Four Girls, a Cat, a Pumpkin, and a Camera - A Photoessay

And here we go! Two lovely young ladies and a pretty nice pumpkin.
Oooh!
Digging in
Perfect size and shape for toasting.
Philip gave me the idea to let the girls use the camera. A little scary, putting a $500 Nikon D-40 in the hands of 5 and 6 year old girls ... but the battery on the point-and-shoot was drained. Here are a few of their photos, starting with the inside of the pumpkin.
That's Elizabeth, so Sarah (5) must have taken that one.
Kiki will let Elizabeth do anything to her, including take her picture.
Elizabeth caught Kiki where she's not supposed to be ... on top of the microwave.
Those tools in the carving kit are pretty cheap, if you ask me. Think I'll go for pro tools next year.
Big sister Hannah, at the computer as always.
Finally down to the bottom of the design. I'm using a kitchen knife by this time, having bent the blades on the tools.
I took this one of the final result. Whew ... two hours of carving.
Voila! The pumpkin on the left is Hannah's; dunno exactly what that character is, but it's cute!

Searching for Peace

"Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

It is such a struggle for me to find peace regarding my ex-husband. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want him to have any power over my emotions at all. He's hurt me enough, long enough, and I've done everything I can to put myself out of his reach, so to speak. Or so I think. I really do want to be accepting of my life as it is, and be happy.

There's a catch in me somewhere, and I can't find it. What is it? Where is it?

The divorce is six months in the books. He moved into his new/old girlfriend's house four months ago. (They dated for three years before we met.) That doesn't bother me; I had enough and definitely don't want him. If only she knew what I know! I should be grateful that he moved in with her, then used his visitation with the children, because in doing so, he violated the "morality clause" that he insisted on having in the divorce decree. This states that no member of the opposite sex is to stay overnight (11 pm to 7 am) while the children are in the same house. It's ironic that he broke the rule he insisted on having in place, only two months after the divorce was final. He wanted that clause in there to limit me, of course; he didn't think about it in terms of himself. So, I should be grateful. I have not broken the clause and see no immediate need to, but if I do, there's not much he can have an issue with because he broke it first.

It bothers me a little when the children talk about her, that I admit. I get over it quickly though, by reminding myself that I am their one and only mother.

It does bother me when he doesn't pay his child support. The last payment I received was on September 9th, and he was already behind before the payments stopped. Being unemployed myself, the child support has made a big difference for me financially. I have kept myself from getting too upset about the unpaid child support by trusting God, knowing that the Office of the Attorney General was on top of the situation, and by remembering that I need to be self-supporting, in other words, employed - not dependent on the child support money. So I haven't gotten too upset about this, overall. Child support is not the catch, this is not really "it." A few days ago I got a letter from the OAG stating that Chris owed me over $2700 in back child support. Today I discovered a payment in my bank account from the OAG - they must be seizing his unemployment money. That was a nice surprise! I wonder if Alicia is regretting her decision to have him move in with her yet. I know how un-fun it is to completely support him; I did it for three years.

The thing that bothers me the most is when he doesn't use his visitation with the children. The "catch" is in here somewhere; I'm getting warmer. In the year since the legal separation began, his use of visitation privileges has been very little and entirely inconsistent. 2008 was his year to have the children for the week including Christmas. He used a day and a half, picking them up on Christmas Eve and returning them Christmas Day at noon (and that was out of my generosity; when he refused to pick them up the Friday before and keep them the entire week, I was no longer obligated to give him any time at all, but I did). That 36 hours was the only time in December he saw them; he skipped all other visitation opportunities. He skipped at least the last two months leading up to "D-Day" (April 7th). He then used weekend visitation for the next two months, through Father's Day weekend in mid-June. He then missed the next two months completely - no weekends, no extended summer visitation, nothing. He used visitation again in August, but it's been typically hit-and-miss.

