I worked with Ellen about Julia. Ellen is the energy therapist, spiritual healer who I have been working with once or twice a month since last fall. I have felt shy about writing much about her and our work together. Yes, it is not the usual talk or medication related therapy, and yes, it is way out there. But Ellen is not out there. She is very much of and in this world. Down to earth. Connected. There are times when my rather traditional self doubts, but every time that we’ve worked together she has said something, at least one something and many times much more than one something that rings very true to me and that she would have absolutely no way of knowing through ordinary means. She invites my angels, spirit helpers, and all past lives to come into conversation and offer help and guidance. And I believe that she can do this. I believe that she gets in touch with something of the world that we ordinarily do not tap into, be it outside of me or inside me. I would like to believe in the helpers all around me, but I can also imagine that what Ellen is tapping into is another part of my mind/heart/spirit. Maybe it is all on the inside and she just has a clearer vision of that inside world than most of us do.

There is a theory that parents are the keepers of their children’s spirits until they are 18 or so, until they are adults. This gives parents the ability to tap into their child’s mind and spirit as well as access their spirit guides and angels, as if the child’s helpers were part of the parent’s helper. If that makes sense. This was not surprising for me to find out about biological children. As Cheshire was growing up, I felt that sort of responsibility and also that closeness with her, but I had no idea if I could have those same sorts of privileges with Julia.

And so, I asked Ellen to see if she could get in touch with Julia’s helpers so that we could find out more about Julia, how she was doing, and what might I do better for her. Ellen was able to do this.

Almost immediately and without my asking, Ellen was told that Julia feels safe. She feels loved and wanted. At the same time, Julia does not understand a mother’s love like those of us who have had a mother all of our lives. Instead, Julia’s attachment to me is that of a trusted partner. She believes that I will take care of her and will love her, but a partnership is as close as she is at this time. Maybe forever. This was interesting to me, and very fine. I am happy that she feels that attached to me and so safe. I also understand that she may never understand mother love. I can live with this partnership, after all, what is friendship and falling in love with a partner but the forming of an intimate partnership. If she can learn good partnership with me, I hope she can have friends one day and eventually a mate.

Julia is lonely. She longs for friends. This is no surprise to me, but Ellen would have no way of knowing this. Julia wants me to work on friends for her.

She said there are many lies about Julia’s life. Lies that I do not know about. Lies that hurt Julia even now, but that hurt is still too intense to go into. She said there was a deep well of hurt and anger piled on top of each other and that it will take a long time to get to all of it.

She said that Julia was very much effected by the sorrow that her birth parents, especially her birth mother, felt in giving her up. She said that they wanted her and could not keep her. My heart breaks with this. I have always felt that there was some part of her first family that wanted her and was unable to keep hold of her. The fact that I have no way to find these people and to keep in touch is a further sorrow. I could not give them their daughter back but they could be a part of our lives. Maybe we will look one day. If Julia was a wanted child, maybe they left some clues that we will find. As it is, Julia carries her mother’s sorrow and carries much sadness deep inside of her. Again, nothing surprising there.

Ellen asked about David and how his death effected Julia. The answer came back that Julia loved David and misses him, but she understands death and she understands that it is me that she must depend upon. Julia’s understanding of death comes from experiences she had in China as well as David’s death, but Ellen could not get more about her China experience.

Ellen told me how Julia was doing. Physically, she came to us very weak and malnourished. Ellen told me this and it is certainly true. Now she is stronger and there are no worries there. She is on track and improving all the time.

Julia’s mind has not fared as well. Ellen told me of a cognitive delay, an inability to take in quickly what is around her and react appropriately, that will always be with her. It was not a diagnosis but a description of a circumstance.

She told me that Julia would learn, at her own pace and what she needed and wanted to know. Here was no surprise. She said that art was a constant in her life, and although she might stop doing it for short periods of time, she would always have that as a way of expressing herself. She said that Julia was not amenable to being taught about art right now. Maybe never, but now definitely not. She said that art was deeply imbedded in her heart and soul. That there are people in her first family who do art and that Julia has done art for more than one lifetime. She confirmed that Julia had no tools for art in China, no pencils, no crayons, but that finding them with us was like coming home.

Art was her first way of communicating and is that communication is always open to her. She is grateful to me for giving her what she needed to communicate.

Ellen went into Julia’s trauma and the first thing she found was the trauma of adoption and leaving China. She talked of Julia’s anger that was so volatile and her intense pain of leaving China. At the same time, she told me how people were very unkind to her and that Julia hated them for what she endured. Ellen told me that, and she is not sure if this is a actual event for a metaphoric, but that Julia perceives that she was shut in a very small space, like a closet, and screamed and cried. She was put there in the dark and left all alone to calm down. She had the image of Julia raging in this space and later of lying in a heap on the floor, looking at light coming in from cracks around the door. She said this was the start of Julia’s disassociation, her going away from her real world into a world of her own.

Ellen also said that Julia and I were together for at least two lifetimes. One in which I was her grandmother and very close to her. I promised to always love and take care of her. In the other lifetime, we were master and apprentice doing some art or hand craft together. She was no sure which of us was the master and which the apprentice. And I feel that this is not so different from our present relationship. Who is the master and who the apprentice?

When I asked if there was anything that I could do that I am not doing, the answer was that I need to trust myself more. That my instincts were right and that I know Julia well. I only need to trust and do what my heart tells me.

I had to ask about dinosaurs, and the answer came back that dinosaurs are wonderful animals. They are kind and loving, and Julia has worked out anger and confusion using her dinosaurs. Of course, this is true.

Then we did a healing of a bit of trauma. I was sure that we could not do all of it, only a layer, and probably a very superficial layer. I know that and Ellen told me that same thing. We asked the spirit world to work on the trauma they felt able to and what it was Julia’s trauma from the adoption. From being ripped away from her country with its smells and experiences. With all that was familiar. Even though much was unpleasant for Julia, her world was still rocked by the transition.

New morning plan in action for three days now. Every day is a challenge. I don’t know whether I can do it long term, but I plan to do it tomorrow. Oh, I am such a wimp, but I plan to do what needs doing tomorrow.

So, what I do is this. Wake up at 5:45, meditate for 15 minutes, wake up Julia, help her dress and do her hair, make breakfast and Julia’s lunch. She eats then we do strong sitting for 10 minutes and then she is ready to catch the bus.

Major complaints: I hate getting up early. Always have. David used to handle the morning routine. Not that I didn’t get up. Sometimes before him to get to work on time when I was working in federal court in Indy. But he handled the thinking of the morning and did a good deal, no, all of the child prep of lunches and breakfast. Now, remembering that David also did most of his creative writing (not editing) before the sun rose, it should not be surprising that he was the morning manager. And I took the lead after dark when David was snoozing on the couch.

