Intuitive Mom's Blog

Yesterday my grandfather turned 89. Today he moved out of the home he has lived in for over 60 years. This is the home that lived next door to my Great Grandma and Grandpa Mossman.  This is the home that raised my mother and my 3 aunts. This is the home that saw 10 grandchildren play in the yard, and on the patio. This is the home that watched my Grandpa and Grandma Mossman pass away, and watched my Aunt Judy and Uncle Drew buy the house in their stead.  This is the home that watched 5 great grandchildren come into the world.  This is the home that saw the death of my grandmother, and just recently the death of my dear Aunt Judy. This home witnessed turmoil, this home witnessed love. This home has been a rock in my life, a place that never changes with the times. The carpet is still orange shag. The couch is still orange plaid. The bed that my cousin Elisa and I slept in too many nights to count still has the same bedspread, furniture and pictures 30 years later- until today. Today my grandfather moved to live with my aunt.

We all know it is for the best.  He is getting older, but the evidence isn’t easy to find around his home. It is still a shrine to times past, but I notice. I notice the little box of pills in his bathroom (evidence of an aging body), the soft layer of dust on the living room furniture (evidence of his failing eyesight), and most of all the broken sensor on his refrigerator that beeps just about every thirty seconds that drives everyone else crazy but he can’t seem to hear. I know it is for the best, I know that is supposed to make me feel better, but does it?

This moment snuck up on me. I wanted to get a video camera to preserve it, to somehow stall the inevitable. But a video camera cannot capture the feel of the plush white carpet in the living room on my feet. The camera cannot breathe deep the never changing smell of the home, the smell of my grandma and blueberry muffins. The video camera cannot taste the tap water out of the little red glasses to the left of the sink.  The video camera can only see. And it doesn’t matter anyway because I was out of town when he started moving things out.

I want to remember. I want to remember playing Skipbo with my grandma on her big brown chair and jewelery dress up with Elisa on the outside patio. I want to remember  not being able to walk on the lawn “because we will mess it up” and dancing to old music with Elisa on the orange shag carpeting. I  want to remember my grandpa’s reading glasses sitting next to his big leather chair and my grandma’s diet Pepsi sitting next hers. I want to remember big family gatherings eating at the kid’s table and sitting with my grandpa for hours while he built things out in the garage. This home is my childhood, and if this home is changing, what does that say about me?

Breathe, just breathe. I only have this moment, and in this moment, everything is beautiful. Transition is a part of life- a joyous part of life. It is what makes us human. But right now, my heart is breaking. Austin just woke up to nurse and I am reminded that my grandmother nursed my mother in the middle of the night 56 years ago in that little home on Vargas Place. And now my grandmother is gone, my mother is a grandmother, I am a mom and it has all happened with such a quickness that I am pressed to savor each and every moment. Soon I will be a grandma, and my grandpa will be gone and if it is anything like my life has been, it will happen so suddenly and I don’t want to miss any of it.

Elisa and Jonathan will be moving into Grandpa’s home and I don’t think anyone in the family could think of better people to live there. Soon Elisa will be nursing her little baby in the middle of the night, and perhaps the street light will catch the glint of Grandma’s wedding ring on her finger as she rocks her baby to sleep. The rooms will be different, definitely more modern and definitely not orange, but the spirit will be the same.  Change is inevitable, change is good. It is the end of an era. Grandpa will visit. I miss you Grandma, but I preserve your home exactly the way you left it in my memory.

I love television- I mean LOVE television. In the midst of reading a new spiritual book today I had the realization that Jersey Shore would be airing tonight and had a little party in my head.

Now this blissful time, naptime for Ayla (my only time alone) happens only once a day. I intend to use these 2 hours for spiritual endeavors such as: self-reflection, meditation, rest, Reiki, reading and writing.  Instead, I usually stumble down the stairs to the couch, fall fast asleep for 30 minutes to an hour, groggily wake up to reach for the computer to check my Facebook all the while getting excited because I know I have the latest Real World to watch on my DVR.

How do I reconcile these seemingly opposing halves of my personality?

