Heart-Softening Influence

Nine year old DeeDee is swinging back the canoe paddle as she sits on the seat in front of me. I’m sitting on the floor of the canoe, while Deedee’s dad is acting as rudder, strong paddler and fishing coach for his daughter from the seat behind me. She has very specifically asked us both to have our oars in the water to “brake” the canoe so she can drop her bobber, hook, line and sinker near these particular reeds where no one else seems to have been yet this morning on The Painted Turtle Camp’s small Lake Wendy. 

Early morning sun casts the shadow of our red canoe onto the water to our left. DeeDee tells me the left side is port side. Perhaps we’ll have better luck in this orientation because the fish won’t see our shadow directly over them if they’re attracted at all to the half-dead worm barely wriggling like a slowly beckoning finger on DeeDee’s hook which is dangling off the starboard side.

“Do you think we’ll catch a fish?” she asks.

“Anything is possible, my Angel,” her dad says. “I’m beginning to sense that fishing is all about process and not about the end result, and I understand why people who like to fish just love everything about it,” he continues, and tells us fishing stories from when he was a boy, then conversation ceases and we simply listen.

The absence of man-made noise (except for an occasional motorcycle on the road), blue heron skimming the tops of stands of cattails and reeds, dragon flies strafing the shallows, gorgeous green and blue reflections of sky and flora have a profoundly stilling effect on me. The quiet is welcomed after last night’s wild carnival and talent show with twenty three families and thirty volunteer counselors and staff in the dining hall. I breathe deeply and allow the peace of this Sunday morning to permeate my being; refresh and rejuvenate me. The sun feels warm, but not yet hot, on my skin.

Overhead I hear the cry of a red tail hawk. Two of them come into view lacing the sky together in slow circling stitches. As they search for breakfast, sunlight flashes on their sleek silhouettes. When they turn, their red tails seem to radiate light from within. Yesterday, walking from the ropes course to cabin-row with this same father-daughter duo, we saw a crow scolding an owl – probably because the owl was marauding crow’s nest.

Despite the raucous dramas unfolding in this beautiful spot where the camp is located, just west of bustling Palmdale, California, I sense Deep Order. Critters hunt critters. We are sport fishing, but at camp we practice “catch, kiss and release.” There is an uncomplicated, yet complex order to it all. The words of Chief Luther Standing Bear come to mind. He and his tribe respected Great Mystery and tried to teach their white brothers something of the Lakota Sioux view of creation.

“The old Lakota was wise. He loved the earth and all things of the earth. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard. He knew the lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to the lack of respect for humans too.”

"We were taught to sit still and enjoy the silence. We were taught to use our organs of smell, to look when apparently there was nothing to see, and to listen intently when all was seemingly quiet."       

                           

“The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew into the air came to rest upon the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.”

             --- Chief Luther Standing Bear

As a volunteer "family pal"  for the weekend, my assignment is to be in support of this and one other family. DeeDee’s mom and two-year-old brother are sleeping-in today. The other mom has taken nine-year-old Casey to wood-shop while dad is somewhere out here on this same lake, with Casey’s seven-year-old brother, fishing.

Early this morning, while waiting on the porch of their cabin for the sleepy families to emerge, I watched the sun rise. I chanted and worked on a crochet blanket project - each stitch became a prayer. I imagined the entire camp blanketed in the peaceful understanding that truly we are one family. As the sun began to warm me on the outside, the serenity I felt warmed me on the inside. 

While DeeDee doesn't catch anything but algae on her hook this morning, I think all who witness this magical morning catch something more meaningful.

Truly, Earth is working her magic to soften all our hearts.

Check out: thepaintedturtle.org  for more about cost free camps for kids with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

Murder In the Morning

I start my day with murder. 

Ants have inundated the bathroom. Again.

It’s truly a reflex action. I suppose I could stop it if I tried hard enough, but as soon as I see the grout undulating between the beige tiles or the scouts on white porcelain sink or tub I turn into a pigeon pecking at what doesn’t belong. Automatically I press and squish, press and squish.

