Seeds

Confession:  I harrassed a cashier lady at the grocery store a few weeks ago.  That was me.  If you saw the whole thing go down and were wondering.  It was me.  I was that woman.  And I was pretty upset while I was doing it.  I got loud and serious and pointed fingers and the whole shebang.   I think I might have scared her a little, and everyone around me.  She had that look of compliance a two year old gives you when you've removed all of their worldly possessions  and threaten them with the spanking, and you both know that you mean it this time.  She asked for her manager in a desperate panic over the intercom, " . . . Uuuum, ugh, . . . . Manager???? . . . to checkstand 13 . . . . ".   Scratch, as the intercom shuts off and she tried to not face me while she waited for her white horse.  But I pretty much held the gun to her head.  I wasn't walking out of that store without the reciept of the lady in front of me (point, point) and the one behind me, (point, point) who was twitching and shaking and wobbling with a baby on her hip, waiting to bag the rest of her purchase after I stopped making a scene.  I wasn't walking out of the store without those reciepts and she knew it.

Now, sitting here this morning, pouring over these receipts again, before I get up the gumption to pay my bills,  I'm asking myself why I did that to that cashier.  How could I?   What exactly did I have the intention of doing with these receipts anyway?  What importance did they represent?  Can't I just be nice????   I can't help but feel like there is this tiny little thread of relation weaving around through my life and our current events and maybe these receipts have ended up being the little ticket to my own personal understanding.

I had gone through the store that day with a calculator.  I passed on the apples because my neighbor was kind enough to offer me his.  I didn't need carrots because Brazen is having an amazing crop this year.  I did need bananas and Ben's trail mix.  He always acts like it is such a surprise when I remember to get him his lunch makings.  Not because he is forgotten, but because he is understanding enough to know that we have tough choices to make and he doesn't want to be thought of first.  He doesn't expect it.  Isn't that funny?  He doesn't expect his humble lunch makings.  Trail mix ingredients from the bulk foods section of WinCo.  And he's willing to go without.  But I had a budget of $200.00 and that would leave us with $25.50 for miscellaneous.  And I was feeling blessed that I could do this and make it happen.  I even got Sam and Morgan some cocoa and Brazen some chocolate covered raisins for his after school jar.  Camble had asked about getting floss and so I got one for every bathroom.  I guess that's where I went over.    By a whole $1.20.  I should have just done the rounding up trick.  And maybe I wouldn't have been so upset about that one dollar and 20 cents if I hadn't just witnessed the woman in front of me purchase 6 monster Drinks, Doritos, Cocoa Puffs, Tootsie Pops, Mars Snax Bars, Frozen Talapia, Lays Chips, Pepsi, Pace Picante Sauce, Extra Gum and Coffee Creamer.  I was in such awe I stopped bagging my own groceries and just watched hers go down the little grocery bagging area.  It was like they were doing a little dance before my eyes.  I couldn't stop watching.  Then, because I was so intrigued by her outstanding food choices, I was even more curious about her method of paying for such wonderful food items.  And, yes, it was all paid for by an Oregon Trail card. 

Something inside of me snapped.  Literally disconnected.  I didn't intend to be hostile, but I blurted out, "That's not food!  None of that is actually food.  How can she pay for that with an Oregon Trail card?"  SHE was still standing beside me.  I guess I had forgotten that she was actually a person.  For some reason I must have decided the poor clerk was the gistapo of the whole welfare system.  Or, apparently I was.  Who knew?  Because really, what I was saying was, "I don't want to pay for that!  In fact, THE AMERCIAN PEOPLE . . . . "  The cashier then assured me that it was, in fact, all considered food items.  Then something even more curious happenned.  When I regained my composure a little I noticed that the woman, who's purchase I was so offended by, wasn't even phased by my objections.  She was just casually waiting with her cart.  She had actually bagged her items.  She was also in communication with the woman in line behind me to conspire to make certain purchased with her card because she only had so much of a balance and the woman behind me must've had more on her card.  More Doritos, cherry pies, chocolate pies, tortilla chips, Folgers Coffee, 2 packs of 24 cans of Pepsi, Red Bull Energy Drinks, 2 packages of imittation crab, more gum, Franz White Bread, Lays Wavy Chips, etc.   I began bagging my groceries so I wouldn't let myself be a voyer as she took out her card.  I knew it was going to happen.  I just pretendied it was behind closed doors and it was none of my business.  This time.  I was playing nice.  But, I couldn't deny it was my business all the same.  It made my head spin to look at our carts sitting there beside each other.  I wanted to take a picture, but felt like I'd already taken things too far and didn't want to become one of "those" people, along with the person I had just become.

