Category — Inside My Head

When I was younger, I was often afraid. I was afraid to be honest, because if I opened up the can and let people see that I was real, that I was struggling, someone would come along and stand back with their arms crossed over their chest: You’ve obviously got more than you can handle there, Rae. Maybe you’re not the one for this job.

When I started this blog, it was a step into honesty for me. And while I didn’t at first give my blog address to my closest friends, those in my community, it gradually became something that is read by many, many people who know me. All of those people have been vastly supportive of my honesty, even blessed by it, something which had repudiated those old fears. I learned a new lesson: you can share and people will love you even a little bit more, because they know that they are not alone.

So it almost made me laugh, the other day, when I received this comment to this post.

I seriously think that you all are not doing anyone any good by living where you are. Honestly, I believe that you all would be much happier living elsewhere and therefore, be more productive in everything that you are wanting to achieve personally and in realizing your shared goals. You need suffer your existance. . . you and your family could be so much more productive elsewhere. Best of luck in all your endeavors. Stay well.

Wow, right? It was a throwback to those old fears.

I don’t know who the commenter is, and to me, it seems that the things that I choose to reveal on this site are not enough information to go on to form an opinion about where on this earth I should live. But the comment really got me thinking.

The thing is, you can go back in my archives (and beware, because there are buggies out there that I really need to fix, leftovers from a previous botched wordpress update that put strange symbols in my sentences) and read about sad things. You can also read about glad things. And the same goes for now: Sad things. Glad things. In fact, I’d say that my battle with Post Partum Depression is milder with Solo than it has been with any of my kids, and that is HUGE. Huge.

So, I wouldn’t say that I’m less happy than I’ve been in other places.

I think that when you do challenging things, you make a trade. You trade one thing for another, and you may trade something like convenience or the public library for color and the rustle of coconut trees. Or deep times with friends over coffee for voices in many languages. But the circumstances that you have found yourself in cannot define who you are.

Everyone has to decide what they will spend their life looking for. I learned a few years back that happiness is a shifty creature. Happiness is not easily found, or when found, is as elusive as a jellyfish. You can’t hold onto it. My emotions are all over the place, folks. Blame it on artistic temperament, genes, or maybe I’m just sulky, but I know that I cannot count on feeling a certain way for any length of time. Happiness. It’s something that happens to you and then whoops! There it goes.

No, I can’t follow after that. My life must take a more intentional path.

My tagline (which will be up again as soon as I get my banner up) is Cultivating Joy. We all have many things that we can cultivate, things that don’t happen to us, but that we go out and water everyday, things that wrap their little shoots around their neighbors and need to be staked and cared for and checked for bugs. Like joy. Like love, thankfulness, kindness, honesty, choosing not to be offended, choosing to see the best in others, refraining from ill wishes or gossip.

What I mean is that I wouldn’t use the word happy to define my life. Neither would I say that I am more productive when I am happy. I know that I am the most productive when I embrace and fully receive the truth of the unfailing love of God who made me. (Because when I do, I am not telling myself the evil mantra: you’re no good, it’s your fault, you will fail, and I can shut those voices out and just have fun making stuff and loving people.) I know that the words that define my life are loved, blessed, supported, sure, steady, secure, at peace, content, broken, thankful, hopeful and waiting. There are probably many more.

So then, the question of where we live? There are many things that are hard. Language barriers can be hard, especially when I would like to get to know someone a little bit more, but find that I can’t because we can only speak to each other as children do. Dust can be hard, but in a silly way. Like pine needles can be hard. Being away from family and dear friends is very hard. The poverty in India and trying to figure out what to do about it is hard.

But there are things that wow! stun me. Like the Iranian friends who showed up on my porch yesterday, friends we had met in Turkey. Now, here in India, we can have them over for our meditation time and lunch together. Fazeah, the woman, wants to make lunch for us on Saturday. And let me tell you, Persian food is GOOD. So it’s beautiful for my stomach, too. Or meeting a friend from San Francisco who owned the restaurant downstairs from us and now happens to be staying in the very same village that we are in. This international community is what we moved here for. As well as our community and our meditation space, which is budding like the lime tree in my yard is budding.