For a spider I go to great lengths to invert a jar over her, slide a piece of paper under carefully, so as not to trap a leg, keep paper pressed to jar opening while balancing the jar on my palm and watching the spider dart about frantically inside – looking for the way out. I use my chin against the bottom of the jar while I unlock and open a heavy door. Then I walk some distance from the house and release the spider in an inviting, I hope, supportive of spiders spot. Good Spider! Catch bad bugs! 

Ants? Not so much. Press and squish. Press and squish.

And so began my murder-filled Wednesday.

I had called the exterminator Monday and a worker was due to come Wednesday between when I finished my last client at 2:30 and 4 p.m. Carlo, the practitioner in the field, called at 10 to ask if he could come earlier – he was half an hour away, or so.

“Sure.” I said, but I need you to finish by noon when I have a client. Do you think you can do that?”

“No problem,” he assured me.

He arrived at 11:20. 

I had called Green Leaf Ecological Exterminators because of wasps primarily and ants secondarily. I walked Carlo all around the house pointing out the numerous wasps nests up under the eaves of the roof. He pointed out some I hadn’t seen. We were up to 26 nests by his count; 23 by my count. Patiently, he tried to point out the ones I hadn’t seen. Still I think he went from 16 to 20 instead of 16 to 18 as we went round the north side where I only saw two. Perhaps he was distracted by meeting my mom and her caregiver in the back yard and lost count. Anyway, at $25 per nest the price was really getting up there for wasp removal. Granted, one nest was as big as a sunflower head - like one of those over-sized shower heads, but several were only the size of a nickel. Some nests are in out of the way places where no one has been bothered by the wasps; other nests seem dangerously close to doors we use regularly. Four were built by mud wasps; the majority by paper wasps. The nests are quite beautiful really, and wasps are sociable creatures. I don’t like fighting nature, but it was time to assert our boundaries and un-wasp the house.

I had taken down a dozen nests of various sizes earlier in the summer so we could use the patio in peace. The outfit I wore to do the deed was comical. I had to suit up early one morning, when the wasps are least active, with multiple bandanas covering my face, neck and head, safety goggles, heavy clothing and sox, clogs for stomping on the downed nests and thick leather gloves. I’d been stung once before on head and hand when I wasn’t even trying to harass them. I accidentally bumped a little hanging bird house in which they’d built an invisible nest. Wasp stings hurt!  My murderous side enjoyed whacking those dozen nests down and stomping the suckers dead. 

When he wrote up the estimate, for which I had to pay $45, Carlo said, “Look, I’m here. You’ve already paid the $45. I’ll just take them down. I’m worried they may swarm and sting your mom while she’s outside.” 

Mom does elicit sympathy. She looks extremely frail, thin, still - paralyzed, actually, in her wheel chair with a halo of white hair, and obviously compromised by the electrical storm her brain had eight years ago.

“Well, that’s very kind, but it’s not fair to you. I’d like to compensate you for your time.”

“That’s up to you.”

“It’s an offer I cannot refuse. Thank you very much.”

By now, my client, who had arrived fifteen minutes early for her noon appointment, was upstairs. I did not have time to get the ladder for Carlo to use. (Why he doesn’t carry one on his truck is still a mystery to me.) I last saw him going round the south side of the house toward the sunflower head sized nest, stuffing into his pocket the twelve dollars I put in his hand – all the cash I had in my wallet.

While I was working with my yoga client upstairs, I heard some scraping of metal against stucco. What seemed like an appropriate time later, I heard his truck start up and drive off.

Surveying his handy work later that afternoon, I saw that the only nests he didn’t take down were the ones on the eaves of the upstairs. He really did need an extension ladder to reach those.  Good job for $57.

Early one morning, I’ll get up on the roof and attend to those second story eaves. Murderous thoughts will go through my bandana bearing noggin while I commit murder in the morning.  Poor wasps.

Still, we have ants. The estimate lists $210 for the first non-toxic-to-the-environment treatment, then $100 per monthly “maintenance” visit. I may call Green Leaf again… or I may continue with “press and squish” until the weather cools down and the ants go marching one by one somewhere else… perhaps in pursuit of fallen wasps nests or poor croaked spiders which got dumped in the garden.

Holding Twins!

