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Originally published on https://invocations.blog/2018/09/21/i-picture-you/
I picture you
sitting as close as you can possibly pull the chair
up to his bed
careful not to disturb
the noisy network of artificial arteries
filling him with electrical impulses
and life
because you need to hold his hand and
he needs to feel your hand holding his
I can hear you talking with him at times
telling him what the babies have been doing
knowing how they make him smile and how
he can elicit the baby laughs that are the sweetest music on earth
you recall moment after moment of your life together
both ridiculous and sublime, always steadfast
sweet and bittersweet
Thought sometimes you are silent
watching him rest
wondering what is happening in his brain
glancing at the machines that are measuring and monitoring but
not revealing any of the secrets that you want to know
I can picture him lying there
knowing you are nearby
knowing you will never leave
enveloped by your love
waiting to come back to you
September 2018
(c) 2018 Betsy Rosenblatt Rosso |
please only repost or reprint in entirety and with credit given
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Originally published on https://invocations.blog/2018/09/17/no-one-reads-the-fine-print/
I suspect you did not know what you were signing up for in this life
No one bothered to read you the fine print when you were born
They were busy
It would’ve been meaningless to you anyway, as it probably is now
The letters shrink smaller and smaller until no one can decipher them at all
So we are forced to improvise
You probably didn’t know how many times your heart would break
or guess who would be the ones to shatter it
and who would mend it
and who would fill it up again with love until it spills over
in tears
You may have thought the instructions should be clearer
the answers more obvious
Subtlety and nuance require patience
You may have heard patience comes easier than it has for you
but you learned quickly that what’s easy is to make mistakes
When they tell you everyone makes mistakes, you’re not sure
you believe them
But it’s true
Did you ever imagine
you would spend so much time awake
because someone desperately needs you
in the middle of the night
Who could possibly have known
how much demand there would be for your presence
in the middle of the night
someone crying or coughing or barking or puking or
flinging their arms and legs across your face and body
while they find the peaceful rest that you have surrendered
I doubt that you predicted what you would let go
and what you would cling to
what would always matter and what would fade
You are probably still making these discoveries
With reading glasses come epiphanies
When did you realize you would be the one
to make the hard decisions
to take the high road
to put on your own oxygen mask first
to say the thing that no one wants to hear or
to swallow the words you wish you could say
because you know no one will listen
You might have thought by now it’s too late
to start something new
But I know it’s never too late
You have shown me that you know it too
It may be hard and it may be messy but
I have faith in you
September 2018
(c) 2018 Betsy Rosenblatt Rosso |
please only repost or reprint in entirety and with credit given
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For dinner, I ordered fried catfish with potato salad and mac and cheese from Margaret’s Soul Food Truck. The food truck was parked outside my daughter’s middle school, along with several others, for the gustatory enjoyment of parents who were attending back to school night tonight. Before back to school night, there was a PTA meeting scheduled in the library. With my styrofoam container of deliciousness and my cold can of Coke in hand, I asked someone wearing a school polo shirt whether I could take the food into the library. “Of course!” they said, as if nothing would delight the librarian more than the aroma of fried fish. My desire to participate in the meeting overcame my concern about bringing food into the library so I went in.
At the PTA meeting I learned about the prodigious school garden, where students can volunteer for community service hours and whose produce helps feed our community. The school also operates a food bus program where food that students buy but don’t eat is delivered weekly to our local food bank. I learned about the used book far and the Booktopia new book giveaway, where every student goes into the gym and chooses one free book from among boxes and boxes of new books.
The school principal told us that this year’s sixth grade class (of which my daughter is a member) is the largest in the school’s history, with 426 students, bringing the school population up to 1,140. No wonder every classroom was crowded with parents as we followed her schedule in 10-minute class increments. Fortunately most of her core classes are clustered together in her team area so she doesn’t have far to travel. I have to give the principal credit too for remembering Zoe’s name after the first time we met her. How does she learn the names of 1,140 students?
