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No Combat Zone

Yesterday I received a long attacking comment, the equivalent of a mail bomb really, from my ex-husband’s girlfriend on the post What I’m Not Missing. Of course she has opinions about this post. I don’t begrudge her those opinions. But I won’t air them here. This blog isn’t for her or about her–or my ex-husband. I was writing the blog for a year and a half before he left me, with his support the entire time. And he’s the one who hit “Publish” on the post when I first mentioned the affair and impending divorce. Yes, he read it first.

I’m writing my own story, my own experience. Does that include mentions of my ex and his girlfriend? Absolutely, because as much as either of them argues that all of this happened in the past, I still wake up every day as a divorced person and a single parent. Those realities are in the present moment.

I imagine a time, in the hopefully not too distant future in which I’m not still grieving, where the divorce will be in the past for me too. I understand they’re on a different timeline, that their relationship started eight months before I knew about it, that three years ago they started talking about how, if things had been different, maybe they would have ended up with each other–and then they set about making things different. But the timeline I’m on is that only one year ago last week, I heard my husband say he’d lied and cheated and was leaving me. And I’m not over it. It’s not in the past for me yet.

So, I wanted to make sure I disclose to you, my readers, in case it wasn’t obvious to you already, that the only person’s story I’m telling here is mine. I have been alternately accused by my ex of writing my version of his life and by his mistress of only writing one side of the story. I would not presume to tell anyone else’s side. I don’t know their side. I’ve tried to imagine it actually, in order to get to a place where I could understand and forgive. 

I’ve also offered, should either or both of them decide they want to write about it, to put a link on my site to their side of the story. I’ve also offered to create a Disclaimer page on the blog stating that the only side of the story I’m telling is mine. I even offered my ex-husband the opportunity to write the disclaimer. 

What I refuse to do is turn mamaTRUE into a he said/she said battleground where my ex shows up whenever he feels like defending himself or his girlfriend lobs personal attacks. And I wouldn’t actually go to their site to read their side, any more than I go to the club they run together and where they get up on stage and read their writing in a public venue. I’m clear that it would just hurt me. I’ve asked my ex over and over to stop reading my blog–because it’s not for him; it’s for me.

This isn’t the first attack or threat I’ve received over the last year. My ex-husband and his girlfriend have made veiled threats to sue me, direct threats to report me to Facebook, and the ongoing threat that my continuing to write will destroy any hope of a friendship. Another (used-to-be) mutual friend of ours even sent me an email saying that if I wanted Mike to be my friend, I should really stop writing my  “journal” about this. Then there’s the other (used-to-be) mutual friend who runs political campaigns, whose message in poetry slam and politics has been about giving people a voice, but who commented on the blog saying I should “talk about it offline.”

All of us are writers. My ex-husband and I met at a poetry open mic where he was the host and I signed up to read. He met his mistress at the slam. Those other used-to-be-mutual friends all met at the poetry slam where what you do is write poems then get up on stage and perform them. Sometimes it’s at a local bar in front of 50 people. Sometimes it’s at a national competition in front of thousands. But what we did, all of us, is write about our lives and then share that writing with audiences.

We all shared an art form, a passion, and we all did the same thing: write about our lives and get that writing out to people who wanted to hear and/or read it. I didn’t just write for the poetry slam though. I’ve known I was a writer since I was about ten years old. I got my Bachelor’s degree in English, my teaching certification in Secondary English, and a Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing. I’ve always written about my life and the people in it. My ex-husband began pursuing a relationship with me after seeing me get up on a stage and read poems about my life and the people in it. 

Somehow the poetry slam was okay, but writing my blog isn’t. What’s the difference exactly? That the blog is on the internet? That it feeds to Facebook? Here’s the thing, my blog is one little address on the internet, and you read it by going there and choosing to read it. If you’re my friend on FB, my blog feeds to you there too. If you don’t like it, I can’t make you read it, no matter how catchy my titles, how suspenseful my first lines. No one can make you read it. If you don’t like it, I implore you, stop reading. Unfriend me. It’s okay, really.

