Show Don't Tell!

"Breathe": everyone keeps telling me.  (Can you use a colon backwards like that?)

"I am breathing, I AM breathing," I think, forcing huge gulps of air past the barrier in my chest.

"Breathe": I've never noticed they ask you to do that in between sessions at the gym too.  All I ever heard before was: "Push it, faster, harder, farther."

But until now I took it all figuratively.

And it turns out someone else DID have the answer, Lao-Tzu: my therapist actually showed me HOW to breathe!

I didn't cry at the session, which was a huge surprise to me since that is all I ever did at the therapist in Germany. 

Maybe it was the nice cuppa tea!

Maybe it was the fact that I am not depressed, that I am actually quite happy with my life, and that I KNEW and KNOW that this is all ridiculous.  I keep TELLING myself this is all ridiculous.  I was laughing as I told her about the stresses in my life: home schooling an Asperger's child with a profound obsession and complete apathy in anything else, a child also diagnosed with all nine symptoms of ADHD; a two-year old, seven year old twins, five children in all; moving two months ago with five children, moving internationally less than three years ago with four children and starting completely over; getting up at 4:45 to work out, running on weekends before soccer matches, dieting; looking for schools for Andrew, designing a curriculum for Ryan; cleaning the house (or not), UNPACKING and moving in, cooking and getting everyone ready for school, homework, family time....

I wouldn't change a thing except for the fact I can't breathe.

I keep TELLING myself how good my life is, but my body won't listen.

Turns out I was making the same mistake with my body and managing stress, stress that I actually WANT in my life, that I make as a writer.

I was telling my body not to stress, but I wasn't showing it how.

Light bulb moment here:  you have to breathe!

But I am breathing, but I AM breathing, as my chest expands and I inhale.

"Uh, from your diaphragm," says my therapist.

"Which means what?" I reply.  (Nice to know all those years of medical training paid off, right Mom?)

She shows me how.

Oh. 

From your stomach.  Big breaths deep into your stomach.

How could I have missed that in yoga?!

"And then you unclench your fists and relax them," she continues.

You tell - no, I corrected my therapist, you SHOW - your body to relax.

There are no bears out there coming to get you.

There is only the life you asked for.

Breathe, Lao-Tzu, the answer is in the breath.

What do you mean you already said that thousands of years ago?

Oh.

 And Om.

Speaking of Colons

Whoever coined the term "those who can't, teach," hadn't tried teaching.

Ryan managed to learn about negative integers  this week despite my teaching, not because of it.

We do happen to be studying the digestive system in science this week as well, but have only made it through the small intestines.  No colon there yet. 

The colon I am speaking of is one that no one in my generation seems able to grasp.  I blame my own lack of grammatical knowledge on the gifted and talented program which decided we were all too bright to concentrate on this stuff and rushed us past (or is it passed?!) in favour of creative writing. 

Great.  Now I can write creatively with improper grammar and punctuation.  (Great: now I can write creatively with improper grammar and punctuation?  Hey Dee, Hey Lorraine: is the colon the answer to some of these debates we've been having on sentences: has our generation just forgotten how to use the colon?)

Does that make me more gifted or talented than someone who actually learned how to do it so that other people could understand them?!

Youtube to the rescue: if that young and perky woman actually knew what she was teaching her high school class.

And then I pick up The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.  Turns out a Czech living in France knows how to use a colon better than anyone else I've read.  Or at least his editor does.

He uses a colon in his very first sentence!  Four times in the first segment, including a beauty of a sentence with a colon, two semicolons and a comma.  Followed by four beauties in a row at the end of the second segment.  All this by page five.  The beauty of the sentences isn't in the punctuation: the punctuation only serves as an elegant frame that enhances an exquisite work of art.

How'd you like that one, huh, huh?  Better learn to love them because I plan to use them until I get them right.

The problem in using Kundera's work to teach colons to an uninterested thirteen year old girl is the subject matter.  Take the first sentence: "The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum!"

Huh?

"Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them:  they appear without the mitigating circumstances of their transitory nature."

Uh, I guess.

The colon, two semicolon and comma beauty is about Hitler: "Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood.  I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?"

Oh.  That's two sentences.  So much for gifted and talented.

Let me redeem myself with Parmenides: "He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being.  We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which is positive, weight or lightness?"

"Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.
"Was he correct or not?  That is the question.  The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all."

