No School for Now

Cavanaugh’s school called this morning to say they have a confirmed case of whooping cough. Then the assistant director asked if I had any questions. Yep, I had a lot of them, but I realized almost none of them were actually about pertussis.

I wanted to know–with all of the kids coughing and wiping their runny noses–why the school would have them hold hands before snack (and, it turns out, in circle and various other activities throughout the day). Her answer? To encourage closeness.

Aren’t they close enough, these kids in storytime and art and the sandbox together? I mean, I know we want to teach toddlers to share, but not germs, please. Yes, they’ll be touching the same toys all day long and coughing into the air. And maybe I’m totally crazy, but I just don’t understand why we’d want to give the bugs the extra boost of hand to hand contact.  It may have all been in my nose’s imagination, tut when I walked into the building, all I could smell was mucus and pee.

All of the worry about germs got me thinking. We didn’t really want to start school until after winter, the swine flu, the cold punctuated with rain. We wanted to have Cavanaugh go in the mornings, not the afternoons. Mike could take him to school on his way to work so I wouldn’t have the 15 – 20 minute drive in both directions. Cavanaugh could get there as early as 7 a.m. (not likely) and stay till 12:30 or 2:30, if he started taking naps again (even less likely). But he’d get a good four hours in at least.

With the schedule we just signed him up for, by the time I drive him there and get home, I’ll have two hours before I have to go back. Then we’ll have a drive home with 5:30 traffic when he’s hungry for dinner. Asleep by 7:15? I don’t think so.

We took this spot because we were afraid if we kept turning down afternoons, he’d never get mornings. Once he was enrolled, we could ask for the first morning opening, but until then we were risking somebody else getting ahead of us with that morning slot plan.  That’s a whole lot of projecting into the future.

And that’s the problem with school choices. We’re trying to be prepared for three or four months from now and so we’re choosing something at the moment that is not right for our family. Though it’s not quite as ridiculous as the schools where you have to get on the waiting list while you’re still pregnant, it still feels like a lot of planning ahead when infants and toddlers are ever-changing, move quickly into a new stage, and four months from now may have an entirely different sleep schedule (that damn time change), or desire to be around kids, or get out of the house, or stay cozy in the wintertime out of the rain and cold and flu and colds and….

He’s going to get sick more often once he starts school, of course. But do we really want to start him the sickest season of the year? Will he have much fun or think fondly of school if he’s suddenly sick all the time? Will I really get a break? Nope.

So, he’s a two-hour alumni and we’re asking to be put back on the waiting list. Maybe they’ll have a slot when we actually want one. I don’t know much about then,  but I’m getting clearer about now. I’m not going to make our lives more complicated in the moment because I think in some random future, it will be easier. We’ll deal with that day when it comes.

Today, we’re asking the school to call when a morning spot comes open, hopefully sometime in the spring.

Am I being a total chicken here or following my mama instincts? I just kept thinking today, “He doesn’t have to be in school right now. Why are we doing this? We’re so lucky to have a choice. Why are we making this one?”

How do you handle making decisions about school, activities, or other big changes for your child? Have you ever realized quickly after embarking on one path that you really needed to head down another?

Holiday Expectations Denied

Almost first thing on Thanksgiving my expectations for the day were dashed. Our friends who were supposed to come over for Thanksgiving dinner had to cancel because of illness. I was glad they didn’t want to share their germs and totally understood. It didn’t hurt my day so much as change what I thought it would look like. The whole holiday weekend (and maybe my whole life) has gone that way. So I’m thinking about expectations.

My last therapist said that both expectation and worry are stories we’re telling ourselves. Our story is unlikely to play out as we imagine. Her point was that we should just stop making up stories and live in the present moment. I like the idea, but the reality is that often we need to plan ahead, which requires thinking about how things may go and what we’ll need to do or get, where we’ll need to be.

So what happens when we plan ahead and events don’t go as anticipated? Well, on Thanksgiving, instead of cooking our food earlier in the day to ready for our guests, our morning was so long and leisurely it lasted until about four in the afternoon. Mike and Cavanaugh built train tracks descending from the train table through the living room, around the couch, and back to the train table. I would never have had the patience or attention span for this. Cavanaugh was in utter heaven and Mike got to spend hours of focused time with his son. It was definitely a day to be thankful for.

