Ode to Kuk Sool Won of St. Paul

My son is lucky enough to take martial arts classes twice a week at Kuk Sool Won of St. Paul, a very family-oriented martial arts school right here in the Midway neighborhood.  It's amazing how much he's learned in the year and a half since he started.  He looks so grown-up and serious in his black uniform and white belt, standing at attention in the line-up of kids, bowing and saying, "Yes, sir!" to his teacher.  It is a very different culture than our home culture.  I'm glad that he is experiencing it.  I trust these teachers. I trust what they are offering their students.  

Tonight in class, the kids were independently practicing the forms, a series of prescribed movements that are the basis of this style of martial arts.  They were supposed to do the forms as best as they could remember them without watching another student or teacher perform them.  At times, one of the young students would get stuck--they made a mistake, or they forgot what they were doing, and suddenly, they'd stop and stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of expression, not sure what to do next.  Usually a teacher would jump in and help them get going again.

Afterwards, the head teacher asked the class, "What should you do if you make a mistake?"

"Start over," one boy volunteered.

"No," said the teacher.  "You keep going.  You keep going.  And what if you forget or get stuck?  What do you do then?"

None of the kids responded.

"You ask for help," said their teacher.  "That's what we're here for.  That's why we keep practicing--so eventually you won't make that mistake any more."

Such a simple exchange, but I found it so moving.  I'm so glad my son is getting these messages early from strong, compassionate teachers.  You can keep going after you make a mistake.  You can ask for help.  You just have to keep practicing.

It reminds me a little of a story I read once about a famous modern-dance choreographer--I can't remember which one now.  Maybe Martha Graham?  One of her dancers fell flat on her butt during a rehearsal and sat there with a stunned expression on her face, not moving, not getting up.  The choreographer swooped over to the dancer and exhorted her, "Don't stop now!  Make it into something beautiful!"

One More Cleaning Analogy and Then I'll Stop

I was walking home yesterday after a few hours of writing at a coffee shop while my husband Brian watched the kids.  Instead of feeling satisfied and grateful that I got to write, I was feeling restless and unsatisfied about what I didn't get done.  

My restlessness reminded me of something I used to appreciate at the Zen retreats that I used to attend.  At the retreats, there was always a daily period of mindful work, called samu ryo.  It lasted for about an hour, if I remember right--maybe less.  Everyone pitched in to sweep, dust, clean bathrooms, and so on.  Five minutes before the end of the period, a loud knock on a han, a flat slab of wood used as a kind of ceremonial drum, signaled that it was time to start wrapping up your task and putting your tools away.  Another knock on the han signaled it was time to come back to your meditation cushion.  Even if you weren't finished with your chore, you stopped at that point.  You moved on.

I loved that.  I loved that you did as much as you could, as attentively as possible, and that was enough.  What you had gotten done was of value, it was a step toward a cleaner, more organized Zen center, even if you hadn't done EVERYTHING.  

I would like to work toward taking that approach to my own work.  I would like to work toward appreciating what my family and I actually manage to do, who we actually are, instead of letting my fantasies about what we should be able to do and be get in the way quite so much.  

 

Making Connections

Yesterday my daughter and I were acting out a Grimms story called "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs."  (I must say there are few things that help me feel more like a legitimate, not-so-slacking homeschooler than acting out a fairy tale with the kids.  The old teacher in me gets all fluttery when one of the kids suggests it--oh thank God!  We're actually going to do something that could be classified as educational!)  Near the beginning of the story, a king puts a peasant baby boy in a wooden chest and throws the chest in a river so the boy can't grow up to fulfill a prophecy that he's going to marry the king's daughter.  

My son was playing nearby and half-listening as we acted out putting the baby in the chest.

"Sort of like Perseus," he chimed in.  

"Oh?" I said.  "Did Perseus get put in a chest?"  I couldn't remember.

"Yeah," my son said.  "Don't you remember?  He was the one who killed Medusa."

My curiosity was piqued.  I grabbed a book of Greek myths that was conveniently nearby and looked up Perseus.  It all started to come back to me as I read.  Yep, there it was.  Perseus's mother Danae being impregnated by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold.  Perseus and his mother Danae getting locked in a trunk and thrown in the ocean by Perseus's grandfather, who feared a prophecy that his grandson would someday kill him. 

