Week 4: The Axe Forgets ; The Tree Doesn’t

When I was born, the Mother Tree was partially severed.
Her branches drooped. Her leaves turned to gold and orange.
Then they fell off, and she went dormant.
In a few months, the Mother Tree reawakened and her cycle began once more, but life wasn’t easy for her ever again.

I was just a sapling and was replanted elsewhere.
I was planted in a grove with many other fine looking trees which bore assorted fruits and nuts, but we did not look the same.
Still, it was possible to grow together, but I did not blossom like the others did.
I was different, but there was space for me so that I could grow taller and stretch closer toward the sunshine as the days passed.

I didn’t like being separated from trees from my genus. I wanted to be with them.
I wondered if we swayed the same when the wind blew.
I was curious to compare leaves and twigs.
I wanted to know about my roots before I was placed here.

When I grew to adult-sized I could look farther across the land and I saw amazing things.
I was able to branch out and discover trees that were exactly like me, and I had never been able to do that before.
I hoped they were there, but before this time we could never see one another.
Now I don’t feel so out of place.

The Mother Tree is gone. She could not last forever.
Tree doctors tried to save her many times, but she gave out.
In the spot which was once hers is another little sapling.
It may or may not turn out to look like the rest of us, but that’s okay.

It will help me to remember where I began and why I am here now.

🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳 🌲 🌳

Morgenmuffel


1970s and ‘80s Me:

stay up in fright
fists tight
braced for flight
nightmares and bad things happen at night

prodded to hustle
morning tussle
lethargic muscle
at the bus stop, I groggily huddle

or later off to my profession
facing passive aggression
suppression, repression,
made to feel my life is a big fat transgression

—————————

1990s and early 2000s Me:

“Mommy I wanna Pop Tart…”
how my day would start
can’t deny they stole my heart
at 7 AM I’ll be stalwart

I must provide
put thoughts aside
sweet young faces; they are my pride
I am their guide

worth the worry
life’s one big hurry
time will scurry
lack of sleep makes details blurry

————————

2010-2020 Me:

awake at 7 but appreciate
time to think and meditate
write, read, associate
with online friends I think are great

coffee, birdsong
ear-worm sing-a-long
exercising, feeling strong
free time not for long

content in my job these days
feels less like labor; more like play
no more morning dread; I’m on my way
here I’ll stay


2020-Now Me:

I wake before the alarm has a chance
brain ramps up to full-on dance
news headlines a daily glance
getting info in advance

war, politics, COVID-19
disbelief in what I’ve seen
nothing feels serene
dreading the unforeseen

holding grandkids tight
wide-eyed kitty, purrs with might
I’ll never stop the fight
to seek the good and all that’s right.

I Believe:

1- I believe everyone should have and care for pets, if they can afford it in terms of time and costs.
2- I believe we should respect nature.
3- I believe we should be able to celebrate any holiday(s) we want.
4- I believe everyone should travel to another continent / country at least once.
5- I believe that most animals (dogs, cats, etc.) know more than we humans realize.
6- I believe everyone should have a way to be creative and have the time to practice it daily.
7- I believe every school subject has a value, but we don’t have to like them all…just have some experience.
8- I believe in paying it forward.
9- I believe students need to learn how to manage money responsibly and that a course should be taught in school.
10-I believe in the value of exercise.
11- I believe an “after-life“ exists in some way.
12- I believe good will prevail but you have to fight hard for it sometimes.
13-I believe in honesty.
14- I believe in the value of exercise.
15- I believe my grandparents are looking out for me, wherever they are…

We are making mosaics in art class. My job is to help “The Golfer”. His fine motor skills are atrocious and I honestly fear for his safety in Glassworks class. It’s one of the coolest opportunities for a student, but it’s also one of the riskiest in terms of safety.

I hold up a slab of semi- opaque glass; something between the shades of smoky grey and black. He wants this shade for the edging of his tile project. I’m supposed to let him cut the glass with a cutter and then assist him with chopping the glass pieces into bits. The Golfer remembers his goggles, but he can’t remember how to position his hands for using the glass cutting tools.

The Golfer can swing a five iron with success and send a ball soaring down a fairway, but cutting glass into pieces is, er…dicey.

So I assist hand-over-hand to help him cut bits of sky blue, red, white, lemon yellow and golf course green glass for his mosaic image. Next I help him spread the Weldbond (tm) glue over the surface of his tile. That step is messy but easy. He can use a paint brush and apply this.