I am again faced with the question of how I will deal with the threats to my writing. For over two months after we split up, I offered to have my ex comment on the blog or email me privately with any concern he had about the blog. I thought knowing what he objected to would help me understand exactly where he felt like lines were being crossed so I could be as respectful as possible and still tell my own story. He didn’t do it. I asked him to stop reading the blog. He did for a while. Then I posted Forget the Mistress and someone contacted him and his mistress and said the equivalent of “Have you read all that horrible stuff Sonya is writing? You better get her to stop.”

Then the battle started being waged again, so strong that I agreed to make three of my posts private. We were trying to finalize the divorce, negotiating over who got what, child support, and custody so I did what I could to keep the peace and to make the process run more smoothly. What I did was agree to censor myself. Today, I’ve made the posts public again, all three of them: Don’t Carry That Weight, Revenge Fantasy, and Forget the Mistress.

I’m done writing with my ex-husband on one shoulder and his mistress on the other. With every threat through the last year, every big blow up over the blog, I feel like I’ve lost my voice a bit more. Then I end up writing posts like What I’m Not Missing with long diatribes of questions because for months I’ve been so careful. I’ve tried not to reveal anything of his life. I’ve not been able to fall asleep at night obsessing about five words in the post I published right before bed, so I come downstairs and delete or rephrase something to try to stay out of trouble, to keep the peace.

I just can’t do it anymore. Because, inevitably I step on a landmine with something I write and then they’re threatening me again, telling me to stop writing. I will continue to write my story. I’m not going to stop writing, about me, or my ex, or his mistress/girlfriend–if they’re pertinent to what I’m going through on a particular day. I imagine the more time passes, the less I’ll think or write about them, but I’ve got to do it on my timeline. Their insistence that this is all in the past, that I just get over it already so we can all move forward doesn’t decrease my grieving time or increase my healing. It’s just one more way of them saying, “We’re okay and you’re not,” and it’s not helping anybody.

If the choice is that they stop reading or I stop writing to keep the peace, I can only choose what I will do. And I’m not going to stop writing. Not for them. Not for anybody.

Besides my writing, if you’re into memoir, may I recommend a couple of my favorite divorce memoirs here: Split: A Memoir of Divorce and Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist’s Journey Through the Hell of Divorce. They both tell their side of the story but details about their ex-husbands are in there too. Surprise, surprise.

Image by ahermin

Marching On

I want to say February has been a rotten month. But rotten isn’t right. February has offered up one hardship after another and I’m tired. If I offer the month in review, could it just be March now, do you think?

There were the big things. My ex-husband was out of town most of the month with his sick father, who passed away last week. I can only describe my losses here because I can’t imagine what Mike must be going through. The first was tangible in that my son didn’t have time with his father and I didn’t have much time to myself. Then there was the loss of my place in this huge milestone in my ex-husband’s life. I thought it would be my shoulder he’d cry on, my hand he’d hold. Finally, there was the loss of the relationship I hoped Cavanaugh would have with his granddad. I had heard so many stories about Dale coaching, mowing the lawn, having supportive talks with Mike and imagined what kind of grandfather he would be to my son. They won’t have that opportunity now.

Next, Cavanaugh got RSV, which he’s had for twelve days: snot, croupy cough, fever, eye gunk, and for the last three days, hives in patches all over his body. That meant a week out of school when his dad was out of town. It meant that Cavanaugh was tender and needed attention when my reserves were empty.

Then there was Valentine’s Day. Then the anniversary of my ex saying he had been lying to me, having an affair, leaving me. That was the 22nd. Yesterday of last year, I was on the phone to anyone I could think of who might call Mike and tell him he was making a horrible mistake. I asked them to remind him of our vows, that we loved each other, that we’d made it through tough times before. It was snowing outside, huge butterfly-like snowflakes and my son wanted to play because it almost never snows in Austin, but all I could do was cry and dial the phone. I called his nanny to pick him up so I’d have time for my desperate attempts to save my marriage.