I have kept the reciepts.  I guess I wanted to try to play the "No Way" game with myself and refer back to them when I started to question the realilty of it all.  I went to my car with my head down, feeling ashamed for attacking the cashier and embarrassing the two women who I treated like criminals.  I thought of that little baby that the woman was bouncing on her hip.  Not a soothing bounce, but a gittered up, uncontrolled body jerking of a bounce.  I reconsidered the contents of makings of all of those food items in their carts.  I wanted to rescue the little girl and squeeze her and sit and let life happen in front of her while she sat still quietly, discovering and deciding how she wanted to step into it.  I apologized to her with my tears and said I was sorry that I had just bought her Mama garbage to fuel her body and brain.  That didn't represent my values or my beliefs, but nobody is really asking me what those are either.  

I remember standing in the cheese lines when I was a little girl.  I remember the indignity I shouldered because in my mother's desperation she chose an easy escape and assumed her appropriate attitude of victim and entitlement.  I learned that the word "They" referred to everybody yet nobody.  "They" were the people that owed her and we needed to be defensive to.  Everybody owed her.   Nobody wanted to, but she was entitled.   She was deserving of everything.   And that attitude made me embarrassed, for her sake.   Standing in my red coat from Goodwill, on the streets of Salem, in the cold with my brothers and sisters.   We waited to be handed our bricks of cheese.   Free cheese that we deserved.   We didn't even eat the cheese all of the time.  But it was important that it was free and "They" said we could have it.   Yet we were to be thankful for it.  Even though it was somehow owed to us.   For something.  Owed to my mother.  For having children, I guessed.  Nobody talked about it.   I just had to assume you got free cheese because you had children.  And my mother had a lot of children.  So she deserved a lot of cheese.   I just had to decipher the looks and anticipate how much "They" decided we deserved.   When my mother was sure she deserved everything.  No matter what the rules where, or who "They" were, there were only real live people behind those tables, passing out boxed up cheese loafs and judgement on those Salem streets.  I couldn't make sense of it.  Who were the "They"?

Now I'm one of the "They".   

I harrassed that cashier because judging those women somehow made that little girl inside of me hand out retribution to all of those who judged me.  I wanted somehow to show that little baby being shaken and jerked around that there is a better way and surely I'd discovered it.   I guess I thought I needed to save her before she even realized she needed to be saved.  Somehow I believed my judgement would shine a light on her lost mother.  I just gave her more of what she's grown so accustomed to its easy to just ignore.  Ignoring my judgement probably made me feel like thrashing her with my icy stares and projected disgust wasn't going to make the revolutionary changes I needed it to make.  All for her own benefit, I'm sure.  I was convinced. 

I think I may have been more effective if I could have let my relatively for her situation guide me to understanding and kindness.  I didn't know how to educate that little baby or those two woman on healthy food choices in an instance so I used that valuable time to deliver harsh judgement instead, hoping that impact would inspire them to search out the options and alternatives.   Just like those women handing out the cheese directed me.

I started carrying seeds in my bag.  When I run out I go back to Down To Earth and I pick some more out, completely randomly, and stick them back in my bag.  When I find myself in these situations, like the grocery store incident, I quietly pull out some seeds and give them away.  Flowers.  Pumpkins.  Cilantro.  Flowers.  Kholrobi.  Flowers.  And that is what I'd like to be symbolic of who I am and what I believe instead. 

Struggles

Today, as Brazen and Samantha were helping me, helping their family, in the morning chaos I had to remind myself and them that the struggle was just part of life sometimes and reassured them it was okay.  And I hope they can develop their own comfort with our chaos, that involves offering their love and understanding as the necessary tool.  

