Human Sunrises

I've been thinking about writing a post for a few days now but have come up with a bunch of excuses.  I know, though, deep down that the real reason is because I feel inclined to write something about the Connecticut tragedy of last Friday, yet I am frightened to even go there.  I decided I need to get past that fright, because writing about it will be therapeutic.  And there's a lot I've thought about as a "rookie mom" as all of this has been unwinding.  Being a mother has put a new black and dreary spin on things as I hear and see the images of grief- stricken parents.  I feel tightness in my chest, tears in my eyes, horror in my heart for these people.  They've lived the unimaginable, the unthinkable.  And why do people say that-- that it's "unimaginable" when, actually, we all could imagine something like this happening?  It's got to be because when we start to imagine it, we become so jolted, so crippled in fear, so overcome with anxiety that we have to stop giving it the remotest bit of attention. Yet, in the wake of what occurred, I find myself still giving it a lot of my attention and I'm not totally sure why.

This morning on the drive to work I heard an NPR interview with the mom of a little boy who was killed on Friday.  She described the horror of Friday and her subsequent current grief.  She said her surviving children are already in counseling because she's too broken to help them right now.  The outpouring of words of comfort and acts of kindness has helped, she said, during this interview that took place at the site of the town's vigil.  But her voice cracked, and her words were very drawn- out, almost in monotone.  This was the shell of a woman, I could tell.  She said she frantically arrived at the scene on Friday and found her two daughters (one of whom is a twin sister to the boy who passed) in the company of some local emergency workers.  She looked for her son but was already throwing up, over and over again, she said, because she knew he was dead.  She just knew.  It was intuition.  And her life would never be the same. 

I've been walking this fine line for days now--- the line of too much media exposure to this tragedy.  I know myself by now, and I know that seeing and hearing specifics means I will ruminate on them, reflect on them, even dream of them at night.  I will cry for the kids whose faces I've now seen in pictures.  I'll picture their empty bedrooms, and their bikes in the garage.  I'll hear the voices of their siblings ask when they're coming home, and the parents saying over and over that they're not.  I'll envision the dads and moms sitting up in the cold, dark night bawling their eyes out so hard that they're choking.  But I can't help but think and picture and envision.  To imagine the unimaginable. I guess maybe it seems unfair that I should get to turn the TV off when these parents can't turn anything off.  They have to suffer, so avoiding things feels irresponsible.  I feel I should learn about what happened, and learn of these kids' legacies because it's what's right to do-- to be part of this big entwined world we are a part of called the human condition.  Why should I get to go on my merry way?  I found myself cursing out radio stations that were playing music and telling jokes as usual yesterday morning.  They seemed so irreverent.  But then I realized maybe I am the one who is irreverent in not understanding that people all grieve differently, and for a lot of people, they can't function unless they turn it off.  Imagining the unimaginable is simply too much. While I am somehow finding some help and aid and comfort in hearing and seeing things, a lot of people need to compartmentalize and move on. 

Perhaps part of my need to see and hear more and more is because I am a teacher AND a mom; there are two ways in which I can imagine the unimaginable.  Two reasons for which I can do the whole "what if" thing.  Two huge parts of my life that cause me to want to piece all this together and figure out what the world means and what it's all coming to.  Two realms I feel I am supposed to protect.  Two arenas that are precious.  I'm not one of those people, as I've referenced in previous posts, who thinks that moms or parents are special as compared to the rest of the population.  Being a mom was a decision and it's a responsibility and it perhaps further connects me to some possible fears and griefs.  But I'm not going to sit here and type that only parents can understand the magnitude of what happened on Friday.  That is preposterous.  Anyone with family or even one friend he or she cares about can conceive of the horror and terror that would ensue in a massive loss like this.  So I'm not saying momhood makes me special.  Or that being a teacher makes me somehow more connected to what happened either.  But it's made my imagination of the unimaginable more sharp, more keen, more scary.  It's made my inner peace more shaken.  My daily life less mundane and more terrifying.  My feeling of any iota of control much, much less.

In discussing the tragedy with my students, a few of them told me they didn't understand how school could become a place to fear. And how the world could be so unsafe, and so sad.  They wanted to know when they would start to feel better and how.  And one young lady talked about Alice Walker's gorgeous essay "Human Sunrise."  She later sent me a link to the text, and here's the part I absolutely adore:
"We are rising all over the globe now, in this most terrible of times for Earthlings and for our Home planet. People everywhere are moving, joining each other, plotting and planning how we may protect and provide for the challenges of the Age. Still, there are, and will be, days of incredible depression and distress as we encounter the hard truths of the suffering of the Earth and her Creatures. There are abominations occurring on our planet that I’m convinced would have been unimaginable in the Buddha’s lifetime. They are unimaginable even in my own lifetime – and I have actually encountered some of them. The horrible genocide, the incessant war and war mongering, the dropping of bombs on the poor; the starving, deliberately, of children. The greed. The mutilation, cannibalism and enslavement forced on people who are at the mercy of weaponry and force wielded by people they’ve never even seen.

And I say to that: When it is all too much; when the news is so bad meditation itself feels useless, and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of Peace, find a Human Sunrise. Find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality. Human sunrises are happening all over the earth, at every moment. People gathering, people working to change the intolerable, people coming in their robes and sandals or in their rags and bare feet, and they are singing, or not, and they are chanting, or not. But they are working to bring peace, light, compassion, to the infinitely frightening downhill slide of Human life."


