Archive for the Kidis Interruptis Category
He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn’t play for the money he wins
He doesn’t play for respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance
From Sting’s Shape of My Heart
Dance used to be my meditation, and shooting. The two walked side by side. They seem an odd juxtaposition, but they complemented each other. One required full body movement, I lost myself in the rhythm of my body’s movements, concentrating on how each turn, each stretch made me feel alive. The other required a quietness, and an effort to control breathing, movement, posture. It required a steadiness and a focus, a grounding and centering which is often associated with traditional meditation. I never made that connection until recently. I never realized how different things can be meditation until recently.
I miss the feel of the full body meditation I used to do. Losing myself in my body, in the lyrics of songs. It’s amazing how songs become a part of me when I dance their words. I feel the poetry of the lyrics and the grace of the music on another level when I try to put those into action with my body.
I also miss the rhythm and concentration of shooting. I never did it just as sport; I never did it just for the competition. I never did it just for the scores; or to beat all the boys – yes, I did like being one of the few girls competing, and doing as well, if not better, than many of the boys. In some way, I liked getting up at 5:30 a.m. on school days to practice in the basement with my air rifle. Practice didn’t mean load, aim, fire. It meant load, breathe, clear your mind, find your position, breathe, seat yourself in your position, breathe, clear your mind, breathe, close your eyes, breathe, open your eyes, breathe, sight your target, breathe, focus, aim, breathe and as you exhale smoothly squeeze the trigger. It was a long process, one of grounding, centering, always finding the exact same position before aiming and firing.
Nowadays, I feel the “Mom” title most keenly in the meditation realm. Whether my meditations are calm and quiet or active with movement, they are interrupted. From beading, to gardening, to writing, my time is not my own. At any moment, someone will require my attention. Staying up late doesn’t work; Toph will stay up late too. Getting up early doesn’t work either; invariably my little early bird, the monkey, will get up earlier, as if he knows I’m up too, even if I go outside. This morning I’ve got headphones in and although I’ve managed to ignore Toph and the princess, the monkey just comes and stands beside me until I look at him and remove my headphones to talk to him. He’s learned how to get Mama’s attention.
Maybe Moms aren’t supposed to meditate, but given the number who claimed to find the time to do it, I don’t think that’s true. There’s got to be a way. How do women do it? It just doesn’t seem to happen in my house. I just get frustrated when I try it. I miss my meditations…I miss my dancing, and my shooting. I’m not really sure which I miss most.
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I suppose that sounds bad, that I hear voices in my head. I actually haven’t heard them recently because I’ve been hearing so many things from my children. I often call the voices my Muse, and I’ve long believed that she speaks very softly, even at the best of times. I’ve even got another blog called My Muse Speaks Softly, that I started in effort to spend more time hearing her whispers. I haven’t posted anything new on it in quite awhile though.
For awhile, I did really good focusing in and hearing her, even with children and cats and life interrupting the flow of her words. The last month or two have been harder. I really need to have no distractions. I can’t have anything hanging over me that will cause me to make an excuse not to write.
Wait. I’m making excuses NOT to write?! What’s wrong with me? I love to write. Why would I be making excuses not to write? Every excuse under the sun has come through my mind though: laundry needs to be done, dishes need to be done, the kids won’t leave me alone, I want to watch Star Trek, I want to knit, I want to sleep, I need to cook….on and on, the list goes on. The worst excuse of all, the one I heard myself using the most, was the one about the kids. I found it very irritating actually, that every time I sat down to write anything (even a blog post) a little four year old person would stand beside me singing or speaking the same words over and over. Worse still, it didn’t seem to matter what I was doing. This behavior has not been limited just to writing. I could be in the kitchen or folding laundry, knitting, napping or driving. He just hasn’t stopped talking much in the past couple of months.
So, today, my husband has kindly sent me off to the library where I can type or read or stare out a window in peace. There are no little people chattering in my ear; there are no annoying tv shows singing high pitched versions of nursery rhymes. It is a relief, in more than one sense.
During weeks, months, like the last few, I begin to feel that I have no recourse, no exits, from the cacophony of every day living. I don’t have a private retreat, a quiet place to curl up and think without being disturbed. I sometimes resort to lying on the floor of my walk in closet to think. At least one of our cats is usually curled up there as well, and she makes excellent company. She lets me idly pet her or just lie beside her. She does not normally yowl at me for more attention or whine at me to get her anything. She just seems to like my quiet company. Invariably, the peaceful quiet is shattered when someone discovers I’m not easily accessible. Then I hear shouts of “Mommy!!!” echoing through the house until I surface again.