A year ago today, I went to the doctor for a breast exam because I was worried about a lump and my grandmother had died of breast cancer. The doctor ordered a mammogram, then prescribed some sleeping pills when I told her about the divorce. I got home and agreed to stop fighting for our marriage.

Today, I have been mostly fine. I ate a whole bag of red licorice and will have cinnamon toast for dinner. I almost tackled a man in the produce section at the grocery store, because he had his toddler son in the cart and was on the phone with his wife asking if he should get the white mushrooms in the largest package. My ex-husband was at home in my living room playing with our son and I don’t have him to grocery shop with or for anymore. Next week, he’s getting his own place, though he moved out of here 10 months ago. Then I expect my seeing him will be reserved only for child hand-offs.

I had big hopes for this month, and a lot of them came to fruition. I have remembered love, not just that from my ended marriage, but I have co-hosted a Blessingway for my friend Gray whose son Nicholas was born today.  I hosted an I Am My Own Valentine Tea Party. I am going through photos to print, frame, and put up in our living room so Cavanaugh and I can be surrounded by those we love. Cavanaugh and I made a miniature snowman. Yes, it snowed again this year and even though Cavanaugh didn’t get to see it falling, he rode a sled, built a snowman, threw snowballs, and we played. I’ve also made a collage/vision board, a memory board, some curtains and I’ve been working on my new website (look for that next week).

I’ve also been comfort-eating, having bad dreams, not exercising, not writing much. I had to walk out of a meeting for the parenting chapter I lead because the subject was on parenting and partnership and I couldn’t stop crying. I thought I had a kidney infection, but it was all in my head. I had a mental status exam to review my disability benefits and haven’t heard confirmation that they’ll be continued–though I pray they will be. I put up curtains in the kitchen because, for some reason, I end up sobbing late at night downstairs and my windows were bare and whatever neighbors were driving or walking by could gaze in at that deep grief that’s still knotted in me.

So, the curtains are up. By the end of February, the photos will be hanging on the walls. My new website will launch. There is evidence all around me that life is good. It is so much better than it was a year ago, and (excuse the pun) I will continue marching into my bright happy future. This month, however, has felt like slogging through deep mud.

I Am My Own Valentine

You know what people don’t drink at a tea and cocktail party? Tea. At least not honey vanilla chamomile hot herbal tea. Tea that would have been served from a borrowed teapot and in my china teacups.

I’ve never used those teacups. As I unwrapped them from  newspapers and hand-washed them, I felt like I was playing dress-up.  Grown-ups use china. How is it that, at 40, I still don’t feel like a grown-up?

There I was with my teacups and saucers, my platters for heart-shaped butter cookies and fruit, running around to finish cleaning the house before people arrived. (One of my favorite parts of hosting parties is that the house gets so much cleaner than normal.)But once the countertops are cleared you can really see the not-even-mustard yellow laminate countertops. Then I neeeded tablecloths because the china was too pretty for the counters. 

If I actually did things like have tea parties more often, maybe I would think of tablecloths far enough ahead of time to wash them so they wouldn’t be wrinkled.

None of the people I hang out with host tea parties either (that I know of), so maybe I just need practice. Or, I will serve tea in coffee cups next time, like I would at a potluck or playdate and sell off the china because I don’t think it’s dishwasher safe, and I felt nervous just laying it out on the counter.

No one drank tea anyway. Well, they drank blueberry iced tea served out of a plastic pitcher. And they drank cosmopolitans–pink drinks for our I Am My Own Valentine tea and cocktail party. I hosted the party for some women from my divorce class figuring we all divorced our Valentines so the party would be a great way to celebrate who we didn’t lose, who, actually, many of us are getting back now that we are divorced.