Part of why the day was good is that I’ve been trying hard to let go of what I think things should look like. Who am I really? Only one of three people in this family. Why should it be my plan, my expectations fulfilled?

It happened again today when we were getting ready to decorate the Christmas tree.  Rather than finding decorations in the garage, Cavanaugh discovered a holiday train set we just inherited from a friend. He was so taken with it, he cared about nothing else. I found myself getting frustrated, even mad. I had a whole picture of how the afternoon was supposed to go. We were going to listen to cool Christmas music, hang lights, tell Cavanaugh stories about where the decorations came from. He didn’t care at all.

Luckily, I was able to stop myself from the bad mood I felt coming. I’ve started noticing recently that I feel my body heat up when I’m getting angry. I literally need to cool down. Today, I walked outside to repot a plant and left Mike inside to help with the holiday train. When I entered the house, Cavanaugh walked into my arms. The tracks kept popping apart and the train wouldn’t ride the rails. He just looked so disappointed.

I gave him a hug and said we’d go figure it out. We walked into the sunroom and tried one more track maneuver. Rather than throw it out the window, I suggested in my playful parenting voice that we just put the tracks back in the box and let the train run on the floor. We could pretend the whole room was tracks. Mike followed my lead and pretty soon Cavanaugh was chasing the battery powered train as it chugged across the linoleum. He was thrilled.

My expectations were disappointed, but I wasn’t. I felt relieved that instead of getting stuck in my plans, I could just be in the moment and let the rest go. Cavanaugh’s asleep now and Mike and I are listening to Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas album as we get ready to decorate the tree. I won’t even try to make up a story about how it’s going to go. I’ll just try experiencing it as it happens.

How was your holiday? Did it go as you planned? If not, how did you feel about that?

Born Into the Present Moment

Cavanaugh turned three yesterday. As I’ve done every year since his birth, I spent the week leading up to the actual day recalling what I was doing and thinking, and who I even was, right before he was born. All of that anticipation about what our lives would be like was the beginning of my mindfulness practice. I grew up in Taos, New Mexico, where my parents moved in 1969 to study with a guru. So I grew up with the “be here now” philosophy but never did managed it. Instead I felt bad that I couldn’t manage to live in the present moment, couldn’t meditate, and honestly couldn’t even sit still.

Five weeks before I had Cavanaugh, I was put on bedrest with pre-eclampsia. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I couldn’t run around, drive, madly nest my house into the perfect baby haven; I couldn’t even sit up. I was supposed to lie on my left side all day and night, and because it was for my son’s safety I managed what had been previously impossible; I stayed still. For some, this might have been a perfect time to ruminate or imagine, but anytime I started to try to picture what Cavanaugh would be like, who my new mama self would be, or what parenthood would mean for my marriage or my life in general, I couldn’t do it. My previously (over)active imagination just stopped. The still small voice inside me told me that I had no way of knowing and I shouldn’t try. I should be in my body, be in this moment, live the last days of pre-parenthood as they were happening rather than filling them with fantasies of what might happen next.

That pull to be right here right now is still a constant, though more often it’s my toddler’s small voice asking me to give him some attention, to play.  He knows when I’m not with him even when I’m sitting beside him. What he’s really asking for is that I be here in my mind as well as my body. He tells me he doesn’t like my wandering mind, whether he’s actually saying that or doing something to get my attention, like pouring a cup of water on the floor. This is my spiritual practice, my call to what is right in front of me. I can still get caught up in telling myself stories about what’s going to happen, but anytime I just stop to be in the moment, the pull to stay there is so strong that I am learning how to do it, how to live in this present moment.

So what of the present moment? After 35 years of thinking about the past or predicting the future, I live most of my days looking at the dried playdoh or rice grains in the carpet, walking outside to feel the weather so we can make plans for the day, and just being wherever I am. But the week of Cavanaugh’s birth sends me back to these same days last year, and the year before, and the year before that. Who was he? Who was I? What were either of us capable of doing at the time? I enjoy remembering, but I’m loving who he is right now, how he’s begun saying “yes” instead of “yeah” and sounds so proper doing it, how when he’s delirious or very excited he shakes his head in a quick “no” motion over and over as he runs full speed, or how when he’s drawing or playing with his trucks and builders he gets so focused that he narrates what he’s doing or his little tongue sticks from the side of his mouth in utter concentration. That boy is right here, right now, no past or future projections. He has a lot to teach me and I am a lifelong learner.

