Abigail Carter's Blog

A late night scramble onto the balcony outside my bedroom, a stealth tiptoe up stairs, an early morning getaway. It was fun to sneak around, like teenagers, stealing kisses. But there comes a point when it feels deceitful. It’s a sticky place to be. You want to make sure its right before you announce the occurrence of a sleepover. That the relationship is on solid ground – something that can feel both certain and elusive at the same time. It’s the uncertainty that makes definite proclamations difficult, but after talking it over with several friends, I realized it was time to come clean.

By now my kids are old enough to get it. There is no pulling the “we’re just good friends” wool over their eyes. I don’t want to teach them that sneaking around is the proper way to conduct a relationship because I don’t want them doing it (!). It was time to model what relationships can be, the wonderful, the scary, the awesome, the difficult.

I wondered over the years since Arron’s death, what I could possibly have taught my kids about relationships. There have been so few, and the early ones they don’t remember. I never considered that I might be teaching them about love in the way I grieved. But this year, I got am amazing mother’s day letter, where this was addressed:

“I knew what love was supposed to feel like because I not only felt it after losing him (daddy), but I primarily saw it within you.”

I was overwhelmed. Despite myself and the fact that I was only one person, I managed to show my children what love between two people looked like.

All very nice and ethereal, until there is the reality of a strange person’s shoes in the entry. Folding a new person into the mix comes with loss. Loss of old routines, old patterns, old habits, the kind that are sometimes difficult to let go of.

“How will I talk to you if he’s here?” I am asked. “The same as always,” I say. “and if it’s private then we will find a private place to talk.”

“I will never stop loving you, the same as I always did,” I say. “But its important for all of us that I am able to live my life too, just I as I allow you to live yours. I may not always agree with your choices, but I will respect them, just as I hope you will do for me.”

They are old enough to hear this now. Can understand it. And I’m finally in a place where I am strong enough to say it. A key piece of this puzzle is the leeway he gives me to do and say what I need to in order to pave the way for him, so that he can come into our lives in whatever way he chooses. And he gives me time. Because in the end, I realize, it’s always time that makes the difference. With time, the tiny adjustments can get made, little-by-little, step-by-step until one day you look back and you realize you are right where you need to be.

A new basketball net has arrived in our yard, the workings of a pellet gun explained and there is talk of jet-ski paint balling. Whole new worlds are opening up before our eyes.

Mother's Day Breakfast 2009

There was a time when I rolled my eyes at Mother’s Day. Another guilt inducing dash around for flowers or some “perfect” thing to show appreciation. Father’s Day was no exception. My dad was the Scrooge of Father’s Day and to this day, whenever I call him on Father’s Day, he always says “Hmmmph. Father’s Day. I didn’t even know it was Father’s Day. Show’s you what I know. Just a dumb holiday invented by Hallmark to make us buy stuff we don’t need.”

I came by my disdain honestly.

When I got married and had kids, Mother’s Day was an event that forced me to experience severe cuteness overload as burned pancakes and tea made their way to my bedroom, Arron following behind sheepishly holding a droopy flower he picked out of the garden.

It wasn’t until after he died that Mother’s Day suddenly took on some sort of magical new importance that I didn’t quite understand. That first Mother’s Day after, I was reminded of the day I was hoping to forget by all the bouquets left anonymously on my porch. The kids presented me with handmade cards and a soggy bowl of cereal. It was poignant, but something was missing and the missing thing took over the entire space in the room. I felt suffocated. I tried not to cry and when I did and the kids looked at me alarmed. I told them they were tears of happiness. And in some way I suppose they were, its just that I didn’t know it at the time.

As the years progressed, the kids and I settled into a sweet routine. Breakfast in bed for me (with copious dishes to clean up later). Pancakes morphed into fried eggs and bacon with a dish beautifully decorated with orange slices (the cooking channel years) and once they could read and write, heartfelt letters telling me how appreciated I was were added to the tray, decorated with artistic swirls on the envelopes saying “MeeMoo” their nickname for me. Oh did those letters make me cry! Arron’s presence diminished over the years and I realized the day didn’t actually involve him anymore. It was our day, the kids’ and mine.