Then we lay out the bits of colored glass and the background colors. The Golfer has a picture to follow, but he can’t match and place the glass bits accordingly, so one shiny sliver at a time, I have him place a blackish-grey one here, a blue one there, a green one here, etc.

Placing the fragments is calming but progress unfurls at a snail’s pace as he places each snippet. Occasionally I have to remind The Golfer that the blue chips are for the sky and need to go on the top and the green bits are the grass and go on the bottom of the tile. It’s a long process, but we finish. Then the glue will dry overnight. We can almost see the finished product and feel excited.
We’ll grout tomorrow.

Golf is his whole world. His dad taught him to play, and he does well in spite of memory issues and motor skills. He is sweet and kind and aims to please. The Golfer is a joy to work with.

( picture shown is not his work, but the sample he is supposed to follow. )

Time Out

G-d, Goddess, Spirit, The Force, Yahweh, Adonai, or whomever you choose to think of him/her as has put all of us in a big old time out, and we’re waiting for someone we trust to say, “OK, you can come out now.”

Scientifically it feels like nature is attempting to re-boot itself when you read about waterways and skies clearing up, there being less white noise from airplanes and traffic and how the pace of human life is slowing down more while wildlife is having a resurgence. Between all the recent fires in Australia and California, earthquakes and now COVID-19, there’s been a brutal culling of many populations. Earth’s carrying capacity could be outsmarted only so many times before something had to give.
(I’m beginning to sound like a real biology teacher here! LOL)

No one knows when we will be set free by either our governments or by medical advances, and no one knows exactly what will happen if too many people “cheat” and break the rules too quickly. Hell, we don’t even know what the next protocol for most daily activities will be going forward. Everything from shopping, going to jobs and school, to going to a gym or a restaurant will be changed. We will have to undergo a gradual and cautious re-release before we can feel safe again.

No one knows what the “new normal” will be like, but for now, any of us surviving are caught in a transition phase between life pre-2020 and post-COVID-19. It feels traumatic and dystopian because we’ve been strongly reminded that any type of plan we make can be swiftly unmade. Very little is in our control, and that notion has become not only a reality we never counted on but also emotionally jarring.

I often find myself wondering too if this is what daily life might be like for people on the ASD spectrum. My understanding is that they usually crave structure and routines and that changes, especially unplanned alterations, can make them feel unsure or awkward. They don’t like not knowing what will happen next. Now all of us want to find a sense of “here’s what to do and here’s how we’re going to do it” again. Where is the plan?

I mean, this COVID-19 thing has turned into the biggest mind f-ck of a lifetime, (except for maybe 9-11). My little grandkids will never know the difference. (I’ve heard of this next crop of kids being called “Gen-C”...C for Corona. ) The rest of us will sound like old folks talking about “back when nobody work masks...” the same way many of us grew up never wearing seatbelts and bike helmets.

Those are weird things to think about, and ever since I got the news about my friend in Spain being diagnosed and in a coma on a ventilator, I’ve not felt calm or assured, and I’ve not slept right. For a week I could feel my insides shaking as if I were sitting on one of those vibrating beds that motel room used to have. (Anyone here remember those?) It’s a funny comparison, but I don’t know any other way to describe it. I’ve never been formally diagnosed as having anxiety, but I think that’s anxiety. In my mind, I created a mental image of my friend, Montse, in a crowded, chaotic hospital ward in Barcelona, where everyone is speaking loudly in Catalán, machines and monitors are beeping non-stop and medical workers are bustling about trying to keep up. I can’t get over the notion that the last thing she probably remembered was she and her husband and daughter telling one another goodbye as paramedics carried her out of her home.

Montse died on April 3rd. It’s now been two weeks. I internally shake less, but it’s not gone away completely. I can control it when I work or have a craft or writing project. (Thanks, Gary!) In fact, I can go hard all day and crash in front of the TV by 11 PM and then, BOOM! I’m wide awake at 4 AM, thinking about what will I do when the sun rises. I also worry about who’s going to die next. Not only do I need a daily plan, but I also need a big life plan, and right now, the idea that my friends, my husband, kids or grandkids, my siblings or my most vulnerable 90-year-old mother could be taken down or out by an evil, insidious, ugly yet invisible germ haunts me. It disturbs me when I go anywhere, even for a harmless walk or a fast run to the quickie store on the corner. We have no promises; no guarantees.