However, needing to take on morning as well as night has been a challenge. I have been cranky about it since David died. I have wanted to shove it off on someone else. I have wanted it to just get done without my energy. I have wanted to whine and whine about it.

But in truth, I just needed to get off my ass and do what needs doing. Julia is not going to take over and get herself up, dressed and on that bus -- not that I expect a 10 year old to do that, but the way I’ve been whining about it, might lead one to expect that wish.

If I can manage the getting up part, the rest falls into place.

I’ve done it for three day. Not an incredible feat, but a step.

Two other thoughts: First, on morning meditation and strong sitting. On the weekend, I upped Julia’s strong sitting time to 15 minutes and she does it with me on the back porch. She uses the zabuton for sitting, I use the zafu. I light incense and we set the timer on my phone. We managed to get through 15 minutes of relatively quiet strong sitting. She loves sitting on the porch. She can watch spiders at the windows. She also loves the incense. She is enamored by The Last Airbender series and that starts with the curls of incense smoke. She really likes the smell.

And she can be relatively still.

But if most grownups struggle with monkey mind, Julia struggles with Monkey everything! I shouldn’t say that she struggles with stillness; it is I that struggles with her stillness or lack thereof. I did not imagine when we began this last spring that it would be easy, and we have certainly come very far from sitting close enough to her to hold her hands and to count together to 20. That’s where we started.

Usually, these days, she will have, at the least, 2 or 3 minutes of silent, strong sitting. Minutes when she is not fiddling with the hands, making faces at me, puffing out her cheeks, batting her eyes, watching spiders, finding new ways to stick out her tongue, trying to make her ears move without touching them. She is a riot! Maybe I should be recording her on video. She is funny enough.

She always surprises me when I catch her being really still. That’s when I think, how long has she been like this, how long will it go on. I would not say that she has reached any kind of deep meditation state, but I would venture to guess that she dips into a light state for seconds at a time a few times a week.

It is a beginning.

Sitting with her before she ran off to catch the bus this morning, set me to thinking about school prayer. I’ve heard the harpies insist that we cannot begin the day without god. I usually ask whose? And have usually suggested in a snide way that if “they” were willing to pray in a way pleasing to me, a liberal religious believer, than prayer would be fine. Actually, when I started this line of conversation, I would suggest that is they wanted to say prayers in Ukrainian, I would be happy to agree with them. But usually, “they” are looking for more mainline protestant praying, and therein is the rub, and my only point in my suggestions. Our children do not all believe the same thing and as Americans we have a responsibility to uphold this sacred diversity. And so, if praying is to go on, it should come from the home.

I have always believed that (well, or send kids to church sponsored school, but don’t begrudge spending good tax revenue on public schools for the neighbor’s kids.) and the more that I sit with Julia in the morning -- taking that extra 10 minutes to do strong sitting before the bus comes -- the more I believe that anyone can do it. I am sure there are exceptions, but if it is important to pray at the beginning of the day. And I would argue that for many reasons, most of which for me at least are very practical, physical, and only in a minor way spiritual, then make whatever sacrifice necessary to find that 10 minutes each morning.

There, the problem of school prayer solved.

This revised morning plan is hopefully a bit temporary in my helping her to get dressed. This summer, I really stuck with having Julia get dressed in the morning and for bed in the evening by herself. This meant that sometimes, it would take up to an hour to get herself downstairs or to bed, depending on the hour. By the end of summer, and with rewards points for dressing moderately quickly, she is doing both herself relatively well.

But dressing time is also a time when Julia can pick on her skin. It is one of the prime alone times of her day, and although I remind her and she swears she remembers, it is the time of the worst damage. And so, I am taking back dressing as a private experience until the scabs heel. I put udder cream or neosporin on every skin sore twice a day. And we talk about heeling and keeping her body whole. I try my best to be even tempered, very kind, and overwhelmingly compassionate. With some luck, I will be able to keep Julia from herself for long enough for scabs and sores to heel. And then, we can start again with dressing time. She is not going to forget how to put on her underwear.

I am going to do today what everyone else is doing. Remembering, recounting, reconnoitering. I know I’ve written about my experience before somewhere on this blog but i am not going to dig it up.

I was working at the federal building in indianapolis. Came in through the security that was the result of bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building six years before. Interesting very personal note: I interviewed for the federal job on the year anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing and was impressed that there was sorrow and remembrance in the Indy fed building on that day. Even in a year, so many others had forgotten.

I walked through security which was manned by Vinnie, an ex-cop, ex-NYCer. We have bonded over our shared NY experiences. He told me about the first plane and we were both sure that it was a mistake, a terrible accident but nothing more.

I spent most of the morning in the chambers of the judge which was down the hall from my office. He had the tv. We stood watching although there were plenty of seats. The judge said that he thought one of the towers would come down, and I was very strong in my denial. No. Never. It couldn’t happen. Weren’t those buildings built to withstand winds and storms. And then it fell.

David worked in the South Tower. For years. Before law school. Word processing nights at a law firm. His short story about that work, that place was published in a literary magazine. Nebraska Review? Maybe.

New York is my city, and I walked around in stunned silence for days. Not able to take in what happened. I watched like everyone else and I never so much missed the city as I did in those days. How could I ever be so far away when so many needed so much.

And it struck me this morning as I looked at all the memorial headlines, that I did not feel that way again. That shock. That complete sorrow. That loss of innocence. That loss of smugness that we all carried around. I did not feel that way again until last year when David died. Maybe it is shallow of me to compare a great national tragedy to my own personal loss, but honestly, I am surprised that it does feel the same. Such is and was my depth of love and care for the city that one might say ate me up and spit me out. The city of so many struggles for David and I, the city that we came home to after Italy and knew was our home. The only place that stretched us and made me whole.

Until 2001, NYC was a place that we could dream of coming home to, at some time in the future, when we had jobs and security. It is ironic to think along these lines right now. When David decided to make the move from Indy, the two jobs for clerk that were open were the one here in Madison and a job in Brooklyn. We had discussed both extensively. We decided to take the first one that came up and not look back. Madison called first and offered first, but Brooklyn did call, later that spring, before David started the Madison job. Knowing that nothing about David’s health could have changed no matter where we were, it is interesting to wonder what it would have been like had I been left a widow in Brooklyn.

Not better or worse. Somewhat different. And what I want to do right now is to go to the botanical gardens and walk around before Julia has therapy. I would have done the same in Brooklyn.

Funny that.