I got to hold month old TWINS last Thursday! Such a high! It’s JOY doubled. 

Having other arms nearby to help out is essential for a mama who is doing wall to wall nursing. This Mama in question is blessed with a wonderful and very present mother of her own. Grandma’s arms are rarely empty now either, while the daddy is at the office. One twin wakes; the other dozes. Whoever is awake wants to feed. There’s no escaping the fact that as these hungry mouths need to be filled. Nursing mom must provide the food. Fortunately, in the case of this family I got to visit, dad helps out a lot with night time bottle feedings using frozen breast milk, which mom has expressed earlier, so she can get some well-deserved sleep.

If a couple can survive the first year with twins, their marriage can survive just about anything. Sleep deprivation is like a gigantic magnifying glass over all the little disagreements that normally happen between folks. It’s good to hone and clarify communication so that when the chips are down and sleep is not happening one or both don’t come to a conversation loaded for bear.

Owning our own ingredients in the emotional-stew of family life is crucial to the mental health of all concerned. This is especially true for the youngest members of the family. When parents can differentiate their own stuff and reassure the babies, children or teens that the parental grumpiness of the moment is their very own “potato,” and is not about the child but about something all together different, it goes a long way toward freeing those aforementioned family members to breathe a sigh of relief that all they need to take care of is their own “carrots.” This is true even in the absence of perceivable language skills.

In Parenting from the Inside Out, author Daniel Siegel, MD examines the importance of the reparative sequence. After an episode where a well-meaning parent has “lost it” and yelled or done something the child perceives as scary or out of congruence with the moment, if the parent acknowledges the gaffe, names it and apologizes and differentiates for the child what really happened, (no matter how young the child), it builds emotional resilience. Even if the apology and differentiation happen later – even up to forty eight hours later for children older than two years – it makes a difference to the child, helping to build trust, esteem and resilience. 

Example: Mom and babe are lovingly gazing into one anothers eyes and playing “Peek-a-boo.” The phone rings. Mom says: “Oh, telephone! I’ll be right back.” Baby is still in play mode and eagerly awaiting mom’s return to continue the game. Mom comes back distraught by news on the other end of the phone. She is distracted, frowning, no longer focused on the game and gets upset when the baby upchucks some milk onto the clean crib sheet. Baby begins to cry – wondering where the loving mom went.

It would help the child immensely if mom could “come to her senses” and say, “I’m sorry. I heard some troubling news on the telephone and I’ll take care of it later. My upset is not about you. It’s not your fault that I’m upset. I’m sorry I was so grumpy. Let’s just change the sheet and continue our game.”

In our culture, the tricky part is trying to convince parents and adults in general who surround children that even newborns are completely sentient and are taking in the tone of vocal communication, facial expressions and actual words – everything is going into their marvelous brains for processing and storing.

Infants and under-two year olds do not yet have a temporal sense. Interestingly, neither have the temporal bones yet finished growing. They lack the mastoid process – that bony ridge behind the earlobe - until sometime after the second birthday. I’ve always wondered if there’s a correlation between the development of the mastoid bone and the development of awareness that time passes. What we do know is that for very little ones the present moment feels like forever.  

If you thought a bad moment was going to last forever do you think you’d be upset? I sure would feel a sense of overwhelm and despair! Overwhelm is not conducive to learning about the world. The less time we spend in overwhelm the easier it is to function and to navigate the world with ease and confidence.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

                                                                                                                                   --Ernest Hemingway

Here’s an interesting point Dr. Siegel brings out in his book: When the reparative sequence is completed a child shows more resilience than if there’s never been a gaffe and subsequent repair. This doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to yell at our children repeatedly and then tell them we’re sorry, but it does mean we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves for those times we act out our frustration in front of our kids. We can use the skills of repairing the discord.

Parenting is the toughest job on the planet. Seemingly, babies come in to push every button we have so we can clean up our stuff. Could we cut ourselves a little slack and minimize the difficulties of the job by treating our children the way we would have loved to have been treated?

Labor day: The Prequel and First Birth: Part Three

Our first born daughter came three weeks early. 