I got the idea from a collage I started on New Year’s Eve.  I put I Am on the top left hand corner and then found adjectives that describe me or words that I would like to describe me like whole, confident, serene, and renowned. I’d planned to finish the collage on New Year’s Day when my friend Gray and I got together to collage vision boards. I’ve been working on it ever since.

Even though I didn’t drink tea out of my teacups either, (yes, I drank cosmopolitans too), I did clean my house, hang out with some incredible women, and I finished my collage.

I’m learning how to treat my Valentine kindly. Now, I’ve got to go hand wash some china platters.

Stapled Memories and Crooked Lines

Making curtains requires that you be able to measure, then cut in a straight line, then sew in a straight line. Even if you use the No Sew Hem Adhesive, you have to be able to glue in a straight line. Wasn’t I supposed to learn all of this in kindergarten?

Yesterday, I thought I’d be writing a blog post today full of beautiful pictures of all the curtains I’d sewn and hung up: in the bathroom, the guest room and Cavanaugh’s room.

Cavanaugh’s been home sick all week so my ability to do things like get on the computer and write (even after he’s asleep since I’m not actually able to think after parenting all day) has been seriously curtailed. He couldn’t go to school or our favorite toy store or on our regular weekly playdates, so we spent a lot of time in the house. Between that and being close to closing on the refinance of my house, I got inspired to do some home decorating projects.

One of my problems is that I get inspired to do many projects at once. In this case, printing photos and framing them, making a memory board for the living room to be able to display and easily switch out photos, and making curtains for the bathroom, guest room, and Cavanaugh’s room.

 But we did take a stroller walk to Joann Fabric earlier this week to pick out material. We told Star Wars stories the entire way there and back about rebel fighters and exploring ice planets and navigation equipment being broken–hence, the brain-fog I mentioned earlier. They’d all be fun projects that would give me a great sense of accomplishment if I did one at a time and gave myself time to feel a sense of accomplishment, rather than thinking that since I borrowed my neighbor’s ironing board for the memory board fabric, I should also take this opportunity to iron the fabric for Cavanaugh’s curtains, oh and buy some more fabric too.

You can see where this is going right? There has been an ironing board up in my living room for three days. I made the memory board and loved it. Stopping there would have been good. Even if stopping just meant that I went to the next phase of that project: going through photos, ordering prints, putting them in the memory board and frames. Project done. Mission accomplished.  You know what the secret to the memory board is? My staple gun. I could take the batting and fabric, cover the canvas with it and staple gun everything to the back where no one can see it.

But I didn’t do that. I propped the memory board on top of the loveseat and started ironing and measuring and cutting and sewing curtains. What that looks like is measuring, cutting crooked, re-measuring, trying to fix the original cut, folding the fabric over to get a straight line before hemming or no-sew-adhesive ironing. And I do get a straight line then. It just slants. So it took three attempts to get the bottom hem on the bathroom curtains.

I hung them up and the fabric I loved so much in the store didn’t look good. And it wasn’t sheer so I was claustrophobic and kind of afraid someone was lurking outside the window I could no longer see through. So I took those curtains down and decided to cut down some sheers we used in our last house. They’re beautiful and hung perfectly. They just hung down to the floor, which is dangerous in a bathroom, right next to the toilet, with a four-year-old boy in the house.

I tried sewing, then no–sew-adhesive ironing, over and over again. They look awful. I need help people, all you sewing friends of mine. Are there secrets to this straight line business?

I await your assistance. I am packing up the fabric and returning the ironing board. The photos will be organized and printed and up on the walls soon, but the windows will remain naked, at least for now.

Have you ever had a home improvement project go horribly awry? Tell me the gory details. Also, did you finish or junk it?