Sigh.  This is the sort of thing that got me labelled gifted and talented.  Not only have I drawn a connection between the colon as an organ and the colon as a form of punctuation in the third sentence - oh so clever of me - but now I am connecting the correct use of the colon by Milan Kundera to draw a parallel to my anxiety.

No matter what Nietzsche says (and I'm not sure exactly what he said, since I am only going on what Milan Kundera says he said!),  I find both the idea of eternal return AND the transitory nature of life to be a heavy burden right now.  Nothing is light: nothing is insignificant.

But lookie there: at least I am learning to use proper punctuation when I whinge about it!

Although I probably still shouldn't be teaching it.

On Kundera and Nietzsche; Colons and Parking Spaces; Louise L. Hay and Lao -Tzu

"I'm not good enough.  I don't do enough.  I'll never make it."

Did I say that?

Turns out that, although I did say it, and do say it often - to myself at least, subconsciously - it is a direct quote out of Louise L. Hay's book "Heal Your Body."

It's the thought process that leads to coronary thrombosis. Heart attacks.

No duh, right?

Anxiety, which I have been feeling ever since I can remember, is not trusting the flow and process of life.  All of which is bullshit, because I do trust the flow and process of life.  I just don't trust that it will flow well for me because I'm not good enough, I don't do enough and that is why I'll never make it.

All I want is for life to flow better for my children.

Which isn't going to work if I have a massive coronary worrying about which parking spot to take.

Or which route to take to school.  Or whether I should give them each two one dollar coins or one two dollar coin. 

I'm telling ya, anxiety sucks.  And no matter how much I keep telling myself how silly it is to be having heart palpitations over where to park, no matter how much I KNOW this is stupid, I have been having them over parking spaces since I had the twins in Germany.  Now THERE was a reason for worrying about parking, but no one cared, no one realised, and now, now here I am in an entire country of people who park wherever they choose, taking spots so large an American AND a German would BOTH shoot them over it! - parking on curbs, on grass ways, on lawns, wherever, really just about wherever you want, with as much distance between as you'd like - usually enough to just about fit in 7/8ths of the car I am driving - and I am still having palpitations.

I have been doing behavioural therapy on myself.  Which means that I just go and do it anyway.  I park.  I tell myself this is stupid and I park.  I ignore the feelings of discomfort and I do it.

I don't know if this behavioural therapy is supposed to make a person function better with the disability - which it does, I DO park and I DO park every day, multiple times a day.  Or if the feelings are eventually supposed to go away if you just keep doing the action that makes you uncomfortable.

But the feelings aren't going away.

On bad weeks - and YES, they coincide with my cycle, and God help me if this will get worse before it goes away - I also start breathing with difficulty over which route to take to school.

Again, I can talk myself through it.  And I do it despite the discomfort.  Over and over and over.

But it's terrifying to have to work this hard to do dumb little things you know aren't all that life altering no matter which you choose.   (I am going to have a mental word with Milan Kundera - and Nietzsche - about the Unbearable Lightness of Being : turns out Kundera also knows how to use a colon properly in a sentence: this means I can learn two things at once from him!)

I explained to the kids that I feel the way they described after running a 2 km race this week.  Aidan's heart was pounding so fast his chest hurt: I said I felt like I am running a race all the time.

Good news is that Louise L Hays has a three sentence fix for what ails me.  (I am currently reading Milan Kundera and plan to have a look at Nietzsche but quick and easy is good, right?!)

I have been writing her affirmations in a large notebook:  "I love and approve of myself.  I trust the process of life.  I am safe."

(Meanwhile I am going to use those colons until I get them right!)

I follow it with pages and pages of free writing which usually being with: "No, I don't."

I will spare you the rest. 

Instead I am going to focus on the fun things that are happening around here.  I firmly believe that these next few years are the best of my life; this despite that my body is physically trying to make me believe otherwise.  I don't trust YOU body, so there!  (Oh, and I am going to speak to a therapist tomorrow, so no need to worry if Nietzsche ends up being over my head.)

Ian is so much fun.  He played in the Pacific Ocean today.  And went pee pee on the potty.  Three times.  And he sings all the children songs with hand motions.  Better than any other almost-two-year-old, I am sure.

Ryan is going to be okay.  I am doing okay there, I can feel it.  (I am just SO EXHAUSTED by the struggle.)

Andrew is entering secondary school.  The world awaits him.

And the twins are only 7.

We have so much fun ahead of us these next few years.

Too much to have a coronary thrombosis.

Too much to have a panic attack over where to park.

Always we hope

someone else has the answer.