I was determined to have a solar clothes dryer. I had visions of tee-nine-see-wee baby clothes blowing in the breeze and smelling oh, so sweet. My Grandmother never had a dryer. My mom bought one when I was about ten and I mourned the loss of that comforting line-dried laundry smell. I found a wonderful Sunshine Retractable Clothesline to attach up under the eaves of the roof overhanging the patio of our new home. We’d moved in a week before and already put the business end of the clothes line in place. It needed a support pole to hook onto out in the terraced garden. I went to the hardware store and bought a sixty pound bag of concrete, some sand and the steel pole.

At the hardware store, a very nice gentleman put the bags of concrete and sand in the car for me. Funny how when men see a pregnant woman coming they either give her wide berth (perhaps superstitious behavior in case ‘being with child’ is contagious), or move in close to assist her in any way they can.  Every woman who sees you wants to share her birth story nightmare. It’s as if you’ve got a sandwich board sign that reads: “Tell me about your Great Aunt Agatha’s triple hemorrhage, please.”  You DO NOT have to listen to the story gore! You DO have the right to say, “Thanks for wanting to share. It makes me feel nervous to hear that right now.” I was a slow learner and listened to a few too many gory stories before I got the hang of changing the subject. “How ‘bout those Dodgers, eh?”

Once home with the concrete, I was eager to start on the clothesline project right away. My husband wasn’t due home from work this Friday afternoon for another four hours. The October sun was slanting and daylight leaving the sky earlier every day. So, I carried the sixty pound bag from the Volkswagen bus in the driveway around the side of the house to the back yard. Ditto the twenty pound bag of sand. No problem.  I found the right place in the garden and dug a hole for the pole. No problem. I screwed the clothesline receiving hook onto the pole. No problem. In lifting the bag of cement to pour it into the wheel barrow to mix with sand and water I had a problem. The bag slipped and I made a grab to catch it. I caught it. No problem… but, I just want to acknowledge, I was an idiot and that I nearly fell down the steps leading to the terrace and probably should have waited for my honey to help. I really wanted to complete this project right NOW!  I had baby clothes to wash. Nesting instinct is real and it comes with a lot of adrenaline! Thankfully, I didn’t hurt myself, but gave myself a good scare.

Two days later, during a surprise baby-shower in North Hollywood Park, my shape really changed. The baby dropped so low I suddenly had room to breathe at the top end of my belly which felt wonderful and made more room for yummy cake… but I had to pee every five minutes. Trade-offs. When you’re sharing space with another in such close quarters you’re grateful for every half-inch you can get.

Monday after the baby shower we had a doctor’s appointment out in Pasadena. On examining me, Dr. Schoeber said, “My, my, my! You’re nearly fully effaced and four centimeters dilated already. You have what we call ‘silent labor’ and could go into ‘real’ labor at any time.”

Thursday night we went to our birth education class and told our teacher what Dr. Schoeber had said and that we might not make it to the last class so was there anything we should know if the baby did come early? Ms. Campbell’s drama background came to the fore and she said, “You get down on your bended knees and thank the Lord your baby came so swiftly!”

“Yes, but is there anything else we should… know…?”

Nothing. She told us nothing.

When labor started at midnight on October 17 I chanted a little mantra to compensate for any missing info. “I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body, I have faith in my body.”

We very nearly came to call the baby “Faith.”

Perhaps the clothesline project hastened my labor. Perhaps our first born saw a post-it note left in the womb-space by a former tenant. October 19, 1967, when I was nineteen, I enlisted the help of a compassionate MD in terminating an unplanned pregnancy. Perhaps the post-it note read: “Beware the nineteenth of October; Evictions happen.” I’ve been curious about this coincidental timing ever since.

Having faith in my body served me well, but I wish that the homebirth movement, in the mid-seventies, had had more providers from which to choose.  We felt tremendously buoyed by the support of friends and utterly let down by the paid professionals who were supposed to be attending us during this pivotal time. 

First Birth: Part Three

By day three after the birth, I am sorely depressed and feeling the full brunt of how many little things beyond our control went kaflooey. I am ruminating and driving myself crazy.

1. Our baby came three weeks early, before we could finish our birth education course and we missed key information about panting, not pushing during crowning.