I still remember my teachers from my first year of junior high school–Ms. Hamilton (English), Mr. Rycroft (Algebra), Ms. Duncan (social studies), Ms. Mills (science), Ms. Kramer (home ec.), Ms. Beck (art), Mr. Andrukonis (speech and drama). I do not remember, however, having such a clear understanding of what was expected of my classmates and me. Tonight every teacher shared their syllabus, gave a PowerPoint presentation (which is also available online), and gave us their email address (I realize there was no such thing as email addresses in 1987). We know exactly how our children’s grades will be determined and where and how to view their assignments and up-to-the-minute grades on homework, tests, and other projects. All of this is accessible to our kids as well, and they are expected to stay on top of it. They have school-issued iPads on which they can log in to see their homework assignments, study guides, academic calendars, and more. They use their iPads every day in class and can access any texts or primary sources or any resources they need for any class. NONE of Zoe’s teachers have issued textbooks. Her science teacher said she received five copies of the textbook and that she may refer to it occasionally but it doesn’t include all the material she wants to cover. If you do want to read it, however, you can read it all on your iPad and you can even press a button and it will be read aloud to you. Other teachers said they have textbooks if a student desperately wants to read one, but they by no means rely on them, if they use them at all. For English class, students are expected to bring their own book that they’re reading to class every day, and read every day for 30 minutes for homework. They can basically read whatever they want. If the teacher feels like the student needs to expand her literary horizons or challenge herself more, she may recommend other books. All the teachers said they would accept late assignments through the end of the quarter, and that the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, which is the foundational curriculum of this school, requires that students be graded on the content of their work (according to prescribed rubrics) and not on the timeliness of it. Most teachers said students could retake tests on which they performed poorly, and the teachers wanted to ensure the students had mastered the material. Best of all, the science fair projects are completed ENTIRELY IN CLASS by the students, with the help of their teacher and their peers, with zero parental involvement. Hallelujah.
My point here is these teachers all seemed eminently reasonable and fair and sensible and smart. I’m sure the teachers have their quirks and the program has its flaws, but it seemed like this system and these classes are designed to give students the benefit of the doubt, to trust that if they’re doing the best they can that they will be able to succeed. There’s tutoring available four days a week after school. Any student or parent can contact any teacher about any concern. There is a counselor for each grade and a vice principal for each grade and so many staff people who seem designed to help.
Obviously when I was in junior high school I had the perspective of a kid and not a parent, and I know that when you’re that age you’re often more concerned with navigating social situations than knowing what your GPA is at any given time. And obviously the technology we enjoy today was not available then. It’s a different world. But I like this world. It makes so much sense. You know what you have to do and you can do it. I know this is all theory and we’ve only had three weeks so far to put it into practice, but I am hopeful.
And that catfish was so tasty.
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This is where my organs would ordinarily be, if they weren’t displaced by my all-consuming anxiety.
I am so filled with anxiety that I am certain there is no room left inside me for my internal organs. They have been squeezed together in some tiny crevice so my anxiety has ample room to luxuriously expand. The knots in my stomach have all but filled my stomach so there is little space left for such old-fashioned things as digestion to occur.
I have spent a lot of this summer reminding myself to breathe. Taking deep breaths that require much more effort than seems normal, but then again when was the last time I was normal? I suppose the breathing has helped, as the threatening panic attack remains hovering at the edge of my consciousness, ready to jump in at any time an opening presents itself. The panic attack is like a first responder, but not the helpful kind.
Chief among the myriad reasons for this anxiety (although really, who needs reasons?) are two new schools. Tomorrow my kids will get on their respective school buses–they have never ridden buses to school before–and be delivered to elementary school and middle school for the first time. They will have new buildings to navigate, new teachers to get to know, new classmates who speak different languages, new assignments to remember, new school cultures to learn.
Of course I realize that kids start new schools all the time. This is the way of the world. But all those other kids aren’t mine. And my kids, unfortunately or inevitably or just because of good old genetics, share with me just a bit of that predisposition toward anxiety. We are a sensitive people. I remember years ago hearing the adage that having kids is like letting your heart walk around outside your body, and so it is. Starting new schools is like your heart has developed some confidence, a sense of style, a few signature jokes, and then suddenly it’s stripped bare all over again, completely vulnerable in a new environment. And now my heart is split into two, wandering through two new schools, looking around desperately for other hearts that will be kind.