I Want Some Attention

We’ve been working on a little something called, “I want some attention” at our house recently. In the zone between independent play and Mama-I’m-ready-for-you-to-drop-everything-else-and-only-be-with-me, Cavanaugh and I are apt to have some trouble.

Recent incidents include painting on the umbrella stand and daybed, putting crayons under the pillows in the bed, and dumping toys, instruments, art supplies, or whatever else is handy on the floor. The difficulty is that I’m not always in the room when any of this is happening. Cavanaugh will be happily building duplo block towers while I unload the dishwasher or carry the detritus that has gathered into a hazard up the stairs. Either an unlikely silence or much crashing has come to indicate that my presence is needed.

The first time I was aware this was happening (heavens knows how many it had occurred when it just hadn’t registered), I got out of the shower and heard no noise coming from downstairs. None. Here’s the thing about my son, he likes to chat. He narrates what he’s doing or talks to his toys as he plays: “Oh no, the tracks are falling apart. Percy crashed. Come to the rescue, Butch.”

When I walked downstairs, still damp and swathed in a towel because my mama senses had gone on high alert, I found ballpoint pen all over the couch. I reminded Cavanaugh that we only draw on paper. I asked “Why?” I took some deep breaths. But I know Cavanaugh knows he’s not supposed to draw on the furniture. He hadn’t forgotten. He had made a choice.

“I dinnen’t want you take a shower.”

So I ran through my options: yell, explain calmly why what he did was not okay, threaten to put all markers, crayons, pens, colored pencils, or any other marking device up so that he can’t play with them on his own, make him sit on the couch and think about what he had done. While I thought about which might actually be at all effective ad reminded myself that I believe in positive discipline rather than in punishment and fear tactics, I googled “ink stain removal couch.”

In my exasperated, totally not positive voice, I said, “Cavanaugh I need to be able to take a shower. If you want or need me, you can come upstairs and talk to me. We can sing a song. You can play with your cars. But you can not draw on the couch.”

Then it dawned on me that Cavanaugh was trying to get my attention. He didn’t want me to take a shower because he wanted to play with me. So I sat down on the floor where I could look him in the eye and asked him, “Cavanaugh were you trying to get my attention?”

He nodded and flopped into my lap in one motion. I so didn’t feel like cuddling. But that was exactly the point. He just needed me to slow down and be with him.

“Okay Cavanaugh, here’s the deal, we can’t play right now because we need to clean this pen off the couch. If you want my attention, do you know what you can do? You can say, ‘Mama I want some attention. If you draw on the couch, do you know what is going to get my attention? The couch is.”

So the couch got attention from both of us. (Hand sanitizer gel on microfiber works wonders, by the way.)

Though we’ve had a few repeats, for the most part they are de-escalating. Cavanaugh is intentionally doing something he knows will make me stop everything else, even if what I’m giving him next is my “mad voice” instead of some positive attention. I watched my high school students do this. I still do this, to my husband. When my blood sugar gets low or I’ve had a long mama day with no adult contact, rather than just saying, “I want some attention,” I’ll pick a fight.

Rather than the labyrinthine route most of us go through just to get a little notice, I’m working on teaching both of us how to straight up ask to get our needs met. My goal is as many ways to ask for positive attention as he can figure out methods to get the negative kind. I’ll list them below in case anyone in your house could use a little help with this too.

• “I want some attention.”
• “Can I have some cuddles?”
• “Be with me.”
• “I want to play with you.”
• “Carry me.” (Okay, I don’t actually use this one myself. But it works great when Cavanaugh says it.)

I Don’t Play Like Daddy

I’ve heard and read claims that dads are more likely to rough-house with kids: wrestle, throw up in the air, and be generally more physical. That’s not true at our house. The difference between Cavanaugh playing with Mike or me is that I can not sit around for long periods unless I feel like we’re doing something.

Playing trains does not feel like doing something to me. The trains go around and around the track. I get bored quickly. If Cavanaugh and I make up some elaborate story about one of the trains picking up mail and delivering it to various other trains, my attention span lengthens a bit, so he may get ten minutes from me at the table instead of two before I start trying to multi-task.