Yesterday afternoon, our therapist cancelled and so Julia and I had the whole after-school until supper time to ourselves. And she needed some clothes for the fall, namely pants and socks. Also, I have not found her lunch box from last year -- Gosh, I know it is in some box somewhere, in a place where I was sure to run across it. St. Anthony was of no help, as usual as that tends to be. And I also know that right after I cut off the tags and spill grape juice on the new lunch box, the old one will appear.

We headed out to our local Landsend “inlet” to try on pants and see what was on sale. Julia found two pairs of pants -- cords and jeans. Yeah for jeans!! Sizes 8 and 10 -- why the same manufacturer sizes clothes differently depending on fabric for kids is a unfathomable question. Julia needs the length in her legs but the waist on both pairs is adjustable and we’ve done a lot of adjusting. She is still about a size 5 in the waist and she can get away with 6x’s if we pull the waist down to her hips, but for some reason she likes that waist at the waist. Landsend does make a slim size but we could not find any in the store and when I looked on line last night, there was no slim size in any of the pants we might consider. The slim size seemed to be confined to the uniform pants which look like, well, school uniforms.

With the waist cinched in -- 9 button holes on each side, for those with experience -- Julia pronounced two pairs of pants good looking and asked if she could wear one of them out of the store. I made her change into the clothes she came in with, and we bought pants! Since the summer she has done very well with the summer pants that we bought. And wearing pants for riding is such a good idea.

This morning she has on the jeans and she looks so cute. I am hoping that these jeans shrink just a bit in the wash. Maybe it is time for hot water. That, or the kid needs a belt.

We had a nice day. Very nice. Quiet and productive. During Julia’s therapy, I cooked. It is my reaction to the change of weather. The coolness of fall days. Maybe come ancestral call buried deep within my DNA. Somehow, someway, I must start making huge quantities of food. It is for the winter? Am I responding to the gods of the harvest?

Fortunately, there was reason to cook. Church pot luck, first of the season, in the evening. A strong desire for lentil soup -- and obviously this desire hits at well timed intervals, as I have three packages, two partially used, of lentils of different colors in and amongst the foodstuffs. And next week is my snack week for Julia’s class. Each family is assigned a week at a time for snack. I decided when I signed up that I would not bring five days worth of packaged snack. Previous classes have had assigned snack days -- once a month or a little more, a day’s worth of snack would need to be brought in. And for that, I almost always did store bought. At least for me, assigning an entire week makes me more aware of what Julia is eating for snack every day, and is a good way to guilt me into a more responsible snack parent. And so, the snack menu for the week will include two home baked items -- oatmeal cookies and pumpkin mini-muffins, as well as sliced apples, gold fish, and cheese strips. Had to include a day of gold fish crackers.

I was kept busy in the kitchen, until therapy was over. Then, Julia and I zipped to the farmers’ market for tomatoes and carrots, and to the supermarket for asiago cheese. While there, Julia bought a coloring book that she has been eyeing for a few weeks. This was her second purchase from her saved reward money. I was so glad I didn’t give in last week and just buy it with “my” money and make her reimbursement me from her change purse. She had her money with her and together we counted it out and she took the change. She still doesn’t understand all of the counting and values, but slowly some understanding is dawning. I bet in another year, money is a familiar as reading is now.

The rest of the day was busy and social and because of that, Julia had very little time by herself. When I finally sent her upstairs to put on pjs on, I didn’t think that whatever makes her pick at her skin and scabs would be built up and need relief.

When I came upstairs a few minutes later, she had picked all the scabs from her legs and once again she had bloody, sore marks. Right now, her legs look like they are diseased. There are small open sores from her ankles to her hips. I have tried so many things and nothing works -- cream to sooth, cream to take away any itch, bactine and neosporin to prevent infection, bandaids on a few sores at a time. Also, pleading, scolding, nagging, showing her her legs in the mirror, and trying to reason with her. Tonight, once again, I confronted Julia about what she is doing. I don’t know if this is autistic stimming or a neurotic desire for pain. I don’t know if she does it like biting her nails or if it sends her somewhere out of her here and now mind.

Julia is crying more these days. In November, I think it will be two years since she cried for the first time with me, but now tears are closer to the surface. I think, but don’t know, that crying is good for her. She says she does not understand why she picks, why she hurts herself. I am not sure whether she says this to please me or if she is really wondering.

This behavior scares me. No, it is not harmful, like say, playing with razors is harmful, but eventually, these sores will not heal and she will have scars. It is totally unfair that this child with so many challenges inside of her but with a perfect body, has to now carry the effects of what is going on inside of her head on the outside. And I am so nearly powerless to do anything about it. Can I really be with her every moment of the day, until she is asleep, to prevent her from hurting herself? I often told Cheshire as she was growing up, that it was my job to keep her body healthy and growing so that I could give her the gift of her perfect body when she became an adult. What I meant for Cheshire was to give he good food and keep her away from talking toys and video games. I’ve said the same thing to Julia, but I am afraid that I will not be able to keep this promise. It is so hard to watch my darling girl damage herself. Over and over again. It is humbling to know that I fail over and over to protect her from her own fingers.

Julia had an assignment to put five things into a brown paper shopping bag that would tell her classmates something about her and would allow them to guess whose bag they were looking at. Julia and I didn’t do the assignment until this morning before breakfast. Mistake number one!

We had talked about this assignment before -- last night, and on Tuesday when I opened her backpack after school -- and she said that she understood the assignment. Mistake number Two! She did not understand it at all.

If she had understood the assignment, it would have been easy to grab a dinosaur, a coloring book, a Leapster game cartridge, some crayons or markers, a container of play dough, some whicky sticks, and a package of noodles (favorite food was one of the suggestions). Instead, she put the noodles in the bag (at my suggestion and instead of a bowl of rice or glass of milk), and four small blank books. The books were her books -- a set of 6-- two of which have been used for Morning Parade this summer. She has been really wanting to use the remaining four books but they remain blank at this point.

Now, to be fair to her. The noodles and the four blank books were five items. In my utter frustration, I did not congratulate her for putting five items in the bag. And that is a big deal for her. Five. Five. My good mother quotient is way far down.

I sighed heavily and went over the purpose of the exercise. I gave her suggestions of what I would put into the bag which could be considered Mistake number three. Trying to be anything else but concrete and about her entirely just causes more confusion. She was confused.

And I was getting frustrated. And she had just taken her meds. Should I count that as Mistake number 4, or am I up to 5 by this time?

