersey Helin here at Creative Construction for getting the shebang rolling while tending to five kids and running her own editing business, and moving, and this blog.
  2. Bethany Hiitola, for her courageous and witty balancing act.
  3. Mary Duquette, for her consistent honesty in plumbing the depths.
  4. Jen Johnson, for her magical jewelry, and sparkling stories of daily life with children.
  5. Elizabeth Beck who has the happiest and most colorful blog on the net.
  6. Liz Hum’s music and book reviews, rants on current hot topics, and funky blogs on family life at .

And there are many more I would like to nominate, but Brittany has already or I’ve seen them nominate before, or I ran out of the five spaces, but I must nominate one more (I was never good at following rules):

Lisa Leonard has recently revamped and moved her blog to a new address. Her photography and jewelry are beautiful as is her sense of peace about the challenges of motherhood with special needs. She never makes the big deal out of it that too often I do.

Thank you, Brittany! I am grateful you recognize a good mom in me, and made me look at ways that I do a decent job of it, as well as the opportunity to give props to other good moms in the blogosphere. Of which, of course, you are one!

Apr 7

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Cathy: Weekend Update–the usual frustrations and a dose of sunshine

So many things interfered with so many plans I had this weekend. I won’t bore you with too many details, but while Baby C took a nap, and Honey took care of things he needed to at home (some side job work, some gutter cleaning), I grabbed one highly reluctant son and one enthusiastic one to head up to the other end of the town to the historic district and York River Beach on Saturday. The sun was out for the first time in weeks. We dipped our toes in the water. We walked on the storm barrier rocks. We sat and lay on the sand, dug holes and let the sun warm us like we hadn’t since last August. Aaaaah….

04040914471The teen was acting a bit anti-social (I had interrupted his very important tv viewing agenda, and his afternoon shower before another sleepover at the fellowship) but I think he enjoyed himself in his own reluctant way. S thoroughly enjoyed kicking jellyfish away, digging a hole to semi-bury himself, and climbing and finding rocks and shells. I soaked up some rays, watched my guys be themselves, stood up straight without the baby on my hip and enjoyed the view. The sun, breeze and water are the best ingredients to rejuvenate my spirit after so much time spent indoors. People were all over the pier, walking dogs, cycling, sailing in the distance. It was a beautiful day.

0404091439Sometimes, no matter how much laundry, lawn mowing, reorganizing, cleaning, etc., needs to be done, you just have to take advantage of the sun while it shines. And it helped me love the boys just a little more again – even if from 50 feet away. Maybe it was the distance that made the love happen. If K were grumbling next to me the whole time, I’m sure I would have grumbled back.

Later, we dropped him off and did the weekend home repairer’s trip to Lowe’s bathroom and plant departments. We bought a vertical yew for my piney mulch shady corner, and I had the sudden inspiration for a Jane magnolia tree I saw. I don’t wear much jewelry myself, so my indulgences in that regard go to adorning my yard.

On Sunday, we had hoped to take care of some things we didn’t on Saturday, but Baby C decided that steamrolling her parents all night was a better idea than sleep, so we woke up late. Since I had to pick up K, I had to go to service, therefore nothing got done. We were supposed to meet some other asperger’s families at Busch Gardens for the afternoon. Well, we made it to the park an hour late and without the cellphone (mine) with the phone number of the organizer in it, so we just did our own thing, enjoyed the afternoon and hoped we’d meet with them. We never did. Baby C had more fun on this one picnic table [below] than the rest of us did on the rides. She played “up and down,” danced, and smiled at everyone in the vicinity. She can be quite the charmer these days. Alas, this weekend, I kept walking out the door with no good camera, so these are all cell phone shots. But they still look fine to me.

04050915451So, no writing in the manuscript, even though I longhand wrote two big ideas for it in the past week. I’ll say that counts, though I still need to plug them into the manuscript and flesh them out a bit. No yard work on my part, except for buying trees. The summer clothes exchange is in the upstairs hall, and bathroom fixtures are all over the bathroom. Baby C’s home done one year portraits are put off for another week until we can set up the studio in the living room. But I had plenty of fun in the sun with my family. And that’s more important than griping about what didn’t happen from The List.