It reminds me to let them see me struggle.  To let them see me try and fail and resume life all over again.  To let them witness that failure not defining me. When they see me cry over loss and hopes crushed and letting them feel satisfied that their love makes a difference in the mending.   Sometimes I see the wonder in their eyes when they see someone upset and I think that because they understand that there is a degree of loss or pain or struggle they get caught up in the moment and don't know if life will exist beyond this immediate circumstance.  When the currant returns and they recognize life flows beyond what has just happened, or what we are afraid is going to happen, I see the relief wash over them.  

And, it reminds me to let them struggle. To take a step back and let them count on loving arms, regardless of their journey. 

My Dad used to tell me, "I can help you, but I can't do it for you."

I'm grateful to hear those words echoed to me and represent a cautious hand when I want to make the easy choice and do it all for them.  

Maybe Sometimes I Feel Like That Vacuum

Samantha,

You're still sleeping.  We had your graduation party last night and although I asked others to take a minute to write a reflection or share a drawing or offer some nugget of understanding to help light your way I didn't get a chance to sit down and give you my two cents worth.  I was waiting for the inspiration and would you believe I found it in the conversations last evening and . . . of all things . . . our vacuum.

Right about now, when I was your age, 14 and I had graduated from the 8th grade I was a very different person.  A different person than I've grown into being and a different person than who you are already.  I was living in Coquille and my parents, at the time, Don and Jonnie, had rented out our home to another family.  I was actually living with Dana Brice, and her family on the other side of town.  The plan was to get rid of everything, bring a cardboard barrel of toilet paper with us, live in a camper on the back of our '74 Ford Pick Up and move to Belize to stay forever.  I translated that to be until the toilet paper ran out.  I wasn't actually a part of The Plan, or any plan, and I was angry.  I was an angry person at that point.   I was also in love.  Life is like that.

There wasn't a big ceremony of any sorts that I can remember participating in for our class.  Maybe something happened in the gym at lunch.  It's all a blur.  There were some families that had put some effort into making the event a special happening and so I remember some of my friends and other classmates had family in town or they had been given a gift of jewelry or something to mark the day as other than ordinary.  Sensing the commotion and realizing other families had gone out of their way, on some level, to mark the event of being promoted to High School gave me an understanding that there was something important about what was happening and, simultaneously left me feeling a whole lot forgotten about.  But I was excited and happy for my friends.  

My parents had come up with this cockamamy plan to move to Belize.  I had no voice.  I guess they didn't want me included in the packing process either because I was invited to leave and Dana invited me to stay with her.  Dana excelled at everything athletic and was just as accomplished at school, in every subject.  To flatter her makes me feel a little phony because she wouldn't have wanted all of the fuss.  She was so honest with herself and everyone around her that I think some people found that a little off putting.  I found it refreshing.  You could count on her to call a spade a spade and that was nothing short of wonderful as far as I was concerned.   It was something I admired and appreciated as much as a cool breath of air in my dark and dank room of a life could be appreciated.  I just had to be when I was around her.  That simplicity was a perfect dose of reality.  The parts of her life that were private she was very capable and responsible for and she owned them without hostility.  Getting to stay with her and share all the corners of her life helped me to see that the whole picture of her life had just as much integrity as I had naturally assumed it would.  She brushed her teeth at night, without even being asked.  And she was sweet.  The generosity of her spirit wasn't a surprise, but it was what I connected to and what I appreciated about her the very most.

Dana, bless her heart, gave me a balloon for graduation day and her sweetness in that gesture was all I needed to signify that I was a part of the happening as well and that Belize was far away, as it should be.  We were sisters, instantly, at least for the time being.  I had to go to my house to get some things and when I got home the balloon had wrangled it's way out of my hand and straight up and away into the big Coquille sky before I realized I ever had a desire to be able to be that high.  As it floated up, my heart fell down.  But, I still had Dana and Danny to look forward to.

I met Danny in the spring, during track season.  He was in High School and helped with one of our track meets.  The long jump, in particular.  Standing there with his clipboard, flirting with all of the girlz who were wooing over him.  I didn't long jump.  I was on my way over to the shot put and heard his voice, that jerked my head around to find what earthly being it was coming from because, I hadn't so much heard it as I had felt it . . . and recognized it.  Although we had never met.  And, yes, it was that quick.  My heart had found its home.