"Dang," I said, looking up at my son in wonder.  "You've got a really good memory!  What a cool connection!"  It must be lovely, I thought, to have such a nice, absorbent brain that still retains information.  

Today we went to the Minnesota History Center, which has become our habitual Friday afternoon outing lately.  It's been nice going there so frequently because things are really starting to come together and make some sense.  Today, for instance, Charles Lindbergh kept coming up.  First, there's a model of the type of airplane Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic hanging prominently in the atrium.  Charles Lindbergh is also featured in a short film about aviation and space exploration that we've watched several times now.  There's a bust of him and a photo of "The Spirit of St. Louis" airplane in the MN 150 exhibit of 150 Minnesota people, places, and things that have changed the world.  And then, while we were playing the MN 150 electronic quiz game, Lindbergh came up again in a question:  "What body of water did Charles Lindbergh cross in his famous solo flight?"  We were able to use what we'd just seen in the museum to answer that it was the Atlantic.

Another time, we used something we'd learned earlier to answer a different quiz question.  We'd looked at a map that showed patterns of glaciation in Minnesota over the last 10,000 years.  A question in the quiz asked what had created the rich black soil that covers much of Minnesota, or something along those lines.  Glaciers was one of the possible answers--in fact, the only one that made sense of the four.  So once again, we got to put a few different pieces of information together to come up with the right answer.  I could just feel the new neurons percolating away in our brains.

I have to say--moments like these make me feel positively effervescent. 

One Room at a Time

After lunch, we usually have about an hour of quiet time when the kids go to their rooms and listen to books on CD while I either write or clean house.  

Today right after lunch, my daughter picked up my son's "Dragonology" book and pulled out an imaginary note in dragon runes.  She started pretending to read it in a funny made-up language and said it was a note from Kaia, a friendly dragon from the Kingdom of Summer who wanted us to visit.  

I laughed at her inventiveness.  I enjoyed her thoroughly and played along for a good long while.  But inside I was feeling antsy because what I really wanted was not to go visit Kaia in the Kingdom of Summer.  I wanted the kids to go have their dang quiet time so I could write this post and then clean up the living room.

It really kind of amazes me.  Once upon a time I loved playing imaginary games, both as a kid and before I had children, as a grown-up hanging out with other people's children.  I detested and avoided housecleaning.  In fact, I remember feeling sorry for my mother when I was a teenager because she spent most of her weekends cleaning house, and she actually expressed a sense of enjoyment about getting the house organized.  I thought I would never have a life so dull that housecleaning would be one of my main pleasures.

Now, the thought of having a few uninterrupted hours to clean house fills me with a near-sexual longing.  I'm telling you, it literally makes my mouth water.  My, my, how things change.

I really was a terrible slob, and I still have it in me to be one again.  But in the past year or so, I've started a cleaning routine that has been so helpful and grounding for me, and I think also for the kids and my husband.  Monday I give the kitchen and dining room their dose of TLC.  Tuesday I write during the kids' quiet time.  Wednesday and Thursday is the living room.  It's sort of a "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" rhythm:  "This is the way we do the laundry, do the laundry, do the laundry.  This is the way we do the laundry, all on a Friday morning."  It's not always easy getting started, but again, I just try to break it down into one discrete task at a time:  now I'll pick up all the Yoga Pretzel cards and put them in the box.  Now I'll gather up the doll house furniture and put it back in the doll house.  And gradually the room gets done, usually faster than I thought it would be.

The room I've just cleaned usually gets wrecked again almost immediately, and believe me, no one is going to mistake me for a guru of cleanliness and organization.  My little routine is simply all that stands between me and sinking into trash-house levels of chaos, frankly.  Taking things one room at a time, the same day every week, helps me actually do the cleaning; otherwise, housework feels too overwhelming and I just let it slide. 

Lately, as I've been clearing the household clutter that has piled up over the last month while I was working on saving our neighborhood library, I've been thinking about my own mental clutter, too, as I posted a few days ago.  Usually, the thoughts that pull me away from just being present and attentive in the moment fall into a few major categories:

1.  Feeling distracted by the desire to do housework (i.e., playing on floor with a kid, I notice how much the floor needs sweeping)

2.  Feeling distracted by thoughts of creative projects I'd like to be working on

3.  Feeling distracted by loneliness and desire for adult companionship (i.e. checking my email approximately 3405 times a day)

4.  Feeling distracted by my own aversion to what's going on (i.e., thinking "I can't stand this!" when a child is getting grouchy)

5.  Feeling distracted by my own attachment to what I think should or shouldn't be happening (i.e., Believing that just because it's quiet time and I'm ready for an uninterrupted break, my children's needs really ought to shut off for an hour or so and I should not be called upstairs repeatedly to adjust CD volumes, bring cut-up apples, open change purse clasps, help with multiple potty trips, and so on).