Mar 30

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Cathy: April Fool’s Day 2008-2009

It was no joke when I headed to the hospital at 2 am last April Fool’s Day. By 5:01 am Baby C entered the world. I’ll spare you the gory details, because it’s a year later, so it doesn’t matter. What matters is a year ago, we brought home this:

0407081444-1

Sorry pic is blurry, my cellphone was what was handy at the opportunity of the little squidge sleeping with her brand new Daddy, so small and frail.

Now, so many changes later: many developmental stages, many sleepless nights, weigh-ins, vaccinations, teethings, fumbles, new words come and gone while she tries to navigate the physical world and speaks to us in burbled sentences and very clear gestures. We have the pleasure to know this wonderfully funny, perceptive, never blinking, unflinching, deliberate and beautiful girl. A gift at a late life stage, amazed we were even able to have her. She is our joy daily, big and strong, and easy-going.

And if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have connected so strongly with the women involved in this community, wouldn’t have B&M’ed about sleepless nights, naps while nursing, frustratedly typing at my manuscript while she kicks the keyboard. I’ve kvetched so and welcomed much needed commiseration in the past year here. Thanks, fellow moms, no joke. May your ideas turn into beautiful completed creations, get published, galleried and sold and your children grow well.

2009329sheaschooleventandchloe-swing-014

Mar 26

9 Comments

Cathy: Oh Well

I’ve been having an odd week or so, and it continues into next week.

Baby C’s 1st birthday is approaching, and nothing seems to be working out to get people together as planned. There is an event conflicting with my planned party date that the couple of baby friends we wanted to invite will be attending. My parents are up before their town zoning board around the same time, trying to split their property so they can keep living in the house we grew up in, so they can’t travel from Connecticut. My aunt-in-law’s son is competing in a statewide math competition on the same day I planned the party, so they’ll be in Richmond instead.

My husband has some kind of lump in his neck that hurts, and he’s been bringing it up to me for well over a week now. He vacillates between thinking it’s cancer or a tooth infection that is swelling a gland to press against his carotid artery, and hurting all the way into his chest. I’m somewhat worried, his mother is worried, but I’ve reached a level of impatience about his not making an appointment to see a doctor about it, which is making me say inappropriately, “Call the doctor, or shut up and die. I‘m tired of your complaining about it to me and not doing something about it!” On one level, I’m trying to be humorous, but I’m worried and annoyed he’s stalling making an appointment.

I also have a few friends facing bad mammos and other tests, setting them up for consultations with surgeons of various types and one whose house just burned down on Friday.

My novel is progressing in fits and starts, and I just want it to end now so I can move onto the next project, or breath between them, or fly a kite or something. I’m getting tired of not being finished with it. It’s been so close for so long.

Spring has officially sprung, but now it’s cold again and seems to want to remain that way just so I can’t get out there to garden. I still haven’t finished that darn room excavation of boy numero dos; and I can’t seem to find baby gates like the ones I used to have ten or so years ago, where the press handle is at the top and you can easily open and reset it with one hand, while holding the baby in the other and don’t need to screw it into the walls or stair rails.

Nothing seems to be going my way, but surprising, I’m calm. I have a very casual attitude about it all. “Oh well’ has become a mantra.

I took a silly facebook quiz: Which of the Seven Deadly Sins Are You – and came up as Sloth. The way the multiple choices were phrased, just struck me that my answers weren’t of the prideful, gluttonous, pornographic, jealous, wrathful or particularly greedy persuasion. If nothing bothering me too terribly much makes me lazy, so be it, but I prefer to think that it shows I’m remarkably well-adjusted in my mid-forties. If all of the above mentioned personal dilemmas going on isn’t fazing me too much, I’d say I’ve reached a milestone in my life. I know in my twenties any one of these would have sent me into dramatic reactions played out before an audience, and if I didn’t have one at hand, I’d go looking for one.

But for now, I press my husband to make an appointment a few times a day. I walk away from the computer to go read or play with the baby or something else entirely rather than sit on facebook with my manuscript open and pestering me on the same screen. Instead of taking everyone else’s conflicting plans around C’s birthday as a personal affront, I just say, “oh well, guess it’ll be lower key than I thought, and now we can do cake on her birthday rather than the weekend before.” S’s room stays messy for another week, and the gardens remain unplanted until the weather warms a bit more. And I feel pretty confident in telling my friends that I’m sure everything will be alright for them, the important thing is they are taking care of what needs to be taken care of and only a cat was lost in the fire — a beloved cat, but not a human loved one.