Dana knew Danny.  My dad had a no dating policy and that meant I might not get to know him.  He was friends with her older brother, Derek.  They hurdled together and had quite the friendly rivalry going.  What if we wrote him a letter?  She would help me write him a letter.  I should write him a letter, we had decided, I guess.  So, I wrote my very first love letter, with the courage I borrowed from Dana, my sister in life.  I can remember sitting there on her bed, pen and paper in front of me, wads of started letters all over the floor, South America in the back of my brain, sweat under my armpits, my stomach and shoulders on fire with nerves, but feeling nothing but encouraged.  I was so drunk on love and appropriately inspired that the final draft of my polished letter was delivered to him saying, "Dear Danny, Hello sweatheart . . . . "  I blamed Dana.  I had exhausted her impeccable spelling talents with the 40 previous beginnings.   I'm sure I managed to spell "sweetheart" so many times that it had blurred on the page and lost all meaning.  Or, I had created a new meaning.  We just wanted to get the letter to him and make good things start happening.  "Sweatheart."  I did that.

Belize never ended up happening.  The plans fell through and at the last minute my parents found a house to rent on top of a mountain, 15 miles outside of Myrtle Point, on Dement Creek road.  Since they had cleared out our house and the family of a friend of mine from Myrtle Point was already moving in canceling all moving plans wasn't possible.   As indignant as I was to accept the reality of moving to Belize and coveting toilet paper, I was incapable of coming to terms with moving to the next town as far away by road proximity as possible from my friends and . . . . Danny.  I had ended relationships and began one on the intoxicating possibility that I was now an adventurer, whether or not I wanted to be one.  It was my destiny, or so I had been told.  Then I was informed it was all for not.  Minds were changed.  The drugs had to have run out.  Lord knows we still had all of the toilet paper.  When the news came to me I become boiling, white hot angry.  I don't handle indecision well.  I'm not a dependant person and I don't require permenance.  Life is a circle of changes and being able to adapt is essential, but I have no respect for stirring everyones lives up and about and then leaving them there to spin and sail through the sky.  I don't talk about anything unless I'm willing to see it through and make it happen.  You know that.  Half of the time I don't even talk about it.  Not that I'm impulsive, I just get it done.  Now you know why.  Thank God I was such a good letter writer.  Up to the mountain we went.

That all seems pretty far away now.  About 20 lifetimes ago or so.  Here you are, all of 14, staring me in the face, and I want to try to take a long step back to somehow illustrate to you that you are overcoming things in life that are going to affect you and shape who you are.  I don't know if it's important to try to put that into a particular category or appreciate a perspective now, but just understand that there is that promise and accept that you will have to embrace it all as best as you can and find the meaning in it all for your very own.   And, remember you're not alone.  I was living the life I had right in front of me every day until I had you. There was no way I could have anticipated that change, but I was open to it.   Bringing you into this world was the first truly important thing I really did in this world.  For this world.  Out of this world.  It was beyond me and changed everything.  Absolutley everything.  You are your very own, but I claim you and I always will.  You're my girl.

Samantha, when I was 14, I was somewhere between the throws of childhood and womanhood with no outlet to express my earned understandings or hopes for the future.  I had to scrape and scrap.  I was in the backyard patterning a way too tiny bikini and cutting up a rubber floaty into little triangles and stratigically tieing them together with bread ties and string from the frayed clothesline because I had decided I could make my own but wanting to preserve every part of innocence contained in my body.  I was deciding to not be confused and making decisions about accepting beauty and ugliness that surrounded me but I didn't know how to take those first big steps inside of my soul and project that outwards.  I was looking, searching.  My eyes were bright and even if half of my heart was in a hole I had shoulders and ears and elbows leaning towards the light.  That is what I decided to let guide me.