Sometimes I seek a few moments of privacy in the bathroom. One would think that I might possibly be able to sit on a toilet without company by now. I mean, when the kids are tiny, I accept that I will often have an audience when I pee. By the time they reach three or four, though, I figure they can understand I don’t like company then. I’m still working on that concept with the four year old though. I don’t think he’s a particularly slow learner, as I know he’s quite capable of digesting concepts far greater than this. I think he does have a stubborn lack of desire to understand that he needs to leave me alone sometimes.
My daughter, now nine years old, recently showed an amazing sensitivity to this feeling of mine. She even suggested to my husband that they do something to help me feel better, since I seemed so overwhelmed this week. Even she seemed to notice the way that the four year old was hounding my footsteps and being more needy than normal recently.
In just the hour and a half I’ve been out of the house, I’ve made decent progress on a story I started on my Muse blog. I am debating whether I will post the update there. I begin to wonder if I should be posting stories on there, for fear that they will be unsellable to publishers later. (Another excuse not to post?) Whether or not I post on the blogs, I need to take time to listen to those voices in my head more often. I need to stop making excuses; I need to help my children understand my need for quiet. In the same way that they usually demand less of me when I spend time doing what they want, I think I feel less a need to divorce myself from their voices when they give me time to myself. I think the needs of the four year old have changed recently though. So a new balance has to be found.
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That (the title) is what my dear, darling four year old said to me this afternoon as I was slowly dancing/stretching to some music I had playing. Standing beside him was the nine year old, with a big old smirk on her face. It may have just been a smile, but it felt like a smirk. Well, those two sweet, adorable, charming children of mine totally killed my desire to dance right then. I’m self conscious at the best of times about dancing, but today my back was sore so I knew my movements were anything but smooth. It just felt good to stretch.
One of my B.C. (Before Children) loves was dancing. When I was very small, I took ballet/tap/jazz and loved every minute of it. I’m still not quite sure why I didn’t keep taking dance what with how I loved it. I used to dance for my grandmother. I can vividly remember making her sit and listen to “Rock This Town” by the Stray Cats (which she didn’t like that much) and watching me dance. I remember her saying she’d watch me dance in a skirt one day as long as she wouldn’t see my panties. I grinned, all innocence, and said, “Don’t worry, you can’t see them. I’ve got panty-hose on!” Around that same time, I performed a dance to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” at a school performance. I loved to dance.
During High School, I would wait until my family had gone to bed for the night and then dance for two hours in the darkened living room. I would stop abruptly if I heard anyone coming down the stairs, very embarrassed to have any one see me dancing. I’d often weave fantasies as I danced. Meeting my Prince Charming or performing for an awestruck audience. I can’t even remember all of the directions my fantasies went. It was kind of like watching a musical movie, where the characters will randomly burst into song or dance. Movies like Dirty Dancing left me in a haze of delight.
In college, I discovered Swing Dancing. I had so much fun with that. Not only did I take a class, but me and my friends would go down to Washington D.C. to dance at Glen Echo. I distinctly remember the fun I had the time a gentleman about the same age as my grandfathers asked me to dance at Glen Echo. He was the best dancer on the floor! He taught me so many moves that the younger set didn’t know, and this man knew them because the Swing Dancing was from HIS youth. My own grandfather tried to teach me some of the moves as I was growing up, but he claimed I always tried to lead. heh.
Over the last year or two, I’ve been letting myself move when the music draws me. Things like Shakira or my old favorites from Elton John or U2 will get me up and moving. I hate it, hate it, hate it, when some one comes into the room when I’m dancing though. I feel the rhythm in my body shriveling to nothing when I realize someone is gawking at me. I’ve tried ignoring the feeling, especially when it’s my own kids. I mean, I figure they should see their mom letting loose every once in awhile. But when comments like “Momma, you’re funny,” and snickers and smirks are directed my way, I can’t help but want to hide that facet of myself from my children. It makes me feel exposed.
I’m really not sure at this point how to reconcile this part of me with the mommy part of me. The two do not seem to fit together.
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