How My Mind is Like the Milky Way

It's Friday, the sun is shining, and today I've decided to write an unfiltered blog on what's been on my mind lately. Imagine a galaxy of stars and dust and heavenly bodies orbiting through space in their own tidy paths. The overall picture spins like a kaleidoscope, with patterns of vibrant color and changing shape. And yet, amidst the chaos, somehow, there is order. Details come together to form a larger picture and, though it's hard to see with the naked eye, there is purpose.

That's pretty much my brain in a nutshell lately.

If I could surgically remove my scalp, set it down like a baseball cap on the counter, and give my brain a massage, I seriously would do it. Alright, that's gross. And I'm not even a horror writer. See what happens when my writing is unfiltered? So much for stream of consciousness techniques. Come on back.

There are stories, web designs, trips, characters, and conflicts swirling through my head, all of which crave a piece of me. After spending numerous nights sipping wine and doing what writers do best - imagining how I will tackle all of these fine issues or, less nobly, shooting my characters up with problems worse than mine - I've decided to take the higher road, and grab the beast by its collar. Or at least lasso his four-headed creepy self back in. (I'm not a fantasy writer either).

The rest of this blog shall serve as my list - but not so much a to-do list, as a contractual agreement with my noteworthy and rebellious companion: that would be me.

I'm the kind of person who means what I say and says what I mean. I'm both honest and fierce when it comes to taking a stand for what I value, regardless of whom I may piss off along the way. If you happen to be someone who has been on the receiving end of my humble and differing opinion, know that I probably still love you, even though I will not change my mind for you. Keep on being you, I'll keep on being me and, like the galaxy that has hijacked my head, everything will spin back into place.

Another digression, differences. But...you know what? This one is too important to ignore. It came to me for a reason, like a solar eclipse that can only be viewed at nine p.m. It's an issue that has a short window of writing opportunity. Be it unprecedented, the time to write on this issue is now!

Respecting differences. Why is it so difficult for some to respectfully disagree?

Oh sure, you're rubbing your chin,telling yourself that your job requires it, and you do it all the time. Your boss has even penned you the nickname, R.D., a.k.a, Respectful Disagreer. I'm not convinced. Wake up and smell the atrociously strong Starbucks.

It's much harder to respectfully disagree with those whom you love because we feel the safest with our lovers. We want to take off our masks and just be who we are. We don't want to try so hard. We crave acceptance, tolerance, love.

If you're keeping the very professional and stable mask on with your partner, you're probably hosting a new set of issues (in which we'll save for a different blog). Your relationship with those you love - unlike Charlie at the copy machine's - depends upon your ability to respectfully disagree. Think I'm hinting at couples? families? Hmm...you know me too well...

Through my work at the Beginning Years Family Network, I've researched, read about, written about, and blathered on about creating loving relationships within one's home. It's something I value, and I'm willing to take a stand on it. There's nothing more fulfilling than love. So why do we make it so complicated?

For lack of sound facts, I blame the planets.

And seeing as my mind has been hanging out with them, allow me to sort through the galactic mess and simplify for you.

First of all, please erase from your mind a cliche that has become as worn out as Bill Clinton's cigar case (sorry, freudian slip). That is: Agree to Disagree. Don't do it. Agreeing to disagree is simply an insiduous code for I'm right, you're wrong, and let's sweep this under the rug. It's darn slick but will do nothing for your relationship.

If you can honestly say that what has been swept under the rug does not come oozing back to haunt you like the ghost of your flaws-past, read no further.

If, however, you're one of us living in the real world (I realize I'm questionable here) you probably know that what comes around goes around, and eventually needs to be reconciled. But how?

By negotiating.

Don't agree to disagree, agree to listen respectfully, even though you don't - and may not ever - share the same opinion as your bruised lover.

One of my best friends lives her life with the mantra every head is a different world' and I couldn't agree with her more - even when I don't agree with her.

We all possess a unique blend of beliefs, motivations, and talents. Pool your differences and create your own brand of love! I can promise you it won't be perfect but at least you'll both own it. Attach this disclaimer: All opinions will be included. Not responsible for disrespect. Criticism will be banned from conversation.

There's a way to listen and convey the attitude - "I love and respect you even though I don't share your point of view" and there's a way to listen and convey, "You are a complete idiot for thinking this way. I will never agree with you and I think you're a loser for your thoughts." Sound harsh? I'm guessing that some of you have been there. Let's just say we're wiser at forty, right?

I can sense the skeptics knocking on my tired brain. "But what if your point of view is so far detached, that there is no possible way of finding common ground?" I hear you, loud and clear. And I say this to you.

If you have managed to listen respectfully, you've already fueled your relationship with loving energy that very likely will command compromise. The act of respectful listening is a natural aphrodisiac to a relationship. If you can manage a joke, a bit of humor, you've scored even higher.

But still...you've done all of the above and can't get things rolling?

Tap into that intuitive place inside of you. Are you completing yourself first and foremost or demanding that your partner completes you? Are you tolerating the intolerable or expecting to have things your way at all costs? If both of you can give on ten percent of what's in your head, you've made progress.

If one of you simply can't give at all on an issue, suck it up - and this is a big IF -there are enough occasions when your partner has also 'sucked it up' in respect for what's in your head. There are just as many reasonable instances for both of you to stand stale-mate as there are occasions to compromise on. Respect both.

When decisions are made with your lens focused on 'the relationship' in lieu of 'me, myself, and I' - you will get back so much more than you bargained for. Wait. Have I just subconsciously plagiarized Michael Buble's song - 'I Just Haven't Met You Yet' (Sidebar - Why hasn't Michael met anyone yet? I mean, seriously, if he can't manage to get it right, then who can?)

You can, that's who!

Alright, I'm feeling better already, having tackled one floating writing object. Now, it's time to buckle down with my contract. First on the agenda, 'Shameless Self-Promotion'.

Hmmm...I'm thinking of putting our relationship - Writer/Reader - ahead of my boring contractual needs. I'll tackle the mundane parts of my career tonight, over a glass of wine.

And I promise to choke collar that wild imagination of mine.

****

Thanks for listening to me rant. If I have touched you somehow, do post a comment and let me know. After all, it is you - the reader - who inspires me to keep on writing.

Chapter Twelve - Serena's Thoughts are in Control

Chapter Twelve

Serena bookmarks her novel and glances at the clock. It’s ten past eleven and Doug hasn’t returned from his night out with the guys yet. She grabs her cell phone then reconsiders. In all fairness, he hasn’t seen John and Ray in over six months and the time spent with college friends will be a breath of fresh air, especially given her polluted disposition lately. She closes the phone, pushes it under her pillow, and flicks off the light.

It has just begun to rain outside and, like most New England storms that border on the extreme, it doesn’t simply rain. It pours. The sound of the rain, a steady drum, has remained the same for centuries. It is one thing that does not change. And it always seems to carry a story with it.

Beneath layers of sleeping bags on the family room floor, Myra sleeps through the storm. Sleeping over her cousin’s house has always been an adventure, but never like this. The blankets smell of stale smoke and she wants to be home. Thunder crackles and booms as though a giant stands at the sky splitting trees over his knees, hurling them down to earth. Every so often, lightning flashes and the room illuminates, casting an eerie glow upon pictures, the mantel, and a coffee table full of soda cans.

She reads the clock each time it is exposed. Ten past two, quarter to three, four-fifteen. The floor beneath her vibrates. Frames jitter atop end tables. They will not make it to morning, it seems. She is wide awake but Myra snores beside her. The hardwood floor of the hallway creaks with the onset of footsteps. It is her uncle. She snaps her eyes shut and feigns sleep.

She pulls the covers over herself and rubs her cold bare feet together while the rain beats down over the roof and rushes through the gutters. It seems that she is alone in her neighborhood, sheltered by the rain, and yet she is not. Across the globe, children are outside playing under the sunlight at this very moment. While rain beats down on her colonial style roof; a tribe of rainforest natives may be sitting beneath a thatched one, listening to the very same sound. While a child in Australia skims a flat rock across a pond, one in Africa uses it to dig for bugs.

So...how does God decide who will suffer on this earth, she wonders.
Our geography influences how we live, who we shall love, and what we choose to believe in, and yet we have no more control over where we're born than does a young boy being handed a gun to protect his family in the Middle East.

Crime happens everywhere. Depending upon our beliefs, beliefs which stem from our geography, crime takes on new meaning. In a New York airport, a criminal will be fined for stolen luggage; in another country, killed. Is it fair? Is life fair?

A group of teens were struck by lightning just last year, out alone on the soccer field. Their parents were probably at home peering through the window, about to call the parents of their son’s friends. My husband will take a ride and pick them up. The storm came on so quickly!

Instead, they were too late and will live the rest of their lives rooted, strangled by, something they could not control. She thinks of the dying kids and heaven if it’s really there and how those who believe still suffer, even when they seem to do everything right. How is it possible that she and Doug have been granted another chance!

Her eyes well up and she presses them shut, forcing out tears. She prays into folded hands. Thank you for saving my son. I would have died with that incident if things had been different. If Josh hadn’t been rescued, I wouldn’t have survived. I would have taken a chance on heaven to be with him again.

She rubs her wet face on her pillow. Her eyes are heavy and begin to flutter, the sensation to melt into sleep caving in on her. She needs to sleep, badly. Yet each night she fights it, as though something terrible might happen while she sleeps. Something she cannot control.

It is both disturbing and ironic to understand with visceral clarity that she is refusing the very thing she needs the most. But she cannot stifle the impulse to win the power struggle and stay awake.

She jostles herself out of bed and visits Joshua’s room.

His clothes are scattered across the floor in heaps that resemble clumps of seaweed washed ashore after a storm. From the edges of his opened drawers, socks and shirts dribble over the sides. His room, this scene, is a complete shipwreck.

Josh lies on his back with one arm flung to the side as though hailing a cab. His mouth droops open slightly while he breathes in and out, his chest rising and falling like the wings of a flying seabird.

She reflects on how many times she has snapped at Josh over this untidy room, using the indelible teacher phrase: the mess is unacceptable. Each time, he had nodded to her, disappointed in himself while stuffing balls of clothing back into the drawers.

She wishes now—like a frog snapping back his tongue to catch a fly—that she could take the criticism back and swallow it. Imagine!—a zap of horror enters her mind as she realizes that his room could not only be neat, but also empty, had things turned out differently. If Roth had fully executed his plan, this room would be childless.

She closes her eyes, makes a silent vow to find out exactly what that plan was.

She leans over him, stretches his comforter over his shoulders,and whispers, “I’m sorry that I snapped. I’ll be better now.”

To her presence, he rouses. “Mom?”

“Hi honey. It’s cold out, I was just covering you. Go back to sleep, now.”

He turns in the opposite direction, bringing the covers with him, and falling back to sleep. She walks out, leaving the door open a crack.

She meanders downstairs to make a cup of tea. The rumbling of the rain intensifies as an angry wind thrashes against the roof. Gazing out her bay window, she watches the rain gate the air like a silver fence. A stray cat struts across the lawn then disappears into a patch of woods.

Is a cat noctural?—she recalls Josh’s small voice years ago, when he’d ask that question in reference to a favorite story on wildlife. Yes. Outdoor cats are very independent, she’d say. They can survive on their own without their parents. Without their parents. The thought follows her like the ghost of a past she cannot shake.

How had she trusted Roth with her child?

In all fairness, she tells herself,Doug went out with Roth, so it wasn’t so much her trust in the man as it was Doug’s. Why hadn’t he simply taken their child in with him to tend to his wrist? Why had he left him outside with a stranger? Yet still, given all that Doug did wrong, the ending was just right. She pours the steaming water atop the peppermint tea bag at the mug’s bottom.

What are the chances of an abducted child being rescued after a car accident? Slim to none, that’s for sure. But what if the accident hadn’t happened? What would Roth have done to him? He had been watching him at the chairlift for the last two ski seasons, according to Detective Hearns. So what was his plan?

Soaking in these questions, she carries her mug back upstairs and sets it down on the nightstand. A streak of light from the outdoor lamppost pokes into the room like a sword. She flicks on the lamp and sips her tea until overcome by exhaustion.

To the sound of the rain, her mind quiets and she is finally able to drift off to sleep.

* * *
To the creaking sound of the door, she snaps up, breathless. He is rolling toward her in a wheelchair, his face distorted from the stroke. His lips form a smile on one side of his face and a feeble hand brandishes a business card. The chair’s motion is rickety, making his body bobble. She shuffles back against the headboard, shrieks no!—then realizes…

It is Doug, back from his night out.

“Hey…you alright, honey?” He sits down beside her, gives her a gentle hug.

“Oh…hi. Sorry about that…I don’t know what I was thinking, I was having a bad dream and I think the door startled me. Whew.” She rubs her eyes and relaxes to the smell of coffee on Doug’s breath. “Anyways, how was your night out with the guys? Coffee?”

“It was good, really good…yeah, I had a coffee with dessert.”

The response is too quick.

He enters the bathroom, turns on the faucet, and prepares his toothbrush.
She watches him brush vigorously, questions cramming her mind while he swishes, spits and wipes his mouth dry.

“So did you end up going to Scolletti’s?”

“Yeah,” he answers, stretching his tee shirt over his head before climbing out of his jeans and into bed. “I am wiped. Church tomorrow?”

The minty scent of toothpaste lingers between them; that and the more fishy smell of a white lie.

“Think I’ll pass on church tomorrow,” she says, feeling as though the rain, along with her questions, may never end.
 

For Mothers...

It has been said that if the work mothers do on a daily basis could be translated into a paycheck, accounting for the around-the-clock hours in which they spend mothering - counseling, chauffering, teaching, nursing, entertaining and simply loving - she should be paid a six-digit salary.

Most mothers who hear this, understand the rationale completely, despite the fact that they are biologically wired to adapt to the needs of their children. It's almost as though they can't help but cater to their children's needs. It's a natural gift that money can't possibly buy.

A mother will hear the merest gurgle of her baby in another room. The anatomy of her ear is literally shaped for it. She will discern sadness in her daughter's eyes when there are no tears, fear in her son's when there are no words.

She knows what it's like to be engaged in a project while juggling a throng of interruptions. There is a spat to be resolved, a cut to be healed, a homework problem to be read and, amidst all of this, the phone is ringing. Her own work will have to wait. Her child comes first. Most likely, the interruption will lead to less dollars, more clutter, and the chewing away of her patience. At the day's end, to her partner, it may look as though she has accomplished nothing. Her face may appear weary, her words agitated, and her mood grey. She has accomplished so much and yet none of it shows.

She hears the cynics, judging her a hint of sarcasm. The kids are in school all day! What more can one ask for? I feel compelled to enlighten the misguided folk. While a mother's children are at school, one of two situations is most likely happening.

The first is this: When her beeper goes off at 6 a.m, she starts the job inside of her home before driving to the one outside of it. It is likely that her part-time 'mother's hours' paycheck will help to fund groceries. When her child is sick, she will need to tap into her pay to pay someone else or stay home and be docked for it. In short, the two jobs that she works - inside and outside of the home - will not be compensated fairly.

The second situation, less demanding in my humble opinion, is that she will eat up the time while her child is at school to manage household chores, appointments, meals, and schedules - in attempt to strive for balance, organization, and a 'warm place to fall on' for her family.

Depending upon her unique circumstances, she must choose an option that works for her family, with her children at the center. Their health and wellness depends on her choice and she does not take it lightly.

Regardless of this choice, she will make it while juggling her child's needs with her own. Simply going to work to earn money for her intellect, coasting in and out of projects, and capitalizing on merit and bonus pay is not an option for a mother. She must be creative. She must split her needs in thirds and prioritize. She is last on her list.

Mother's Day is a time to reflect on all that she accomplishes. It's a day to make her feel first - a time to see beyond the pile of clothes in the closet and the peanut butter stuck to the counter. A mother's job is like a quilt. It's a patchwork of squares that create a warm fabric to wrap yourself up in.

You may not see the finished product at first. But when you see the glow in your son's face when he slides into homeplate or the determination in your daughter's when she shoots a winning basketball - remember that - a mother's love is in the distance, the glow of a sunset.

Someone reassured that boy that he's going to have a great game while handing him a clean uniform. Someone told that girl that she's a natural on the court after searching three different stores for the right set of sneakers.

A mother is the instrument behind a melody and the note before the song.

My hope for Mother's Day is that you will pocket a mother's love like a favorite pack of gum. You will visit it, unwrap it, and savor its flavor. You will remember that what's she's truly looking for does not have to come in a Tiffany's box (though it certainly wouldn't hurt!)

When it comes to what a mother needs, think of the quilt. Do small things for her daily,create your own fabric of love and appreciation for her. Hold back a complaint. Choose a compliment. Listen to her, regardless of whether or not you feel the same way! Make her feel just as important as she makes your child feel. Each and every day.