And here we are.  You're dad fixed the vacuum a few years ago for me for Valentine's Day.  Bear with me here.  So, I had broken the vacuum, again.   We were going to have company over and I wanted to vacuum the rugs but gave up on it because I had broken the stupid vacuum.  Your dad quietly took the vacuum out to the barn while I grabbed the broom and complained about how I would be sweeping the stupid rugs.  They became stupid, along with the vacuum.  I wrote the vacuum off as going to the dump and thought your dad was working on other projects.  I continued tidying and then, vwalla, there was the vacuum in front of me.  Your dad had never used that stupid thing and so he didn't know how to compare it's performance but he was excited to have tried to make an improvement for me.  He asked me to try it out and we were both excited to have it working.  Me, because he had gone out of his way to see to this for me and I could quantify the improvements, and your dad, because I was happy.  Sure, the light didn't work.  The side bumper piece was still broken off.  Your dad busted off the left side of the plastic frame in the barn.  The dusting attachment was long gone, the wand has been split and duct taped and the upoltstry attachment hadn't functioned since the word go.  It sounds simple, but for all of the broken parts, it was still working, and I could see through all of that.  It was restored and doing what it was intended to do.  It worked.

I talked with folks last night and we moved through the crowd and I talked about my broken parts and pieces and I'm sure I have some that I've lost along the way.  We talked about all you've overcome as of recently and it's been a lot.  Two tons.  But you did it girl.  And the sun came up this morning and before I openned my eyes I had that moment.   That moment I've talked to you about.  That quick little skip of second  you get blessed with every day when your eyes are still shut and you realize, "Yes, I'm alive."  I clear the butterflies in my stomach and Thank God and start moving all of these broken parts and pieces forward.  Another day.  Some more good.  Help me, Lord.

Some dayz I feel like that old vacuum.  That's for sure.  But along the way I've also realized there are two forces in life and everyday you wake up you have to pick a side.  Not just once.  Maybe 5, maybe 500 times that day.  You have to decide between good and bad and both of those forces want you.  They both have different methods of operation.  You have to decide what you are going to focus on.  Good strengthens good.  Bad distracts and destroys the good.  And it's as simple as that.  I'm sensitive to trying to generate good and give people good.  You were intended for good.  You inspired the good in me.  Watching you through the past weeks has reaffirmed so many things for me, as your mother, as a daughter, as a woman and as a human being.  It's also helped to remind me that this is why we overcome.  This is why we keep moving forward.  With our broken backs and our whooping cough and our rotten teachers and crappy people trying serve their own intentions.  Gravitate to that light.  Keep taking that outward step.  Do what you were intended to do.  Disregard the rest.

My Grampa used to call all of the garbage in life "pucky" or "horse shit."  I have learned to listen when old men decide to be frank.  Gardening has helped me gain a lot of insight into that declaration.  He'd tell me horse shit wasn't good for anything.  He was right Samantha.   And I've seen how some people try to give that away.   Some people try to sell it.  They'll sell it to you in truck loads.   I think I've ended up with some in my garden.  I'm not buying anymore.  You think about that one honey.

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of being your Mom.  My favorite book, you know, is The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.  Grandpa Jed gave it to me when I was 16 and they had just adopted me.  Probably I can give the credit for all of my parenting perspective and restraint to his poem on children.  I want to share it with you and tell you that I know figuring this whole gig out with me hasn't always been the easiest, and it won't always be, but we have done it together. You, me and the universe.  You see me now, in the now, but you need to understand that the good I have in me has been supported by people like my Grampa Bill, Dana, Danny, your Dad, you, your brothers and sister, Aunt Kath, Auntie Lisa, the good I find in my friends and the good I want to spontaneously support in strangers.  Those connections are crucial.   I admire the focus you have been blessed with and pray that is something you maintain and grow.  You will need it.   Today, you are, oh my goodness, light years ahead of where I was right now at your age sweetheart.  (SWEEEEEEETHEART)  I see that as goodness.  You are going to be a part of a lot of people's stories and I am blessed to have you as a huge part of mine.

On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

I love you Little Mama.  You are loved.  So loved.