He missed last weekend. Even though I had no special plans, I was frustrated. I always enjoy my kid-free time - time to be "just me." The angry talk in my head goes something like this: He gets to live with his girlfriend. He gets 12 out of 14 days to do whatever the hell he wants. I'm spending all the time and doing all the work to raise these children. Why can't I have just those two days every two weeks? To do what I want? To maybe enjoy a new relationship, like he has every day? To clean the house and have it stay that way for a few minutes? To finish painting the kitchen, repaint the living room wall?

I don't have the answer for that, the "angry talk." It still upsets me. The only thing I can come up with is, if he was (1) reasonable, (2) considerate of my and the girls' feelings and welfare, and (3) an interested and devoted father, I probably would still be married to him. I'm not that picky; I don't ask for much, and I asked for less then, than I do now. Clearly, he is still the same man I divorced. I hate the idea that my daughters have this kind of man for their father, but it's my fault that they do. I am still embarrassed that I chose this man in the first place. I'm angry at me, as much as I am at him. Darn it!

And I think I know why he missed last weekend. It's that child support money from the OAG. Chris rarely takes the girls unless he has some fun thing for them to do. The last time he took them, they came home talking about the "Greek Festival," and when he took them this summer (other than the two months he didn't) they usually went to the beach. All he knows how to be is "fun Dad." His former employer began withholding for child support at the end of November; he didn't use visitation almost all of December. Child support increased (two months late) in June; he missed two months of visitation after Father's Day. This is his deal, the way he rolls. It's either because he thinks he has to have money to spend on them, or it's to punish me for his having to pay child support. Either way, I don't get any time to myself, and the children get no consistent interaction with their father. We all lose.

Well. I don't know if this exploration has helped me find the peace I seek. I'll know later. For now, I should prepare myself mentally for the likelihood that he won't take them Halloween weekend either. Time to practice lowering my expectations, and accepting the conditions of my single-mom life as best I can, whether I like it or not.

Be Still

The very best and utmost of attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in thee. - Meister Eckhardt

I lost my connection to God for a few days. Not entirely, mind you. Perhaps I have made progress in incorporating God into my daily life, because I did talk to Him several times. I neglected to start the day with Him, though; I woke up each day and was off to the races without my morning prayers and meditation. Both Friday and Saturday were good, busy days. Sunday it caught up to me. I felt in a funk, heart burdened, and could not identify the problem. A despicable tendency in me, I tried to pin it on things outside myself. Need I point you to the last post, on acceptance? Specifically the last sentence in the quote at the top? Laughing at myself now, which is good - I will never be perfect, will never achieve my ideals, but I will keep my ideals just the same. All the pointing outward was in my head anyway; I didn't pick any fights, that I can recall. It's progress. I wonder now how much I could have achieved today if I had started my day right and been light, instead of weighted down. That is an area in which I still have much progress to make: how to keep moving when my heart hurts, instead of dragging myself around like I swallowed Titanic's anchor.

Tonight I went through my books (two of them) and caught up on the daily meditations I had missed. This is not a good way to learn; I have to take it one mediation entry per book, per day, to get enough spirituality and growth out of them. I saw clearly what I had missed, not in words on a page but in meaning that I could have carried through the days in question. Yipes. As it turns out, the problem - the pain - was of my own making. Of course it was. Tomorrow I will get back on track. I hope that this will remind me to be more faithful to my meditation and prayer time, every day, in the days to come.

Acceptance

Anonymous author: " And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. ... I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

I have struggled mightily with acceptance over the last week. OK ... most of my life. The notion that I should take life one day at a time and refuse to struggle with the particulars of my reality is the very antithesis of what I learned and believed as I grew up. Were not the heroes of the world those who refused to accept defeat, who kept at "it" until the goal was achieved? Was I not intelligent and talented, full of potential ... was not the world my oyster? Until the age of 37, "acceptance" was wholly foreign to me, a concept to which I had never been introduced. I simply had no idea at all.

