weighted

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.- Marge Piercy


I need to work out more with weights. No, No, really, I can see you smiling at me, but I do. I need to pump some iron. I used to be triathlon ready. That was when I was thirty-one. Before the baby, marriage, working full-time, attending grad school. But, lo and behold after years off the photo film circuit I get a call to lens a movie, for pay. Now I realize my body is soft and that lifting 35 pound cameras is going to be tough, that injuries might be involved if I don't get back to pumping some iron. I am sort of stressed about it.

Then today I lift up my 45 pound six year old, toss him over my shoulder spin around until the world swims and  collapse in the grass. I don't break. I feel great. I am laughing. So we do it again, and again. Spinning like tops. I am strong. I might not be working out at the gym, but I am running with my son, painting the shed, fixing the car, baking cupcakes for every function imaginable and weeding the garden. I am active and yes, a little softer, too. And that may be why I got the call to shoot this film. The call that I didn't get ten years ago.

the red guys and the white guys: the fight to altruism

Oliver is 6. He sometimes has a fit about something. He hasn't learned the adult way to have a fit; suppression. So sometimes his fits are loud, crazy and really the all around temper tantrum. He told us on his walk to school that there are these bad guys inside his gut that make him do these bad things. My husband told him that, well, there are good guys in there too making him do good things. He agreed. The bad guys are white, he said. And I think the good guys are red.

Balancing out the good and the bad, the red and the white guys inside. Learning to personify our own behaviors. I think I may try that this week. Thinking about my feelings being a part of this family inside me and applying the same tools I use with my family; compassion, love and understanding. Far better than beating myself up for doing things that are just part of me.

Psych Monday

I am not really that psyched, but it just happened to be a day that included a student heckling from the front row, a crisis of equipment eligibility, an adjunct with a BIG issue, an advisee with GI Bill non-payment and older mother not doing well issues and on top of that the copier/printer started eating paper, blinking colors I have never seen before and ruining original documents that it forgot it was copying. This was all between 8am and 1pm. But I did get this little note from a fellow colleague, "Saw Jay this weekend, old student of yours, continuing on with school. Said he really appreciated that you cared so much for people in your program, that he just doesn't feel that camaraderie at the new school. Wanted you to know that. Knew he used to give you a real hard time. Best, K."

So there's the gift. The chug chug chugging along pays off. And maybe, who knows, I will get that Ed Psych Doctorate eventually, if I don't die first.

Spring sunday

Palm Sunday...it was a huge day for my family growing up... The beginning of Holy Week. A week of masses, parties, a new dress, hat and white patent leather shoes. Now we are far from family and we decided to skip services and hike under the Ponderosa pines and piñon. The sweet smell of sap running, like warm caramel. Dust covered toes in Tevas. Our own parade of celebration. The beauty of rebirth. Snow gone, earth worms swarming in the garden. Spring blossoms scattered like confetti in the air. I sit comfortable under the old budding willow watching Oliver scamp around finding forgotten yard toys that survived the winter. This continuance. This reassurance that spring will always come. I may be different but the tulips are bound to bloom and the trees will leaf. When death is inevitable it is nice to know the mountain I climb today will be here long after me. I am comforted by this thought. The inevitability of rebirth. This is why I celebrate this week and why I will pack baskets full of goodies. To share the smiles of this time of year. Spring has sprung!