Treasures

The sun was pouring through the dining room windows this morning as I spooned oatmeal into Sophie's mouth, and it deflected off the treasures I have piled on my desk in the kitchen. Photos of each of my children haphazardly arranged, a postcard of Dostoevsky about which a friend asked is that your lover? and while she was joking I was not when I replied, yes, actually. The calendar of pastries is propped up behind the tiny teacup filled with inchies that Kim sent me, next to a tiny smooth rock covered in a perfect crocheted coat from lovelyworld. Henry swings in the perfection of ten months old, behind him rises the tower of power with a garden on top, constructed twelve years later, for you, mom, do you like it? The cookbooks speak of diets never tried and ancient comforts, The Peanuts Lunch Bag Cookbook a relic of a happy seventies childhood, an apple whose top is cut off, the fruit scooped out and mixed with mayo, raisins and celery, then stuffed back in, the top a hat. Beyond, the green outside, the creeping bougainvillea that grows despite. Like treasure, despite.

Desire

illustration by William Blake, 1793

Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. When you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

Weekend Wrap-Up

A trip to Universal Studios amusement park

Oliver messed around with the shark from Jaws

Henry left 

 of chickenpox and emerged from seclusion

I hate amusement parks but sat on a Curious George chair and paid $.25 for a foot vibration  massage.

Marilyn Monroe drove by

Bob Marley probably turned over in his grave 

and when I got home I baked two cakes

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting and Chocolate Topped Cookie Mushrooms

If you could only stop your heartbeat,

for one heartbeat. That's the final line of songwriter and singer Bill Callahan's Too Many Birds and one that set me to weeping in my car yesterday as I drove back home from a cake delivery. I don't know why it made me cry and I don't know how to say it but that I was who I was, who I had been, that slither of feeling when music takes you to within.

Too many birds -- one last bird -- turns around and hopes to find the place it last knew rest

The perfect poem for all the peeps

Reading this poem on The Writer's Almanac yesterday was a moment of perfect synchronicity (particularly after yesterday's post).  


 Success Story
My clothes are perfectly contoured
to my body. my shoes & socks
fit just right. My cat is a delightful
intelligent animal. My apartment
is great. The right location,
cheap rent. I eat the best food.
My friends love me. I adore them.
My lover is terrific & beautiful.
The sun is shining. There are trees
even in the slums in Washington.
I have tons of money & a gorgeous 
air conditioner. Great art hangs
on my wall. I live a spine-tingling life
of delirious sex & intense happiness.
                           
 -- Terence Winch

The last sentence, in particular, made me nearly howl with laughter.

To all my peeps

But, we are a funny bunch indeed. The humour is black, wry, sometimes twisted. We laugh at shit (literally) that no one would find funny, ever. We laugh at other people, a lot, which seems kinda nasty, but it really isn't in our world...because we recognize our former selves just a bit too much. We are simultaneously patient and impossibly unforgiving of stupidity. We're a scary, edgy bunch with soft eyes and fierce souls.


--Claire from life with a severely disabled child

Meditation

I remember the house that we rented

in the field of grass

her short hair and the other's long

I walked to the bus, kicking up dirt

You kept one ear pressed to the floor, 

and we laughed when they screamed

the spindles of the bed, the white sheets.                                                   

Thinking about

1. this:

I will not tell families that have children with disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

Barack Obama

March 13, 2011

because it's about time and because it renews my hope that Obama and our country will do the right thing and because I was losing hope if not completely than nearly completely, particularly in regard to Obama. And I'm perfectly aware that this is entirely dependent on endless negotiations that will perhaps be fruitless, but I'm hoping it's not all talk --

2. and this:

the person on my Facebook page who brought up the birther -- what do I call it? -- shitstorm as a response to the above quote that I'd posted, stating that Obama has spent millions of dollars on lawyers to hide his birth certificate instead of giving it to organizations that help children with disabilities. I'm not going to think about it for too long, except in the context of how insensitive and ignorant the comment was and how it underlies a greater ignorance in our country and perhaps our world and how grateful I am to have the opportunity, the education, the smarts and the sensitivity to dispel ignorance about disability in general.

2. and this:

If you ban it, they will read it. That seems to be true thus far in the case of Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s 2007 book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops suggested should be banned from Catholic schools in a statement on March 24.

Read more HERE.


3. and the blog NERD BOYFRIEND because it's not all about strife and conflict

Moon of the Week -- Limor Landau

A few weeks ago, I pledged to highlight an interesting person that I know every Wednesday. Well, due to circumstances beyond my control -- a death of a dear loved one, a stressful meeting with the Powers That Be for in-home supportive services, a raging case of chicken pox, a cancelled spring break, the reviewing of federal grants -- do you want me to go on? -- well, here's a much delayed post on one of my dearest friends, Limor Landau. 

Limor teaches yoga, using the Yoga for the Special Child technique, to many children with various special healthcare needs. I met Limor more than ten years ago, well before I became pregnant with Oliver, when I began exploring more alternative treatments for Sophie. Recreational activities for children with disabilities are very hard to find, and when I read about Limor and about how beneficial yoga can be for children with disabilities, I signed up. At the time, Sophie was going through a very difficult period, not only with seizures, but with a near-constant agitation and sleeplessness due to whatever drug she was on for her seizures. The first time Limor came into our house and worked with Sophie, she fell calmly asleep during the relaxation period, flat on her back with her hands at her sides. It seemed a miracle at the time, and I can still tear up when I think about the sweet songs that Limor sang to her through those sessions.

