Sometimes you gotta cry

My history with sadness is spotty.
~

Perhaps this, like every other human ill, can be blamed on my mother.
~

My undeserving mother suffered long and awful bouts of depression that she could not adequately address, except with inappropriate antidotes, including me. A happy me could pull her out of a sad her. I had the capacity, thus, to cure my mother. When I was a child, as long as I was happy, everything was good.
~

As an adult, I worried that sadness equaled clinical depression, a condition, which when lived into, would leave me never to stand erect again. If I ever let sadness in, I would be nothing but sad.

~
I didn't think I deserved to be sad. Oh, I could do collective grief. 9-11, for example, was easy. As long as everybody else was crying, I could cry, too. Even then, found myself thinking: What right did I have to cry, when others, like the family members of the victims, deserved to cry more?
~

And then there came real personal tragedy and grief: Grief over things, ironically, like the accident with fire that befell my mother, and ultimately killed her. Grief over hurricanes and personal illness and loss.
~
Grief like this, with a capital G, is different than sadness. Grief, I found, does not let you be. Grief, if you don't let it act the way it needs to act, will grab you by the neck and throw you in the ditch. Grief, untended, does become all there is, albeit manifest in odd ways, like drinking too many margaritas and falling in the ditch.

~
There came moments when I realized nobody else's sadness was more valid than mine. And so, I began. I allowed myself  to cry. And as I did, as I lived into this other emotion that also accompanies the human condition, I began to realize, ironically, that just the opposite happens/ed from that I used to believe: Allowing all my emotions room to breathe, released energy blockages and provided room for real joy. Wholeness -- realizing and accepting all that is inside my human souls -- not 24-7 happiness, is what brings this joy.

 ~
Sadness does not, in fact, last forever, I now know. Sadness, I dare say, at times can be a friend, into whose arms my tattered psyche falls. Ah, release. And when I come out of those arms, I am new. I am wiser. I am deeper. I am more connected to the truth of all that I am and all that I want to be.

~
Don't forget to cry, I tell my friend, Jan, who just lost her husband. And I won't either. Ok, Jan?
Blessings upon all of us who grieve this day, 9-11-11, and always.

Hot hands

It's about 10 p.m., I'm sitting with Benjie, helping him with a complicated science paper.

And my left hand starts burning. I mean really burning all over.

I know I haven't burned my hand on anything, and so I’m thinking I’m having a heart attack or a stroke. Left hand, left arm, up the jaw and straight to the heart, except doesn't it usually go the other way. Maybe I'm just tired

It had been a tiring day. I had gone with Steve to a complicated doc appointment that morning, then to my own unrelated doc appointment that morning. I had gone to Krieger’s and bought all kinds of organic goodies, including this batch of gorgeous, yummy – aren’t they cute – red peppers. I had gotten all the groceries in the house and put them away, which don't you know means cleaning the nasty refrigerator. I had further cleaned for two hours, cooked for two more, cut up and bagged all those red peppers. I had worked out, then come back home and cooked some more. In between, I picked out a color of siding for the house, did some writing and some photo editing and helped B with homework.

So yeah, I’ll just go to bed and it’ll be all better, I thought.

Nope. Got worse. It was burning like it was on fire and now it was moving up my elbow. Steve rubbed my hand and talked me down from heart attack fears. But still, it hurt.

And so I got out of bed and Googled. I know: Google is usually worse than what ails you. Not in this case.
I Googled "left hand burning sensation." Not a word about heart attacks. That was a relief. Still? What is this?

Peppers.

Post after post: “My left hand is still burning hours after I cut up a bunch of jalapeños...” “My left hand is burning after cutting up a bunch of red peppers, but not my right hand because the right hand was holding the knife..."



My new Google hand-burning community even provided a tip (Latex gloves) for next my next pepper-cutting experience and an antidote for now: Soak the hand in milk.

It didn't really help. Nor did the Vaseline, which I slathered on my hands and then wore socks on my hands all night. What helped was knowing I wasn't having a heart attach -- that and a good night's sleep. An added bonus: My hands, still slightly burning, are really soft today.

And you? What will you do for Mother's Day?

Yesterday was Everything Mother.

Child 1 graduated from college.

I threw a party for him.



















Child 2 went to prom activities at the high school. After the party,
I went to the prom and shot pictures
of the Homecoming Court and friends
for the local newspaper.














About midnight, having been up and mobile for about 17 hours
without sitting down, except when I sat and cried at college
graduation, I climbed into bed with my laptop and pictures
to edit, but not before seeing Child 3 return home, his having
been gone to a three-day choir competition in a neighboring state.

This morning: I think there are about 10 teenagers with Child 2 in the
basement, preparing to go home to their mothers.
Child 1 is helping one of his professors move this morning.

But after that, they're all here, like my own Mother's Day court, ready to do my beck and call. Still not sure what we'll do today. Don't really care, just so long as we're together. Maybe a walk in the beautiful spring sunshine. Maybe after that, nothing.The best part of my children being with me on

Mother's Day is that I know they are resting.
They -- we all -- go so hard and so fast. It comforts me when they are still.