Valentine’s Day Surprise

I expected Valentine’s Day to be a bad day. My friends anticipated that for me too. One left a message telling me to keep my chin up, another saying she was thinking about me. I got an email Valentine’s morning saying, “Hoping you’re not sad today.”

Beyond it being the first Valentine’s Day after my divorce, another challenge was that Cavanaugh is sick with RSV so I couldn’t send him to school. Additionally, my ex-husband is out-of-town again due to a family emergency, so I haven’t had as much of a break as usual. Last week, I thought I had a kidney infection. Turned out it was just my body crying “Uncle” with the stress, a huge part of which was that I had a mental status exam last Friday for my disability review.

All indicators pointed to Valentine’s Day being the icing on the stress cake. But I wasn’t sad yesterday. I didn’t cry one time and I cry at least once on most days.

One of Cavanaugh’s RSV-infested buddies couldn’t go to school either so his parents watched Cavanaugh while I went for an acupuncture appointment. It was rejuvenating–a perfect Valentine’s treat. When I returned, we all ate cake, chocolate mousse really, because my friend’s birthday (and my mom’s) falls on Valentine’s Day.

I got Valentines in the mail from my friend Kristen who dressed her daughter up as a sheep. The photo caption read, “Will EWE be my Valentine?” Her son was in an owl costume and that caption asked, “Whoooooo will be my Valentine?” Those went on my mantle along with a picture Cavanaugh made at school covered in tissue-paper hearts, and the heart mailbox filled with candy from a classmate.

While we were grocery shopping in the afternoon, Cavanaugh started asking me, “May I be your Valentine?” I’ve truly never had a better offer.

I asked, “Will you be my Valentine?”

“Of course,” he answered.

Here, I thought I was going to be my own Valentine and love came through the mail, the phone, via the internet. It was displayed on my mantle and whispered to me by a four-year old.

It doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel my heart being pierced a little when I saw bouquets of white roses in the grocery the other day. But, as has been happening pretty often lately, I was able to step out of the sadness and reason with myself a little.

I could buy myself roses if I wanted them. I don’t want them. At least not now, not white roses or chocolate covered strawberries, not anything that triggers grief over what was good about my marriage, what I still miss.

Still, I love Valentine’s Day, and flowers, and chocolate. So Cavanaugh and I bought bunches of daisies and sunflowers that I arranged when we got home. After he went to sleep I had a friend over who is getting divorced. We hung out in my back yard, the missing marriage corner if you feng shui my house, and looked at the waxing moon. We ate buttered popcorn with nutritional yeast on it. We stayed up past my bedtime.

It helped me remember that I continue to be less lonely, less angry–actually, happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Even on Valentine’s Day.

Here’s hoping you had a good one too.

Remember Love

Is it absolutely insane to make resolutions to remember love the first February after a divorce? Especially when the last date you had with your husband was on Valentine’s Day of the previous year?

It depends on who you’re remembering to love. I wrote some last month about my January resolutions, but I haven’t actually explained what I’m doing. Last year, I was meeting with a group of mamas in a personal renewal group using Renee Trudeau’s The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life. We weren’t quite rejuvenated or rebalanced enough.

A nicer way of putting it is that we really enjoyed meeting together and wanted to keep meeting with one another, so this year we’re working through Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. Rubin spent a year testing happiness theories that she’s researched. The book is split into months, each of which have a theme or focus that you set resolutions on which to work. January was Energy/Vitality. I focused on removing energy sappers and adding positive energy with resolutions to meditate three times a week, go upstairs by 11 and lights off by 12, to catch up and keep up with paperwork, and no yelling. I’ll keep working on those resolutions throughout the year (until I drop or modify them) and will add new resolutions each month.

 February is Remember Love/Marriage. I thought about spending this month writing my divorce memoir NaNoWriMo style–word count goals every day to end up with a first draft of 50,000 words by the end of the month. Then I realized February was going to be hard enough–seeing as this was the month Mike said he was having an affair and leaving, the anniversary of our last Valentine’s date, and so much more grief inducing agony. Needless to say, I did not want to focus on marriage this month. Rubin’s resolutions to show affection and stop nagging your husband just no longer apply.