Limor, working with Sophie and her cousins and brothers several years ago.

Limor is a certified practitioner for the Yoga for the Special Child program and has worked with children from 7 weeks to 20 years old. She received her training from Sonia Sumar, a renowned yoga instructor and the creator of Yoga for the Special Child. Limor works with physically and mentally disadvantaged kids throughout the Los Angeles area. She is also a certified Yoga instructor and Shiatsu massage therapist, as well as a certified physical education teacher with a major in special children. She has used her extensive knowledge and experience on a personal basis after giving birth to her daughter, Tamar, who was born prematurely at 24 weeks weighing only 1 lb. 4 oz.

Here are a few questions that I've asked Limor and her responses. I hope that if you live in the southern California area, you'll contact her to see whether yoga might benefit your child.

Why is yoga for special needs children good for the children?
   Yoga for the Special Child is good for the child because it is a warmer, more soulful approach to therapy.


What sort of results do you see in children with severe disabilities?
   After some time during yoga, I have seen children improve their breathing, their flexibility and their ability to relax.


How has doing this changed your own life?
   Practicing yoga has taught me patience, compassion and appreciation for the positive aspects of life.


Your now twelve year old daughter was born prematurely, at twenty-four weeks weighing a little more than 1 lb. I know that you were able to treat her with yoga as well. How is your daughter today?
   Today Tamar is a thriving energetic 6th grader. She has some learning disabilities but is confident and a go-getter. She never gives up in face of life's challenges.

To contact Limor:


Phone: 323-965-9234
limoryoga@yahoo.com

Charging Coffee

Dante's Beatriz and Virgil by Gustave Dore

I just spent a good hour on the phone today with a major coffee company and then my bank, disputing an online order. I didn't order any coffee, and the coffee company confirmed that, but somehow a good amount of money was removed from my checking account and paid to the coffee company. The bank is taking care of it through its fraud department, so all will be well, but I had a moment of panic that someone had stolen my identity. My next thought was that I might not mind my identity being stolen if it meant that I could start all over, at least financially. I'd trade my name, even, if it meant my financial woes went to another person using my name. It makes me laugh to imagine what someone stealing my identity would get on their plate.

As for a new name, I'm thinking Beatrice. And I'd go back in time, too, and be Dante's muse.

Dinner Talk

Not my kitchen -- from Conran's Kitchen Book

Some years ago my mother, I think, gave us a little Lucite box with a stack of cards, each of which had a "dinner conversation starter." I think I rolled my eyes at the little box and stashed it on a bookshelf, but when Henry pulled it out the other evening and began asking me questions from the cards, I realized that it was actually a pretty cool thing. The questions are all open-ended and interesting, particularly helpful for those kids who might answer all questions with a typical Uh Huh or I don't know. I learned that my sons would rather be spanked than grounded -- who knew? -- and that Henry would rather be a famous athlete than scientist. Henry also stated that he'd rather have a teacher who was less talented and more fun than a good but strict teacher. He answered that the times he has been most afraid were when Sophie fell during seizures and hurt herself. The boys learned that I have never cheated and that it's harder for me to get exercise than it is to eat healthy. They also learned that one of my greatest dreams is to see the Earth hanging in space from the window of a rocket.

As always, Oliver had the funniest answer to the question How will you know when you are a grownup? 

His response:

I'll know I'm a grown-up when the ladies start hitting on me.

I honestly don't know where the boy gets it!

I know what I know

We're still unable to venture out as Henry's face is so full of pox, he's embarrassed. I, being contrary, will post this lovely poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay -- a sort of contradiction to all the exultant voices of Spring (and given where I live and the omnipresence of flowers, mitigating the miracle of spring a tiny bit...). I do it, though, with a smile, so there's no need to think I'm


on

the

E
D
G
E

Spring

To what purpose, April do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing.

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.


-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Air Your Archives -- Blog Gems #13

The theme for this week's Blog Gems is Mother (evidently it's Mother's Day in other parts of the world!) and I've chosen a post from a couple of years ago, when my son Oliver's birthday fell on Mother's Day. 

You can read my post HERE and visit other Blog Gems HERE or click on the icon below!

Air Your Archives!

 

Culture Vulture

I felt a bit like a vulture yesterday, swooping down and into a local Borders bookstore that is closing and had a big sale on its remaining merchandise. I wandered the fiction and poetry aisles, lured by the 30%-50% off signs, and picked up copies of Yeats' The Tower, Gary Snyder's Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, and Lucille Clifton's Voices. Then I walked across the street and ate crispy onion rings dipped in barbecue sauce at The Waffle while reading Anne Roiphe's memoir Art and Madness on my Kindle (another blow to local bookstores) and then I walked across the street again to see the Danish movie In a Better World. I did all of this after breaking down in my house and running out the door in tears, leaving my children (one disabled, one covered in pox and the other just a pain) with the babysitter who had come to watch Sophie. I gunned my car to Hollywood with the accompaniment of violins, and after four or five hours came home, feeling only slightly chagrined and much relieved.