Likewise, at the park or some other place where we might meet up with other parents and kids for a playgroup, I like for Cavanaugh to run up the ramps, slide, dig in the gravel loading his dump truck with his excavator. I’m happy to sit next to him or help him on playground equipment, if he needs it, but my preferred activity is to hang out and talk to the other moms. When Mike takes Cavanaugh to these places or even out into our yard, he is content to dig, climb, and otherwise play with Cavanaugh.

I don’t think I ever really played like this, not as a kid and not now. I’m trying to learn, but the truth is, I just don’t like it. In Playful Parenting, Lawrence Cohen writes about the messages we give our kids when we don’t want to play the games they like or when we say it’s boring (whether literally or by just checking out with our attention or physical presence).  Cohen’s advice throughout Playful Parenting has helped my parenting immensely. It helps me not get into so many power struggles, to change the dynamic with a silly voice, to elicit conversation, and to generally just be more present with my kid. I don’t think my parents were particularly playful either. They liked to read books just like I do.

I realized recently I buy toys for Cavanaugh as frequently for myself as for him. Wow, am I tried of building towers with duplo blocks; maybe we would like shape matching dominoes. Mostly, I just want to sit next to my kid and be with him, not thinking about something else, just looking him in the eye and being with him. I can do that while we do puzzles, paint, bake, or engage in other games or activities that lead somewhere and have an end.

My husband, on the other hand, went to the park with Cavanaugh today and just threw rocks into the puddle below the bridge. And grass too. Cavanaugh came home with mud all over him (something he gets with me when I’m gardening and have created a dirtscape for him nearby so he can play with trucks while I weed, plant or dig with a planned and productive end.  They’d drawn chalk roads on the bridge and sidewalk. Cavanaugh was thrilled. Mike had a good time too. I would have been miserable, looking for an excuse to come home and play something I liked.

Though I’m working on that, I’ve got to say, I’m so grateful Cavanaugh has his dad to do it differently. While you’re not likely to ever hear a tale of me spending an hour throwing things into a puddle, unless I was playing Pooh sticks and there was an elaborate story involved so I could stay engaged for that long, I realize it’s doubtful I would ever come home and find that Mike and Cavanaugh had cut sponges into shapes to paint with or made an egg hunt from origami birds, kid vitamins and Hello Kitty stickers. Thankfully, Cavanaugh has both of us, and his nanny to make boats with flags in them, and his gramma to draw buses on a dry erase table or sit in a sandbox and do “hard work.”

Maybe I’ve finally figured out that not everybody has to do it like me and I don’t have to do it all. What a relief. (You may need to remind me again later).

How do differently people in your child’s life play with him or her?

Imagine, Here

The last two times I’ve taken Cavanaugh to the neighborhood pool have been absolutely joyous. On Sunday, he strutted around the wading pool with a yellow rubber duck on his head while he quacked and danced to the classic rock radio station blasting over the pool speaker. When I was listening to The Cars sing “Just What I Needed” when I was in junior high, I never imagined how it would feel to watch my own toddler testing out his rhythm some 20+ years later.

I’m working on living more mindfully, noticing the present moment as I am in it and not with some nostalgia later or imagining some future moment when I’ll be able to stop and relax. It’s work for me to do this. Most of my life has been lived in the past or future and being here is challenging for me. Not at the pool with Cavanaugh. He is so in that moment, no self-consciousness as he waves his arms, testing the bend of his wrists and his sheer ability to lift his knees underwater. How can he move forward, shake his bottom, jut his chin, and balance a duck on his blond head all at one time? Because he’s not thinking about anything but that guitar, that singer, the drum beats, none of which he could break down into any more than the music saying, “Move. Dance.”

Later, he tested out the poolside shower, backing into it slowly and asking me to start the water over and over as “Purple Rain” poured over us, Prince providing the score to the first shower Cavanaugh has enjoyed in his two and a half years on the planet so far. “Purple Rain” has always reminded me of a girl in my 9th grade high school English class who wore one white lace glove and went to see the movie 73 times–in the theater. Not anymore. My son has edged her out with his red swimming shoe clad feet shuffling into the water, a full tooth smile, and his head tilted back watching the water sprinkle his body.

How could I be anywhere but here, playing with my boy, listening as the songs that defined my childhood provide a soundtrack for my son’s? This is bliss and I am so grateful.