They haven’t all been perfect. The early ones made me sad because Arron wasn’t there to appreciate me. I felt like a disgruntled child. Where was my droopy garden-picked flower? I felt the same way I might if he had forgotten Mother’s Day altogether, irrational as that is. I’m glad that faded away with time. Now he shows up for a moment perhaps, a fleeting memory of him that will make me smile.

These days I’m lucky to get tea in bed, but one tradition lingers – the letters. They are amazing and sweet and funny as hell and always make me laugh tears.

In those moments, I remember to appreciate what I have rather than remember what I don’t.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you moms and dads being moms out there. You are all appreciated.

I walked in the door and he was slumped in his seat watching a Khan Academy video. The tutor looked exasperated and took me aside to tell me so. Later there was a temper tantrum where phrases like “I hate my life!” and “I’s so stupid!” were flung at me in an accusatory way. The day before had been a similar episode with a different kid. And so I lost it. I had to walk out. I grabbed the dog and drove to the lake. I was a failure. I hadn’t pushed hard enough, I was too lax on screen time, I hadn’t set clear enough consequences, or expectations, or… I didn’t know what. “He” should be here to deal with this. “He” would know how to do Algebra and Pre-Calc. I had a good sob. And then I got a text.

“I’m hungry”

And I got mad. I was incredulous. The gall.

“Can you go shopping. We have no food.”

I sobbed some more. Until I calmed down. I went and got food for dinner.

I talked to them both separately, but the message was the same.

“I have done everything in my power to help you. I have nagged you about homework, hired tutors, written 504 plans, gotten you tested, paid for therapists, psychiatrists, meds, whatever it took. I did it. And now it’s your turn. You have two choices: If you want to get into (college/higher level math/fill in the blank), you are going to have to work for it. And work really hard. It will be hard and frustrating but you can do it because you are smart and you have everything you could possibly need to succeed. I have made sure of that. The only thing standing in your way now is yourself. So you need to get to work. If you don’t want a tutor, then fine. That’s your choice too. The consequence of that choice is that you may not get what you want. If you are OK with that, then so am I.”

I’m sure I blathered on for quite a bit longer but a while later I got another text: ”I want to stay with the tutor.”

The tears stopped. The books were cracked. The tension dissipated and I had angelic kids on my hands.

A few days later I met another single mom who had raised her kids alone from an early age. She told me about her daughter’s failure to get into college. “She just kind of lost her way in Junior and Senior year and now I think she’s going to have to go to community college or something to get her marks up. But really I want her to get a job, so she can learn to have a work ethic. I’m hoping that through working she will learn about working hard to get what she wants.”

I told her about my temper tantrum and subsequent speech and she commiserated. “I’ve made that same speech many times!”

It felt good to know I wasn’t alone. The pressure on our kids is so intense, I think many wind up feeling hopeless and simply give up. I’ve seen it first hand and so I am learning to be a motivator. State things bluntly, get to the point, give the tough choices. I felt stronger somehow, more confident that we were headed in the right direction, that I was teaching my kids to cope with the hardships that life constantly throws our way and that my kids might not wind up as homeless people.

We had gotten through my temper tantrum a little wiser.

At least until yesterday when I discovered three charges on my credit card statement for a tanning salon that weren’t mine and a computer screen was smashed for the second time in three weeks.

Two steps forward, one step back.

He’s an endurance runner. Not just measly 26-mile marathons, but 50K marathons. A “quick” run is 16 miles. It is way beyond my comprehension. He doesn’t just run long distances, but he enjoys the scenery as he runs, takes his time, feels each moment as he puts one foot in front of the other. He doesn’t worry too much about the time it takes to finish the race.

I am learning that this is also how he lives his life. Slow and steady. Enjoying the journey, taking the time to notice the little things, maybe even veering off in a new direction if the spirit moves him. As much as I try and say that I live this way too, I am too much the hare – always in a hurry to get to the end point, to see what’s around the next corner, to take the prescribed path, to dash ahead before I may be quite ready. I exhaust myself.

My mind speeds ahead wondering where all this may wind up. Will I be flat on my butt in the middle of the desert somewhere? Will I turn around only to discover that I am running along all by myself, slowing to a stop to wait.