I’m hoping this sense of everything being okay anyway is grace. I’m taking a page from my friend whose house burnt down. She took it as a harbinger of change to come, rather than dwell on the loss.

Mar 19

7 Comments

Cathy: Eureka!

I finally really figured out one major thing that has been holding me up in finishing this manuscript. But today, I wrote a good lead up to what I’m avoiding. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be able to face the page that is why I started writing this book in 2004. I just can’t do it today, I’m shaking from the emotion of it.

I love my main character like he’s one of my own kids. The book is primarily about his getting bullied, but so far I have managed to avoid his actually getting hurt in a fight with the kid who has been threatening him since page one. Now, I have him ready to face the bully and the bully angry enough to do what has been coming for 90 odd pages. But I am not emotionally prepared to place the fist in the face of a character I love so much. However, because I need to resolve it, and quickly, before it keeps me awake nights with worry, I have determined, that I will in fact write it tomorrow. Today, I’m just too close.

Mar 17

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Cathy: Coming of age

That's K, hiding behind his hair from the camera at a model train event we dragged him to in December

That's K, hiding behind his hair from the camera at a model train event we dragged him to in December


This weekend (I’m beginning to feel like the SNL weekend update segment, sorry gang) my son K spent a great deal of time not with the family. This has been a growing trend as he is a teen, a concept I am still getting accustomed to. I have been preparing myself through most of his childhood for this phase, but still. He will turn 14 at the end of next month. A particularly mind-boggling concept as I am still suffering sleep deprivation with another who will turn one at the beginning of the same month. He has essentially acted like a teen since he was about four, but his lack of physical presence really capitalizes the enormity of a life change set in motion. It’s not just his, it is mine as well.

Friday night, he went out with a gang of neighborhood friends to the local Iceplex, where he skated for a good four hours into the night. I think of myself at the same age, and remember roller discos, rainbow suspenders, and blue suede sneaker skates with yellow wheels. Oh hell, tossing all caution to the wind here as I can’t refrain from mentioning the yellow velour v-neck and the skiiinny skin tight jeans with yellow satin embellished seams and pockets. Thank god K doesn’t have to suffer through the fashion horrors of my youth, but he did fall on the ice “only six or seven times, this time, I swear.”

Honey and I watched Knocked Up on HBO and when it came time to pick K up, Honey leaned over and said, “ Hey, you gonna go get your kid?” As Baby C had just fallen asleep post-breastfeeding on me, I asked if he wouldn’t mind instead. Neither of us was too keen on heading out nearing 11 in the evening, no matter how much I wanted the kid back in the house. When he came home, he was still up for more action, even though all we wanted to do was turn in. After a bit more tv viewing together, peppered with icy fun tales, we turned in. Most of Saturday, with the dreary weather, he pretty much kept to his own in his room, then I dropped him off for an overnight Lock-in for the coming-of-age program at our fellowship, not to be seen or heard from again until I showed up for the 11 am service on Sunday.

When I did, he barely spoke to me. He’s getting more independent every day, and taller. He’s slower at it than his friends who mostly tower over him. But he’s my height now, and he wasn’t just three days before. I know because we measured. Part of the Lock-in was a secret letter from parents reveal. Being a child of divorce and blended families, K received four. I felt it important to include his father and stepmother in the ceremony and had procured letters from them as well. I still don’t know what Honey wrote. We were supposed tell the kid about his birth or his arrival in the stepparents’ lives, how it changed our lives and what we hoped then and for him now, and in their future. On the way home, he found the one negative he could make out of my letter: apparently I forced him to listen to Bob Dylan, he hates Bob Dylan, never mind the rest of the music I mentioned pumping through earphones to my belly with him in utero. But he kept mentioning how funny his father’s letter was and how he would read it to all his friends. I felt a twinge of disappointment, but assured myself, it’s because I am the present parent he feels comfortable enough around to give me the grief a teen gives, and he hero worships his dad because he’s long distance. He also began the conversation with “I wish you would stop asking me questions I don’t want to or need to answer. You don’t need to know everything about me.” I had asked if he had fun.