Read This: 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents

10 Spiritual Practices For Busy Parents byJacqueline Kramer

Jacqueline Kramer absolutely understands the challenges facing parents who lack both time and energy for spiritual practice but who need to be able to draw on inner resources most when raising a child. Each chapter is five pages or less and includes Kramer’s reflections and a teaching story and then a list of practices you can try. I originally balked at spending $10 on a 44 page booklet, but it is so worth it. It’s great to grab in those moments when you just need a little encouragement to get through a challenge, or when you feel the need to get centered and grounded, or you want to remind yourself that you are a spiritual being in a world encouraging you to buy and do more rather than just being in the world appreciating what is around you. The ten practices are 1) Generosity, 2) Mindfulness, 3) Letting Go, 4) Being Contented Wherever We Are, 5) Commitment to Love, 6) Being a Good Friend to Ourselves, 7) Gratitude, 8 ) Listening with Every Ounce of Our Beings, 9) Daily Remembrance of Our True Radiance, and 10) Sharing Our Spiritual Practice with Our Families.

View all my reviews

Time to Think

For the past month, I’ve been meeting with a group of six women on Tuesday nights. When I received the invitation to join, the group was described as a Mastermind Group focused on creativity, life force, spirituality, prosperity, etc. I like all those things and since my Monday night writing group stopped meeting a few months ago, I had time to meet with other people and dedicate energy to my adult self (the one that has things to talk about besides her toddler son and daily life as a stay-at-home-mom). I thought the group would be a place where we could each bring personal goals or projects and receive feedback, help, and other forms of support. From what I’ve read of Mastermind Groups, we aren’t actually having one. I’d like one of those too. What we’re having instead is a Tuesday night discovery session.

The first night of the group, we wrote descriptions of our perfect days. The surprise was that we’d all written about being with family, in nature, paying attention to the moment as we were in it. The next week, we asked ourselves what life would be like if we lived every day trusting that everything in our paths is put there for our higher good. We have explored the concept of deserving. How do we feel about the idea that we deserve something (whether good or bad)? Does it involve entitlement, guilt, some feeling of future obligation?

This week we did a mindfulness meditation and mind map about happiness. When each of us tried to define happiness initially, we found that none of us felt sure what that meant. After brainstorming together and then writing on our own, we found that we each had come to a similar conclusion: happiness  is the freedom to be oneself without worry about judgment from others; it involves feeling connected, joyful, unafraid, and engaged in the world with a sense of wonder and discovery. The idea that comes up again and again is that if we are our authentic selves, we will attract those people who are drawn by our true nature.

We have repeatedly come back to the small still voice inside all of us, the voice that some people call God, others attribute to angels, and others associate solely with themselves rather than a connection to a higher power or larger wisdom. If we stop and tune in to what we are hearing from that voice and what we are feeling at our core–no matter where we believe the voice comes from–that intuition or guidance serves us well. A place of peace and comfort is available for each of us to enter if we can stop long enough to just sit down, place our feet on the ground, and breathe. Centering ourselves and listening may be the most powerful tool any of us has.

Maybe these are topics that are sermonized in church. Maybe there are groups of friends who discuss these subjects as a matter of course, but I’m feeling so lucky to have two quiet contemplative hours in the week to think about things bigger than whether we’ve got enough money for the mortgage this month or if my son will ever be ready for potty training. I sit, breathe, and think. What a luxury.

Stay-at-Home Mondays

I know today is Thursday, but this week, Stay at Home Mondays got a little out of hand. Between the heat index outside and my attempts to reassemble a playhouse we bought on Craig’s List last weekend, I realized last night (Wednesday) that I hadn’t left our property since Saturday. That’s a little too much home time for me. However, I really needed to find a way to balance being out in the world with taking time at home–something akin to the Waldorf philosophy of breathing in and breathing out. So, we recently added a new event to our schedule: Stay at Home Mondays. The start of the week was being hard for us. Most often, we’d end up staying home anyway, but only after I felt like I’d failed to get us to the standing park playgroup Monday mornings with all our AP buddies, only after I’d imagined the grocery store trip we needed to make, and reviewed and been unable to accomplish anything on the errand and to-do list that had lengthened over the weekend.

