25 years in Nashville

 My family just moved away from Nashville. I had been in that city 25 years. It's funny because in some ways it wasn't quite my hometown, not the place where all of my family lived so it never quite felt like my place. I was always a transplant. But my roots ran really deep. I found my people after a turbulent first year. And I still have relationships with those people. Complex and shifting, beautiful and deep. Nashville will always be the city where I met my love. Where we had our children. Where those children learned and grew and had friendships. Nashville will be the place where I built a house. Where I rebuilt a house actually. Nearby nail and board by board is the song goes. Except Daddy didn't give life to Mama's dream. Mama gave life to her own dream. 

Our old house there stands as a metaphor. Beautiful. Handmade. Just how we like it. Remade one day at a time. I really thought I would have trouble leaving that house. In fact I did have trouble for a while. After all I had put my blood sweat in tears, quite literally, into that house. I moved my entire family up to Chicago. One giant U-Haul truck and many tears. We unloaded and settled in, as best we could. Boxes had been unpacked. And then I had to go back to finish the old house. The old house still felt like my house until the moment I walked through the door. And that place full of the leftovers of my family, bare and empty was no longer home. I cried. I called my husband and told him. I tried to sort through my crazy conflicting emotions. Without my husband and kids, the house was just a shell. The heart was missing. My heart had moved to Chicago, for better or for worse. I went out with friends that week and felt for the first time like I was on the outside. I never had felt that way but now suddenly there I was in a city where I no longer belong. I called my people every night. I missed them deeply. I worked on my house in Nashville, preparing it for the next family. And some rooms I made rubble. Appropriate for how I felt now. It all felt so transient and weird. I was literally sleeping on the floor on a mattress that my husband and I had shared. Every nail hole. Every dent. Every drywall repair felt like a delay in getting back to my people, rather than the labor of love that it used to feel like to work on that house.

The 2nd u-haul loaded with all the things we thought we could leave behind, a friend in the passenger seat and the hubby's car on the tow dolly, I finally felt like I was going home. 

October 1st: A Recap

 It's October 1st. It's 86 degrees. The sun has turned autumn gold and the grass is fading. The temperatures dip slightly and then rocket back up to the 90s. The weather is a tease as always but I know after 23 years in this town, that the cold won't stick around until after Halloween.

The oldest child is 14. Beautiful, terrible 14. A world of possibilities. A world of fear. A world of self confidence. A world of doubt. Hair half pink, half blue. I've been roughly shoved into the world of apprentice colorist, as I learn to bleach and dye hair with a shave on the sides.  This kid looks at me with pleading eyes and wants me to create the vision so clear in their head. I doubt myself, worry, set a timer, and try my best, and it ends up not too bad. My eldest child still flits through the world as a pixie, like a butterfly. Like a hurricane. Like a force of nature. Art still pours out of her fingers like it's life itself. Academics and theatre and writing take the stage now. Music is still there but got burned by a bad band teacher. She worries that she will never know enough to make it in the world. And then she turns around and amazes all of us with how much she has always been grown up in her mind. Our family learns speak the language of Autism better and better as time goes on, carving out a safe place for our neuro-spicy family. 

The middle child is 12 and Lord help us all. The testosterone rage that descends on this sweet kid's mind. He alternates between sweet as honey and spicy as fire. He's learning to find himself. To know himself and what he needs. He's learning to speak up for what he needs. He's teachable and coachable but only if it's NOT me or his dad. He leans in where his strength lies and works hard, even at chores (amid loud protests). He's a loyal friend that cheers hard for his buddies and celebrates their achievements. He loves to play baseball, some for the game and I think some for the camaraderie. He still notices too much the moods of those around him and tries to make it all smooth as silk but that is in the power of no person, no matter if they are 12 or 112. He's still rocking his mullet, now with a pony tail we call his "Jim Hawkins" a la Treasure Island. He has his own style and ideas amid the mess of being 12. Music runs through him and it doesn't matter if it's trombone (even though he hates practicing but loves being good at it) or just riffing with his brother unconsciously as they go about their day.