I did not know whether to do the exercise myself or tell her what to put in the bag and let her fetch those things or just let her bring what she had and let the chips fall where they may. I fervently believe that Julia needs to learn to do for herself, and maybe this was the time to do it. After all, it was an exercise, nothing hung on this work. On the other hand, it was my fault that we were doing the exercise the morning it was due, with Julia without meds in her, and clearly she had not understood anything that I, and probably her teacher, had previously explained.

And we were already having a slightly stressful morning. Rather, I was having a stressful morning, and it was only by association with me that Julia was having a stressful morning. So, I let it slide. I explained the purpose one more time, trying to use different words.

I have a problem. I am not good at rephrasing at all. Cheshire can do it. I simply get lost in my loop of explanation and if anything, I get louder. You know, the way Americans get louder when they talk to people who doesn’t understand English. Talk louder and they will understand. Yes, like that would work with an autistic kid so much better than it works with non-english speakers???

Could I be any more dense? Or frustrated? Did I say that already?

Julia sat down to eat breakfast. We still had ample time. I went back to making her lunch. When I put the brown bag into her backpack along with her lunch, I noticed that she had put in two little dinosaurs on top of the blank notebooks. They were not in the bag when I had looked when she brought it to me, so she must have gotten up and found them as I was toiling away in the kitchen.

I should have noticed and said something to her. I did not. How many mistakes can I make in one morning?

Can I do better tomorrow? Sure. And I will try. Already have a new plan in my head -- if I get up earlier, and do something to prepare me for her, like meditate, like sip a cup of tea, like . . . okay, that’s all I can think of. If I can get to a place of calm, maybe I can appreciate and deal with Julia better. Oh, I am not good in the morning unless we are talking about a wake up time after 8:30 in the morning.

But now, my ugly truth: A good deal of the problem, and the problem that I need to solve, is how much I want her to be like other kids. Kind people, my friends and Julia’s teachers, say, “She has come so far,” “She could have never done that last year,” and “You’ve done so much for her.” Sometimes, I babble on to these kind people and I tell them how much I want her to “Catch” up to her peers, and how I would consider keeping her back a year in school if it meant that she could work at grade level with a group of kids. I passionately want her to have the experiences of a normal, neuro-typical kid. I want her in ballet and softball instead of intensive therapy and OT. It is very, very hard for me to let go of that idea, those dreams. I struggle with her difference, even though I am the very person who has always believed that children should be allowed to be different. And now, I see what a fraud I was in saying that. In espousing that for a very long time. Sure, be different. Be different in some interesting, smart, quirky way. Read books beyond your age, play an instrument when other kids want to play ball, do math a couple of grades ahead and ponder the question of your own differences. Those were differences that I could handle. But be different in a way that no one understands how your brain works. Be different in a way that you cannot communicate the way other kids communicate. Be different in a way that the rest of us cannot tell how much you will be able to learn, to understand, to grow and mature. Be that different and I am scared to death and only want you to be like everyone else.

And this is my problem. Not Julia’s problem.

Two nights ago, I had a passing dream about paper work. I had a bundle of official papers, like an adoption dossier, and all of the documents had stamps and seals affixed to them. I was about to mail them out somewhere when I realized that I had the wrong stamps and seals. I panicked and did not know what to do. I wondered whether I should just send them to where they were to go and hope that no one noticed that the wrong seals were on them, or whether I should and could peel the seals and iron flat the raised stamps and start the certification process all over again.

There are more than one type of certification out there. When I was transferring the stock that Cheshire and David owned jointly into Cheshire’s name, I had to get a bank certification which is different from what a notary can do. For our China dossier, we needed to have a notary’s stamp, the secretary of state’s stamp, and finally the Chinese embassy’s stamp. We did the work for Julia’s dossier between the two of us -- David, who worked at the Indiana State House, was steps away from the Secretary of State, and I was working in Chicago and within a short bus ride of the Chinese Embassy. I am not sure why the stress of the dream. I can’t put my finger on some similar stress, but it was important that I get those stamps right and I needed them as soon as possible in the dream.

I am not remembering many dreams. It has been like that for awhile. For a long time, I could remember nothing. I could have said that I didn’t think I was dreaming, but now, there are airy wisps of places or people, whispers of ideas that are like disappearing smoke when I wake up. But this was no wisp or whisper. But what was I reaching for, what needed to get done quickly.

I have no idea.

We had a quick lesson on the place value of numbers. I had been thinking about this a few days ago, but thought it was too advanced for Julia to grasp -- we are still working on “more.” But Julia was playing a Leapster game and she needed to put numbers in the correct column for a game. I gave her a quick lesson, we rehearsed reading numbers in the hundreds and the thousands -- because that’s what the game called for -- and she was able, at least for the moment to play the game. My hat was off to the Leapster game designers who appear to be enticing my child into the world of math.

On another note, Julia continues to pick on her bug bite scabs. I am not a fast healer these days -- ah, old age -- but my many bug bites of the summer are gone. Julia’s arms and legs are full of tiny scabs that regularly get picked off and need to reform. Some of them she makes worse by picking. I am rather at my wits ends on this one. I keep her nails very short. We talk about how bad this is for her skin. we talk about how much I love her body and don’t want her to hurt it. We talk about how she is the only person who can do anything about it. For all the cream, lotions and bandaids that I put on these places, and for all of the time when there is someone with her and can immediately keep her from picking, she is also alone when she goes to the bathroom, gets changed into and out of clothes, or is lying in bed after the lights are off. I am scared that this is becoming a habit and that it will get worse. I have thought that it is a stress reliever. Julia knows that I don’t want her to pick on her skin and when I ask her about it, she lies. Flat out tells those untruths. She is not particularly good at it, nor is she good at lying. she will eventually admit to picking if I keep at her enough, but it can be tiring.

After I complained a few months ago, that when I found my old journals, I paper work, I listened to an old friend tell me to organize my blog fils and print them out as journals. I didn’t intend to print out my pages and pages, but i’ve been collecting old entires in monthly files. Tonight, I got to last July and as sad as that month was, it was sadder still to read the few months before hand when we were so full of hope, so such were had beat death at his own game. We would not have put it that way at the time, but it is the way I see it now. we were foolishly giddy. With experience being the teacher, I see what I did not see then. Not that I could have stopped, or even slowed down events. Events happened as they did, they unfolded in their time. I cried to see how sad I was, and cried again when I was so happy.

I know that I cannot get back there, and I so hope that one day, I can find such happiness again.

Flute music on morning music and I wonder about all that breath, all that control.

Control, discipline, practice, patience, patience, patience.

I received an email this morning asking me to join the board of a group that I am very interested in, a group dedicating to inclusive education for kids with disabilities. I've spoken to two people on the board last year and expressed my interest and told them of my activities, and this is the next logical step. But this year?