I was feeling like maybe everyone else had figured out something I hadn’t; they had their weeks and time scheduled so they could get out of their homes more easily, keep a clean house and stocked fridge, manage their time and their things better than I could. That me vs. them thinking that inevitably leaves me coming up short while the rest of the world got some rule book I can’t seem to find. I posted on my blog asking for time management tips. I imagined setting up a routine for myself so that I would have a set menu-planning day, grocery day, cleaning day, etc. Then I started feeling hemmed in. I hate following schedules. I hadn’t even assigned days yet and already I wanted to tear up the calendar.

I took some deep breaths then asked myself what it was I was really wanting. It was a Monday. I wanted to not feel stuck at home with a son who was sad that his daddy had gone back to work after the weekend. I wanted to not be missing something out in the world with our friends, though when I was honest with myself, I could admit that my son runs from one thing to another at the park where the playgroup is held and I spend the whole time following him around between interrupted conversations. What did I really want to do on Mondays anyway? What did my son want?

With some reflection, I realized we wanted to relax. I wanted a more organic start to our week, one that honored how we were feeling. We’d played all weekend, messed up the house, eaten the food, and maybe even socialized. The transition back to our weekday schedule is always a little challenging and we needed room to ease into it, stay in our pajamas, give Cavanaugh a no-diaper morning, and not pack snacks and rush out to meet people or do errands. Even on the Mondays when we’d go out to the library, I felt torn, unable to sit and be somewhere else because home needed attending.

So, we’ve had three intentional stay-at-home Mondays now. Instead of feeling like we’re home when we should be doing something else, I find that Cavanaugh and I are engaged in more creative play. We have time to reconnect and get back into a rhythm. This past Monday, we painted his IKEA wooden table that was stained with pen marks and food remnants. We wore our painting clothes and made up songs. We went into Cavanaugh’s mostly unoccupied room and did puzzles, had a tea party, and read books. I got to be with him without feeling like we should be or do anything else. It’s a great way to start the week and it’s given me room to stop feeling like I should be doing it better, whatever it is, and just hang out and enjoy the great blessing that being a stay-at-home mom to my son is–at least when I give myself the space to sit down and notice it.

How do you center yourself and find routines for your family? Do you do better with a set schedule or go where the day takes us mentality?

Long Quiet Highway

I went to see Natalie Goldberg in April when she was in Austin doing a book signing for Old Friend from Far Away. I was interested in hearing Natalie talk about her book on writing memoir for three reasons.

1. She’s one of my American idols. I started using Writing Down the Bones when I was a freshman in college. It not only gave me a writing practice, but it gave me permission to believe I was a writer, something I’d been both claiming and doubting since I was about ten.
2. Her book, Long Quiet Highway about how she created the writing practice in Bones and about her struggle to find her life’s work and to determine whether her path should be writing or Buddhism, is one of my favorite memoirs.
3. I have the draft of a memoir I wrote about my pregnancy and I’ve yet to achieve the distance or the energy to revise it. I was hoping that hearing Natalie talk about writing memoir might inspire me to go back to work on mine.

Here’s the thing: I’m at home with my 2 1/2 year old son Cavanaugh and I write (or do the business part of writing: submitting, creating author platform, looking for markets, etc.) while he takes naps and sometimes after he goes to sleep at night. He’s not in preschool yet. By the time my husband gets home from work, I have limited brain-power.

I keep wishing that I could just let the writing go for awhile. It doesn’t fit in right now. But it has never fit in. And that’s my problem. If I don’t write, I get jangly inside. I lose my center and I feel as if I have strayed far from my life’s path. When I do write, I go into a zone that excludes anything else and I get angry when I’m pulled out of that zone. The anger is not particularly advisable when a sweet little person who relies upon me wakes up and wants some attention.

So I went to Natalie so that she could answer a question I haven’t been able to answer for myself, so that she would tell me what to do. She didn’t. I didn’t really expect that she would. I just hoped. Her humility, straightforward manner and refusal to mince words, and her calm honest presence helped anyway. Just as her instruction to “Go for 10 minutes” freed me up as a freshman (you mean I don’t have to wake up at 5 a.m. everyday and write for nine hours straight to be a real writer?), I was reminded that maybe I don’t have the time or energy right now to write or revise the way I’d like, but it doesn’t mean I have to leave my life’s path altogether. I can just walk it, slowly, mindfully, accomplishing a little each day until I begin to reach some of my destinations.