So how to remember love then? I think I’ve mentioned before that my acupuncturist keeps telling me I need to have a love affair with myself. I need to treat myself the way I would want someone else to treat me so that I will never accept anything less than that again. I need to remember to love myself. And then tonight, in one of my daily readers, was a quote from Oscar Wilde, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

Hell, that’s what I thought I was getting with the whole marriage business. Loving myself and relying on my own behavior, honesty, and fidelity seems like a much surer gamble. So, this month, my resolutions involve loving my body (drinking four glasses of water a day, dressing so I feel beautiful, exercising at least twice a week, stretching, and flossing).

I’ve also got a task list that includes random things like learning to paint my toenails, finishing my new website and launching it (you’ll see it here first folks), putting photos of loved ones up around the house, and other tasks that, once accomplished, with help me to remember to love myself and acknowledge the people who love me and who I love.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you remember to love yourself and others. Tell me your favorite Valentine traditions–at least the non-romantic ones : ).

Winter Comes to Visit

This past Monday, Cavanaugh and I spent the entire afternoon outside in the yard. I almost changed into shorts it was so warm. I weeded the yard. Cavanaugh played in his sandbox. It felt like the beginning of spring.

That night, the wind thrashed against the house. I woke up at 3 a.m., as did just about everyone I talked to on Tuesday, and couldn’t go back to sleep. I was as agitated as the air, restless, worried the old brittle Silver Maple would drop some of its branches onto my car.

I thought I should move the car so I wouldn’t find a broken windshield (okay, not just cracked–as it is currently–but requiring actual replacing) in the morning but the wind and rain blasted me when I opened the door, so I opted for a little prayer instead. Please keep my car safe. The tree had dropped two big branches into the safe expanse of dead grass in my neighbor’s yard. My car was safe. But a tree two doors down split in half and smashed the mailbox flat. It was freezing outside.

The whole week stayed that way. Our glimpse of spring turned into the coldest temperature run since the winter of 1990. Wednesday, we woke up to no electricity. If you look closely (you might actually have to click on the photo)you can see the teeny icicles that formed on the inside of our bedroom window from the vaporizer condensation frozen after the heat went off.

Cavanaugh’s mother’s day out program was closed. Can I tell you I’ve never been more grateful for a middle of the night pee accident? Okay, so I got peed on twice in one night because when he was sitting on the toilet pooping before bed, he accidentally started to pee and it shot out all over me. Reminder: get one of those cool little kid ring, adult ring, folding down things aka a Built-in Potty Seat so I don’t have to help this boy balance anymore.

I was a little distracted by the pee on my turtleneck, and jeans, and sweater so I forgot to ask Cavanaugh if he needed to pee any more before bed. At 5:42 a.m., I found out that he did when I woke up to go to the bathroom and the back of my pajamas were wet from where he’d been spooning up behind me so cozily.  After the clothes change, it took us both awhile to fall back to sleep. Just long enough apparently, that when the electricity went off and Cavanaugh wasn’t going to be able to be dropped of at school anyway, we weren’t awake at 7:15. He slept until 9:30, cuddled up underneath the quilt and down comforter so the cold air in the house was no problem. Until we wanted to wake up and have some breakfast.

Some friends had their electricity and invited us over. My power came on just long enough for me to have a shower and make a latte. As I debated whether to make some cinnamon toast, the electricity went back out.

Then last night, it snowed. I have to admit it only snowed a whopping inch. Yes, all of you East-coasters, you Taoseños, you other folks with real winters rolling your eyes, I know it’s crazy, but the whole town shut down. The Austin Independent School District was closed, as were major roads. When I heard the weather report for the week, I wasn’t exactly stocking my bomb shelter (no, I don’t really have a bomb shelter), but I did wonder if the grocery stores would be open and checked to make sure we had enough milk.

