Behind The Door

I love this small hometown of mine. I truly do. I love my childhood memories, the comfort of belonging, the safety of well known places and sensations, the lifelong friends as well as the recent. I love the deep abiding sense of community. This place and its people have taken care of me and mine, and I feel honored to do the same for those around us. Perhaps, because of the depth of my familiarity, I am equally aware of the degree to which none of us can every really know one another completely.

None of us really knows or understands all of what unfolds behind the doors of other people’s homes. How can we? Even with friends and family we’ve known for years, sharing the heights of celebrations and the depths of challenges, there are always dimensions in other’s lives that we simply cannot be privy to unless we reside together. Frankly, even those with whom I have the deepest affection, I don’t spend much time wondering about the unseen aspects of my friends and neighbors’ lives. I trust that what they choose to share will be right for them, that it’s up to me to care, learn and pay attention, and that together we decide whether to be in relationship - and to what degree. As for what others know of my “behind the door” life, I am as honest as there is interest and sincerity. Since I’m a fairly average person, I don’t imagine that too many folks apart from my close friends could care less about the innards of my household, so it’s always a surprise to me to discover that my life has been the topic of a conversation among people who hardly know me. Wow, I think. Someone must be either really bored or really confused (as in, you think there’s a more interesting story here than there actually is). So - for those of you who fall into one of these categories, here’s a little bit of sharing about what happens behind my door on a typical day. Hope it scratches your itch, and let me just say up front, sorry to disappoint you.

We like pie in our family, so I’ll use a pie chart to explain a 24 hour cycle in my world. My three children have effectively divided their mother (that would be me) and my time into three portions. Here’s how is goes, more or less:

The littlest one (a nine year old), gets the night-into-morning portion. After her dad moved out last spring, my youngest daughter moved into the master bedroom. One night of needing a place to recover from a bad dream became a second night, and then a third....and now every night she lays on “my side” of the bed sighing deeply in her dreams and occasionally allowing me to curl into her small warm body. When I am lonely, I am tremendously grateful for the radiance of her small spirit next to me. When I am exhausted, I fall into the blankets hoping that neither of us will disturb the other.

She is a relentless morning person. I am not. She bolts upright and looks eagerly at the clock. I do not. She has a plan; right now. I simply wish to continue sleeping. Her plan always includes speaking to me; right now. She is learning to start off softly and gently (my grumpy threats about the necessity of being nicer to mom in the morning seem to be paying off); thank goodness. Each day, we take turns making the bed - comforter up, pillows in place, and the creatures (Chestnut the lion, Alice the elephant, Dexter the mouse, and Tommy and Dixie - the pigs) all assume their lounging atop the smoothed blankets. Yesterday morning, as I placed the menagerie against the pillows and surveyed the stack of children’s books on the headboard, I felt very cranky. Where is my adulthood? I gnashed. Where is the privacy of MY bedroom? I grumbled. It was a frivolous moment - some would say a “typical American mother moment” - of wanting “my space.” For now though, this is her major third of my pie - which I willingly give (while sometimes fearfully wondering if she’ll be there until she’s eighteen? Yikes!).

My eldest, my son - claims the banker’s hours (or these days, doctor’s office hours) of each day. This is the nineteen year old whom I thought had been successfully launched into his own life. Hugged, kissed and sent off to college a year ago, he was off like a rocket! Well, Houston, we have a problem. Launch delayed due to cancer. Most days we move in parallel. He has his routine (sleeping, healing, labs, doctors appointments, girlfriend, eating, more sleeping, distractions from leukemia - like video games, buddies, books and movies) and I have mine (waking him, making sure he’s eating, taking him to the appointments, watching-listening-questioning-advocating with the docs and nurses, arguing with him about the hours he keeps, worrying about him, feeding him - and his girlfriend, learning more about leukemia than I ever would have imagined in two million years. When his blood counts are dangerously low...and they are each month in between rounds of chemo, we really don’t know from one day to the next if he might be required to stay longer at the clinic for a hemoglobin, or red cell, or white cell infusion. He is vulnerable, and his body’s responses are unpredictable. These days we’ve found that making plans is a luxury we don’t get to enjoy since the best laid plans of cancer families are often dashed. We’re not in control. Period.

I was laid off from my job not too long ago, which is what makes it possible for me to devote myself to being my boy’s primary caregiver while he weathers the chemotherapy storm he’s been in since September and will be until February. This is my new job. I feel privileged to be here for him, to witness, love, hold tender and be fierce for him. I also feel scared, for him and his life, for his sisters and their lives, for our precarious financial situation, of all of the unknowns and this feeling that everything is out of control. On days that he feels well and strong, he ventures out to act “normal” in the light of day, and I do small freelance jobs from my office here at home. It’s quiet then and a little bit lonely, but peaceful.