Then there are the kids, growing and learning and so happy and trying my patience. Like they’d be anywhere. They can find Turkey and Israel and India on an unmarked map, as well as Canada and the States, so geography is big on the learning front. And normal things, like knowing the guys at my vegetable stall, or swimming, or the lovely cows everywhere, or the herd of goats which runs through our village twice a day.

And my book, which is coming along. And Chinua’s photography of the lovely Banjara people.

I am not only blessed, I am happy. At least, some of the time. So I think we’ll stay.

She still doesn’t have the Christmas thing together at all. Year after year, it’s messed up.

I think she’s doing a pretty good job, really, all things considered.

A good job of what? She hasn’t prepared anything.

Well, how would you do, trying to prepare for a holiday when you’re in a new country and you don’t even know where to get the things you need?

It’s not really just that, though. Have you noticed how she’s dropping all the balls? The thin strands that she grasps to hold her relationships together, the emails going unreplied, the way she knows the phone calls that she should be making– but still doesn’t make them.

Is unreplied even a word?

You know what I mean. Don’t pretend you haven’t seen it. She doesn’t send photos out, she hasn’t done Christmas cards this year. She’s just irresponsible. I saw dirt in her baby’s ear the other day.

She’s so young, though.

Not that young. Wasn’t she supposed to publish a book by twenty-five? HA! How’s that going for her?

Wasn’t that your stupid idea? You told her that youth was some sort of competition. She’s too smart for that now. She knows about the body of work that she will gradually add to, all of her life. There is no need to be a prodigy, no need for fame. Just page after page, added to a pile, like leaves in an old book, crumbling slightly because they’ve been read over so many precious times.

It’s a pretty small pile, at this point.

But zoom out, and all of her children are part of her body of work, and zoom out again, and all of those relationships (which are not held together by anything as flimsy as threads, regardless of what you mistakenly believe) are part of the body of work, and then come back even farther and you can see that every dish washed clean in a late night sink, every old smile held on by sheer willpower, all of these are a part of a majestic body of work. By the time she dies it will be higher than the tallest trees.

But she can never keep up! All of those late night dishes are in danger of falling over and crushing her, and her laundry is never clean and there are all of those emails that go unanswered. She knows that she needs to do these things, but she’s always failing, she’s always so far behind. I saw her lying in bed this morning, when she knew she should get up and start working.

She was watching the wind move the trees.

She knew she should get up, though.

Yes, but isn’t there a lot more to life than your to-do lists? You always talk about owing– she owes a lot more than work. She owes delight, she owes noticing, she owes attention and laughter and listening to that rustling of the wind in the coconut trees and sitting on the floor memorizing the faces of her children.

I’ve lost you.

That’s because you’re losing her. She won’t let you mess with her forever.  She won’t listen to you anymore. She’d rather watch the wind.

Poor you. Sometimes I get stuck, and I have to write about things until I get unstuck, and that can take awhile.

It’s probably the adjustment to having another child. Or maybe it’s the fact that some of our wild stompings have settled down and we’re moving into a chaotic kind of routine, more of the shape of what our life will be here.

Or maybe it’s my poor neglected novel and ungerminated other ideas, gathering dust at the base of my skull, longing for water and sunlight.

Whatever it is, I’ve been thinking about a certain kind of lifestyle.

It’s my pretend world. It’s pretty simple. I’m not really one for clothes or parties or shoes. I don’t like standing on stage. I could go without watching any more movies in the theater without much regret. I like concerts, but can live without them.

But this is what a day in my pretend world would look like:

I would wake up with the sun of course, after a deep and refreshing sleep. I’d make myself tea or coffee, and make some for someone else, too. I’d wander out to some outdoor spot and pray. Then I’d start to write. When I got stumped for the next sentence, I’d pick up my knitting and think for awhile as I threw down some rows, then continue until I had my work done for the day. I’d paint in the afternoons. I’d cook or garden, edit my writing, and then read great and beautiful books with whatever time I had left.