This year for the first time I have a number of friends who are sending kids to college. Zeke’s previous preschool teacher and preschool director, friends from church, friends from high school and elementary school, and my yoga teacher all delivered offspring to college for the first time in August. (All to excellent Virginia schools, as it happens). When I think of them, even when I see the pictures on Facebook of their smiling kids in freshly decorated dorm rooms, I feel like my heart is not simply walking around outside my chest, but has been forcibly ripped from my body and flung hundreds of miles away, where it may be lying in a ditch, attempting to struggle to its feet. College! Thinking about this literally makes my chest hurt. My daughter is only seven years away from this prospect. When I ran into our wise preschool director the other day and mentioned this, she said not to think about it yet, just to concentrate on kindergarten and sixth grade right now. Which is good, because that is all I am capable of at the moment.
I try hard not to be a helicopter parent. My philosophy is much more free range, although it’s challenging in a culture of helicopters. I do believe in giving my children the opportunity to be independent, and learn things, and grow on their own. But what if kids are mean to them? What happens when kids are mean to them? Because it’s bound to happen and it’s already happened and it’s so hard. Did I mention we are sensitive people? This summer at a couple of camps some little boys said mean things to Zeke. I don’t know what all of the words were. Some of them, as I recall, were, “I don’t like you.” No one wants to hear that, but when you’re 44 it’s easier to give someone the side eye and walk away. Of course, when “I don’t like you” is accompanied by being punched in the back while you’re trying to make art, it’s harder to let it slide. Especially when you’re five. The day after this happened, Zeke was desperately and theatrically upset when I tried to drop him off at camp. It took 30 minutes for me to get to the bottom of the problem, but I did. I talked with the teacher and reassured Zeke that she would keep an eye on things and make sure the boys didn’t bother him. She moved him to a different team, and he was calm and everything was fine. By the end of the week he was playing with the same boys. Sometimes I don’t understand how life works at all.
With girls it’s different, of course. I’ve been hearing a lot from fellow parents of tweens that we should brace ourselves for the mean girls of middle school years. Optimistically I feel like we can bypass this particular trauma because we’ve been dealing with mean girls since Zoe was in kindergarten. While she had an overall excellent experience in elementary school and has always had lots of friends, there was rarely a time in which she didn’t have at least one “friend” who was trying to manipulate and control her. There was the girl who, in kindergarten, insisted that Zoe play Justin Bieber (Zoe didn’t even know who he was, but cried about it nonetheless), and later threw rocks at Zoe because she was trying to meditate when the girl wanted to play. And there were other girls for the following five years who tried to take advantage of Zoe, who threatened to abandon her if she played with other friends, who attempted to enlist her as a personal assistant. There was so much drama. And it wasn’t even middle school yet. So the good thing, I keep reminding myself, is that Zoe has so much experience dealing with this behavior and has learned how to stand up for herself and take care of herself in ways that it took me many more decades to learn myself, that maybe she’ll be ok in middle school. I hope.
At her school open house, she was not the only kid to be walking around in a daze, clinging to a parent’s arm, wondering how she would figure all this out on her own. I know she won’t really be on her own. There will be 899 other kids there! I know she’ll be ok. But I also know it’s a little terrifying, and no amount of reassurance from her parents will take that away until she does figure it out for herself.
Less than 24 hours from now, my kids will be at school. I’ll be on my way to a new yoga class I signed up for, which will be an excellent way for me to not sit home and cry or give in to that panic attack. Then after yoga I’ll come home and attack the million work assignments I’ve been neglecting during the last week of summer when I’ve been trying to squeeze in the maximum amount of fun experiences with my family so they can have happy memories to hang onto during their own moments of encroaching anxiety. And I’ll try my best to focus on getting my work done while I count the minutes until those school buses pull up to our bus stop and I not very casually envelop my children in gigantic hugs and try not to pepper them with all my questions about how the first day of school went. I will exhale. And the next day at least it won’t be quite so new.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 