It is a heart-wrenching thing, but in a mild form to find yourself at the other end of a parent-teen relationship. Sometimes I still feel like I’m working out my teen issues with my mother, and often feel like the misunderstood, socially awkward, skinny little twerp I was, so how could I possibly be the mother of a teen myself? I am proud of him in many ways, as he is intelligent and creative, a conscientious student and person regarding politics and social justice. He’s also a big help with his baby sister and somewhat around the house. I know he is a loyal friend to his friends, and a great defender of his brother when others make fun of “the short bus” or look at his brother askance. However, I also feel like this is my last chance to get it right for him. Right now, the formerly affectionate big-hearted little boy is a very stiff, emotionally defensive young man, who prides himself in the use of sarcasm and skepticism to wend his way through the world, and to be incredibly cruel at times to his brother, who has difficulty picking up on the subtleties of social cues most of us take for granted. It’s definitely not okay in his book for others to point out S’s difference, but acts as if the same is his birthright.

My biggest struggle in this particular transition of life is to know when to back off and when to intervene. Or when to tell it like it is or keep some things under wraps a while longer. I feel him drifting away, and know he should, but how far, how soon? Where is the balance for me to love him well enough to let him go? How do I let him go without the repercussions later, of not being more available to him at this stage between my attention-demanding baby, special needs son, and the completion of my manuscript?

These in a way are the same questions we are always asking of ourselves as mothers. How do we get it right? But now, I face the urgency that in a few short years, I send him off, truly on his own, to face the world, whether I’ve prepared him well for it or not. Only time will tell if I did, in fact, get it right.

Mar 9

6 Comments

Cathy: Weekends were built for excavations

Good news! Friday, I worked out a kink of a catalyst in an earlier chapter of the manuscript that I had conveniently skipped in my attempt to write the book chronologically. I had prior plans that day that had been cancelled, so as I showered, the ideas actually flowed with the water. My self-imposed pressure to write was off. It felt good to not just get that part out of the way, but to really feel inspired and write an idea into it I wanted to get across, besides get from point M to point Q. I’m really enjoying third-tier characters’ personalities these days, and truly believe I only have about 3-5 more good sit-downs to complete the plot line.

In the meantime, S’s room is slowly coming together. It had to come apart further before it could come together. I am staying away from it by weekdays, so I am not thoroughly frustrated with the one-step-forward-half-a step-back progress. This Saturday morning, my hope was to finish it so that I can move the monster of his bed and the mess of the bookcase to opposite walls. Pulling ye olde switcheroo. But I didn’t. I lounged. I enjoyed my coffee, my kids, and some low-pressure time. Then I drove out in the beautiful weather and went to my salon appointment. How much shorter that excursion is without the coloring time! Snip-snippity-snip, and a fifth of the previous visits’ price, then out the door. We took a family excursion to the giant home store and bought a ladder that was on sale.

In the afternoon, we gathered all but the teen, already off doing his own thing with his friends, and MIL was ready for a rest. We had a leisurely dog stroll through the neighborhood. S was in fine form with his very interesting questions, very loud. We walked by our neighbor who taught me how to make authentic Chinese fried rice, and he asked, after our chat, “Um, I forget. Are you Japanese or Chinese?” He has an obsession with Japan because of his obsession with Godzilla. We walked by his brother K’s best friend’s house, whose parents were also outside doing yard work, and he said as we walked away, “I always wondered why K2 wasn’t like African Black. Then I saw his father was married to a white woman. Since African-Americans got their Civil Rights in the sixties, is it legal?” I reminded him of the Supreme Court case of Loving v Virginia, which federally stopped states from prohibiting intermarriages between blacks and whites. Another obsession of his is the Civil Rights Movement. I think it’s hard for him to believe that any one group of people had that much power over another group. He’s been trying to wrap his brain around the concept since it was first pointed out to him in school while studying Martin Luther King, Jr., in kindergarten. I believe he’s asking perfectly innocent questions but my husband and older son think he sounds racist when he’s asking the things he asks. To me, I think he’s just trying to figure out the world in a concrete manner. Human relations are not a very concrete concept. This boy is just doing some digging.

Also on the schedule for the weekend was weeding and tilling the rest of the garden plots, doing something about the sprouts of crabgrass that have cropped up everywhere all winter. But Sunday was spent pruning instead. S’s room was put somewhat on hold for outside work, but I motivated him to do some of it on his own with the bribe of a new Calvin and Hobbes collection. I guess we have week five to complete the excavation of his room next week. The weather is supposed to chill down again, so I might actually return to the excavation site.