“There’s no rush,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And so I slow to his pace, and I can breathe easier, and for the first time, I’m able to look around and marvel at all that I have missed by always racing ahead so fast.

And when I turn, he’s still there, running right along beside me.

Ab, Pre-Op, April 2, 2012

A call came that my surgery was bumped up by an hour, so I scrambled to find a different ride to the hospital since my previously scheduled ride couldn't make the earlier time. The usual single mother dilemma. Another friend sweetly picked me up and dropped me off. I was ushered in, changed and climbed into a bed covered by a blanket of paper and dry-cleaning bag cellophane, filled with warm air. Weirdly comforting and uncomfortable at the same time.

I still wasn't sure of the pick-up arrangement. Friend? daughter? Whomever was most available. And then he texted that his flight would land in time to pick me up. A weight lifted with a smile and an SMH (Liv speak for "shake my head") marveling at how things just fall into place when you most need them to. When you let go and don't try too hard to force them.

Maybe it was the Theta Healing that I did around the surgery that made it so easy, calm, relaxed, allowing things to fall into place as they did. Or else it was the incredible surgical team who have their procedures whittled down to a fine-tuned machine, right down to tiny tubes of Blistex so my lips wouldn't become dry, handed to me by the anesthesiologist with instructions to "apply liberally."

I awoke to a delicious abandon, a state between sleep and awake. Pain was minimal until it wasn't. My IV was injected once more and the pain was minimal again.

And then he was there. He sat patiently beside me, holding my hand, listening to the incessant litany of instructions from the nurse. I looked at him and he smiled and I knew that he too was equally bemused by the barrage of words. He helped me to hobble home, made dinner, tucked me into bed and I felt well-cared for for the first time in a very long time.

Life doesn't get any sweeter than that.

Four days post-op I am back to being a single mom, albeit with kids who begrudgingly fetch for me and drive to the grocery store and put out the recycling. But a single mom who still has to make dinner and clean up and make waffles for a sick child and go to school-dictated evening meetings hobbling all the while.

Pieces have been removed, tendons snipped, skin stitched and now the mending begins. The long slow arduous climb back to what I once was. I've been here before. Piece of cake.

 

Image borrowed from www.wizardnow.com. Listen your way into a theta state.

A friend told me about "Theta Healing" and the incredible experiences she has had with it, and so me being me, I had to check it out. Googling it, I learned that Theta healing is, in essence, a tapping into one's theta (or subconscious) brain waves, receiving messages from the subconscious and then applying a process of "removing" old, useless, negative beliefs and "replacing" them with positive ones.

The crazy part that my friend was so excited about was that this healer was able to tap into the theta waves of not just her, but her children as well and take a read on what they were going through and update their thoughts similarly. I do wonder about the ethics of having someone messing around in your theta waves without your knowledge, but if it was for good and not evil, then I guess I couldn't see the harm.

I spoke with Theta Healer, Donna who told me over the phone how negative thoughts and beliefs can lead to illness and fear and how it is possible to become stuck in these negative beliefs until they begin to shape our entire reality. This is a notion that I have already come to believe is true, so she was preaching to the choir.

The idea I struggled with was that it would be easy to eradicate these deeply rooted negative thoughts. It seemed too good to be true. Could it really be this simple? I was willing (for the sake of being able to pass on my knowledge to all of you) to be the guinea pig and give it a whirl.

The first session began with a reading of my "womb beliefs," a look back into my consciousness at the moment of my birth. Apparently, I was a smug little thing, somewhat skeptical of my parents, not quite trusting of them. I seemed to have the knowledge that I was there to test them and knew I would prove to be a challenge. Gee, I must have been a joy of a child!

The session continued with a look at each of the kid's present states of mind, ultimately focusing on their thoughts around the loss of their dad and their differing forms of grief. Some of their negative thoughts and fears were eradicated and replaced with positive ones. I listened and typed away as Donna spoke, clearly, and matter-of-factly, amazed how easily she was able to state a belief, pull it and then replace it with another more life affirming, positive one. Could this really work? She told me to expect a breakdown, a release of some kind from Olivia in particular, and a few days later it came in the form of a text while I was at a writing group: "I just woke up and am crying for no reason. Can you come home?"