Evening would be soft and purple. Maybe there would be sunsets to watch, maybe there would be firelight and singing.

It’s not that my children wouldn’t be in my pretend world. They’d be harmoniously working amongst themselves, singing and creating and taking such good care of their things.

They wouldn’t be peeing on the floor. Or destroying an entire pack of clothespins that I just bought. Or fighting.

Okay, so life is a little bit different in the real world than in the Pretend World. There is coffee, also tea, but they are often cold before I get to them. I read guiltily when I really should be doing other things. I knit a row and then set my project down. My book is very, very neglected.

But here it is! This is the life I have been given, God came over to me and placed it gently into my hands and now I’m supposed to do something with it. And now that I have it, it’s the one I want, really and truly. But how?

Kids are not seamless. They are not convenient, they are not quiet. They are not always harmonious. They are often not careful.

What they are is boisterous! Joyful, loving, genuine, hilarious, sweet, adorable, hungry, moody and engaging. I need to find a way to access the bits of me that can work with these traits. I need to find my fun side.

Of course, as always, God knows what we need. Because I am incredibly selfish. Not with stuff, usually, not with money (usually) but with my time. It’s mine it’s mine it’s MINE!

And no, it’s not. And because I am still a child, too, I will learn these lessons even as I teach them to my children, giving up my way for someone else’s, making my boundaries and then relaxing them. Being kind. Being more of an US than a ME. Asking the only important questions: What open road is before us today? Who will we meet? How will we love? (Not: What will my word count be?)

The moon tonight was a huge orange circle, hovering just over the jungle as I scooted down into town tonight for a little late evening shopping. The day was so crazy that I felt like I was escaping, riding on my scooter through the wafting of smoke from burning trash and the smell of the jungle cooling down after a hot day.

The heat has been intense, these last few days. The kids have this strange bumpy heat rash thingy on their fingers and toes. I’m just coasting, as far as school is concerned. Whatever we don’t get done before the hot part of the day just doesn’t get done. Its a good thing that we are ahead. School here is out at 1:00 or 1:30 in the afternoon. I begin to see why. Brains shut down from 2:00 to 3:00.

Leafy inexplicably calls geckos “penguins.” “I saw penguin on the wall!” he shouts happily.

Leafy poured a bottle of vanilla (fake) and soy sauce (real) onto the counter today. Yesterday he squeezed half of the tube of toothpaste into the sink. I’ve explained to him about the global economy, but I think he’s intent on sabotage.

The other day Chinua broke down on the scooter. A man (who happened to be a mechanic) stopped, picked him up, brought his keys to him, and then stayed up all night to fix the scooter because he was leaving for out of town the next day. In the morning he brought the scooter to us and charged us about $35. An unbelievably kind thing to do.

In other news, the used refrigerator salesman really did try to convince Cate and Renee that the fridge he sold and delivered to them was working, even though it, well, WASN’T. What, they broke it within half a minute?

I am so ready to move. I am ready to have my own house, my own kitchen, my own routines. I am ready to not have a live in housekeeper. I am ready to feel more free, to not worry so much about my kids making a mess because I can hear her sigh and see her look over at me with frustration even if I’m cleaning it up. I am ready to not have her snapping at Kid A.

I love Jaya. And for the season around the birth it was perfect to have her here. Maybe it is just a sign that it is the right time to move on- the fact that I’m dying to do things my way and I’m so glad when she takes a day off and we have the house to ourselves and I can wash my dishes and do my laundry and it’s mine ALL MINE!

I’m a freak. A control freak. I’ve come to think that you have to be, to be a mom.

I need some mental health leave. Halfway through the day I realized that I was having angry conversations with various people in my head. This is never a good sign. Not only is it a waste of energy, it’s also a little, you know… nutso.

Today we went to the birthing center for a little group baby check up and Solo was the youngest and largest baby there. He’s a whopping 13 pounds and 4 ounces. 6 kg. The giant baby.