In July 2007 I suffered a self-imposed crisis. I had never felt so much emotional pain. I simply could not go on the way I had been. I was full of remorse for what had become a daily drinking habit, and sought help to quit. I learned that my drinking was a symptom, one which could return in full force and even become worse unless I addressed the true problem: I needed God, and a spiritual way of life, desperately. Pursuit of prayer and meditation on a regular basis led me to this thing called "acceptance." I read about it, thought about it, and talked about it for many months, but all I had was conceptual knowledge. Understanding, belief - these require experience. At least they do for me.

And the experiences are coming. Sometimes I do find that I try to put my hands back on the steering wheel. Fortunately, earlier this week I did this and managed not to crash the bus. Forgive my vagueness, but the best I can say is that the other person involved was deeply familiar with acceptance, recognized the battle waging within me, and gently guided me away from the ditch and back on the road. I am grateful that my friend did not become disgusted with or offended by my behavior; what I felt instead was an understanding smile, an encouragement to trust, and reassurance that all will be well and all is well.

As usual during times like these, I have an idea or 200 about what I want and what needs to happen so I can have what I want. This week, absolutely nothing has happened according to my little plans and designs. What I had in mind is not going to transpire, not now. What I have learned is, when I let go of my expectations and accept people, places, things, and situations exactly as they are, this leaves room in my life for the unexpected to happen. And sometimes, those unexpected things are so good that it had never occurred to me to hope for them in the first place.

Taking a Deep Breath

Here I go ... the inaugural post of my very first blog. Frightening. I simultaneously yearn to lay bare my soul in its entirety, and fear how that soul will be perceived. Who will read this? What will they make of it? I recall lyrics to "Breathe (2 am)" by Anna Nalick:

I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them however you want to.

As if attempting to blog was not foolish enough, I recently undertook efforts to learn digital photography. This is perhaps even more frightening than the blogging. I am a writer by profession, of the educational/informational variety. Although I typically write about machinery or software instead of my mind and heart, at least I have a degree and several years of experience that say I know how to write. Photography? Nuh-uh. No education whatsoever, not even recreational classes. I have this lovely Nikon D40 SLR, but little idea what all these dials and buttons do or when to use them. One might think I'd read the book that explains all this, pay some homage to my fellow technical writers. One would be wrong. I am also deeply unsure that I can create visual art - that I have an "eye." I've been a musician; I've been a writer. I have never been an artist. I see photographs that my friends create with ease; they snap the picture, upload it to their computer, crop here and adjust there, and in mere seconds they have a stunning work of art. Like Michaelangelo with a slab of marble, they know what lives within their photos and they remove the material obscuring that life. I doubt I possess this kind of vision, and doubt further that I can be taught such a thing. As my mother said when she didn't want to be pinned down, "We'll see."

Nevertheless, I will grace, or burden, this blog with my fledgling efforts at photography. The rose in this post lives on my only rose bush. My late maternal grandmother had the original plant; my mother took cuttings from it for her own rose bush and later cut from hers to begin mine. The roses are not breathtakingly beautiful, but the bush is remarkably resilient and fertile. And of course, I love them because they remind me of Grandma.

Self-expression. The true purpose of this blog is to let some of the musty air out of me, that a fresh breeze may blow through the dark spaces. I know I can write properly, although whether what I say has value to anyone but myself - that I do not know. I can push a button on a camera, take the resulting photograph, and attempt to carve something meaningful out of it, although the image may not even please me, much less anyone else. Words, photographs ... and music. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a song expresses my feelings better than I can and in significantly fewer words. So, there will be song lyrics quoted here.

Breathe in, breathe out
Tell me all of your doubts
Everybody bleeds this way,
Just the same.
(Mat Kearney)

Well. I have already told you some of my doubts - about this blog, photography, myself. Many more are sure to come. Perhaps Mat is right ... we all bleed this way, just the same. I take a deep breath as I stare at the "Publish Post" button.