My first impulse was to immediately say yes and ask if there was childcare at the meeting or if I could bring Julia and sit her in a corner with her crayons but oh my goodness, this is exactly what I said I would not do this year. There is an interesting PTO committee to chair, but I said no. A friend asked if I wanted to help with her committee and I . . . well, I did not reply to her email. Have to do that. I thought about it and was swaying but I need to say no. There is also ARC of Dane County that I am really interested in working with again, but cannot right now.

None of these groups will be gone next year. I know that. I also am pretty sure that if I beg off for this year that I will be invited or can express my interest again next year. But, and this is the big but, somewhere I am sacred that this is my only chance with them. Ego? Where do I get that? And why? These are volunteer groups that are always looking for help. Some of them are very attractive to me and I’d like to work with them, but really, if they turned me down next year, I could find other things to do.

It is not easy saying no. Not for me, anyway. And the temptation to say, yes, and get busy is a tantalizing, ripe fruit hanging by a thread from a very low branch. Fallow is not natural for me.

I just hung up the phone with the Remediators of my mother’s house. The "No further action" letter from the state will be issued and sent this week. This closes our state action regarding the leaky oil tank and contaminated water and soil. There is now restoration work to be done on the front steps and walk, as well as the driveway and the lawn and foundation plantings. However, I am a step closer to being able to sell the house, to close the estate, and to get on with the rest of my life without thinking about that house all the time. Yahoo.

There has been some water damage in the basement which needs repair before it goes on the market. The hurricane did not seem to effect the house which is great news. The water that caused damage was from some time earlier this year. It is unfortunate that it was not caught and really remedied earlier but this is one of the pitfalls of an empty house.

My wonderful realtor, Lori, is ready to re-list the property and after restoration, repairs, and a good cleaning, we should be good to go in a few weeks. We do need a statue of St. Joseph buried in the front yard! Although prices on houses in Jersey continue to fall -- David's father's house is being sold and the asking price is far below what it would have brought even last year -- I am holding on to hope that we can have this wrapped up by the end of the year.

And just a note about the neighbors from hell. They are still giving the remediators and our insurance company a very hard time. They have been through multiple lawyers and engineers, trying to prove something is wrong. Thankfully, the remediators and our insurance company has separated my claim and concerns. This is an incredible blessing and boon to me. It's interesting that that house has always had inhabitants who were just not good neighbors. Very unfortunate.

On another note, last week I called Julia’s dentist to make an appointment for her checkup. Prior to this appointment, I’ve always been able to make her next appointment at the time of the immediate appointment. I was told that I could not do it this time and when I asked why, I was given some vague answer about them moving their office. I was willing to take that, but when I was on the phone with them making Julia’s appointment which will not be until next month, putting her at 7.5 months since a visit instead of 6 months, I asked again and given some sputtering and shifty words. I asked directly whether Julia having medicaid instead of private insurance made the difference. The receptionist/person I talked to immediately launched into an explanation that they were one of the few practices that took government insurance and that I was lucky to have been accepted as a patient there. But my question was sill not answered. So, I asked again, “You are not answering my question. Am I being treated different with regard to appointments because my daughter in on Medicaid?” Yes, she said.

I am not asking to cause trouble or to file a lawsuit, but if we wonder why people who need government assistance are resentful, rude, or have an “attitude”, I wonder if we should just start here. In a place like my dentist’s office. Or at the local social security office. Nothing like needing help, and having your nose rubbed in it.

All those kitchen ideas and designs were first imagined and researched as I sat by David’s hospital bed. Hours of waiting and watching. Unable to do anything useful. And so research for a fantasy kitchen. The fantasy as matured into some sort of reality. I’ve gone back and forth on reusing cabinets I have with new doors, whited painted cabinets or clear maple, but I have not been happy with the layout up to this point. Oh, not quite true. I was happy with a lay out that I had when I was going to do an addition to the back of the house to get a small second bath plus laundry room plus porch. Oh, that was sweet, but way to expensive for the house. If I decide to move in two or five or even 8 years, i would be eating the addition and someone would have gotten quite a bargain as I could have never make up anywhere near the cost. But then the addition was also for the three of us -- the decision after the decision that we would not look for and move to a bigger Madison house which was our original idea. This house was just a bit tight for the three of us, but is more than adequate for Julia and I. Julia and I and occasionally Cheshire. It would be nice to have a half bath and also some storage space on the first floor -- not a closet on that floor! -- but with hooks in the back hall and a row of baskets, and a coat tree in the front hall, we have plenty. The toy room/office serves well as long as we don’t need to be there at the same time. And the new built in book shelves, still empty until the kitchen is finished, have make all sorts of room where free standing shelves have been. Actually, the house feels rather big and empty although books on the shelves and art on the walls will take that away.

But the kitchen. I still need to get a small table, something for Julia to sit and have breakfast on. In the mornings, no matter how hard I try to prepare everything and sit down with Julia for breakfast, I am always left in the kitchen scrambling to get breakfast, pack lunch, dole out pills, and get the backpack packed while Julia eats in the dining room alone. Yes, the rooms are next to each other, and yes, we can talk between them, but it is not satisfying to me. When I first moved here, I wanted to make the wall between the two rooms into a bar with stools. A simple elegant fix, but the wall turned out to be load bearing and so simplicity was out. Cheshire suggested a small hinged table behind the door to the back hall, and someone on Garden Web suggested making the cabinet by the frig into a desk that Julia could sit at to eat. However, that cabinet also would fit the dog’s crate and so I am already thinking of another use for the space.

I want to order the cabinets soon and get the job finished before Thanksgiving. Not that we are having the holiday here, but it would be so very nice to have the house all sorted and put away by the time winter comes.

And it is coming.

Soon.

Tonight, I closed windows, opening mine just a crack to hear the outside and to get a bit of air into the bedroom. It was close to cold today. Julia and I wore sweatshirts to garden and then to go to the zoo. Today, was the closing of our community pool as well, and I really don’t think there are many more warm days for us. The first leaves have already started showing some color, and gardens are perking up to show a bit more color after a dry summer, ready to show their best before the die back. I deadheaded the cone flowers, gathering some seeds for next year in the back garden, and hoping for a few more small blooms before I cut the stems to the ground. The Russian sage plant that I put in the corner garden survived the summer heat but is still very small. I was hoping to divide it some but that will be for next year. I could think about putting bulbs in. I need more spring bulbs but I still have a month of pleasant gardening weather. I’ll see how far I get with the work I’ve planned.