The youngest is 10 and in some ways, found his stride with a good fit in sport. It was soccer. I should have known. He's the right build, has amazing speed and tenacity. Plight of the youngest child being dragged to whatever is easiest for Mama and Papa to make happen. But he spoke up for himself and said no more baseball, only soccer and running. He still does math like it's breathing, and spends his time on the trampoline, running shirtless and barefoot around the neighborhood, his summer blond mullet shining in the sun. We finally found the right bait to catch this last reluctant reader, coupled with a perceptive eye doc who gave him a bump in magnification to help his eyes track better together. He's still my jokester, still my black and white thinker. He seems so carefree and then surprises me with worrying about how he will ever learn to buy a house. Still strong and wild, still my monkey man. I love seeing him grow more into himself as the others have done before him.

I'm 46 and 11/12ths and after much mental resisting began to settle down of the business of being a true teacher to these kids, not just facilitating their curriculum. Seeking out information to make their learning go better and to navigate the peculiarities of their brains. I still have several books of my own cooking on the back burner of my mind and hard drive, (one added this month) which I give time to occasionally, but being a good teacher is my primary focus right now. I am still the queen of overthinking and still am plagued with the idea of the perfect "right answer" even though time has taught me there isn't one. Matt and I find more grace for each other and the kids as we learn to accept ourselves as we are and not as we wish we were. The lens of our neuro-diverse brains continue to color our world, often not the same color, but it blends to a good hue and works. I look forward to the year that is coming. To the change in the weather. To a change of scenery.

My heart is walking in the world today

 You are 12 and therefore know everything and with opinions about what you should be doing at all times. But I gently ignore all that and pack you off to Boy Scout camp to move rocks and do work that you are not willing to do but don't protest too sharply at. 

I think of how you are and if you remember to drink water. Because it's so very hot today and you forget. I figure that no news is good news and you are making it just fine.

And then in the late hours of the night the storm rolls in and the lightning crashes and the thunder booms and shakes the house and I think of my boy in a tent and how you will handle this moment. Will you be afraid? Will you sleep through the whole thing like you did before? Will you run for cover?

I don't know the answer yet. And one day not too long from now I will not know the answer unless you call home. Later today when I pick you up you will tell me how you handled yourself in the storm. But someday the storm will come and you will be a man who takes it as it comes or not. Who has the skills and the strength and the mind to face it or not quite yet. My heart will be walking around out in the world, as they say so blithely. But it doesn't make it easier to know it's coming.

You be the rocks. I'll be the river.

 You'll be the rocks. I'll be the river.

You are steady and immovable. 

Compressed, hardened, stoic 

Faithful and steadfast. 

I change shape with the weather. 

Flow and freeze. 

Rage and ripple.

We bend and flow in a timeless dance

You hold the path in

clear sharp boundaries

I wear the hard edges to smooth and round

We are glacial valleys

We are waterfalls

We are cliffs and shore

We are babbling brooks

We are deep mountain lakes

We are.

You'll be the rocks.

I'll be the river. 

We will go on

Together.

October 1st: A Recap

 October 1st, 2022. It's 53 degrees and the sun has shifted enough in its path (we shifted, I know) that the morning rays beam through the windows in new and interesting ways, lending warm but clear light to the blue walls in my dining room. We are settling into our homeschool rhythm. Navigating life and changes with various amounts of stumbling, triumph and humbling moments.

The oldest child is 13, nearly 14. She spends a ton of her time tromping about the neighborhood, dog on a lead, earbuds cranking out whatever neo-goth-irish folk music her phone suggests to her. It's her way of moderating her body when everything gets to be too much. She delves deep into her art, drawing and redrawing the same pose until it's perfect. She is woman-child embodied. Alternating between a very logical and thoughtful way of relating to others and a very emotional state, with the cares and troubles of this world invoking all the intense feelings. Her beautiful mind nimbly connects things she learns about herself and the world and she astounds me with her intelligence sometimes. She is learning to advocate for herself as an Autistic person and we are all re-learning the language she has been speaking to us her whole life, but with new ears and new understanding. She and some of her friends are newly enamored with the more relationally romantic aspects of life, which are hard for the parents to navigate with this first child. She often resists parental input, even good and kind encouragement, so when all else fails, I send memes and videos to let someone else's words tell her how amazing she is. If we find ourselves alone and driving, her inner world pours out to reveal the hidden depths of things she is processing.