And you? What about you? Who will be with you today, and what will you do? Strawberries and cream in bed? Homemade cards? Or just lots of hugs and good wishes? I hope if you don't see all your children today, you at least hear from them, and that they are kind and thoughtful and remembering that this is your day...Don't forget to call your own mother, if she is here on Earth with you. No matter your differences or past grievances. Today is a new day. Today is Mother's Day...

Every day is Mother's Day

"

My husband's father used to tease him when he would ask how come there's no Children's Day. "Every day is Children's Day,"  he'd say.

I wonder what he would say if he knew that I believe every day is Mother's Day.

~

This is not just because I have three wondrous children who lay out life's rich pageant for me every day.

~  

It is because of what and who motherhood has made me. It is because of the lessons in selflessness, tolerance, patience and boundless love that motherhood has taught me. It is because, in learning to interact with the people I cherish most in the world, I have become a better person in every area of my life, every day of my life. Through them and with them, on the pottery wheel of motherhood, my misshapen soul  has been molded into an expression of life I might otherwise not have known.

Happy Mother's Day to me. And Happy Children's Day to Chris, Emily and Benjie. 

It is, after all, their day, too. ~

All I want for Mother's Day

One more day in NOLA town
and then I hit the ground running:

Wednesday is radio with Regina Brett Wed, 7-8 p.m..

(I am honored to be on this show, talking about the status of motherhood with Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist, Regina Brett http://www.reginabrett.com/; historian and author Regina Jo Plant http://www.amazon.com/Mom-Transformation-Motherhood-Modern-America/dp/0226670201; also motherhood blogger, Tesa Nicolant http://www.2wired2tired.com/. Please tune into WKSU 89.7 http://www.wksu.org/listen/on your dial. Thank you for asking me on your show, Regina!)
 

Thursday and Friday, I will prepare for Saturday, for my firstborn child's graduation, for a party with his friends and the adult friends, neighbors and teachers who have supported him for 22 years. This is a big day. This is my child, of whom I am proud.
I adore this person with all my heart.

Then, well, then it's a day for me, as Sunday is Mother's Day.

I make no bones about the value of this day for me: If my children are the sun and I am their moon, then we must indeed hold in reverence at least one day celebrating that relationship.

My children know by now what I want on this day -- which is not to be taken to lunch and showered with gifts.         
  
                                                                                                            ~~~

They do give me flowers. My husband always finds something for the garden to give to me.

But it is the homemade cards that I cherish and adore, that my children still make for me, even though they are now 22, 18, 14.

It is their sentiment I crave.

And their time.


I no longer have to ask.

Sometimes we garden. One year we painted lawn furniture.

 Doesn't really matter though.

On Mother's Day, we are, all of us, together.

All day long.

~~~

Rest and New Orleans: An Oxymoron?

How could it be that I am in New Orleans? How could it be that the greatest, most happening international music, food festival is right outside my door?

Yesterday, the lineup was the soulfully yummy Amos Lee;

(Photo courtesy of somebody other than me)

the Grammy-winning Cajun, Terrence Simien and the Zydeco Boys; Fantasia; the Queen of NOLA, Irma Thomas; Robert Cray; Ahmad Jamal; Ricky Skaggs; John Boutte; Bon Jovi for those who care; and MORE MORE EVER MORE.

And I didn't go.

WE didn't go.

Fact is, me and my sister never get out of our PJs.

What was wrong with me?  Well, maybe  "gettin' up offa that than thang" is a metaphor. Maybe seizing life doesn't always mean boogying til your feet caint go no more.

I was tuckered when I got to NOLA. I was doing wayyyyyy too much before I came to New Orleans, what with Easter and my son's bday and Chris coming home from college, what with lots of photo jobs and packing; wayyyyy too much when I got to NOLA, what with Pahtaying 24-7. I had wayyy too much ahead to save energy for when I get home, what with a radio show to do (!!!) grad parties and more bday parties and Benjie graduating from 8th grade and more photos to take for people and a column to write and a garden or two to plant.

Yesterday, the day after our first day at JF, I told sister Sue I didn't think I could put on my dancing shoes.

She looked at me.

And then both of us, while Amos Lee was crooning a few miles down the road, sat and scrolled through Netflix and found some really dumb movies to escape into. While Bon Jovi was tearing it up for tens of thousands of drooling women, we moved in and out of naps, while intermittently sucking on crawfish tails in the air-conditioned comfort of Mama's former Katrina house, now Susan's beautifully comfortable home.

I didn't even take one single picture.

That was then.

Today, now, well it's time to get back stage with Charles and Deacon!; time to stand in line in the heat, waiting for rosemint tea and crawfish puff; time to take wayy too many pics til my fingers hurt; time to drool over John Legend and walk from stage to stage to stage until my feets cain't take no more.

The yin and the yang. Living life fully involves both shadow and light, rest and energy,  even in NOLA town.

Laissez les bons temps rouler. And laissez faire, too. See y'all.

First day of Jazz Festival 2011: A primer