Are you strong enough to be my man?

1) Can you hardly ever get mad at me?
2) Can you have big faith in me?
3) Will you support me financially? For a while?
4) Will you drop all contact with your ex’s ( P.S. I don’t have to do the same)?
5) Will you adore me?
6) Will you listen?
7) Will you remember the nieces, nephews and friend’s kid’s birthdays so I don’t have to?
8) Are you able to grieve the loss of a baby as much as me?
9) Will you accept criticism on household tasks and childrearing?
10)Will you not criticize me on household tasks and childrearing?
11) Will you overhaul your entire diet at least three times?
12) Will you take out garbage?
13) Mow the lawn?
14) Be devoted to the kids?
15) Forgive me when I hurt you?
16) Work a full-time, demanding job and come home to relieve me of my full-time demanding job?
17) Take my teary calls at work? Talk me down from the ledge when one more tantrum will break me?
18) Tell me I’m a good mom, especially after I lose my cool?
19) Expect my success?
20) Make me laugh, constantly?
21) Make the first move?
22) Don’t be offended if I say no?
23) Try again?
24) Trust my instincts regarding the kids?
25) Have instincts of your own on their behalf?
26) Make enough money, always, for what they need?
27) Tuck me in at night, even if you aren’t going to bed yet?
28) Get my glasses, my book, my water, my foot warmer, after I’m already settled in?
28) Want to be with me all the time?
29) Give me as much space as I need?

In return, you get me.

Fully.

Masterminds

I’m thinking it sounds like some kind of board game as her message plays on my voicemail. A television ad of my childhood comes to mind…You sunk my battleship!

What the heck is Masterminds?

She repeats, “We meet on Thursday mornings at Karma Korner for Masterminds, if you’d like to join us.”

Masterminds? Is it a southern thing? Is it like Bunco? I confess, I’ve never been to a Bunco game, but I’ve heard it described as a bunch of women getting together to gossip. Who has the time or the karma to spare?

Or maybe Masterminds is like Pampered Chef? Or Mary Kaye? It’s not that I don’t like these products. I do. But I’ve been known to bribe third parties to hook me up with a baking stone, or blush, so I don’t have to personally attend.

Sure, some of my resistance to all things Tupperware is residual. For a long time I was so poor I couldn’t possibly afford to buy something if I went. I’d walk away with a five dollar spoon and feel terribly guilty and exposed.

Also, the feminist in me resents having to spend money in support of another woman’s position as a bottom-feeder on a sales pyramid. C’mon. How many pink cadillacs are actually out there? Someone’s making a lot of money, but it ain’t you dear sister-friend.

I just wish instead of selling candles, women could get together, light a few of them, and revel in each other’s company, but…I digress.

So, Masterminds is it? Well, we just moved to Lynchburg. I have no friends. I am desperate for adult conversation, and Kasey who invited me is really cool, so I guess I’ll go. Just once.

Thursday morning, seven of us filter into Karma Korner, a little health food/coffee shop. The owner Leah, a part of the group, hooks up our caffeine IV’s. Everyone here is female and they are all from the Unity Church we just joined, but these are not church ladies. They are stylish in a hippie-chic, bohemian, kind of way. Whew! I’m lovin’ it. I can breathe.

After chatting and coffee and laughing and munching, someone suggests we begin, and cards are passed around.

We read together from a script, confessing that by ourselves we are powerless, but with help from the Mastermind (God) all things are possible.

Hmm…Sounds kind of 12 steppy? Politically correct. Don’t want to offend anyone with the word, “God” huh?

We confess that we need help.

Okay…there are just eight steps on this card, but…. well....I DO need some help. So….I guess it's okay?

We read down the list and the sixth step is asking. We ask for what we want, and the members of the group affirm our requests.

Someone asks for prosperity and faith.

Each woman in the circle tells her she is heard. She is prosperous. She does have faith in the Divine order of things.

Someone asks for gratitude.

One by one, around the circle it’s, “The Mastermind hears you and you are full of gratitude.”

What am I going to ask for? What do I say?

Someone asks for focus and good health.

“The Mastermind hears you.” We say. “You are in perfect health and you are focused on what you need to do.”

Oh no! My turn. Do I say something bogus? Do I ask for faith, patience?

I pause, thinking. Debating.

My throat tightens. My heart beats faster.

I leap.

“I ask for wisdom in making the right decisions regarding my child. There are so many conflicting opinions about best treatments for autistic spectrum disorders. I never feel like I know what I’m doing? I ask for clarity. I ask for strength. I ask for help in being a good mother.”

One at a time, each woman looks me in the eye.

“The Mastermind hears you Michelle, you are wise.”

Thank you.

“You are strong.”

Thank you.

“You are filled with clarity and you make the right decisions for your child.”

Thank you.

Mary, the last in the circle, says “You are a good mother.”

Our eyes stay locked. My throat squeezes. Tears start in my eyes. I breathe in and let them out.
Thank you.

I am lifted and held by this group, completely vulnerable and utterly safe. Blindsided by how much I needed this.

It’s been over a year, and I still go to Masterminds every chance I get. Occasionally someone new shows up and almost always, they weep. I believe it’s the cry of our very cells, remembering being cared for by a feminine force bigger than sisters, mothers, daughters, even the earth. We get so distanced from Her but when we stop and remember, it moves us at our depths.

This kind of connection, this opportunity to remember, is a precious gift. And every now and then, someone even shows up with baked goods, in Tupperware.

Only One You

Do you ever have the feeling what you want to do....what your soul aches to do, is just not that important?

Today at The Unity Church in Lynchburg, VA, Rev. Nancy Purcell read this quote.

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your busniess to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."

-Martha Graham

(Quoted by Agnes DeMille in Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham, Random House).