OK, so what does this have to do with my "one room at a time" cleaning routine?  When I think about trying to be mindful, attentive, and in the moment all the time, it feels impossible.  But if I think of being mindful as possible in my next interaction, the next words I say to my child, the next time I touch my child, it feels a little more do-able.  

One room at a time, one moment at a time.  That's really all we ever have, you know?  And what we do with those moments is what we'll look back on and call our life.

Well, the girl child is done with quiet time already.  She's on my lap playing with handfuls of change while I type.  Let's see if I can get her involved somehow while I work on the living room.  Who knows?  Maybe Kaia the Friendly Dragon could fly over from the Kingdom of Summer and help us out.

What Saves You?

Today I was plagued by a huge amount of mental clutter, a near-constant yammering of inner voices telling me how my life ought to be different and all the ways I was screwing up. 

This morning the kids and I were very crabby with each other.  I found my thoughts cluttered with "ifs" and comparisons to other, more capable mothers.  If the kids were in school, maybe we wouldn't get so sick of each other. . . If I was better at establishing a strong daily and weekly rhythm like some of the Waldorf homeschoolers I know, maybe the kids and I wouldn't fight so much. . .  If I was a stronger, better person, I wouldn't get so easily annoyed. . . Rather than responding to what was happening with attentiveness and compassion, I was madly pacing around in my head, completely disconnected from my children, not to mention my own heart and common sense.  

This is not fun, nor is it helpful.  Tomorrow, I'm hoping to work on recognizing when I start to go down that road.  Just noticing, pure and simple.  Sometimes that's all it takes--just that quiet act of mercifully noticing, "You're doing it again, sweetheart.  What's up with that?"

In her poem "In Response to the Evangelist Door-Knocking Who Asked:  What Saves You?", St. Paul poet Margaret Hasse begins,

Dusk doesn't, dawn does.

Morning splendor,

over and over and over again.

Newspapers don't, with their harpy

human interest stories.

But ah, coffee with milk in a plain white mug. . .

What saved me today?

Having my daughter say, "Let's go play some songs on your guitar" when we were all getting crabby and mean.  Strumming and singing "Rain, rain go away" with my girl as the raindrops drummed down outside and my son played with his Matchbox cars nearby.

While I cooked dinner, hearing my children's uproarious laughter from the living room as their dad read a book out loud, ad libbing silly jokes, doing goofy voices, hamming it up as only he can.

Overhearing my husband listen respectfully as my son compared the various merits of different Lego kits in the new catalog he got in the mail today.

Cooking a favorite omelet from a battered, stained vegetarian cookbook my mom bought for me when I was a sophomore in college and I swore off meat.  Remembering how she bought a copy of the Moosewood Cookbook for her own kitchen shelf, so she'd have an idea of what to make for me when I came home.  

Calling my mom tonight to thank her for buying those cookbooks, all those years ago.  Hearing the surprise in her voice.

Just now, meditating in my bedroom, listening to the rain beat against the windows.  Years ago, I rented a little house in Arkansas with a roof so leaky, my bedroom was strewn with bowls and pans and still rain puddled all over the wood floors.  Sitting on my cushion tonight, recognizing the pleasure of a roof that doesn't leak and walls that hold out the cold--that was what saved me.

So.  What saves you?

"The Only Guarantee We Have is What's Happening Right Now"

The quote above is from a talk I attended this morning at Clouds in Water Zen Center in Lowertown St. Paul, given by Sosan Theresa Flynn, the temple priest there.  I was so grateful to be reminded once again of the importance of staying present and grateful, too, for Clouds in Water, my spiritual community for almost ten years now.  

Sosan read a quote from the Metta Sutra urging a practitioner to be "unburdened by duties, frugal in habits."  Sosan interpreted "unburdened by duties" to mean not that you have no duties, but that you aren't weighed down by your responsibilities.  You hold them lightly and spaciously, without clutching too tightly to results.  And "frugal in habits" means keeping your life simple, not cluttering your days with too many activities or too many things.