I went home. We talked. I told her about the healing and am pretty certain she thinks I'm insane at this point. And yet there was a kernel of truth in what I was reading back to her from the reading. She resisted, as teenagers do, but I don't think the message was lost on her. But who really knows. At this point she is tired of me harping on all the time about "the grief" and who can blame her. I'm tired of it too.

I had another session yesterday that wound up focusing on my upcoming knee surgery. As I mentioned in the last post, knees are considered to be a seat of resistance, ego, stubbornness. Resistance is a form of control. So really, the conversation was not about knees but about relationships.

"I'm getting a belief that you're sad, afraid, scared because big feelings can bring big heartbreak. There were big emotions with Arron and then he died and so those fears were validated. I'm pulling that and replacing it with 'I'm safe to bend, be flexible and go with what's happening rather than resist.'"

She spoke of trust, saying I sometimes push too much to make a relationship happen rather than let it take its own course and find out what I want. It's kind of a feeling of "gotta hunt love down and trap it or it will get away," of not wanting to miss it that can override my feelings of "Is this is right?" She "pulled" this sentiment and replaced it with "I'm safe to know that love is true for me.

And then she asked a question that I hadn't considered, given that I have unwittingly "fallen" for a firefighter."Does it worry you that he does dangerous things, has a dangerous job?" And until that moment, it hadn't. Not really. Not consciously, anyway.

"So the belief I am getting from you is that 'he likes dangerous risky things and has a job that is dangerous so you wonder, am I setting myself up to be with someone else who gets killed? What am I doing with myself?' I'm going to pull that and replace it with 'I'm safe to trust my heart to lead me into love without fearing loss and disaster.'"

"Your past experience has made you cautious about life and his energy comes in and embraces life. He's showing that to you so you can embrace life too. Feels very healing. Helps to enliven you and get out of your dark places and his energy solicits you out into to world and is very positive for you."

She continued to eradicate each tiny fear I had going into surgery – fear for the kids if something were to happen, fear of not being able to cope afterwards, fears of helplessness and abandonment. So many fears that I had not considered and yet as she spoke them, were real and enlarged, until she pulled them and replaced them with a sense of calm.

These tiny niggling fears, like the shards I will be having removed from my knee on Monday are inconsequential and yet debilitating. One by one, she has plucked each one out, leaving me free to heal from past wounds. Such a gift.

 

While looking for the image for this post, I came across this cool site that has music for getting oneself into a theta state: www.wizardnow.com Kind of cool!

I knew the popping sound the moment I heard and felt it and it gave me that sick feeling I aways used to get before surgery took care of it. But this was the other knee. A new era of instability was at hand and I was on the top of a mountain.

Perhaps I should have heeded the warning signs. Why did I glance at the Ski Patrol booth, eyeing that big white on red cross so warily? And the sign at the bottom of the chair lift, ominous with its two black diamonds.

The day so far had been filled with giggles and bombing down hills until I looked up and suggested we try a new run. Despite this, he feels responsible, or jinxed that his skiing companions always seem to get injured. I tell him he's crazy. Skiing is hazardous. It pains me to see the furrows in his brow.

I am bundled up like a sausage and dragged bumpily down the entire mountain trying to remember to breathe despite the pain of each bump and the face-fulls of snow. And now I am cold and shivering. The ride I had always imagined as smooth and warm was anything but. I turned to see him following me, filming, asking me to wave and I started to giggle. A little too hysterically.

He drove us home, my legs splayed out in front of me in the back seat, knee encased in a cardboard splint stuffed with tissue and held in place with packing tape – a human Fedex package. We bumped down more potted mountain.

I won't be teaching my class this week. I won't be talking about the vulnerability you need to overcome shame, but the irony is not lost on me. To be this vulnerable requires you to reach deep down, have courage, to trust. I watch him drive wondering what he is thinking. We are still so new to each other. Still asking questions, testing the water, timidly, yet purposefully.

He has read my book and has an advantage. But this is a different kind of vulnerability than the exposure of myself in words. I am immobile and must lean on surfaces and crutches and him for support. And he is untested and yet trusted. But it still feels risky and takes courage. And I have no choice.