Thank you Nancy. I'm gonna go write, and I'm curious dear, unique friends.....what are you going to do?

Shit

If you have a child on the autistic spectrum, you already know this. If not, it might come as a surprise to you that autism isn’t a brain disorder per say, but also a disorder of the gut. These kids have severely messed up digestive tracts and suffer with chronic diarrhea or constipation or both.

We've had my daughter’s bowels mostly under control for over a year, but this week we changed her diet and a couple of supplements, and the result, severe constipation.

Baked prunes, raisons, grapes, milk of mag, olive oil, all forced down her throat in vain, because still, here she is.

My little girl, howling with pain on the potty, trying to pass something her tiny bottom can’t pass. This has been going on for three days. No we can’t come over. We have to be near our own potty. No you can’t come over. I can’t deal with company. I am just about over my head.

I sit on the stool in front of the toilet, facing her. She slumps on me like a woman in labor leans on her partner. Her little brother stands in the hall outside the bathroom. He’s scared of his sister’s screams. He’s worried. I can't comfort both. At three and a half he’s still in diapers. Anyone want to guess why we he resists potty training?

She's crying and I'm hugging her and I have had it. Silently, I say, "If there are such things as angels or spirit guides, I am asking you to help here. I am inviting you to DO YOUR JOB and help this little girl and help me, if you do indeed exist."

60 seconds later, she pooped.

------------------------

* The Specific Carbohydrate Diet did not cause the back-up. Quite the contrary, SCD is designed to heal the gut over time and solve these pesky bowel issues. The problem occurred because my daughter, upset that she is no longer allowed to take her magnesium supplement in ice cream while on the diet, decided to spit out the applesauce alternative (all over her parents) four days in in a row. Today, she took her supplements no problem, in a spoonful of almond butter. Praise God!
** Keep in mind, if your child is sensitive to phenols, almonds are not a good idea. To follow the SCD without almond flour, use coconut flour instead.

Writing Memoir

I left her, this 12 year old girl, a week ago. Her best friend’s father had just been killed in a car accident. She didn’t know what to do? How to comfort her friend? She didn’t know how to cope with her own grief. She loved her friend’s dad. This father so different from her own.

She’s waiting for me, but I had to go to the autism conference.

She’s waiting for me, but the Specific Carb Diet is really helping kids with autism and we’re going to try it. She waits while I clear out my entire kitchen and restock. While I learn how to cook this way. Did I ever really know how to cook?

She waits with teenage impatience, crossing her arms over her chest, shifting positions on her feet.

No time to write. I have new research to go over.

She waits.

New therapies to consider.

She shifts.

She sighs.

But she can’t help grinning when my daughter runs from the table, screaming over too many pieces of broccoli on her plate.

And as we pass in the hall on my son’s way to bed, she reaches out, lightly touching his blond hair. She smiles at his tiny body slumped on my shoulder.

She nods.

Be the mommy. I’ll wait.

My Technical Guy

Everybody throw your hands in the air, and wave em' like you just don't care!

Everybody say "Hey!!!!!!!!"

Everybody Say "Ho!!!!"

A big shout out to my technical guy Todd O'Neil. Not only does he do all my computer stuff, but he's good smelling, warm, and doesn't hog all the covers.

XOXO

The Necklace

In my post-partum hospital room, the nurses ooooed and ahhhed and exchanged envious glances. Cute as she was, the fuss was not over my baby. Hell, these people crank cute babies out like a factory. The gushing was over a little gold necklace. A mother-child pendent with a tiny diamond in the center. Todd presented it to me the day my daughter was born.

Riley’s birth had been traumatic. When she was 11 days old I wound up back in the hospital with a post-op infection. I asked Todd to put the necklace in the drawer of my jewelry box, and there it remained.

"I’d wear it, but she might grab it and break it," I reasoned, as my daughter grew.

This justification was for my own benefit. Todd hadn’t noticed I wasn’t wearing the necklace, and frankly he couldn’t have cared less.

The truth is, shhhh........I didn't want to wear it.

The pendent felt like a big blinking neon sign that read, MOTHER, NOTHING ELSE. Wasn’t the screaming baby attached to my body advertisment enough?

More than once Todd arrived home from work to find me covered in Riley’s half digested breast milk, crying,

"I feel so ….so……disappeared." Disappeared described it perfectly.

"Well, we can't have that happen." Todd would say, taking the baby and sending me out the door.

I'd go for a walk or to the store, wandering aimlessly, not quite knowing what to do with the limited time away from my child. I was so tired. So lost.

Seth’s arrival two years later bought the necklace even more time in the slammer.

But something's happened over the last year. The kids are both in school half-days and I’ve begun writing again.

I've also started wearing my pendent once in a while.

It's funny, the more time I spend with the woman who almost disappeared, the more "get out of jail" passes my necklace seems to be granted?

Bedtime Prayer

Snuggling in with Riley, I wrap my body around hers. We’re one tight unit. Comfy cozy. Her fingers stroke the top of Chickie’s fur. No sleep without Chickie.

“Your mommy loves you.” I say softly in her ear.

“Your daughter loves you.” she says back.

I laugh.

“Mommy why are you laughing?”

“Because, you tickle me.”

“But mommy, I didn’t tickle you?”

“Sweetie, it’s an expression. It means you make me laugh. You’re funny.”

“Oh.”

We say prayers, talk about the day’s best moments and wrap it up with,

“Thank you God for all these happy thoughts.”

I give her one last squeeze.

“Riley. I’m so proud of you.”

“Why?”

I think for a second. So many reasons.

“Because you are a good person.” I say.

“I am?”

“You are.”

She smiles and wiggles deeper into her blankets.

“Good-night baby.”

“Night mommy.”

Amen.