Big Mama

Letter To Miss Morgan

January 14, 2014

Dear Miss Morgan,

There's a lot that seems to go unsaid these days. You're 12 now and understand so much more about the world and are more and more aware of the impact that you have on your surroundings. Asking me to write a letter "about" you seems difficult to me. So, I'd rather just address you, directly. The innocence you have and the parts of you that are unaware. I am writing this letter to those parts of you. And I'm thankful for this opportunity to maybe share a few ways in which you have impacted me.

Combing through all of the people I have come across in my life you stick out readily as somebody who really "gets it." The parts of you that are still unaffected and oblivious will eventually mesh into the whole landscape of who you are as a person. As a parent, I've been blessed with the projected confidence, you've been generous enough to share, that whatever the situation may be, today or tomorrow, you will be fine. You'll be okay. That is one of the biggest blessing a parent can have. You'll learn what you need to learn and put what you need to in your knapsack heart and let the rest slide right off of your strong back. You reaffirm that sometimes by giving me a carefree shoulder shrug. I might be trying to impress the world of difference upon you and you show me that you've taken what you needed and discarded the rest and then you're done with it all and ready to move on. You get that from your Dad. As frustrated as it makes me, it takes me to school and I try to learn. It is very telling of who you are and I'm blessed to be able to experience how healthy your spirit is.

 

I love to watch you around friends and people outside of our family unit. I love watching the effect you have on others. You are a walking litmus test for which I have become very amused to witness. You were born with a very bright light. Whenever I get a chance to see you in a crowd I am in awe of how you effect people. I am reminded of the beauty of complete presence and the blessings of your sincere, natural self. Your laugh is amazing baby. It fills a room. I marvel at seeing you light up and knowing you want to make others feel good about themselves. You are so alive. Wholly and truly full of life, and I watch people gravitate to that or move away and it puts me in awe of you. You are sunshine. Even on a cloudy day. Among your many virtues, the one I hold so dear is your absolute enthusiasm for being right here, right now. It's contagious and wonderful. You shine. I pray it never changes.

 

I admire that you have no need or interest in being clever or playing games. Trying to describe such things to you would probably be a little like trying to describe calculus to a two year old. It's nothing that you can quantify or relate to and when that changes and you become aware I hope you chose to remain the same and just keep on keeping on. You just have a knack for cutting to the chase and have an innate sense to discover and measure the true value against the situations that are presented to you and the circumstances. You have impressed me over and over with your ability to do so and to do it with humility. Most importantly, you ask it of yourself to find higher meaning and purpose when it really matters and you hold your discoveries close like sought after gems. I treasure that for you Morgan.

 

You have a fierce passion for defending the underdog. Lord, I just pray it doesn't get you in too much trouble. Plenty of that is in store for you. When somebody falls behind or is getting treated badly, there you are. You jump in to participate in improving their situation, without any hesitation or thought to your own betterment. You are fearless and full of faith. It scares me for you but reinforces my own faith in you all the same. When I try to envision what justice looks like I think back on some of the battles you've stepped up to fight and it helps to shape that vision. You are on the right side of things. You hold yourself with confidence and plunge all in when you believe in something or somebody. When you're wrong, you're big enough to apologize. Which is a tough one, I know. My Grampa Bill used to compliment such people as having "guts and gumption." I hope that means something to you. Maybe one of those things you can't put words to but just know. I know you are certainly chalked full of both, Girl.

Along with all of your high points I get to see you wrestle with your demons as well. Your Dad and I learned a long time ago that there doesn't seem to be a $500 item for you in the discipline department. You are your own worst disciplinarian. You make mistakes and accept your doled out punishments in stride. In fact, you always seem to embrace them and come out better for the whole experience. "Even when I'm naughty, you still love me." You used to repeat that back to me when you were very small and had deliberately chosen to not do what was expected of you, bargained for your consequence instead. Now, you don't say the words but resonate the belief back to me. Giving you a solid base in that has held me accountable to not only share that ideal with you but to extend it to others as well. It took your innocence and dependence as a child to help soften a lot of my long and hard held opinions. I hope you have the resilience to ripple that belief and have the fortitude to stand strong in who you are and continue to provide others the opportunity to let your light break through and penetrate their defenses. You are a testament to me of accepting ones self entirely and others with such genuine ease. Good and bad and the whole shebang. Focusing on the good. 