Some other place will be better,

some other time it will all turn out,

 

This is it.

No one else has the answer.

No other place will be better,

and it has already turned out.

 

Lao-Tzu

 

 

I don't know what this says about eternal return or lightness and weight, but it does help me with which route to take.

 

Because I'm already there.

 

Namaste.

 

Om.

 

And Amen.

God's Answer

Well, listen Lord, I'd say that was uncalled for, but I have to admit, I wouldn't have listened without that big punch to the eye.  (That's a mean hook you got there, for a non corporeal being!)

Yeah, but Bobbi  LIKES running!

I was up at 4:45 AM again on Friday and dressed to go to the gym (did I promise to do nothing ALL month?!) and feeling rather lousy, but it was just a cold right, and it was only one hour of body pump, right and...oh dear, lookie there, turns out I can't see out of that right eye because it is almost swollen shut.  ( For those of you who don't get up at 4:45 AM,  it is often hard to determine just how horrible you feel that early in the morning, how much is the early hour and how much of it you will shake off once the sun has risen.  I also don't see well that early in the morning, so stumbling blindly looking out of one eye really wasn't all that out of the ordinary!)

But God, did you really have to give me a black eye to make me slow down?

Yeah.  I guess you did.

The swelling had gone down by evening though.  Enough to make it to yoga class.

If that sneezing fit you sent me hadn't laid my out flat, thanks.  Louise Hay (Heal Your Body) interprets you nicely for those of us too dumb - or too stubborn - to understand you ourselves.  A cold signifies too much going on at once.  Mental confusion, disorder.  No duh, right?!

She says respiratory ailments signal a fear to taking life in fully. 

So about those breathing problems I've been having. 

You're right.  I don't feel worthy.  Unless I am losing weight, lifting more weight, running faster, holding warrior pose longer.  Oh dear.  Yoga isn't supposed to be competitive. 

The running especially, Lord, started out as fun.  And now it is about how often I do it and how early I get up to train.  It is about breaking my personal best. 

Running for what?  To what?  From what?  If I am totally honest with myself, I don't even LIKE running that much.  I like that I CAN.  But it seems kind of pointless to just keep trying to go faster and faster.  Why TRY to make your lungs hurt?  Unless you love it.  Which I don't.  I like being outside, I like some activity, I like the buzz I get from doing it.  But that's not loving the run, that's loving the result.

I am squeezing in more and more classes.  On a slow week I still do four to five. 

And it's never enough.  I can always do more.  I can always eat less. 

Can I squeeze it all in, Lord?   Yeah, but for how long and at what cost?

What AM I trying to prove?

What would rush in to fill the emptiness left if I slowed down?

Ah, but that's the Tao speaking, Lord.

Emptiness.

I'm willing to give it a go, Lord.

But it's nice to know you're there to knock me out cold if I ever need help!

Ryan's World

Let me give you an example.

On Monday this week Ryan, Andrew and a friend of theirs participated in a SLAMMed Poetry Seminar at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane.  We got them in as a special home school group.  (And the more I home school, the more I realise that they learn all they need at home.  Traditional school is just an adjuvant and a place to have fun if you like going there.  This is why traditional schools fail, and will continue to fail, children from disadvantaged homes.  Schools can't replace family.  They also can't cater to the gifted and talented when they are trying to help the poor and underprivileged.  No hard feelings there.  I don't need a traditional school.  I can teach my kids at home.  The boys just go to school because they like it!  But I have no qualms about taking Andrew - or any of them - out for opportunities that I am able to better provide them on my own.  Lucky for me this is one country that agrees with me!)

I am beginning to feel more and more often that I am home schooling the wrong child.  My four boys light up the world with their energy and enthusiasm.  Ryan barely tolerates it.

Since she was going to a poetry seminar the following week, and since we really haven't found anything at all else to interest her even remotely - I decided to do poetry on Friday.  Street poetry.  Cool poetry. 

She wasn't interested in Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky or Ts Elliot.  (Relax, it was 'Cats!')  No to Dr. Seuss. 

So okay, maybe she is too old for this stuff.

No to Australian Bush Poets I have on CD.

I went to my fall-back.  Miley Cyrus.  The Climb.  High School Musical.  Status Quo.  Vanessa Hudgens.  Good God, no more Vanessa Hudgens please!  Plus, there still wasn't that much interest.

Black-Eyed Peas.  Where is the Love?  Classic.  Lady Lumps.  It's got rhythm, it's got rhyme.

