A Season for Quiet

It's cool and has been raining all morning.  The children are in school -- all three of them.  The house is quiet, but I put on the classical radio and the tea kettle is starting to gurgle and boil.  Autumn is here.

When I lived in Africa, there was so much that I was able to learn about and take into my self-hood that I never would have experienced here.  I can still close my inner eyes and feel that certain heat of the equatorial sun; feel the air that is full of red dust, and always infused with scents and smells.  And while I lived in Africa, there was a pain inside from missing what I have always known, what has gone into the making of me for so many years.  The pain of missing my husband, my dogs, and my friends, was sharper and more towards the outside of my being.  The pain of missing the air, the green, the peacefulness of gray, was deep inside, in the places you don't even fully realize you are existing.  And the strongest of all those pains was that of missing seasons.  And as much as I wished I were home to appreciate the snowy pictures my local friends posted on Facebook, the worst seasonal pain was missing autumn.

So perhaps that means autumn is my favorite season, although I think actually my favorite part about seasons is how they change.  As someone who has been either a student, a teacher, or a mother of students, for all of my life, fall also feels like the beginning of the new year to me.  And fall means fresh apples, and I really like apples -- the entire experience of apples.  Living in Africa, I also learned that I have very deep feelings about apples.  At any rate, between all these different aspects, school has started, the weather is changing, and the apples are ripe on the trees.... and I feel like a new door has opened in my life and our family's lives.

Part of that new door is our new adventures in school.  Buttercup has started school for the first time, and is attending mixed-age kindergarten with Sunflower three mornings a week.  Sunflower has the same schedule at Waldorf school as he has had for (at least part of) the last three years, but we are also starting a more deliberate home-schooling pattern, and he is deeply invested in that work.  And part of that door is opening something within me.  I have determined to celebrate the autumn by preserving so much of its beautiful produce into something we can enjoy all year long; and I have made a schedule where I can preserve some time for the things that nurture me as a human being.  Part of which is that I will come back and write this blog on a regular basis, which allows me to create something, and also gives me time to reflect and contemplate on my daily thoughts and experiences as a mother.  Furthermore, I think that these writings have touched people in different ways.  I have heard that people feel closer to my family, that they have new understanding about adoption or emotional special needs, or new ideas for their own parenting, or a more realistic expectation about living abroad or in Uganda, or simply have the time and space to appreciate standing in someone else's shoes.  So perhaps these writings are part of "the work God has given (me) to do," as we pray every Sunday after communion.  Thank you for sharing if you have found this writing to be meaningful to you, and I will now work to continue it.

We have now been home almost exactly eight months, which coincidentally is the same amount of time that we lived in Uganda.  I feel like most of that time has been some kind of dream state, or transition period -- in my inner world, as well as the outer one.  There has been so much in this outer world to get "done," and yet it has seemed impossible to do it.  I have taken care of the children, and kept up with the necessary basics, but I have not been a "do-er" for the last eight months.  I know both my husband and my mother have been frustrated with me or worried about me at times.  Although I occasionally have been frustrated with myself, there has been a certain necessary depth to the feeling of floating through life.

Part of it, I know, is habit.  At home, I have always had projects and things I'm involved in, and like many people of my class and generation, I am usually over-committed.  But in Uganda, what I really learned to do was wait.  Ugandans are experts at waiting, and perhaps there is something in that particular, sultry equatorial air that lends itself to slowness of body and quietness of mind.  The simple chores of existence -- buying groceries, doing laundry, bathing -- took up so much mental and physical energy there was not enough left to think of larger projects.  And of course, the children themselves took up everything that was left, and more!  Yes, there were long periods when I was simply sitting... writing or reading or something else  But even then, I think my internal energy, something about my soul, was required to throw over our household, keep our fragile lives intertwined.  The children's chaotic energy required a balance of quiet and calm to hold them together.  If you could have seen into the room, it would have seemed like I was doing nothing or wasting time, and yet my internal energy was deeply engaged.

And then when one gets home from almost a year of learning to wait, and listen, and be quiet, one can't just jump back into being active all the time.  When every evening after the children are in bed, one restores their soul by enjoying the absolute quiet of the house, it's hard to switch to rejuvenating oneself by talking.  Maybe an extrovert would have relished it, but I have always been introverted, and spending almost eight entire months with never ever having an open and emotional conversation (except for a few brief visits), strengthened the introversion and self-sufficiency within me.  Once home, I appreciated so much being able to connect with the people I love, but the daily availability of connection seemed almost too much.  By the end of the day, it felt like I was out of spoken words and didn't know where to find them to chat with my husband.  When my mother visited, it was like I didn't remember how to be together and interact with an adult all day long.  I had to ease into it from the inside, which looked like quiet or passivity from the outside

I haven't been depressed, although all this quietness seems like depression.  I have never been more deeply and fully grateful for what my life is filled with, and never has it been easier to feel like my life itself is a prayer of thanksgiving and joy.  But on the surface, I have run out of energy quickly.  It has been easier to be calm and passive.  Unlike my husband and mother, this hasn't bothered me.  I have felt like this, too, was a season.  Perhaps a season of re-learning what energy and activity is, or perhaps a season where I knew that stillness was what my children needed the most.  When I have plenty of "quiet time" alongside them, instead of folding the sheets and mowing the lawn, I do have a lot more energy left for the giant and improbable meltdown that pops up later that afternoon.  They have needed my reserves of energy, and creating an actual balance has not looked balanced.