Which isn't to suggest that you are always the most tolerant person. But I've always had complete trust in your instincts and intuitions. Maybe not so much all of your methods, but you are a good judge on calling a spade a spade. I do hope you find a more balanced approach to settling the parts of this world you find offensive and contemptuous as life goes on. But please don't compromise your instincts. Honor them always.  Find a way to help and be of service.  You will be amazed at what you discover in the process sweetheart.

Your Dad and I have come to loggerheads a hundred times over parenting techniques and we will a hundred more times to come, but our motives are separately conscientious and equally intended to have yours and your sister and brothers best interest at heart.  You will go along, day to day, thinking you just get a few things figured out, and then life hits you with all kinds of new and interesting opportunities. I made four lunches this morning, for example, and asked everyone, "green beans or broccoli?" with little baggies ready for only those two options. I get to you and you blurt out, "Pickles!!" You know? Pickles wasn't even on the vegetable menu today, or my radar. But that's who you are Morgan.   You are pickles.  Just kidding.  You're not pickles, but you are choices that I haven't even considered. And that's how it was for me when you threw the door open and kept insisting you wanted to wrestle competitively. Although nothing could have prepared us for the reality of that happening, I appreciate so very much that it did. In hurling yourself into that environment and putting yourself in those positions (figuratively and literally) you have challenged every social norm I had accepted. Well, not accepted but had chosen to quietly abide by. All of a sudden I was toe to toe with parts and pieces of life I didn't think I would have to personally address or overcome.  But I had to in order to be able to support you and help you have an honest and positive experience. You just don't know until you're smack dab in the middle of it sometimes. Going through the messy process of breaking everything down and tearing it apart to put it all back to together again. I'm not out there on the mat. That is all you. But you kept pushing and I kept resisting and your happiness depended on me seeing a different option. I had to see that I was tied to cultivated standards that were conditional and false stereotypes that I had given up swimming against the tide to. Those ties were betraying you.  You put all of that before me in the form of a question.  For your sake, I had to get over all of that in a hurry. Someday you will do the same and you will feel compelled to not out of obligation but out of utter joy because the greatest blessing a parent can have is knowing their child's happiness. That is the true essence of a lot of the important growths that happen in life and the experience of parenting. In parenting you, in particular. It isn't always going to fit what is easy. It wasn't always convenient. I haven't always had all of the resources available. It's been a challenge and I've had to struggle through a lot of what I had accepted as "known."  I've had to get quiet and listen to that part of myself that knew the truth and have the courage to act on it.   Like you know from your experience in wrestling, you don't know how it's going to turn out.  Sometimes you just really hope you manage to come out on top. If not, you learn. You, Morgan, are better for it all and I sure am better too. I love that I have gotten a chance to know your happiness.

We haven't parented you with guilt or pride. Something we have always tried to keep sight of is that You get to be You. You get to define who Morgan Ellis is and is to become. I think that's helped us all keep our priorities straight around here. You don't have a lot of "things" to interfere or distract you from living and you don't have the best of the "things" that you do have, but you do make the best of all that has been provided to you. So-N-So gets a new ipod and a trip to the beach and you get a sack of bunny food.  Which totally computes to me, on the other end of the spectrum.  But, I'm not immune to the impact that has had on you amongst your peers and the fact that it makes it difficult to identify with.  I appreciate that you have shown your Dad and I nothing but respect, understanding and love for our offerings and have asked it of yourself to find the middle ground between feeling envious of others and feeling deprived by us. I know it's tough and there are some constant decisions you have to make each day to hold onto our families values.   Some days I imagine that is a loose grip.   I promise you, it will all come out in the wash.  I enjoy the chances we get to talk and sort some of that out and your enlightenment is always a blessing.   A huge relief.  Thank you for letting me down so easy.  I can only hope you look back on these years and feel like you were encouraged and enriched in the things that mattered.