Mar 5

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Cathy: Art for Life’s Sake

Fisherman watercolor, John Tinari

Fisherman (watercolor), John Tinari

I often feel guilty or self-indulgent knowing that I am not contributing an income to my family. I have never not-contributed an income to my family, in each of its mutable forms throughout the years, for as long a time as now. I have improved my perspective on these feelings in the past six months or so, since I’ve been working on my manuscript. It is slower going than I’d like, but it is going.

I have a constant reminder in my home to tell me how important it is not to forget that creative work is purposeful work, not just an indulgence. My late father-in-law, John Tinari, and mother-in-law, Rose, married very young — I believe while he was in art school. The wedding was in January 1966 and by December, their son, my husband was born. Then within the following year, they had a daughter. Four years after that followed another son. As you have probably guessed by now, John’s dreams of being a painter were quickly put on hold as he worked trade jobs, mostly carpentry or having to do with carpentry, in order to provide for his family.

Trees, John Tinari

Trees, John Tinari

In one of the earliest conversations I had with my husband (we hadn’t even met yet; this was a phone conversation that lasted a few hours), he told me his father was really sick with lung cancer. Within about six months of beginning to know my husband and his family, his father was gone. But what he left behind was beyond legacy.

When my father-in-law realized he was too sick to work, as he underwent chemo and radiation, he put down one set of tools: hammers, saws and levels, and picked up another: watercolors, brushes, palette knives, and paper. Sometimes he worked outside, sometimes from photos while getting his treatments. The results of those two years are hanging within our home: many small to medium sized landscapes full of life and green and light and shadow.

House (unfinished), John Tinari

House (unfinished), John Tinari

The most amazing thing to me about these paintings was finding out after I had been in awe of his execution of the variable greens in the leaves of all these paintings, is that he was colorblind to the green and red spectrum. One of my favorite paintings is of a fisherman deep in a river, red hat standing out amidst all that green. I can’t imagine how he was able to do that without some amount of divine sight. According to Rose, he couldn’t match two brown socks from his drawer.

Outhouse, John Tinari

Outhouse, John Tinari

I bring this up because I don’t want to wait until I am dying to do what I love to do most, even if at times I am working from a bit of a torturously dry well. My creative work is what gives my real sense of purpose beyond parenting or the rest of life’s sundries.

Cows, John Tinari

Cows, John Tinari

I was in my second paragraph when I turned to Andrew to confirm or straighten out a detail, and he said. “Hey, it’s Johnny’s birthday today, right?”

So, I just tilt my head up and say thank you, Johnny. This message is really from him to you. I just happened to be here to catch it.

[Editor’s note: Click on any image for a larger view.]

Mar 2

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Cathy: Start by doing what is necessary

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — St. Francis of Assisi

This quote is an oldie but a goodie. It’s embroidered on pillows and you can purchase froufrou-looking magnets of it in gift stores. I first hung it over my desk at home, on my refrigerator and over my desk at a job I had as a class assistant for a fifth through sixth grade class. At the time I was working three part-time jobs around my boys’ schedules as I was going through a divorce. Okay, stop right there, I’m not looking for sympathy or anything, I am merely recounting the circumstances that first inspired me to hang this quote everywhere I would most likely see it, and be able to take a moment to breathe. A couple of students even mentioned it helped them to see it, too.

Anyway, at that time, I felt like I was just pointing my bull’s horns forward and ploughing through life, surviving from waking to sleeping. St. Frankie here gave me hope that this too, shall not only pass, but I would be the better for having gotten through it. I was doing what was necessary for that time, so that I could make for a better possibility and maybe even reach for my dreams in the near future.

Well, it was during that chaotic time that I started the manuscript I’ve been moaning about lately. A lot in my life has changed since then, virtually all of it. I have remarried. I have relocated by a significant distance. I have another child, just to name the biggest and most obvious. It’s a new desk, but the quote still hangs, highly visible at the top of my list of inspirational quotes on the wall where I write.

Well guess what! I am taking this quote and rethinking where I am with the manuscript. I’m no longer at the beginning. I am very nearly finished. I have never finished a novel, a lifetime dream I was beginning to think was impossible. It’s not. I am doing it. I am doing it now, through mobile, teething, napless baby needs, a little at a time.

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