My middle kid, gets the afternoons and evenings. This sassy high school freshman is my soccer player, swimmer, violin playing, youth symphony girl with nearly unflagging optimism and a nearly regular smile. Back before her older brother’s cancer, her intense schedule had us all panting to keep up. Now, she manages - mostly - to navigate it on her own, except for the times she needs a ride, or an audience, or her own special witness to the passions that fill her heart. She doesn’t ask for much, which makes me want to offer her that little something extra, and she’s more helpful than not, which makes me want to hold her closely - even when the day has been longer than usual. When she arrives home I want to take more than just a moment to hear about her friendships, inquire about the school day, listen to the radio songs she’s singing along with and watch the rhythmic way she moves around the house.

Dinner comes, and my son’s sweetheart is usually with us, and we all take our places around the table. This is it. Me - with four kids and a dog - at the end of the day. I sigh. It is a grateful sigh, a tired sigh, a “this isn’t what I thought my life was going to look like” sigh, a single mom sigh, and a blessing sigh. I actually wish I could give them each a larger slice, but I’m only one pie - no matter how hard I try to be more.

This is not a horrible life. This is a blessed and beautifully complex life. This is not an idle life. This is a full and multi-faceted life. This is not a life of mystery and mischief-making. This is pretty damned straight forward and honest to the point of discomfort life. This is a life infused with love between children and mother, as well as between family and friends. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t missing being more then a mother some days. At times, I’m hungry for the unique woman I am apart from the “mother-me,” and then my kids tell me that they love me, and I figure “pie be damned.”

If you see me out without my kids in this wonderful small town of ours - alone or with a friend - then you’ve witnessed a unique and fleeting moment in my present life. And if after reading this lengthy snapshot of the ordinary life behind my front door, you still think there’s some more thrilling version that’s not being shared - go ahead and ask me whatever it is you’re curious about, or better yet - come on over and trade places with me for a couple of days. I’d appreciate the short vacation - and I can promise you - you won’t be bored.

Step One

We're now ending day three of what can no longer be considered a horrendous nightmare; the reality of this is hard striking. No one will deny the surreal experience of receiving news that Reid, a strapping handsome nineteen year old who couldn't shake a bad case of strep throat - in fact, has an acute leukemia - with the specific diagnosis yet to arrive (due to the slow down of labs during the long holiday weekend. We're at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland in the Oncology Unit.

Rilke and Beauty ~

Before He Makes Each One

Before he makes each one
of us, God speaks.

Then, without speaking,
he takes each one
out of the darkness.

And these are the cloudy
words God speaks
before each of us begins:

"You have been sent out
by your senses. Go
to the farthest edge
of desire, and give me
clothing: burn like a great
fire so that the stretched-out
shadows of the things
of the world cover
me completely.
Let everything happen
to you: beauty and terror.
You must just go--
no feeling is the farthest
you can go. Don't let
yourself be separated
from me. The country
called life is close.
By its seriousness,
you will know it.
Give me your hand."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Quiting vs Giving Up

It was a surprise this morning to get to the bottom of the computer screen and discover that I had read not only Chris Guillebeau's entire blog "Ever Feel Like Giving Up? but also most of the ninety-four (that's right 94!) responses that people followed up with. Apparently, the theme of giving up - or hanging in - is a provoking one for many of us.

For me, "not giving up" sometimes get confused with that chiding voice of coaches past and other well intentioned adults in my childhood who would warn, "Now, don't be a quitter." Their message was certainly meant as a positive, but they never mentioned the alternative route.

Quitting doesn't necessarily equate with giving up, in fact, sometimes letting go - or walking away is the best course of action a person can choose. Done with awareness and intention, the act of quitting an unhealthy situation is a positive. Such a decision requires faith, focus, strength and, and because fear tends to be present when one "walks away," courage is essential.

Yesterday, after months of attempting to slowly take off the metaphorical band aid I've been wearing on a dysfunctional job, I went ahead and quickly yanked. (Where do we get the misguided notion that doing "hard stuff" slowly will somehow make it less difficult or less painful?) The relief was instant and measurable.