And so I am trying to decide to imagine human sunrises now as I ruminate on, reflect on, and sometimes even obsess over what has happened.  Countering the bad with human sunrise thoughts won't fix everything.  As a teacher, as a mom, as a human, I feel spiritless, weak, and alone when I think about the horrors of our world that only seem to worsen.  But I know that if I don't try-- if I don't continue to teach my students in the best ways I can, and if I don't continue to show Mabel the beauty and greatness of the world-- then not only have I failed myself, then I've failed the human sunrises, and the people who have left the world too soon.

Old... or Not?

I'm feeling old lately.  I don't mean to be whiny; in fact, I haven't even decided yet whether feeling old is a bad thing.  So for now, it's just a fact.  One might suggest this post has been spurred by the fact that I turn 34 this month.  But I don't think 34 is old at all-- when I hear of my friends turning 34 or even older, it doesn't even faze me.  And my feeling old seems not to do with the number so much as it does have to do with a feeling. 

I was a single girl, living on my own and supporting myself fully for a few years after I got divorced from my first marriage until I moved in with J in August of 2011.  During that time, I got used to my own ways-- plopping my bag right smack in the middle of the living room floor after work,  reclining on the couch, and making dinner when I felt like it.  When I had a lot of work to do, I would drink unhealthy amounts of coffee so I could stay up later.  I'd go sit at the Coolidge Corner Panera often, comfortably recumbent in the chair next to the fireplace, and grade papers while listening to my iPOD.  On the walk home, I might stop in at one of the local shops and browse.  On the weekends (and sometimes during the week), I would enjoy cocktails with friends and sometimes spend massive amounts of money on meals out at fantastic restaurants.  Even though doctors counsel people to sleep about the same amount each night, my sleep "pattern" (or lack thereof) was all over the place-- 4 hours one night, 12 hours the next.  I didn't have anyone to answer to.  And when J and I were first dating, he lived in CT and I lived here.  I was truly on my own, and sometimes my habits and inclinations were unhealthy, but I lived the way I wanted to and I wasn't hurting anyone else.

Since we've had Mabel, everything has become, by the very nature of parenthood, scheduled.  We feed Mabel on a schedule, and her early morning wake- ups entail scheduled sleep for us too.  (This is where I am agape again at how teen parents do all this....)  We plan activities in ways that will enable naps, or at least allow for something akin to a nap.  If we go out alone, we are chained to the schedules of willing babysitters.  While my words might be painting a bleak picture, neither J nor I really minds this way of life.  I'm just trying to draw the distinction between now and back in my single days.

So, have the patterns and routines and schedules made me feel older?  Knowing that I can't really drink when I go out, unless I want to hate myself the next day when we are up early entertaining the little one, has made dinners and other adventures out with friends vastly different.  I still go--and I will ALWAYS make at least SOME time for me, my friends, and some laughs.  But living way out in the burbs-- a good 50 minutes from the city-- has made trips out with city- dwelling buddies more sparse.  Still, even this "scheduledness" doesn't seem to key into why I feel old.  Or not completely anyway.

I think my newfound feeling has more to do with being less adventurous, less risk- taking.  I'm nervous to eat poorly and get clogged up arteries.  I spend less money on whimsical things because I know the dough should go to home improvements and stuff for Mabel.  Even when Mabel isn't in the car, I still tend to drive like a nana.  I don't ever stay up late anymore-- ever.  I fear too much what the next day will be like for me.  J and I make dinner by 6pm every night.  No more lazy, do- it- when- you- feel- like- it around our house. 

I know that motherhood has changed me, because if J and I didn't have Mabel, we would probably still be driving over to JP Lick's for ice- cream at 10:30pm on a work night.  And if I hadn't met J, I would probably still be walking over to "The Coolidge" for a Monday night movie showing of "The Kids Are All Right," complete with my diet coke and buttery popcorn for one.  I'd be spending money on cabs and glasses of wine, because, well, why wouldn't I continue to enjoy life?  But it's weird how life changes without even making a real decision.  I never actively said, "No more caffeine at night."  Or "you need to be a safer driver."  It all just happened.

J and I joke a lot about how lame and super- duper boring we have become.  (One recent Sat night he went to bed at 6:45pm- no joke.)  It's easy to sort of "blame" the baby.  But Mabel never made a set of ground rules for us either.  All of this evolution of sorts just occurred.  I'm not going to close this entry with a sappy sentiment like, "I wouldn't have it any other way!"  or "Parenthood is worth it all!", because of course it is.  Duh.  Mabel is the most awesome, fabulous, fantastic, wicked cool thing to ever be bestowed on me-- goes without saying.  She has made my life more fun, goofy, and special all at the same time.  And right there lies the irony-- while my life might seem less fun, and I may feel older, I'm actually more in the thick of daily fun than I ever have been before.  People often says babies change you.  Yes, they do.  But they don't have to change who you are.  Deep down, I am the same caffeine- swigging, last- minute- grocery- buying gal I always was; I just am in a stage where I have decided to make my life easier by making some changes.   Mabel didn't force unfair change upon me; I guess I must have decided how parenting needed to be for me, and we decided as a couple how it needed to be for J and me.  I guess if we are old farts, then we are still a couple of fun ones-- just on hiatus from our original modes of fun and into a new territory for a while.