The zoo was crowded. The prairie dogs were very fat. The bison was was laying down. There were no bears out at all today. The tiger was pacing and growling ever so loud. And the giraffes seemed to be fighting. I never think of giraffes as aggressive animals. I am sure they have grumpy days. I am sure that there is aggressive activity around mating time. Maybe even when there are not enough leaves to go around. Today, the small and I think younger of the three that are in the zoo, was bending his neck around backwards and hitting his horns (those stumps on the top of his head) on the side of one of the larger giraffes. I have pictures which may make this description clearer. The larger giraffe would retaliate now and then, not tit for tat. Neither giraffe moved around in another position which might make it easier to . . . I don’t know, bite or horn butt the other in a more effective way.

People gathered, watched, commented and then left still wondering what was going on and why those giraffes were doing that. Julia kept telling them to take deep breaths and to calm down.

Julia still has a hard time not telling other kids what to do or correcting them when they say something wrong. She is not offensive, but she can come off as a know it all, and she does invade that personal space that we carry with us in public places. It doesn’t bother most people when she does this, but she is still cute and a kid. It would be very inappropriate if she did this as an adult.

We were at the zoo in the afternoon, that time after lunch when young families with toddler should be home or in the car for their kids to take naps. I don’t mean to be as bossy as my daughter, but there comes a time when a toddler is cranky only because he is missing his much needed nap. I don’t mind whinny or crying toddlers that much but Julia can’t abide them. She is so very concerned when children are upset or crying. She wants to intervene, she wants to tell their parents what to do and to hush up the kids. And when I tell her not to because after all, these kids have parents to take care of them, she stares. Stares in a very meaningful way. Really, she cares deeply when kids are not happy.

We missed our strong sitting today and Julia reminded me just before she went to sleep tonight. She is not articulate enough to tell me if it feels good, or feels anything. I am just hoping.

Help! Nail biting decision making time!

I just posted a long message on a kitchen design forum that I frequent and also on my home renovation blog which I haven't added anything to in a long, long time. If anyone would consider reading that long message, look at my ideas and comment, I would be so grateful. The blog entry is at http://acrosstherubricon.blogspot.com/

Making the decision alone is really hard for me, but I've worked it over and over and over again. Of course, that doesn't mean it is any good. David would not have liked the open shelving, but it is such an inexpensive alternative to cabinets that if I don't like it in another year or so, I could replace it with closed cabinets.

Last night, Julia read That Cat in the Hat. By herself and with the book in her hands. She knows all of the words and can read some of the shorter passages with a good deal of expression. (Some of the expression is borrowed from my readings. I giggle at her interpretation.) We haven't read that in months, maybe in a year, and she told me she missed the story. She loves Thing One and Thing Two, and she was very concerned that they came and went in a box. With a latch. She told me that people should not go places in boxes. She said it so seriously.

It is an easy book for her but what was amazing was that she read the entire book without ever using her finger to point to the words and follow the lines. This is a development so recent that it takes my breath away. It was only last month, maybe a few weeks ago that she could not track words on a page and needed my finger moving along a line. How did this new skill develop? How many times do I have to learn that she will learn in her time, not mine? I’ve been worrying so much about her lack of math skills, and her inability to grasp firmly ideas that I been drilling into her all summer long.

This morning, we slept late, nearly to 8:30 which is pretty incredible in my book. I heard her wake up and pick up a book and read to Lizzy and Luky, her two favorite dinosaurs. I know this is young behavior, but it is behavior that Julia has not done before. She was really reading, although she skipped a few words she did not know. She read with animation and then asked questions. I could not hear what Lizzy and Luky said. Her mother’s daughter?

We went to church, late Sunday service that we favor in the summer time. I am on the schedule now and again to do the welcome and announcements at the beginning of the service, and due to a mix up or cancellation, I did it at today’s late Sunday service. When I’ve done this over the past year, I usually got Julia settled down in our usually places in the back left of the auditorium. She is very comfortable in this row and these seats that we’ve sat in since we started going to the Unitarian church three years ago. We sat in those seats with David and sat in those seats alone. In fact, on the day of David’s memorial, Julia insisted on sitting in this same place even though Cheshire and I sat far away and in front and center of the church as befits the grieving family. Julia insisted on her usual seat, got out her coloring books and crayons and would not move. My friend, Cathy and her lovely girls joined Julia, and I was relieved and knew that Julia would be well taken care of. The value of comfort in the ordinary and repetitious is not lost on Julia.

And so, we sit in the same place virtually every time we go to church, and even when we go to the Saturday service which held in the Landmark Auditorium (the one that F.L. Wright designed), we sit in an equivalent place. A bit too set in our ways?

And so, when I do the welcome and announcements, I settle Julia into our regular seats, and I go to the front, where I perch on a front seat until it is time for the service to begin. I do my bit, which may or may not include lighting the chalice candle and then go back to sit with Julia. Today, however, I asked her whether she wanted to sit up front with me. I was surprised when she agreed and we settled ourselves in very different seats. I asked if she wanted to go up with me and sound the great gong that begins our services and she was game. I told her that we would go up together (just three steps), she could sound the gong, and then she would have to return to her seat alone while I went to the pulpit.

And she did it. And then sat down again, in the front row, and took out her coloring book and crayon and seemed happy as a clam. Today, was also the last day of summer activities for the kids at church and the group of kids assembled for an ice cream party. Oy! I thought. Julia hyped up on sugar for afternoon therapy that she would have right after church. I was glad that I had given her a good hardy breakfast. I was thinking it would line her stomach. But Julia was not hungry and said no thank you to ice cream.

Gosh, I wish I could get a transfusion of her eat-only-when-hungry attitude. I know that a big part of it is the drugs she takes for her ADHD, but in truth, Julia is not a big fan of ice cream, candy, or sweets in general. She likes ice cream when we go to a special place, but a very small vanilla cone is plenty for her. I’ve had ice cream in the freezer until it iced over at times in the past year. She has, however, developed a liking for cupcakes in her lunch. I bake the little cakes as healthy as I can and then put that junky store bought in a tub icing. And Julia eats it with gusto.

The day has been cloudy and cool with lovely breezes. I took time to continue my garden clean up. I am getting some ideas about moving a few plants which I’ll get to in another week or so. I am most excited about the space behind the garage that is rather tucked away in the yard. Previously, I’ve had my big compost there and have let a forsythia bush overrun itself and shield the compost piles from view. The compost pile has been reduced in size and relocated to a place where it is more accessible and in a bed that has been a problem to grow much of anything that I like. And now, this sort of more private space is begging for some use. And I’ve just come to the notion that this space would make a very nice space for a bench and small table. A retreat space that is not as public as the rest of my gardens and even my porch on the front of the house. I have a good deal of cleaning to do before I set it up, but ideas of churning. The garden is speaking.