Although it may be understood throughout most of the United States and Canada that it is not the nicest thing to walk up to someone and call their baby “whitey,” it doesn’t seem to be a global understanding. Or at least not with one certain man from a country in Europe. This is one of the startling things about living internationally.

Yesterday we were invited over to the house of some new friends to celebrate her birthday. The Mama kissed me and the little girl told me things in Italian and the Dad gave us all the cake he had magicked up in his small oven.

Kid A wanted me to lie down with him to help him go to sleep tonight. He was afraid of beetles dropping on his bed. Personally, I’d be more afraid of cockroaches or centipedes, but to each his own (fear). I tried reasoning with him, asking him what he thought would happen if a beetle did fall on his bed. I mean- it would just run away, right?

But that didn’t work, so I lay beside him and stroked his hair and hummed for a while, and then he turned to me and said sweetly, “There IS a one-legged animal.” And by this I knew that he was feeling better.

And I turned over and whispered into the sky, out to that moon, whispered to that Great Papa out there that I’m a little afraid sometimes too, of bugs and the economy and being displaced and angry people and not pleasing people, even the woman who works for me, and would He please sit next to me to help me sleep? And He didn’t even try to reason with me. He just lay next to me and stroked my hair.

There seems to be a closed door somewhere in my mind, lately.  On the other side is clear thinking.

On my side is a lot of wire, some bits of old fabric, a few nails, a pineapple that I forgot to eat before it went bad, and a rhinoceros.  And a post it note that says, “In case you were wondering, the water didn’t come tonight.”

I think it’s just that there are so many small holes in the road for me to leap over.  They take up all my mindspace and keep me on this side of the door.  We need to move.  But when?  And how?  And is Jaya coming?  Is she not?  What about the dog that we are watching?

I need to go to the market tomorrow.  But I need to learn to drive our van, first.  I’ve never driven a car here, on the left hand side of the road, with the stick shift in my left hand.  To tell the truth, I’m a little afraid.

But then I’m afraid of a lot of things.  And I’ve kind of learned that the only way to deal with it is to leap in head first, letting all of you get wet until your feet slip in last, and you are swimming.  So tomorrow morning, Chinua and I will go out and drive in circles in the jungle, and I hope I don’t ruin another clutch, like I did when I learned to drive stick shift with my dear father.

And here’s another thing.  When the children of Israel wandered in the desert before they entered the promised land, they were afraid all the time.  And years went by, and they forgot that there had always been water in dry places for them.  Even water from a rock.  Food out of the sky.  Their sandals never wore out.  In forty years, their sandals never wore out.

Fear is in forgetfulness, often.  I forget about my life and every jewel, every small cup of water, and I am afraid for the future.  But trust doesn’t come from looking forward. It comes from remembering, from storing, from searching among pieces of fabric and a few nails and a lot of wire for the things that have always held us up.

On the porch, the jungle night is alive with the vibrations of hundreds of thousands of insects. They have so many different sounds; the clicking, the rubbing, the creaks and rhythmic squeaking.

I sit and think about small regrettable things. I have words I should not have spoken, sharp frowns, unkind eyes. My children receive the best of me, but they also are on the other end of my impatience, my fretfulness, my lack of intention. Most of the time they don’t even notice when I am grumpy and not fully there. Sometimes, like today, there is something small that has crept inside, something that I have to tiptoe into their room to repair, when they should be already sleeping.

There has been an angry fire inside me, for a few days now.

In the distance I can hear a hundred howling dogs, irate and roused about something or other. Maybe a stranger to the dog clan tried to invade their trash pile.

The truth is that sometimes happiness is boring, obstinate, or old, sometimes the simplest things take too long, sometimes beauty is messy and thoughtless.  Tonight I have so many resolves for the day to come.  I will open my face, I will play more.  I will be more thankful, I will laugh.