The mIddle child is 11 and we get occasional hints of the first steps on the path to manhood in that telltale whiff of odors brewing in his armpits. Yes, puberty. It's not here, but it's coming. Of all the kids, he is still the most observant of the humans around him, the first to ask if someone is ok. The first to offer a hug. The first to say, “How can I help?” I have to remind him that it's not his job to fix the moods and problems of grownups, but he can ask for a hug if he needs one. He treads anxiously into new things: art, theatre, trombone, Boy Scouts, baseball. All of these things fit with itchy newness and trepidation, but then once he gets it, he wears his new skills like comfortable old clothes. He is still so loud, the king of punny jokes, so socially motivated, such a pest to his brother, such a good friend, a dreamer, a builder, a self-doubter, with innate musical awareness leaking out of him at every turn. I still find him outside, gloriously dirty and barefoot, shaping some creation to his will. His hair still has the cutest cowlicks forming bead-head horns on his head every morning. He still struggles to get his academic abilities to line up with his intelligence so we focus on his strengths and skill build to shore up the weaker areas. His multifaceted mind bounces from connection to connection, all with joy. All with hope. It bubbles out of him in irrepressible heaps.

The youngest child is 9 and still my little Loki. My jokester. My prankster. But now with sass. So much sass. This guy drops the best one-liners. He is always covered in dirt, always barefoot, always pondering the mysteries of the sky while lying back in the big circle swing. He builds lego creations like a master. He draws funny art to make us laugh. He has the black and white thinking that we didn’t see as early indicators of the oldest child’s Autistic traits. This knowledge allows us to provide tools to avoid the meltdowns that used to plague him. We are getting better at teaching and asking questions rather than making assumptions. He is brave, kind, unendingly silly, a live wire, sporting a 6 pack from just living life, and still Team Papa, his favorite human. He loves me too, but I see now that Matt and this boy are cut from the same cloth. Not exact copies, but the ingrained pattern is there. No wonder Matt is his favorite. He’s a natural mathematician, he is innately musical, he is a ham. He is also so hard on himself. He directs his anger inward and so we work hard on not using shame as a teaching tool or allowing him to shame himself into compliance. He wants so badly to be bigger and better at something than his siblings. He wants to shine in his own way and can’t see that he does already.

I’m 45 and 11/12ths and often still feel like I am in what Ira Glass calls “The Gap” (go watch the youtube video about it) in so many ways. I see the musician, linguist, teacher, wife, mother, writer, friend, activist, and artist I want to be, but am not there. And I struggle to carve out time (or remember to organize the time I do have) to create enough work to bridge that gap. But in the middle of all of it, I enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. I shed plenty of tears and struggle but I give myself way more grace than ever before. I love when new knowledge and information works its way into my life, improving it in new and beautiful ways. I am grateful and looking for the good in each day, as my wise friends have taught me.

Homeschooling a 2nd Year

Second Year

Same as the first

A little bit louder and (hopefully) not a little bit worse!

I'm planning for the 2nd year of homeschool and I can't tell you how much stuff there is to process. I bought 2 different planners because I couldn't make up my mind. I also have been experimenting with a  digital planner. As a person who is a bit scattered, I'm almost 98% sure that a planner is not the answer but I gotta try.

I'm Still Here

 C asked if I could keep on writing in this space. I've written here so long and honestly just sorta stopped one day. I'm not sure why. Priorities shifting, I guess. I started posting to social media and it was so much easier, faster and didn't require me thinking or planning. Just a photo, a blurb and bam. Done. And then people left comments. :)  That was probably my favorite part. Interacting with humans when I was still at home in baby-land. Covid has done nothing to dissuade my habit either! It has been a lonely 10 months. Not horrible, or painful, or full of financial worry as many other have had, but lonely. But I'm still here.