Today, in the minute amount of white fluff remaining before everything melted away around noon, Cavanaugh went sledding down a neighbor’s driveway, his buddy made a snow-angel over concrete, and we built Scissor. What do you do when you have a little snow? Build a little snowman. He’s currently living in the freezer.

When I asked Cavanaugh why he named the snowman Scissor, he said, “You know like how you shake when you’re cold.”

“You mean shiver?”

“No. Scissor.”

Okay.

Sometimes, we go into survival mode because we have to, even if the circumstances don’t seem incredibly extreme. Cavanaugh’s dad has been out-of-town since last Sunday because of a family emergency. We had rolling blackouts in Austin. School was closed. Last night, it snowed. Life as we know it took a vacation this week, so we were just getting by, doing what was possible in the moment. 

Turns out, a lot was possible.

May We Be Well

I got smudged last night. No, that’s not new slang. I gave up on that when I started teaching high school at 25. Even back then, I couldn’t keep up.

The smudging ceremony consisted of lighting sage in a small cauldron and  outlining each of our bodies in smoke, which she directed with a hand fan. She didn’t actually know what she was doing. There was no call into the circle, no creating a sacred space, or any of the other ritual elements that someone more practiced in this kind of ceremony might have known to do.

But there was good intention and a lot of love. A friend of mine has had a very hard few years and she just needed to clear out some of the bad juju. A friend of hers said she’d like to help. So she looked up smudging ceremonies on the internet, went to the Herb Bar and bought dragon’s blood incense (to exorcise and protect) and sage (to cleanse).

She also looked up the meaning of different crystals to buy our friend the ones that would help either attract good energy or release the bad. The crystals went into a pouch and we all cut pieces of ribbon that we prayed or said a blessing over and then tied to the pouch. Before all of that began though, my friend’s daughter led us in a few yoga poses to get us in the mood.

Seeing the preteen daughters of all of these women as they participated in what was probably their first sacred ceremony reminded me of my first–a sweat lodge. I hated it. It was too hot and there were naked people in there. I’m 40 now and I still don’t want to see a strange naked man sitting cross-legged. You can just keep your testicles to yourself, thank you very much.

I grew up in Taos, NM and there was a lot of alternative stuff going on. Still is. The most powerful ceremony I ever experienced was when I was 14. I was in the hospital with a 105 fever that wasn’t going away. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with me and wanted to do a spinal tap to find out. Their tests and medicine weren’t helping so my dad took me out of the hospital and to a medicine man. When he raised his eagle feather fan at the start of the ceremony, a huge wind came up outside the kiva. It lasted until he waved the fan back over my body after performing the ceremony and put the fan down. My fever was gone.

So last night was a reminder of all those times I’ve been present for a call on sacred energy. I’ve been needing something. Last week was the anniversary of my husband saying he wanted a divorce. I’ve had a month now of my body being on the edge of a breakdown. My mind hasn’t been so hot either. If I try to be out in the world too much, whether it’s productive or simply social, I am wiped out. I spent Monday and Tuesday of last week in my house watching TV and cutting out collage stuff from magazines. I meant to get my oil changed and deal with the paperwork in my office. But I couldn’t do anything.

So last night I got smudged in a suburban mom’s living room in Cedar Park, Texas. People were chatting through the whole thing, but I closed my eyes and said my prayers. I asked to be filled with loving kindness, to be peaceful and at ease, to be well, to be happy. I asked to surrender, to forgive, to heal. Then I went outside and took deep breaths and looked at the sky.

As I drove home, I listened to a playlist I’ve made of songs to help me with this divorce. And I smelled myself, the smoke clinging to me. I hoped a cop didn’t pull me over because I didn’t figure the whole smudging ceremony thing would fly. Then I got home and hoped the babysitter (Cavanaugh’s former nanny) didn’t think I’d been out partying. But how do you say “This smell is not what you think it is” without sounding suspicious?