*Blank Stare*

Laughingly, I have figured out that there is no resolution here. Today I may be in the middle of meditation when I remember that tonight might just be the night when Eric Northman and Sookie Stackhouse finally hook up on True Blood. This very remembrance will have the power to violently yank me out of my blissful state of oneness with the universe.

I guess for right now I am just a spiritual seeking chick who is also human (therefore, not perfect), and just for today I am totally at peace with that.

A Confederacy of Laundry

I had an Ignatius J. Reilly moment at the laundromat today. As I was looking around, I started to notice all the losers who have to do laundry at a laundromat because they are too poor, uneducated and unmotivated to have a home with a washing machine.  While I sat in an uncomfortable metal chair with blue stains adorning the cushion (probably due to some gross negligence on the part of some kid of a single mom) I watched all the people. I noticed a large African American father of 3 debating the price of the differing washers with his tiny Asian wife. I noticed a well-dressed Middle Eastern man meticulously polishing the tops of all the washers. I noticed a seemingly bothered attractive middle- aged African American woman peering out of her glasses at all the laundry she had left to do. Especially annoying was the blue-collar type of Caucasian man whistling at his kid to “get over here”. And then I noticed the most disturbing thing of all: my attitude.

Sometime during the last few years I have had the opportunity to face my largest character defects.  During this time I began to notice a trend: arrogance, self-righteousness, intolerance, smugness and being prone to judgment and gossip are all in some way, distasteful characteristics of my personality. I really thought that as I became willing to acknowledge this ugliness, it would be easy to change. Through a fearless look at myself, I came to understand that the only thing behind these defects of character was my feelings of unworthiness and my general lack of self-love.  With this new information, it should be easy to become a more tolerant, humble and flexible person, right? It appears that in my mind, I am either better than you, or beneath you. Somewhere in my 30 years I apparently decided (based on no evidence) that I am better than “laundromat people”.

Here is my laugh out loud moment: I am a laundromat person!

Since the age of 18, I have done my laundry at my parent’s home or in a coin facility maintained by our homeowners association.  Through no effort on my part, growing up, my parents always had a reliable and clean washer/dryer in our home. What did I do to contribute to this, you ask? Nothing. It turns out that I am no different than any person in the Fluff and Fold down the street from me.

And with this awareness comes gratitude. Here, finally is the shift in my thinking. I was behaving no differently than Ignatius J. Reilly, the gluttonous, delusional, self- aggrandizing protagonist of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole!  Thanks to the universe for this lesson.

Yes, I would rather be in my own home, doing my laundry in my own machine, preferably one load at a time (rather than the 4 I have going now.) That is my truth, and that will be my reality at some point. But now, I have the opportunity to look at the positive. My dear husband, Ryan, lugged all the laundry into the facility for me. He loaded all the coins into the machines while I put the laundry into them. He took Ayla to Whole Foods to get us a nourishing lunch and to buy the ingredients for our dinner that he will be cooking for us tonight.

And as I looked around at the laundromat people, I noticed something different. The middle aged African American woman was speaking to the Middle Eastern man. She was complementing him on the cleanliness of the place and congratulating him for 3 years of business. The Caucasian man returned with his wife and his daughter. Together with their son, they all finished the laundry as a family. The African American man left to get his children an ice cream for their good behavior during the duration of their stay at the Fluff and Fold, while his wife got some time alone to read a novel and watch the laundry dry. Lastly, Ayla ran in to find me moving our wash into the dryer and yelled “Mommy, Mommy! It is time for lunch!” Then Ryan, Ayla and I sat together and watched our laundry dry while eating, laughing and talking.  What a difference a change in perspective can make.

My life is blessed for it is so full that I could burst! Every experience is a new opportunity for self-discovery, I need only be present to enjoy it.

I wrote this in 2008, only to be too scared to publish it due to its enormously overwhelming emotionally vulnerable content… It has taken 2 years, but I finally have the courage to share it….!