In the morning a thousand birds will bring the jungle to life in their own way, singing and chirping and shrieking and rustling.  I’m so glad that we get so many mornings.  There is one for every day.  The darkness of the evening covers our regret, but the morning holds a new song, if we will wake up to hear it.

This morning was rough. Mornings have been, lately.

Enter the dancing rhinoceros waving his palm fronds. Impossible to ignore, with the annoying whiny singsong voice singing the “Failure” song. I try to keep my chin up, to walk around him as politely as possible. I try to awaken with deep breaths in my lungs, shoulders back, to smile and be kind and be above it all. Above the breakfast traffic in the kitchen, Leafy on the floor crying because I can’t get anything quick enough to suit him, Kid A and his strong breakfast opinions. I try to be the older one, the calm one, the tallest.

Always ignoring the lumpy rhino sitting on my living room floor, smirking at me.

Sometimes the blogs I read are inspiring to me. There are lovely photos, beautiful images. And sometimes I wonder: do their kids ever drive them to sharp words? Do their lives ever feel like chaos? Are there days when they sit and stare at the wall, willing themselves to get up and leap in, even though they just felt their last shreds of determination fizzle away in their stomachs?

You guys, it’s really not the poo that gets to me. It’s the squabbling. The complaining. The shrieking which is happening even right now, as I write this. This is what makes me feel that, try as hard as I might, I’m outnumbered. The atmosphere of my home is not really up to me. And they are winning.

They are children. They need to be helped through and over and above their emotions. But there are so many of them, and only one smiling me. (Actually, Chinua and Renee have been known to smile too, but they’re not here ALL the time, and besides, screaming is louder than smiling.)

Anyways. This weekend marks the fourth week that I have been only in the house, except for going to the birth center pregnant and coming home with a baby. (I was home for a week before the baby was born, since the scooter was too uncomfortable for me.) Today my midwife came over and gave me the all clear to get on the scooter again.

So this afternoon, in the late afternoon sun, I left the house, by myself, to get ingredients for a cake that I am making for Kid A tomorrow. It’s been four weeks. FOUR WEEKS.

I can’t even tell you what it meant to me. I didn’t bring the camera, but the next time I go, I’ll bring it, so that I can show you some of the things that I saw.

I didn’t have music playing, but it seemed to me that the loveliest songs were echoing over the rice fields. I have never seen anything so beautiful. The sun, the new flowers. The jungle seems friendly now, in the post-monsoon sun, not oppressive anymore. Leaves were burning, everything everywhere smelled fresh and new. I smiled at everyone I saw.

And when I got home, the rhinoceros was gone. Or rather, he was out in the yard, but I think I can keep him at bay.

Dear You,

The Youest of Yous. The dancing One, the Singing in my blood, the One who moves and breathes and loves me always.

So here we are again, we’ve been here before. I have a theory that You bring me here on purpose. Is it true?

Because this circle comes around again and again, and now I am at the start, where I’m kicking like a baby, resisting change with all of my might.

We box. You block all of my punches and never hit back.

I run to You, then pull away because I am more than a little upset. Why are You always bringing me to my limits? It doesn’t feel fair.

Every day lately I wake up with what feels like a fat furry cat sitting on my chest. It’s heavy and I can’t breathe and there’s that stupid cat dander that makes my eyes itch. I struggle to get out of bed because this cat feels like fear. Where is the fear from? Why is it heavy on me? Whose cat is this, anyways?

I remember the pattern from the past. You remind me, most excellent of friends, when I take the time to listen. You say, “We’ll get through this.” You say, “We’ll be a little closer, my love.” You say, “You’ll drop a few more of those ideas of yours, the ones about your self-sufficiency, your big plans for yourself, your need to be perfect, to keep it all together, to fix everything by your own small self.” You say, “Lean into it, don’t push away.” You say, “There are greener things than you can imagine, sweeter smelling days than you’ve ever known. Just wait. Just wait.”

But I feel alone and the fear is ever-present and I’m not sure why I have to do this again. Remind me?