I try to take all of my wishes and hopes for you and put them into practice so that they don't become empty and meaningless. There are times when I feel like that preoccupies me from what you really need. Someday you will lay awake at night wondering if you said the right things and made the right things happen for your children. Know that I've been there honey.  You will temper all of your aspirations for them to the directions you see them moving in. You will have to moderate all of the possibilities to the hours in the day, how many underpants are clean, how much sleep you got last week, the food in the fridge and the amount of money you have in your bank account. It's deliriously wonderful, grueling, and defeating all at the same time. In those moments I want most of all for you to know that you are enough, and then some. Because your daughter will wake you in the morning and you will see her bright shining eyes and you will just be gone with the wind and believe anything and everything is possible. Then you'll set out to do it.  Which is where your enthusiasm will be your greatest asset.  That day will end and you will start it all over again tomorrow. Those todays and tomorrows add up to be weeks and months and then years. So, sit in the chaos and the silence of it all and know that, right now, you remind me that being near is a gift to behold. Simple and true. Of all of the comforts I could wish for you, the one thing I can do everything about is being with you now. You demand that of me and don't settle for the distracted version of myself, second best or lackluster. I recognize how fortunate I am that you want to be with me, the genuine article. Right now.  Thank you for holding me to that.

 

 

 

I hold a lot of respect for you.  When your children are born, it's so easy to love them.  To love on them. You don't know you will look across a wrestling mat one day and think to yourself, "Look at how she carries herself.  Look at the leader she has become.  She just executed a "country girl" perfectly.  I didn't know I was raising this woman.  The best kind of woman."  When you were tiny I could teach you cute songs and how to paint flowers, and as your Mom, I have the unique advantage to reflect back on the things that you have learned and all of your leaps and bounds.  You don't have the same perspective with me.  If I have a bad day you might think I've always had those tendencies.  If I have a great day you might think I grew up in the sunshine, spraying hoses at your brothers every day of my life, yucking it up.   It's harder for you to have the insight I have to gauge how you have affected me.  Sometimes I have to take a step back because I see myself so perfectly in you and it gets hard to separate.  I am very cautious and careful about influencing you now.  Now that you're so much older and wiser.  Ha!  So I think there is a lot that does go unsaid between us.   Some of the ways we don't have to say anything are magical.  You know my conscience and we have this clairvoyance between us Morgan and so I trust you know my heart, while you are figuring out your own and taking ownership of your life.  While there are a lot of nuances to be learned from that, I forget that just because you know when I intend to make eggs you might not know that I intend love on you the best that I can from now until forever.   I hold a lot respect for you but maybe I hold onto it a little too tightly in fear that it might change your direction.  I've taught you a lot and have always been invested in you.  Loving you was a given.  Being loved by you has made me so much more than I ever could have been.  You have earned my respect by all entitlements but my gratitude for you is my baptism.

 

 

 

If I have to look into the future for you I would guess it finds you continually growing and shaping your days with excitement about being alive and sharing your positive energy and productive attitude with all that you meet.   I would wish for your family to have been able to continue to grow in love and support for each other.  It is a great big world out there but I have the utmost confidence you will be making a difference.  And while you are busy doing that please know that in our little world you are very big.  I hope you would always see that you are a crucial instrument in helping to make this family happen.  I would imagine you have affected others with your big heart and good spirit.  I would bet that you are lovable, as always, and that so many others who find you endearing have been touched and lifted up by your light. Similarly, I imagine you have encountered others who are sad, bitter, angry and ugly and I hope you have found all kinds of ways to help them or circumnavigate those situations so that your heart doesn't get infected.  I have always hoped you would be safe enough in your own skin to know that no-one ever has the right to make you feel like you are less so they can feel like they are more.  Know that people will try.   I hope that we have managed to continually have communication in regards to what it means to you to be the best person that you can be.   I will always ask you to find yourself in a relationship with a higher power.  Not to be a slave but to be grounded.   I hope we've managed to sit you down and tell you all of the things I wished somebody would have told me about boyz.   I trust you will find a relationship with your equal partner.  Heaven help that person.  Because I want for you to be loved as well as you love. Selfishly, I want to know you're laughing.  Even if you're having a day at the beach, struggling through bills or helping at the woodpile.  I pray that you are happy and you still have your sense of humor.  That is the future I wish for you baby girl.  You are going to make good things happen.  I'm just here to help that along.  Keep your chin up and keep it interesting.

You Are My Sunshine . . . .

 

Mama