I had been feeling like "giving up" for a long, long while -- in truth, for years. I understand now, that if I ever again have those feelings in such a reoccurring and ongoing manner about a job, a relationship, or a situation that I've given time, energy and care to -- I'll examine the alternative of walking away sooner. I'm certain that in most instances, this process will be a delicate business. It's natural for us to want to "hang in" there with things we've invested ourselves in, and I'm like many other inherently hopeful people: willing to go the distance with anything - or one - that I care for or believe in. Willing even when it's no longer beneficial, or at negative cost, or simply beyond repair.

Chris and his ninety-four responders were incredibly inspirational. Many of them revealed deeply personal aspects of their struggles around the all too human urge to "give up" when things get hardest - most boring - least rewarding - loneliest - most painful. They also offered some fantastic tools that they have discovered to help them get through the urge and onto the light of morning.

Am I a quitter? No, and rarely will I "give up." Do I hang in? Yup. (Maybe sometimes longer than necessary) Can I find a balance? Yes, as I learn the art of letting go and walking away toward the positive.

A Facebook Break

Social networking sites have become the quick, easy and relatively painless way to communicate personal information with many, a communication shotgun, if you will. One post and BANG! you've hit 100 people. The "keeping in touch with friends" aspect of Facebook has a huge appeal to me. I enjoy and appreciate the glimpses of their lives - adventures, senses of humor, social awareness raising efforts - dropping onto the screen in front of me, like so many ripe and ready to eat cherries. It's quick, simple and relatively painless.

Of course anyone who imbibes in FB or MySpace or Twitter also knows the flip side to the yummy cherries: the drivel, the seemingly random yet frighteningly targeted ads, the time-draining quizzes, and the "fluff, " that we neither want nor need. I think of these cherry counterparts as the trash that our kids bring home from the county fair - the crappy stuffed toys and plastic inflatables that always end up in the trash.

I've noticed of late that the shiny thrall of the Facebook sound byte has worn off. There are so many other things to do: work, family, creative projects, books, music, life in Real Time. All of these alternatives require more focus and energy yet also yield far greater and longer lasting positive results than a profile post that is like to be gone within 24 hours. As it turns out, sound bytes are fun for awhile and on occasion, but I'd like my relationships to delve deeper too.

My current profile post reads, "Martha Phelps will be taking a break from Facebook for awhile - maybe a week or two, maybe a year. Email me if you miss me too much: mlp@marthaphelps.com - or better yet, give me a call and let's take a walk." My break could be indefinite, or it could be periodic, since I still have a fourteen year old daughter to be "friends" with. Point is - I'm going to redirect myself for a spell.

What works - or doesn't about social networking in your life? Does it support you or get in your way? Drop me a sound byte - or much more.



PS Hat tip to the blog Evolution for the perfect profile post as well as the nudge I needed.

Cemented into My Heart

I don’t remember too many occasions when she sat still.

Every action involved at least two activities- a walk out to the backyard to call us in for dinner would result in a weed-pulling stopover in the deliciously landscaped flower garden that she had nurtured into flourishing beauty over the years; preparing meals (never, ever out of a box) was a multi-tasking extravaganza; handwork occurred while offering homework assistance, and while the rest of us watched The Ed Sullivan Show, she viewed from behind the ironing board.

My mom was a marvel - and not necessarily for being a homemaking goddess and brilliant cook, nor the incredible public school’s kindergarden teacher that she was, or dealing with the five of us and the intricate quirks of our different personalities, or supporting Dad in his teaching profession of those at the other end of the spectrum (college students). She was a marvel for teaching us the names of the birds at the feeders on the back porch, playing softball in the yard and demonstrating her wiry southpaw pitch; for facilitating spontaneous dance lessons through the living room, laughing out loud every day, showing tears but seldom anger, and making it abundantly clear every single day - somehow, either in words or actions - that life is to be embraced on all levels - from the mundane to the divine - with hope and love.

This was meant to be a mother’s day blog - but in my own neck-deep (occasionally over my head) immersion into motherhood, some things don’t happen according to the Hallmark calendar. It hardly matters...there isn’t a day that isn’t in some way calling to be honored as a “mother’s” or a “father’s” day.

So here’s to the woman who rarely sat still, yet is cemented into my heart -

May Day

Happy May Day!

It’s a blessing to live in an era where the wisdom and artistry of others is right at our fingertips. Poems - one of the ultimate art forms using an economy of words (for eons before blogging) can get to the center of many things.

As I wrestle with keeping my heart like the “half open flower” described by Jacobsen in the poem below “When They Sleep,” I also plant this wish for peace - on all levels of our lives - for you, reader. ~ mlp

When They Sleep

All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.

They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.

If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.

~ Rolf Jacobsen ~

(The Roads Have Come to an End Now, translation by Robert Hedin)