I have been in bed for 2 hours, only to find myself staring at the rustling trees outside the window; and at the crib parked next to my bed. I felt as though I had to write, but now that I sit here, nothing comes. I blame this on the single mug of Irish Breakfast tea that I consumed around 1 PM today. I do find that I do my best writing and thinking around 12AM, when I am so tired that I cannot see straight. Only in this time do I truly allow myself to be so still that I can visit with my highest self.

I am thinking about previous Myspace blogs…many of which involved me searching for direction in my life. Now, coming upon 2 or 3 years later my life really doesn’t resemble what it once was.  I relentlessly researched graduate programs. I tried to decide which path I should follow. Should I follow my desire to work in international politics, the desire that I awakened in Israel and spent 4 years pursuing in college?  Or should I follow my heart, my love for animals and my blessed ability to work with all different species? Perhaps I should continue with my love of education, especially working with special kids…the kids who helped me to experience true joy with their triumphs, and who helped me to heal myself while I listened to their struggles with their own loved ones who struggled with addiction and alcoholism? I was blessed to be incredibly good at all of these paths in my life. But as I meditated and prayed about which path to follow, nothing truly felt right.

Then, out of nowhere, it happened. On Mother’s Day, 2007 I became sick – so sick in fact that I began to think that I must have a fatal and horrible disease. Three pregnancy tests came back negative. And so, I waited and worried. I became convinced that I was ill and I would never feel good again. But secretly I was wondering, what if? What if this was a baby? What if Ryan and I had created a life? Were we prepared? My life didn’t look like what I though that my life should look like with a little one; a small townhome, a good income stretched as far as it could go to try to secure our future with 401Ks, IRAs and investment properties just didn’t seem like enough.  We didn’t even have a dog! How could we do this? Yet, the blood test came back positive. I remember calling Ryan. He was in disbelief but became so excited at the prospect of this little girl that he could barely stand it.

And that is when everything changed. He made some monumental life changes that altered our marriage in the most profound and positive way imaginable. And I, well I grew, and grew and grew until I felt I could not move one more inch. I learned how to ask for help because, for the first time, I truly was incapable of doing everything by myself.  And this little baby, not even born yet, brought Ryan and I so much closer together, taking us to a place that it was simply not possible to reach without the love of this little soul.

From the day she was born, she was a challenge. She wouldn’t budge after 2 days of labor and 2 full hours of the most athletic feat I have ever dared to attempt, pushing out a baby. But 10 minutes and an emergency Cesarean section, and there she was. The most miraculous thing I have ever, ever had the joy of witnessing, little Ayla.

The word “immediately” does not even describe the speed in which my life changed. My life, once full of lazy Saturdays watching TV, going to movies and visiting my favorite restaurants became a life dedicated to another. And when I cried at 4AM “Please, please Ayla, please let me sleep for more than a 40 minute stretch!”, I still loved her with the deepest love that I have the privilege of experiencing in this realm of existence.  My life, MY life, so very mine, so intellectual and philosophical, became a life of diaper rashes and nipple soreness and of doing things IN FRONT of people like dancing and singing to this little blob of love so artfully wrapped to my body.

And that is how it all changed – no longer searching, but found. Who cares what graduate school is the best in this field or that field? Who cares if my name has an MA or a PhD behind it? Who cares? I no longer search. What  thought was lost was actually never lost to begin with. If I had planned it, it would have looked different. But now I know that I do not have all the answers. And the plan, although thoughtfully and dutifully conceived, was nothing like what I have now. My life now has things like dirty floors, blocked milk ducts, impetigo, and a dramatically decreased sex life. But I have gained a partner in life, and together we share the responsibility for the nurturing and unconditional love of this beautiful human being. She is so small in size, but her presence is bigger than anything in our life before having her. I think, “Is this it? Is this what I was meant to do?” And before I get the questions out, I already know. I am doing beyond what I was meant to do. I am doing God’s work because now I am a mother.

February 26, 2010

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Marianne Williamson

In this spirit, I invite you along on my journey as I learn how to shine! I hope reading about overcoming my fears allows you to do the same. Welcome to my blog.