I've felt a real surge of restless distractability lately, the clutter of too much to do and think about, so it was good to hear this talk today.  I'm trying to zero in on what's really important to me and make time for those priorities, while leaving plenty of space for the rest and quiet that has been so lacking in my life lately.

It has been a restorative weekend.  Yesterday I had a daytime date with my husband.  The weather was ideal, and we took a long hike along the Mississippi, went out for lunch and ice cream, and still had time to browse at the library kid-free.  Yes, we are total geeks.

Today I went to the Y by myself and swam laps until I was good and tired, and then the family joined me there and we swam together for a good hour, then went out for pizza at a sweet little neighborhood joint with games and kids' books to help pass the time.  It was a day to be grateful for.

I feel ready to get back into the library fight again after a week of catching my breath.  I feel ready to get back to work on that suck-ass book manuscript I'm aiming to finish this year (Do know that I actually want the book to be good and am working my booty off to do my best on it.  Calling it "suck-ass" is my way of giving myself permission to finally finish it even though it's not perfect.  Maybe that's obvious, but I wanted to explain just in case).

Tonight I Forgot

At bedtime, I usually tell a story to the kids after we turn the lights out.  Sometimes I make the stories up myself as I go, and then the stories are fairly lame.  Other times, I tell the kids a story from the Grimms or some other wonderful source of stories handed down for hundreds of years, and then the stories are much, much better and more fun for me to tell.

As an antidote to the pretty, passive princesses my daughter has grown enamored of, I've tried to dig out some good, strong heroines from the old stories.  One of our greatest hits in this vein is a Russian story called "Vasilisa the Wise," about a clever, generous, athletic young woman who dresses up as a Tartar emissary in order to trick a king and save her imprisoned brother.  A fabulous and highly recommended story--it can be found in an anthology called "The Best of Girls to the Rescue" edited by Bruce Lansky.  Another goodie is one called "Tatterhood," which you can find in the wonderful parenting book "Everyday Blessings" by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Anyway.  About tonight and what I forgot.  Lately, we've been getting to bed later and later--I don't know if it's daylight savings time still throwing us off or what--and I've been grouchy and tired by the time the lights are out.  The kids have often been objecting to whatever story I say I want to tell:  "No!  That one's too scary!" or "No, I want a new story, not one you already told," and so on.  Or one kid wants one story, and another's arguing for another.  Tonight, I wanted to tell a new story called "The Blue Bottle."  My daughter and son wanted "The King's Son Goes Bear Hunting."  To make a long story short, I tried to tell "The King's Son Goes Bear Hunting," but after a few sentences in an angry monotone, I said, "You know what?  I just can't tell a story tonight.  I'm too tired and mad, and I don't want to try to tell a story when I'm mad."

My son cried, he was so disappointed.  I started going off on an eloquent guilt trip about how hard it is to tell a story when it's this late and we've spent so much energy arguing about what story to tell, blah blah blah.  I felt so irritated, so ready to just go be by myself with a good book and maybe a glass of wine.

"I'm sorry you're feeling bad, Mama," my son said quietly and stroked my arm.  

Eventually I calmed down, and I ended up snuggling with the kids until my daughter fell asleep and my son was almost asleep.  I spooned up against him and put my arm around him, and I was struck by how long he's growing, how his baby fat has melted away and left this lean, stringy-muscled young boy.  Beside me on the futon, he started twitching and shifting, the way you do when you're just about to drift off, and I thought, how many more years will he let me lie like this with him as he falls asleep, so close, so intimate?  

It's such a strange, poignant thing--usually when you fall in love, you hope the person you love will stick around.  But as a parent, what you're hoping for is that you raise your child to be strong enough so that they will leave.

If all goes well, my children are going to leave.  Why can't I remember this more often?  Why can't I cherish them more while they are here and stop letting the little irritants get in the way? 

As a wise woman named Katharine once said to me years ago when I was feeling especially stressed out about life with small children, "Time for some self-care, woman."  

Well, it's the weekend, and my husband and I have a babysitter lined up so we can go on a date tomorrow, so that's good.  Here's hoping I make time for some self-care, too--maybe a lap swim at the Y, a long walk by myself, time to write uninterrupted.  Something to fill my cup again, so I can remember not to forget.