Another Mother's Hoverboard

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

things that flap.

i want to write something coherent yet cannot escape the feeling that i have so many things swirling around my brain like cilia in an amoeba. hmmm. why do i remember cilia? and amoebas for that matter?

when in reality it embarrasses me that i have retained SO little of the things i learned in school. elementary. middle. high. even college. my mind resembles a strainer. i guess there are some huge (OBVIOUS) chunks of material that accidentally remained lodged in there, but the rest is plain irretrievable. sad, really. especially, considering all the labels that were affixed to me throughout my youth. "talented and gifted". "advanced". "smart". nope. not really. they were stamps i used to feed an ego that i am spending most of my adulthood trying to escape. no mind. no self. no i.

point is, i was just indoctrinated with stupid crap.

and now, i fear i am doing the same things with my kids. but i allow myself to pretend i am powerless to change it. too poor for a "cool school". too lazy to "unschool". so what do i do? i swallow a huge spoonful of denial every day when my son opens his folder from school and i see stupid crap spilling out. mocking me and my delusions. THEN, i talk OVER all of it. i tell him columbus day is a scam. i tell him that grades are not important even though he is only in first grade and not eligible for a real grading system yet anyway.

but then i go and i confuse myself again. i buck up and join PAC under the guise of introducing a "recycling" program into the school (there is pathetically LITTLE green practices taking place). Of course, then the PAC meeting rolls around...i prepare my "update" (in fact proud of my work on the project) but then realize that much of the meeting will be spent discussing MCAS (standarized) test scores of the school, and i BAIL on the meeting.

I don't want to look a MAJOR foe like that in the face tonight. The one real thing that could force me to pull my kids permanently from public school. and i just want to live in lalaland a little bit longer and pretend these major things aren't really a problem. When in two years, I have to decide: do I take on the school system? Not allow him to take them? Give in (because I know my son will fly through it?)...UGH.

Instead I will push "pause" on that issue. For now. While the cilia flap around alive. and well.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Lessons on impermanence

The notion that parents who stare at (to the point of nearly swallowing) their babies while they sleep, ever STOP doing this, is ludicrous. Here i am, with my almost SEVEN year old (baby)boy. He is the same to me as he was sleeping on my chest 6 years ago. Only moreso. He is perfect to me. Each day he grows in his authentic ability to just BE himself, and I relish this. His freckles, though plentiful and speckled oh so perfectly across his face, are massively outnumbered by the ways in which I love him. He breathes easily in his sleep and with each exhale I long to inhale him. To keep him inside me forever. As this. As a child. Away from the potential for any harm. The dangers of this world that will threaten to steal him. Not from me, but from himself.

My mind wanders to the show, Intervention, with the drug addicted young adults. I watch with desperation and this feeling that it HAS to end okay. With the individual BEATING it. And it often doesn't and I weep. The interviews with the mothers never fail to shatter my heart. I end the show shackled emotionally with fear that this COULD be my child one day.

But for now, I will sit with my little (Man)boy and watch. His eyelashes long are like stories that he has to share. His breath like that which shall experience awe, the kind that takes the breath away. But just for that moment. It is all I can do. All I can hope for.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Please.

quick rant. my husband reads from a current article about all the cuts governor patrick is about to make...about 1,000 state jobs: gone. then, it details further all the social service agencies that will be slashed and hacked at, in attempt to "fix the budget"...

The article states:

"The reductions will be spread across almost all sectors of state government, biting deeply into state university campuses and community colleges, the state's health insurance programs, and dozens of social service programs - from assistance for at-risk teens to services for the mentally ill and the elderly." - Boston.com

I just don't understand why THESE groups are the ones that get to be considered "non-essential"...At risk and poor teens who NEED community colleges get overlooked. Mentally ill are no longer advocated for, or supported- HOMELESSNESS? Hello? Even the blind are getting crapped on. It's just insane. My husband works for another "non essential" youth program which will undoubtedly face devastating cuts. It makes me wonder how they think that these programs which parents and children alike all contribute to "saving their lives" become the first to go...Don't they see the connections between removing support for HUMAN programs, and the inevitable SOCIAL consequences? The crime, the drug use, the homelessness, the illiteracy...on and on. These things WILL happen if we let PEOPLE down.

Tony pointed out, being in this profession that they are one of the only sectors without union representation. Oh right. Oh yah, but...Duh. Of course they don't have an organized union to work on their behalf, because they are TOO busy out HELPING others who are in DIRE need of help. They don't worry about themselves, which makes them true servants to others. But then the government faced with the task of chopping budgets sees them as defenseless unlike all the other sectors so heavily guarded by their unions and chops at them, first. So so sad.

I just needed to rant. Because I have a husband working in a field that I also hold a degree in, and hope to get back into very soon and I just feel as though it's SAD how little people respect those that do SELFLESS work. And do it with passion and care. And love. How many people LOVE what they do? Lots of those people in cubicles with jobs nice and safe right now, do NOT love what they do. They are all working for the weekend, so to speak, but not us. We love this work. The line between job, and other life, blur because it's just LIKE THAT. It's all good. We are whole for the choices we make professionally.

That is always threatened, in our culture. We must fight back. We must fight with the same love and compassion as we work. Always.