From two days ago: "She loves reading and I think I can do this." There was so much last year that I didn't think I could do. So much I just couldn't do. The fact that Julia missed the bus three times last year amazes me. How did we ever do that?? I never missed a class, and only missed one clinical assignment. Another miracle. I organized and rand PTO meetings, volunteered at church, and paid all the bills relatively on time. I took care of my mother's estate and pushed the oil tank clean up along. If I had only thought to ask some emergent saint for help with these tasks, I am sure I would have helped with someone's canonization.

But there were those other things as well. We had clean clothes, but how many times were they picked out of the "clean" basket and finger ironed before they were put on? I almost stopped reading to Julia at night for the entire year. And there were only as many as absolutely necessary baths for her. I missed snack days when I was the mom scheduled to delivered. The field trip permission slips were sent home many times before they were retrieved from the clear plastic envelope, signed, and slipped back into place in the school backpack.

Thanks goodness I had the forethought to have a cleaning lady (is that not PC? A house cleaner? Is that better?) I don't necessary get on with her that well and it took me until this summer to notice that she was not spending all that much time cleaning my house, but even a quick dust and vac of the house and swipe of the bathroom and kitchen save me from real dirt. Deep, deep dirt. When I came back home after vacation and unpacked our belongings, I had to clean every surface that was not taken out of the house because even covered with plastic, everything had wood dust on it. As I was cleaning, I felt the novelty of the work. When was the last time that I had cleaned anything? When was the last time that I cared about it.

Oh, about two years ago.

Yeah, a year of holding my breath and a year of grief can sure make for a dirty house. And don't look at the garden yet. I was saved last year by two doses of a professional coming to clean it up. Still, for most of this summer I did not have sufficient interest to do more than minimally maintain. This last week, getting out and rearranging a compost bin and cutting some overgrown bushes was the first hard and creative work that I've done. Again, in the last two years.

And I am so grateful that I've stopped yelling so much at Julia. Her behavior might have improved over the past year, but it is not her behavior but mine that was suspect. I was inpatient and demanding and could not be kind. I was not her good mother. It is not that I have stopped being frustrated, the child can still push ever button I have, but I have recalled that I am the adult and in charge and can walk away to count to ten or scream into that pillow. Really, just stopping what we are doing which inevitably is some school work that I think I am explaining perfectly clearly that she is not getting or getting ready to go somewhere that we are late for as Julia drags on and on in her preparation -- just stopping is all I need. Just looking and seeing that there is another way to teach or being late doesn’t matter.

One more thing, I am cooking again. It has been emerging slowly. Way back before the need for a heart transplant was announced, I was becoming a more interesting cook. I was enjoying exploring new foods and new skills in the kitchen. I jokingly thought that my Madison years would be my master cooking years. I grow into the grandma or great aunt whose Christmas packages would be waited for and savored. My dinner parties would be legend. Well, maybe I didn’t fantasize that far, but I was having fun in the kitchen. It was one of the reasons to have a new, cool, useful kitchen.

And then, I lost that, really it all crashed when David died. We ate, Julia and I, and just thank goodness, that my food was better than a Chinese orphanage. But that was a pretty low bar that I was meeting.

And none of this is earth shattering. None of this is unique to me or us or even our new single parent circumstance. But it has happened to us and it has surprised me and turned me upside down.

It has been muggy and rainy all day. I hoped to shop the farmers’ market -- I am addicted to real tomatoes and fresh basil salads-- but the sky was dripping and even if the farmers were selling, Julia would not have been walking. So, it was the supermarket and then trader joes for broccoli rabi. Oh, I was hungry for sausage, broccoli rabi, onions, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and oregano. I have always mixed this with pasta and added cheese, but with a bit extra vegies, I was satisfied sans pasta. I did make some pasta for Julia -- whole wheat shells that she loves with butter.

Julia and I worked on reading and parts of stories today. Her speech therapist gave me a story puzzle page. The pieces are labeled setting, character, problem, wish, turning point, lesson. There is also a row of action squares. We read a story book about kid tooth fairies and fill out the puzzle, and then retold that story using the filled out form. Then Julia wrote a sentence about the story and drew a picture in her Reading Journal. It took us a long time and I don’t know if Julia will have the patience to do it again, but it was good work. If we can do it more often, Julia will learn about how to make a story. It will not be quick work for her to learn this, but ya’ know she betta’ get started if she is going to be the author-illustrator that I have in mind for her.

After

All the time

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe Me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the

Whole Sky.

~Hafiz of Shiraz

Lisa sent me this poem. She wanted to introduce me to Sufi poetry, something that I know nothing about. I could wax eloquent (or not) about it for a few paragraphs today, but instead I will just put it up and let it filter through what I am writing.

Jan had a video posted on his facebook page. It was of Mingyur Rinpoche explaining meditation. He suggested that we give our “crazy monkey minds” the part-time job of observing breaths during meditation. Just part-time because full-time, it would take over like a slave driver. And I had to smile. When I make my lists of things to do with my days or how long to exercise or describe a new perfect diet, my crazy monkey mind is really in control. My ego is shouting. Very bossy and a complete slave driver. The lists and ideas are the opposite of being gentle with myself. And I usually fail. How can I not? I have the feeling, and I have no idea of knowing whether this can be true, that this gentle, fierce man who is Mingyur Rinpoche would take a different route to scheduling his days. I don’t know what it is at present, but I intend to find out.

Mingyur Rinpoche’s demeanor is so attractive to me. He is gentle and fierce; passionate and calm. He seems to speak from somewhere deep inside of himself. I wonder if I can cultivate such a demeanor. Quiet, sure wisdom. Again, I have no idea of how but it is so attractive to me.

Yesterday, I spoke on a panel at the LEND orientation for this years students. It was the usual list of questions about the core values of the LEND program and how it relates to my family. I wrote out some notes to keep my comments in check. I wanted to say some specific things and did not want to go too far off topic. I can, in those situations, just wax less than eloquent like some kind of freight train bound for parts unknown. Sometimes when i finish my comments, the most logical question would be, “what was the question?” and “Did I get anywhere near the answer?”

It was good to make note beforehand. I stayed closer to topic. Of course, I didn’t want to read what I wrote, so my train still ran a bit off track. And I did have too much material for the short amount of time I had to answer any questions. Still, all that was fine. But I found that I had great emotion talking. I could have burst into tears during almost every question. I did not expect that in the least.