That night I realize that this is a pattern. My knee injuries always occur in the presence of someone I care about, but who is new in my life. Perhaps there is some subconscious weakening or slackening that happens within me. Something lets go. And so my knee does too.

On the phone, talking with a healer that I am having to reschedule from the ER, she tells me that knees represent ego, unbending and stubborn and so I think that is what I must be letting go of.

You can have no ego when lying prone at the top of a mountain or on a couch piled with cushions. And any relationship worth pursuing requires letting go, being flexible, being vulnerable.

At least that's what my knees tell me.

 

I'm taking a very short hiatus from The Artist's Way posts for the moment because there is some other stuff I wanted to write about. And in the world of blogging when you find something you want to blog about, you go with it.

This past Sunday, I spoke at Hestia, a day-long women's retreat on Vashon Island. Just so you're clear and if you haven't already figured out through my blog already, Vashon is a vortex of powerful psychic energy that attracts psychics and artists and healers by the bucketful. I can't think of a better place to have a women's retreat. All that gooey divine womanhood stuff.

The event was to raise money for a fledgling non-profit whose goal it is to build an actual, physical women's-only retreat on Vashon Island. A lofty dream and I have to admire the passion and tenacity of the women who are making it happen.

As I waited my turn to speak, I listened to some of the other speakers and I was particularly intrigued by one, partly because our names were so similar. Her name was Aimée Cartier. Although I didn't have a chance to meet her, I felt a kinship. And then I was inspired by her talk. She described herself as an "intuitive" and speaks, does psychic readings and provides tools for "inspired living" through her website www.spreadingblessings.com.

Her talk was about ways to use your intuition and she has broken down her method into incredibly simple steps. We have all heard that notion that if there is something we are desiring, we need to put our intentions out into the "Universe" (you are welcome to replace the word "Universe" with whatever word you use to invoke the divine). So in your head, you might say something like: "I would like…" or "I desire…" which is all well and fine, but Aimée implores us to go a step further to clarify our intentions by turning them into clear questions. To use her example: "How can I get a job I love with health benefits?" (Indeed this may be a perplexing question to all you Canadians out there). By being clear and stating our intentions in question form, we are more likely to get and understand the "responses" we receive. It may be in the form of a book that finds its way into our hands and someone who helps us, or a talk or performance that we see.

Of course the trick is being attuned to these tidbits of guidance and being willing to accept the path that our answers may take us in. That takes courage.

Of course, I've way over-simplified. I'm still in the process of reading Aimée's book, Getting Answers: Using Your Intuition to Discover Your Best Life and am so far impressed with the simplicity with which she lays out her thoughts on using intuition. A great guide for anyone who feels stuck and is interested in "living a more 'Awakened' life."

 

courtesy of www.aaronschachter.com

I’ve decided writing morning papers is making me depressed. I wonder if that happens to other people undertaking this endeavor. I now remember why I don’t journal. I’m a whiny crank. I’ve been pouring out my 4am worries and they sound like a broken record. You need to… findajob refithehouse betougheronthekids notspendsomuchmoney findaboyfriend notfindaboyfriend call notstressabouttheterriblefeedbackIgotaboutteachingmywritingclass stopbeinglazy… For. Three. Pages. Dear god. When I’m finished I feel terrible. One morning I tried turning it around and writing about the things I was grateful for and somehow ended in a tirade about the flakiness of men. Is this what I’m really thinking?

Meanwhile, last Friday I went to a yoga class, met with my new/old Artist’s Way friends followed by our writing meet up. I felt a little better that the other people in the group were having trouble getting up early enough to write the morning papers. Some needed coffee first and wrote them during breakfast. That seemed more do-able, though then I would have to give up my morning addiction of reading the newspaper (yeah, I’m one of the few hold-outs who still have black wrists every morning). But nobody mentioned feeling depressed. One person was exuberant about all the things they were discovering about themselves and laughingly called it psycho-terapy. For me, its just psycho-inducing.