Does it have a message?

I decide for myself that good poetry needs rhythm of words, needs skilled usage of words AND preferably a message.

(Oh my God!  Where do you come up with all this stuff, other mothers ask me.  Listen, this is what I'm good at.  Although I would have liked to take it up from a grade two level eventually.)

Ryan said, huh.

Justin Bieber and Will I Am.  Brilliant work.

Justin and Jaden Smith.  (Sorry Will Smith, I love your work but I couldn't find a message.)

And then we went from rap to actual street poetry via You Tube.  We learned what would happen to Jesus if he was born again as a refugee to Australia.  We learned about talking to the sky.  We learned why not to let a test result determine your fate. 

We spent an hour and forty-five minutes on words and rhythm and message.

Then Ryan asked to share her favourite poem with me.  And I knew where it would end.

One of the "My Little Pony" ponies sang some song about friendship or about trying your hardest or about rainbow clouds and cotton candy moons.  I don't know.  I wasn't listening.

Ryan spent the next hour and a half listening to "My Little Pony" songs on her tablet.  I have rarely seen her happier.  She sang along at the top of her lungs, bouncing Ian on her knee, a huge smile on her face.  She knows all the words because this is what she does alone in her room.  This is what makes her happy, what is meaningful and important to her, what she prefers over all else.

This is Ryan's World.

It is a world of magical ponies created for four year olds. 

And while she tolerates ours for bits at a time, this is where she would rather spend her time.

This is where she is happiest.

How hard must it be for her to listen to maths and biology and civil rights and poetry? How hard must it be to go through your life with no interest in what's around you?  Can you live like that?

How hard is it for me to hide the fact that I am screaming inside at the sound of one more bloody "My Little Pony" song from my thirteen year old?

Not hard at all, as it turns out.

She's too happy singing at the top of her lungs in her world to notice the tears falling down my face in mine.

A Word With the Buddhists Please!

Oh God, gods, universe, whoever is out there listening to me.

Daughter.  One.

Mom?  Are you there?!

Because I realise that last blog sounded like one big whiny nagging rant. 

Maybe this is what happens when you give up prayer?!  (I know it's what's happening when I don't write, when I try to stay positive and not write anything negative, when it all starts to build up and and then I can't write anything.)

So, the word to the Buddhists, it isn't Om but I'm not at liberty to print it.  Trying to stay positive and all.  

But I would like a clarification on this "surrender" everyone keeps going on about.

Does surrender mean I don't have to work so hard? 

Really?

Does "everything will be fine" mean Ryan will be okay if she doesn't learn maths and English and history and science?

Does accepting Ryan mean accepting she has no interest in the world around her, no natural ability - in fact a diagnosed DISABILITY - to initiate her own activities, plan a day, set steps and finish an activity? 

Does "it's okay" mean it's okay for her to go on welfare and sit in her government subsidized housing all day and watch videos when she gets older?

Is that okay?

Is that okay if she's happy?

Will she be happy?

Do I have to work so hard to drag her from her own world into ours?  Is it okay that she's happier in hers?  Will she get lonely there eventually?  Will she realise she wants or needs more than watching videos alone?

What is my job, God, gods, universe?  Do I push her and pull her and fight her and struggle?  Do I continue to exhaust myself, give up time with Ian, give up my time to write, to run, to meditate, to sit outdoors, to go to South Bank, in order to force her to do things she doesn't want to do?

Hey, how'd I get stuck with some knight's kids?!

She is such a burden to my journey.

And I am such a chain around her neck.

I'd be a fool to think "surrender" meant the same as "giving up."

Krishan Chopra (and, oh dear, he's a Hindu!) says it's about doing your best and leaving the results to God, about being the arrow but letting God be the archer.

But I'm tired and I'm still not sure what "surrender" means.

Maybe it means admitting I am tired, letting myself get fat, do less.  Maybe it means having the courage to do NOTHING.  Nothing.  Saying no.  Maybe August could be my month of doing nothing.  (The Bridge to Brisbane isn't til September 1!)  Could I be that brave for my daughter, for my family, for myself?  Could I spend a whole month doing NOTHING?

Sons.  Four.

Maybe "surrender" means acknowledging that working this hard isn't working, that in a results-oriented world you are only as good as your last workout, your last race, your last diet, your last test score.  Maybe "surrender" means trying something totally new.

Hmmm...there IS that Taoist Temple just down the freeway from here. 

Haven't had a word with them yet.