2. The doctor was drunk and didn’t show up.

3. Because our friend Michael is a doctor, and Lynn was Dr. Schoeber’s assistant but not a trained midwife, she got spooked and they were playing, “After you.” “No! After YOU,” and no one was taking charge of the birth and guarding the perineum. No one said, “Don’t push!”  I ended up with a fourth degree tear and had to be driven forty miles to get stitched up.

4. Because of a clerical error Lynn cut the cord immediately so our baby was forced to take her first breath on Lynn’s schedule, rather than waiting until the cord stopped pulsing and taking her first breath when her body was ready.  It turns out there was a typo on Mark’s blood donor card listing his blood type as Rh Positive. I’m Rh Negative. If an Rh negative mother has a partner who is Rh positive, in order to prevent complications in future pregnancies, cutting the cord immediately mitigates any back-flow of baby’s positive blood to the mother’s circulatory system which would trigger mom’s immune system to attack and slough off any future Rh positive baby. We are actually all three Rh negative. There was no need to cut the cord prematurely.

So… this third afternoon after the birth, Mark collects the mail and goes into the living room to read it. He falls asleep on the couch so doesn’t hear me when I call him softly. I don’t want to wake the baby who is lying in the bed next to me. We have taken one side off of a crib Jill loaned us and bungee corded the crib securely to our double bed – like a little annex.

 I’m so blue. I want Mark with me. I’m feeling like an abject failure at this mothering thing and I feel so sorry for my sweet baby girl child. I wish she could have had a “perfect” mother, a “perfect” entrance into the world and a “perfect” beginning. I don’t know exactly what “perfect” means, but I know it’s something far different from this list of failed wishes. I thought I’d nailed down all the moving parts. I thought we’d thought of everything. I was wrong. I feel awful. I’ve got Classic Post-Partum Blues!

I tell Fairfax the dog to “go get Markie.” He looks at me from the foot of the bed where he’s lying. He gets up, shakes his wiry beige fur and a cloud of dust into the air. He stretches and keeps looking at me. “Go get Markie,” I say again and motion with my hand. He goes to the edge of the bed and looks back at me. “Yes! That’s it… Go get Markie,” I whisper. He jumps down, stretches again and yawns. “Fairfax, go get Markie.” He trip-trip-traps his nails down the hall and disappears. A few minutes later he comes back with Mark right behind him. This terrific terrier has earned T-Bone steak for dinner. 

Mark does cheer me up - reminding me of the absolute miracle of this new life we three have together. Our dinner is one of the casseroles brought by neighbors who heard about this crazy couple having a home birth. They wanted to welcome and support us in some way. We only moved into this house less than three weeks ago. The whole neighborhood seems to know a baby was born here on Benedict Canyon Drive in Sherman Oaks. Perhaps the ol’ guy the next street over with the same house number as ours told his neighbors who told their neighbors about Lynn banging on his door October 18 before five a.m. insisting there was a baby being born there. How else could the whole neighborhood find out and want to be part of this historic (for this day and age) event?

Crying helps me to shed the blues of this first week. I also laugh a lot. Just watching this amazing tiny being master her surroundings is a terrific high. She’s a champion nurse-er and a champion pee-er and poo-er. She’s got a set of lungs on her too. And she’s got us wrapped around her little finger. We are SO in love with her and with one another. 

Conclusion

What I learned from this birth is that I cannot be in control of the world. There are way too many things beyond my control. I can only be in charge of my response to whatever life brings.  Of course, I can educate myself; make the plan that best matches my sensibilities, knowledge and resources. But I cannot control life’s flow. Life is what it is: Unpredictable.

Our first daughter’s birth turned out to be the perfect impetus to help me heal events from my childhood which were buried so deep as to be completely forgotten. This birth was a watershed moment that spurred me to seek my path. Why am I here? What is my job? How can I turn disappointment into opportunity? Dross into gold? How does healing happen? How can I derive meaning from events and share experience and wisdom with others so they need not reinvent the wheel? 

Hopefully, this blog is, in part, an answer to some of my questions.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice-

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

---Jelaluddin Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks