3 Generations

                                                          3 Generations




                                                       Dusk at one table
                                            Communing with food, love, thoughts
                                                    Lilies closed, all leave.



                          Haiku after a late, long, and lovely dinner with 3 generations.

                           

I'd like to be...under the sea...

     Tonight, after waiting for many years, we finally saw an animated octopus who was not malicious! Hank, the co-star of Finding Dory, is actually a septopus with an unexplained back story on the loss of his eighth limb (except that the incident was so horrific that he never wants to return to the sea. Which bugged me, as I know that octopus are great limb regenerators and very good at staying protected on the ocean floor (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/how-octopus-arms-regenerate-with-ease/), and found it odd that they could spend two years creating the mechanics of bringing Hank to life with digital media, but couldn't write us a plausible back story for the missing leg.

     So I kept thinking about this inconsistency driving home with the kids in the car. They kept referencing Dory's loss of memory and her family. I kept thinking back to Nemo's loss of his mother and losing the full size of his fin. Perhaps the next movie will be Hank's story; how he came to be damaged, afraid, without family and an eighth leg. We'll already know that he learned to be brave and compassionate after meeting Dory and learning to trust his inner voice again.

     Only Octopus are solitary creatures for the most part, after they are born. The mother's ultimate sacrifice, after she lays her hundreds of eggs, is to wash water over them until they hatch, never leaving the cave or rock wall where she's hidden them, not even to eat. The longest documented case of an Octopus mother's love is 53 months of caring for her brood before she died. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/30/octopus-cares-for-her-eggs-for-53-months-then-dies/ That's what Octopus mother's do, at the ripe age of 2 or so, they mate, lay eggs, care for them until they start to hatch and then die.

     The kids and I were honored to see such a mother in action, as a captive in the Quebec Aquarium. (This is one photo from a series of 8 that I took). That mother was roughly 3 years old, but there was no male octopus to fertilize her eggs, so she was tending them and paying with her life, only the eggs would never hatch.  The wall of her tank was roughly 5'x4' and covered in eggs. She kept climbing up and down it, slowly, turning and washing water over the eggs. The woman who worked with this octopus told me that she'd been tending them for 2 weeks and might have another 2 weeks to live. I remarked on how pale the mother was and I remember the woman saying, "She's getting paler ever day."

     Most of the film was examining instinct, natural abilities and how that holds us together. But it also showed how the "crazy behavior" of being present in the moment, making choices based on passion and love can be just as valid as those which we are genetically programed to follow. Migration for the manta rays is just as valid as having chosen family that you risk your life to help and keep intact. Having a deficit (runty fin, no short term memory, a missing leg) isn't a reason for giving up or letting go, but rather the opposite; reasons to be resilient and resourceful.

     On one hand these two "Finding" films are more about finding yourself and believing in yourself, then they are about any external journey to find another who will make everything whole again. Dory still forgets, only she's learned how to thrive, not just survive; like Nemo before her. Hank seems to have accomplished all of this in one foul swoop (much like Dory did in Nemo; but in both the narrative was tracking the protagonists and the co-star was comic or cynical relief).

    I'm very tired now, and I know I'm going to have many additional thoughts in the morning, but I find it interesting that in Nemo, Dory had no parents or wasn't sure if she did, while in Dory, Hank makes no mention of family at all. The one thing they did emphasize about him however, which is true, is that he has three hearts (all octopus do). So I'm guessing that the third in what I'm assuming will be a trilogy, will be to discover that his family will become his students and the Nemo's and Dory's. Being of use and loved are the greatest ways to ride the planet, or navigate the oceans, after all!

New Directions

                       (Section of Acton rail trail in the process of being made from tracks to bike path)

     9 Months: the time it takes to make a child, the time it takes a Senior to finish HS and to decide what college they will attend as a Freshman, the time it takes to realize that the new relationship you've started is growing into something substantial, the time it takes to learn how to best help some one you love and the time to create space for reentry of those who you no longer love.

     I've been silent here for 9 months, too. I was writing this blog every night before I went to sleep for the better part of a year. 4,000 readers from 21 different countries some how found their way to this page of x's and o's, and quite frankly it both startled and excited me. Then I entered a new face to face relationship with a man and that had a similar effect. 

     In these three seasons of silence, I've had to carefully budget my energies: teaching full-time, single motherhood, college applications/visits/acceptances/orientation, a struggling transitioning student, a new man, and the final Grad Class required to equal my second MA for licensure and a lane change (strategic to the one child going to college). There hasn't been much room for not being 100% healthy or for selfish acts of dumping my thoughts here. 

     10 Months ago, however, I injured my ribs. The muscles tore between them and took a long while to heal. Being a teacher is very physical work (standing, walking, writing, carrying and basically moving for 7-8hrs a day). Being a single mom is very physical work (cooking, shopping, cleaning, yard chores and so on). Being mentally healthy is very physical work (dog walking, running, swimming, yoga, biking and more). It has felt kind of like the Freshman mantra of the 3 S's: you must sleep, study and socialize, but you can only do two most of the time (sleeping being skipped and food being consumed for false energy instead = Frosh15#)! 

     The Holidays were celebrated with an immediate blending of our children, who are close in age, all 4; his 2 sons and my son and daughter. This came about seamlessly and with little, to no, fretting. My family liked him and his family seemed to think I was okay, too. The fluidity of this, after being single for the better part of 4 years was astounding and scary. There were moments where I know I had to erase previous relationship tapes and learn how to be the me I wanted to be in a relationship now. Not the married person of nearly 20 years, nor the single person from 20 years ago, but the person I am now. This required really reflecting on all of it and taking the path that is most authentic to me, even if it's unpracticed and unfamiliar. Those are often the most terrifying and rewarding roads to travel.

     

     Ribs healed by January, in time to do a 6 mile winter obstacle course race with my new man, a friend from work and her husband. It was wonderful to be doing something I usually do alone or with work mates/ friends and do it with my "hunny bunny" (as I wrote his relationship to me on my emergency info/waiver - he called me his "significant other"). Then February  and March brought a double whammy of strep throat combined with bronchitis. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. Yet, those months I learned that I can be not 100% and not have to apologize for it. This was new for me and very welcome in my relationship.

     Spring brought an invitation to travel to California with my man, which I had to decline, but it felt great to be asked. My Grad Class, College visits and son need my full attention. Yet some weekends, I started going with my man to help get his sailboat ready to go over. He races during the Spring and Summer seasons. I wanted to learn about his boat (racing, not cruising; more lines than a Shakespeare play) and prepare for being crew. You can learn a great deal about some one by how the folks in the yard treat them, and it was all favorable. Plus, I found them very welcoming to me, as well. 

     By April I was back to running 10K's, doing yoga and looking for tri's and open water races to enter. Then after a lovely Saturday day sail, just the two of us, and at the start of a short dog walk, it happened. Went to hug my man from behind, he leaned forward, and it felt like a hot silver spike was jammed between my ribs in the exact same spot as last August! Drats, dagnabit and double drats! Didn't happen carrying kegs over my head, swinging from ropes or climbing over walls, but hugging my man! So a minor, but effecting every breath, set back.

     These last two months have been busy, ever rallying, trying and grand for my family. My man and I will soon be going for a 2 week sail; one week with two boys (one of his with a friend) and the other week just the two of us. My kids will be in Europe with their father and his fiancee, their soon to be stepmother. 

     So here I am; starting off in a new direction, uncharted and full of change. This summer will be the ending of the family structure I've managed alone for the last 4 years; the beginning of my daughter slowly leaving the nest, while my son receives some TLC and I endeavor to explore my new way of being. Figure it's time to stop being silent, and start practicing my skills at covering transitions, as that is what I hope to write about in depth down the road.