OK, so in the group we worked on some of the Tasks. Come up with 5 people in your past who have blocked your creativity and 5 who have nurtured it. Write a story about it being blocked and write a letter to someone who championed you. I nearly cried writing my letter to my fifth grade teacher, Miss Barton. How she made me feel smart, the fun I had when my friend Donna and I were invited over to her house for a slumber party. Did I question that one of the other female teachers was there too? Only years later did I realize that they were a couple. I wanted to send Miss Barton my letter. I wondered if she was even still alive. She must be in her 70s by now. I FaceBooked my old school and someone wrote on the wall, remembering all those female teachers and the whole lesbian vibe that was happening at that school at the time. I never knew, or cared. The sentiments were all sweet, because we adored them.

So the tasks went better. I felt a little bit gratified, having my little trip down memory lane. I then remembered my third grade teacher who championed me as a poet when I was eight. She saw me as a writer thirty years before I did.

It reminds me of those times, as a teenager, when my mom used to ask me what book I was reading because she could always tell by my mood if I was reading a depressing one. I took it on. All of the emotion, or the fear, or the anger in that book transferred directly into my brain. I learned to be careful about the books I read.

Now I’m wondering if I should shelve the morning papers like I did those depressing books? Or maybe instead of making them journal-like I should write stories or letters.

The other thing I did on Friday was sit with my friend Deirdre, a formidable story doctor and we went over my story and figured out an ending. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now and hope to get a first draft done in the next couple of months.

So maybe the creative juices are flowing again. I just wish I knew how to deal with the unexpected side-effects of my Artist’s Way. Is anyone else experiencing side-effects?

 

courtesy of www.aaronschachter.com

I've decided writing morning papers is making me depressed. I wonder if that happens to other people undertaking this endeavor. I now remember why I don't journal. I'm a whiny crank. I've been pouring out my 4am worries and they sound like a broken record. You need to… findajob refithehouse betougheronthekids notspendsomuchmoney findaboyfriend notfindaboyfriend call notstressabouttheterriblefeedbackIgotaboutteachingmywritingclass stopbeinglazy… For. Three. Pages. Dear god. When I'm finished I feel terrible. One morning I tried turning it around and writing about the things I was grateful for and somehow ended in a tirade about the flakiness of men. Is this what I'm really thinking?

Meanwhile, last Friday I went to a yoga class, met with my new/old Artist's Way friends followed by our writing meet up. I felt a little better that the other people in the group were having trouble getting up early enough to write the morning papers. Some needed coffee first and wrote them during breakfast. That seemed more do-able, though then I would have to give up my morning addiction of reading the newspaper (yeah, I'm one of the few hold-outs who still have black wrists every morning). But nobody mentioned feeling depressed. One person was exuberant about all the things they were discovering about themselves and laughingly called it psycho-terapy. For me, its just psycho-inducing.

OK, so in the group we worked on some of the Tasks. Come up with 5 people in your past who have blocked your creativity and 5 who have nurtured it. Write a story about it being blocked and write a letter to someone who championed you. I nearly cried writing my letter to my fifth grade teacher, Miss Barton. How she made me feel smart, the fun I had when my friend Donna and I were invited over to her house for a slumber party. Did I question that one of the other female teachers was there too? Only years later did I realize that they were a couple. I wanted to send Miss Barton my letter. I wondered if she was even still alive. She must be in her 70s by now. I FaceBooked my old school and someone wrote on the wall, remembering all those female teachers and the whole lesbian vibe that was happening at that school at the time. I never knew, or cared. The sentiments were all sweet, because we adored them.

So the tasks went better. I felt a little bit gratified, having my little trip down memory lane. I then remembered my third grade teacher who championed me as a poet when I was eight. She saw me as a writer thirty years before I did.

It reminds me of those times, as a teenager, when my mom used to ask me what book I was reading because she could always tell by my mood if I was reading a depressing one. I took it on. All of the emotion, or the fear, or the anger in that book transferred directly into my brain. I learned to be careful about the books I read.

Now I'm wondering if I should shelve the morning papers like I did those depressing books? Or maybe instead of making them journal-like I should write stories or letters.

The other thing I did on Friday was sit with my friend Deirdre, a formidable story doctor and we went over my story and figured out an ending. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now and hope to get a first draft done in the next couple of months.

So maybe the creative juices are flowing again. I just wish I knew how to deal with the unexpected side-effects of my Artist's Way. Is anyone else experiencing side-effects?