You think they'd let me in?!

Word to Shiva

Hey man, I get what you're doing, I really do.

July 7 at the Abbey Medieval Fest.  The irony of dressing up as Romani/Gypsies has NOT escaped me!

No personal growth without trial, no gain without pain, no achievement without stepping outside your comfort zone, climb that mountain to see what's on the other side.

But listen, this is why I go to the gym.  I don't need it from my god.

For the first time I was happy where I was.  I'd accepted the step for what it was and I was content.

Maybe you misunderstood. 

I hadn't signed up for a six week challenge.

I'd already climbed my mountain.

This move, Shiva, it really sucked.

New bikes in front of new home.

And I don't care that we're all in a better place.  I don't care that we are surrounded by horses.  And by neighbours who want Ryan to ride and care for them.  I don't care that the girl next door comes by looking for Ryan to ride with her on weekends and after school, that she and her brother also ride motorbikes and have a track out back where Andrew can ride, that the kids on the other side are the Aidan and Matthews' age and like to ride bikes on their own bmx track. 

Although, okay, the sight of that pony and pregnant mare out back does really make my day.  And I do like it that we can let them out anytime we like and let them roam around our yard mowing the lawn for us.  And I can't wait until the mare foals at the end of September.  It will be so cute to have a foal running around.

Ryan on Caspar.  Tough life.

The neighbourhood is real friendly too.  The only ones who didn't like us were the plovers in the back field.  They felt they should be allowed to make a nest and raise their young without bother from the rest of us.  But the kangaroos and wallabies are cool with it.  And the kookaburras and rainbow lorikeets.  We're not prejudiced, we like the ibis too.  And that pair of endangered native ducks that waddles about sometimes.  So much better than not trying to run them over on Lawnton Pocket Road.

It's so nice to get along with the neighbours.  Just last night I spoke to Jen over the fence while we were doing our chores.  She had a glass of wine with her.  Next time I am setting up chairs and bringing a bottle for us.  Dan and Damon want to take the kids to Kenilworth to ride motorbikes.  And at some point we owe everyone - neighbours left and right - a big barbeque at our bar out front.  Because we're in the middle.  And because Charmaine, who told us about this place, can ride over the back trails and tie her horses to the hitching post.

July 4.  First party at the outdoor bar and grill.  New home, old friends.  (And yes, the coolness of Nicole matching her Ute has not escaped my notice!  Is this how Aussies dress up?!)

But look Shiva, you really weren't listening to me. 

I was comfortable where I was.  The kids were doing well.  I had the home schooling and the activities all set up.  I liked my gym and my routine.  I had the writers' groups going and I knew where everything was.  I had no energy for a move of this magnitude.  Not only two years after our move from Germany.

Are you forgetting that move, Shiva?  I was still recovering from that move.

THAT was my mountain.

Anyone can play "Pass the Parcel" at a birthday party.  We have a bike track!  (And only broke one kid, sorry about that Nicole!  Why is it always Lachy?!)

So here I sit, six weeks later, in a half-set up house, the kitchen cupboard a mess, the bathroom mostly still in boxes, books everywhere, strewn about the house as we read and use them, the playroom getting messed up faster than I can pick it up let alone set it up.

This place is perfect for us.

So why can't I move in?

It's not just the kids' activities and the lack of time.  There is something keeping me from setting up home here.

Ian discovers horse poop on the bmx track.

And I realise it's because I know, deep down in my heart, that this isn't the last mountain. 

No matter how much I want to settle down, this isn't the way my life was meant to be.  I was cool with this until now, but find myself struggling with it now that I am happy where I am.  I don't need to move anymore.  I can move forward without changing locations. 

So why is the Merry-Go-Round spinning faster and faster and faster just at the point where I am ready for it to stop and let me off?  New schools, new lessons, new teams, new groups, new people, new teachers, new friends; all better for us, all moves forward, but when will it stop spinning so I can get my bearings?

The Haitians have a saying.  "Deye mon gen mon." 

Setting up house is easier with friends!

Behind the mountains there are more mountains.

So Shiva, if you're listening, I'm ready for a rest now.  No more mountains.  Leave the climbing to Miley Cyrus, I'm done for a while.

I've got to unpack.  I've got to settle in.

And really, Shiva, I appreciate the push, I really do, but it's time for a cool-down track.  I need to catch my breath.

Chillin' out with Elmo!

I need to breathe!

And if you can't do that for me, Shiva, maybe it's time I went back to Buddhism!