For example, the last question was to give advice to the new trainees, and I had three pieces: You may be present at the worst day of a family’s life. A family may know in their guts that something is wrong with their beloved child, but you are the one making that feeling concrete with a diagnosis. It may be a day when dreams die, but it is the day the work begins.

You can never give a family too much information, although they may be completely overwhelmed and not remember a word that you said past the words of diagnosis.

Be available later.

Well, I was more than close to tears when I said the words “worst day of a family’s life.” I didn’t choke up but was pretty close. Is this a tenderness that I’ve never held before? Is this what speaking from the heart means? I have fallen into a mindset, or a heart-set, different from where I have been. It is strange and lovely to move around this space.

First day of school! Yesterday's picture. Yes, she hit a kid during recess for calling her a chicken. Long talks from her teacher and from me last night. (Plan: 1st: Please don't call me that! 2nd: Walk away. 3rd: Talk to a grownup.) Overall, however, it was a good day and she couldn't wait to get on the bus this morning. We fit in strong sitting before we left the house both days although today she had a hard time being still because she wanted to be waiting for the bus.

Also, Julia no longer waits to be the last person on the bus. She waits with the little bunch of kids and says excuse me to fit in line at an appropriate time. Oh, it looks so normal!

Papers came home from school explaining homework and specials (music, art, gym). I am going to try to keep to all of their homework rules and see if Julia can handle it. According to the instructions, she will get homework papers on Monday and return them on Friday. There will be spelling words and a few spelling sheets, math sheets, and some cursive writing sheets. She is really ready to learn cursive so I hope those will be like the rest of the class. She will have modified math and spelling but I hope she can get and do as much as the rest of the class. I hope we can start that way, at least. She will also have a reading log and is expected to read 2 hours a week right now. We've been lax about filling in the reading log last year but I want to do it this year and work towards making Julia responsible for it. She loves reading and I think I can do this.

The evening before school began, we went to the open house and put Julia's supplies into her desk. She was quite pleased that the desk was close to her teacher's desk.
And she really liked that her name was written in cursive. I think she is going to take to cursive writing very well.
And who could resist trying on a cheesy cowboy hat at the airport while we were seeing off Cheshire.

Beginnings

So how do I begin? What is the schedule for today? What is the plan for-the-rest-of-my-life? That last hyphenated bit needs to be said with a deep, god-like voice and sound very impressive and a bit scary. Am I putting too much pressure on myself? No pressure. No pressure. I have been dreaming of this moment since last spring. The long anticipated time of lying fallow, the time of healing, growth, new wisdom, etc., is here. Could I be more pretentious? Maybe the pretension comes with the assumptions that I can change and grow into something of more service. Maybe the sounds of pretension are really ego sitting back and judging my heart’s desire to heal from the loss of my (and how I want to say “better”) half that I can’t have anymore on this plane of existence and to plan on changing the world in and around me. Maybe I hear pretension because I am scared of the opportunity, the possibility, and in the vein of the willing spirit and the weak flesh, I would rather let day to day living and small tasks not add up to anything other than survival.

I am no fool. I know that to live the cliches of inspiration, it is the I, the ego, that must engage.

And so, on to day 1.

Cheshire went back east yesterday. I dropped her off at the airport in the morning. I don’t think I wrote about her wipe out last week, and so, to mention that on our second day of physical fitness, I was riding my bike and she was roller blading. She took a hill, down hill, way too fast and met an unexpected curb at the bottom. She had to jump the curb and for a very short moment it looked like she was going to make a good landing. However, she is no trick skater, or not even a very experienced skater, and she went down, landing on her side, scraping her leg and the side of her face. THANK GOODNESS SHE HAD A HELMET ON! Our friend, Mary, came to rescue us and bring us home (thank you, dear friend!), and then Cheshire had to start healing. We spent a bit more time inside and on very short walks then we had originally planned, but then Irene (the storm) kept her home for an extra 5 days. And Cheshire didn’t do any damaged that some neosporin and bandages and air and rest will not cure.

It was so good to have her home. Since vacation at the beginning of July, we’ve been together pretty often. The casual togetherness of family -- eating some meals together, exchanging words of the day, advising each other, nothing momentous but ever so important to me. Coming home after leaving her at the airport, I teared up and felt so lonely. A shot of loneliness went through me. I know I have work to do and I know that I must do it alone -- with Julia, but alone. And I also am very sure, more all the time, and reminded by last week and the feelings of yesterday, that when my time of lying fallow is over, I will be looking to not live alone even though I can not at this time be sure of what that will look like.

It is so hard to trust in the process. Even when it is me who is in complete control of the process. I want the crystal ball of results.

Julia headed off for school today. Willing and able. I can't find her lunch box. It is the victim of the pre-vacation packing up of the house. I am sure I put it somewhere that I was sure I would unpack before school began. I didn't. When I looked around the remaining boxes last night, I could not even figure out which I should open. I thought I unpack everything, EVERYTHING, that I needed. Today, I packed lunch in a "red door" bag -- what is red door anyway? -- tomorrow . . . I'll look again today.

Julia was excited to go to school today. Two nights ago, at the school’s open house, she was a bit shocked. I think the noise level was pretty high, with kids and parents flinging school supplies in desks, on tables and in lockers. Everyone seemed to be talking at the same time and multiple message of greeting was being offered. Just writing this gives me pause to realize how quiet I keep our lives. We have always been a quiet family. I may yell a bit from time to time, but we listen to quiet music, we don’t watch loud tv or movies, we read and chat. This is great for Julia who is sound sensitive and at least for her and me, the pervasive quiet encourages order which is another thing that Julia thrives on. However, when this quiet life we live comes up against the noise of others, like the other evening at school, I can see Julia retreat. She goes into herself a bit. She walks around a bit like she is a zombi, coping with the onslaught of stimulation.

And so, we practiced walking from the door of the classroom to her desk. It is a new and bigger classroom this year; Julia’s desk is near her teacher’s desk and not the door like last year; and there are 28 desks in this room. We walked together. I had her walk to the door while I stayed at the desk, and then, walk to me. And finally, we both walked to the door and then she found her desk by herself. I could see those little shoulders come down a few inches by that third time. I could see her open up just a bit. And we left school that evening pretty happy.

Of course, this cannot help but bring up questions of where Julia’s schooling is best accomplished. Is it in a big public school? Or something smaller? Or home? I continue with those questions.

So, to restate, how do I begin? All I can think of is a daily list for the short term: Meditate for 20 minutes; write 1000 words (and those that I am writing here will count, at least for now); physical activity for an hour (for the time being it will be gardening); and for the next few days, getting my desk in order.

The first tick on the list -- 1000 words -- is done for today. Actually, 1094 words today.

Check.