When I shampooed the smoke out of my hair this morning, I thought about all the grief washing down the drain. Maybe it wasn’t the most sacred of ceremonies, but each woman in that circle last night had her own story, what she was ready to stop carrying, and what we all hoped for our friend.

After we were all smudged so our energy was clear, we formed a circle around our friend. We sent her big love, all of the healing vibes we had. That’s got to be good for something.

Photo by TripodPilot

First Professional Haircut

Last week when my eye was swelling out of its socket, I took Cavanaugh for his first professional haircut. That hadn’t exactly been my plan. I was hoping his dad would take him. I hadn’t expected to have a crazy allergic reaction anyway.

Instead, the Toys R Us haircutting salon had moved so when my ex and son went for the haircut, they were given the address of another place. I think Toys R Us proved a distraction and they never made it to Cool Cuts.

 When I met them for the lunch/kid exchange, I had just rubbed my eye and started itching, swelling, tearing. By then though, Mike and Cavanaugh had bought a LEGO Fire Rescue Set  and made a deal that Cavanaugh could open it after he got his haircut. I ended up in the middle of the deal, so it was me taking Cavanaugh to Cool Cuts 4 Kids. 

I called the eye doctor first. It sounded like all I’d be doing is giving myself eye drops antihistamine, so having something for Cavanaugh to do that didn’t require my active participation seemed good.

They had a taxi cab or firetruck or the kids to sit in. Cavanaugh chose Magic School Bus Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! to watch during the haircut. He was so excited about the LEGOs after that there was no resistance at all. It kind of felt like a bribe and I don’t usually go in for those, but it was working.

Haircuts around our house have been a mixed bag. They usually take two or three days. I cut the back with clippers one day, then the sides and bangs with scissors over a couple of days as I make corrections and try to even things out. This is all fine unless Cavanaugh shakes his head and I’m afraid I’m going to poke him in the eye or make him into a 21st century Van Gogh. Then I get yelly. “Stay still. I don’t want to hurt you!” Like that reassures him.

It’s just that sometimes the haircuts go so well. It’s easy. We play or talk. It goes quickly. Cavanaugh makes funny faces at himself in the hand mirror. So, I try it again. The next time, maybe not so good.

I just hadn’t been convinced Cavanaugh would deal with some stranger touching him, especially not his head. (No, we still haven’t been to the dentist. We’re working up to that one). Also, my son is not particularly fond of loud noises, as echo-ey salons with music and clippers and water and people talking are wont to be.

So I just kept trying to cut his hair and make it as easy on both of us as possible. But the last haircut was so far out of my league. His hair was getting thick on top. He has two cowlicks on the back top of his head, like a Buddha. Plus there was the whole wiggling and trying to grab the scissors business. 

Paying someplace twenty bucks so I wouldn’t yell at or accidentally injure my child seemed like a good investment. So he’s sitting in the taxi watching a video and it takes fifteen minutes.

They didn’t really ask me how I’d like it to look, I realized as the stylist turned on the clippers. Cavanaugh wasn’t freaked out really, though he wasn’t so sure about the spray bottle used to wet his hair, or her turning his head one way or another to get a cut.

The haircut was generic, not nearly as cute as I’ve managed in the past (if I do say so myself). Still, I thought we’d won not only the battle but the whole haircutting war, even though I was afraid Cavanaugh might expect a toy for every haircut, which wasn’t really a bargain I wanted to make.

When we get up front to pay, Cavanaugh looked at me and said, “I don’t want to come back here again, at all.”

“Why not?”

“You just cut my hair Mama.”

“But you got to sit in a taxi and it took a short time and there was no yelling.”

“I don’t want to come back here at all Mama. You cut it.”

Luckily, his hair is short enough that we’ve got a couple of months before we have to revisit this.