I am hoping as summer approaches, that maybe I will settle down because we as a society, will have either a decently formed plan for the future in place, a schedule of when testing and vaccines might be available and less fear of hospital overcrowding. Honestly, if we had all the ventilators and life-saving medicines in the world, I still wouldn’t want to catch this thing and have to go through the experience. Until the day comes when I can comfortably venture beyond my yard I will tremble. Until my loved ones are safely vaccinated, I will feel guarded. It’s not so much about the perceived loss of my freedom to shop, socialize and go to my workplace…it’s about feeling safe and finding “normal” again. I will not be at ease until I can imagine a possible timeline (two years?) and know that the threat of this profoundly wicked enemy is diminished.

I never knew how much I would love a child until I had a child.

While you gestated in me for nine months and eight days, we bonded. I chatted with you while driving to and from work. I sang songs and rocked out with you to Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson and Billy Joel. Your first concert was when I won tickets off the radio to see Huey Lewis and the News while seven months pregnant! I swear all the rolling and pushing I felt that night was you dancing and clapping along to the rhythm.

The Power of Love...

I was sonogramed later in the pregnancy due to concerns about placenta previa, which turned out to be a non-issue, but the bonus was, unlike at the 20th week appointment, we were finally able to determine that we were having a little girl! I'd had three dreams about having a girl, so I intuitively knew this, but the medical proof was sweet. I got a brief look at your face, and we made eye contact on screen! Driving home from the appointment, Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" was playing on the radio. It was a magical moment, and that tune became Our Song.



But I was afraid. After all this time and all the good news we appeared to be blessed with, I was terribly frightened that someone somehow would make an error regarding either your life or mine.

But it never happened, and you were born fine. "Eight days late, but worth the wait!" we said Daddy proudly printed up "Strickland, The Next Generation" birth announcements to send out.

And after we were home, I was still afraid. I swear it wasn't hormones. I was always on the alert for something bad to happen. It was exhausting, but it's how I lived each day and night. I kept myself in check, but inside I was terrified of either you losing me or me losing you.

The TV news had an onslaught of stories about abandoned babies, including one at EPCOT in a ladies' room. Then there was the piece about a young mother killed by an angry boyfriend; the story about the house fire and all the children perished...I just couldn't...

And I thought about Billie, my birth mother, your birth grandmother, and how she died when she was only 36, as a young mother. My sister, KDN, was a baby and never got to know our mother either. Billie lost me to adoption, and my sister lost Billie due to heart failure.

And I couldn't stop thinking about how fortunate we all are to be living in times when we have better medical care and technology to save lives and prevent problems; how lucky I was to have the means both socially, physically and financially to care for my own children myself.

And I was in awe of how you looked so much like my birth father and me: same little mouth, fine, reddish peach-fuzz hair and blue eyes. I could never let you go...My baby...

But you did go: to kindergarten, to Girl Scouts, to basketball practice, to sixth-grade-camp, to AAA Driving School, to Prom and then college, where you went to a Halloween party and met the love of your life.

I had so many fears about raising you and having something go awry, but you have had very few fears, and I admire this about you. You are confidant, lovely, intelligent, accomplished, funny, still with reddish hair and those dreamy baby-blues.

And on your beautiful wedding day you were brave enough to break with tradition and went down the aisle your way to the that ever powerful song, "In Your Eyes"...Our song.

Now you own a home, have a good job and show so much promise. One day you guys are going to be great parents. You tell me you're afraid of raising kids in today's goofy, "effed-up" world full of weirdos, bad politics, terrorists and PTSD. You don't want to bring a child into this arena, but I believe you can do it. You have so much support, and honestly, society needs people like you guys to produce more good-natured, kind and bright people like yourselves. There's a safety in numbers.

My greatest wish is that somehow you can work beyond your fear of potentially messing up your someday-kid's life or not being adequate enough to deal with the future of our world. Instead, we have to keep living and finding ways to introduce more goodness and positivity into our lives and not let so much negativity curtail our options and plans.

I'm selfish, I admit this. I really want to be a grandparent. You won't screw up, I guarantee it. I also know it is your body, but you guys have a lot going for you. Please, please...find a way to be less afraid. I want to hold a baby again and play songs like In Your Eyes and The Power of Love and dance around the room with a small, cuddly warm person another time.

You're 27 years old. I'm forever your Mommy, and, G-d, I love you so much!