I know there is a changing. There is the kicking and the pushing and then slowly my resistance fades, I go limp, I fall in, and then I learn contentment again. It has been this way so many times before. All the places I have been, the homes I have lived in, all the deserts, all the valleys. Even on the peaks. It is the newness I resist, the loss of what has been. It is the small etchings I have carved into the wood in places all around me, reminding me of who I am, of what my name is. Leaving these things brings a tearing that I don’t think I could have imagined.

Now I have only You to remind me. You and the faces of my family. It is enough.

And after the tearing comes a divine healing and Your hands surround me and I have obeyed and You have promised. And there are new things, there are sweet things and the ocean will fold over me and not throw me, it will rock me like a child. It is better than before, it is larger and more spacious than clinging to the old ways. You lead me into ever opening rooms.

It is good that we will have a long time together, my Friend. One day I will look back on all of this and say, “You told me so.” So just, please, help me now, when I am still blind and foolish and inwardly about two years old.

All my love. You know You have my heart.

Rae

There is a new post up at Fly Fishes Fly.  Don’t judge me because I have hired help.

Also, Chinua has some lovely new photos up.  Lovely is really the wrong word, but I’m too tired and too pregnant to be smart right now.

And now is the point when I need you to reassure me about my parenting skillz.  Please tell me that there are periods in a kid’s life when they have less to do, are around home more.  Tell me there are seasons.

Also, tell me that I should save the worrying for the point when they complain.  Tell me that because they are happy and laughing and waking up excited for the day that I can STOP PROJECTING MY FEARS ONTO THEM.  Tell me that friends come with time, that family is beautiful, and that our time together is precious, and that I need to STOP FRETTING LIKE A NEUROTIC CHICKEN LIVER ALREADY.

Please.

Also, tell me that one day soon my hips won’t feel like they are going to explode with every step.

Thank you.

I have more and more normal moments each day; moments where I am just doing what I am doing without that burning feeling in my chest, or the slightly nauseous wrenching that means I am fully aware that I am displaced.  I would describe these feelings as a little bit like what a baby goes through when she is playing happily in someone’s lap, only to look up and discover, that’s not my mother!

But they come less and less.  More and more I look up and decide that although this lap belongs to a stranger, she seems safe.  Maybe even likeable.  Maybe even someone who will be my friend.

Loneliness is something that is fairly strange to me.  There have been a few times in my life that I have felt lonely; raw, gut -wistingly lonely.  The funny thing is that it was usually when I was surrounded by people, but new people.  There is a lesson here, I think.  There are many lessons.

One time that I can remember is when I was first married.  I think I had expectations about finding my other half; about the completion, the wholeness of two people.  And then I found myself sitting beside Chinua on our little couch in our little room, realizing it’s still just me in here.  As much as Chinua is my other half more than anyone else in the universe, I stand alone before God.  We all do.  It was crushing to me at the time, though.  I think I had expected more magic, less conversations with the words- “Can you tell me one more time exactly what you mean because I just don’t understand?” in them.

I’ve had a series of epiphanies like this; the discovery when I became a mother that I didn’t feel any different. I was still just Rae, but 24 hours-on-call Rae who might not possess all of her faculties, and was alternately giddy and weeping.  And spouting milk.

My grandmother told me once that she used to look in the mirror in her late seventies and feel exactly the same inside as she did at thirty.  Her body was like a stranger.

But mostly, loneliness has not been a big part of life for me.  As an introvert who is married with three children and has lived in community for the last ten years,  I just don’t have time to be lonely.  I’m more often looking for solitude.

But there are new lessons for all of us, and coming here has been lonely.  At least for now.  I’m so thankful for my sweet, sweet husband.  But we both look at each other at times and wonder where everyone is.

Lessons come for understanding, I think.  Right now I want to reach into the solitude of anyone I can and place my hand right between their shoulder blades, and say, in the words of many taxi or rickshaw drivers in India, “I am here.”  It is good for me to experience the slightest touch of the lonely traveler.  It’s from this place that I will invite the lonely traveler into my home, offer him some chai, welcome him to my table.