And now, the season has just seemed to pass away from me.  I have a schedule for the children and myself, and it feels good to get out and DO the next thing.  I've been doing homeschool with Sunflower, and deeply enjoying the chance to work intimately together with him.  It's been easy and enjoyable to get out for a walk with the dogs in the woods almost every day, even when I need to bring children along with us.  After I put the children in bed, instead of feeling completely depleted and unable to stand, I've enjoyed working on fruit or canning in the evening, and other nights I've gotten housecleaning done.  I've also given myself a rhythm for kitchen work and house work, and our house suddenly feels manageable now.  I have not girded my loins and forced myself to be different; it feels like the door has opened and we have simply passed into a new place.  As the seasons change and the apples ripen, so suddenly we are ripe for something new.

It feels to me like the children are ripe to their new phase of life, as well.  Well-meaning friends suggest how "the transition" of moving or new siblings might be so hard on them, but they have not been here for every day of the last eight months in Uganda and eight months in Eugene, as I have.  I am feeling like we are finally out of transitioning, that this is real life.  What is bubbling out of them isn't in response to all the transitioning, it's what has been bubbling all along below the transitions.  When they're tired or angry or whiney as they get used to their new school schedule, it isn't because it's a new language or their home routine isn't what they expect or everything is new.  It's because everything else no longer requires their extra energy, and they are simply responding to starting a new school year which is harder than they wish it would be.  When Sunflower and Hibiscus are so deeply involved in their play they don't notice the passage of time, their words and actions tumbling over each other as they create a world that only they see; and then minutes later they irritate each other so much that they both end up screaming until they turn red.... it's no longer because they're getting used to each other as siblings.  It's because they ARE siblings.  We are off and running, and this is the path we are on.


"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."  When God made me, He made me capable of action and activity, but He did not make me an active person.  He made me a person capable of deep calm and quiet.  Which I admit freely can lead to a messy house, but I also believe that it's a powerful and meaningful gift, and as I have grown into myself I have learned to appreciate and value my own inner gifts.  And I believe that by giving this gift to me, He is also giving the gift of peace, of a quiet space of acceptance, of an aura of freedom from anxiety; into my home, for my husband and children.  The last few months apparently my energy has been needed for quiet.  Now it is time for a new purpose under heaven, and our season can change to more energy and activity on top of the quiet.

Gymnastics

We just got back from gymnastics.  We have to attend at six o'clock so that all three children have their classes at the same time, since despite how close they are in age, they are each in a separate mixed-age class.

Emerson has gone to gymnastics since he was 14 months old, and I figured since he was climbing everything in sight, I might as well put some climbing equipment under his little feet.  He is full of enthusiasm to be back again.

Buttercup is having her first experience with a real teacher and a real class of her own peers.  Her enthusiasm translates into trying really hard to follow all the directions, and very little physical capability of doing just that.  This could not be more opposite of the last time I parenting through the toddler class!  When she gets to the frog area, she is precise in remembering that she should ribbit, but it is only sheer statistical probability that some of her many, many jumps actually propel her in a forward direction.  The balance beams are accomplished mostly because she's holding my hand, and as soon as she has that anchor she starts looking around the gymnasium to see what her brother and sister are doing!  Today she was supposed to "drive a car" (hold a circle like a steering wheel) which occupied both her hands while she balanced.  She moved exactly one inch with each step, and then she very very carefully matched her color of steering wheel with the color of cone at the end of the balance beam, which it took her several moments to gather her feet together and step off of.  Buttercup is the child who is the bane of every toddler boy, having fun doing all the obstacles at top speed and energy!

Hibiscus has energy.  She has energy, and she has a great deal of strength in her long legs and wiry frame.  She also has flexibility, that makes it look like all her limbs can go in their own directions.  What she lacks, is any kind of planning or mental control.  So basically, she is like a giant rag doll, sprung out from a huge slingshot, and aimed at the trampolines or parallel bars.


Then this was the conversation that ensued on the way home.

I don't remember how the conversation in the back seat got to this point, but Hibiscus laughed that she was going to throw wraps at me when I died.  Emerson replied that that wasn't very funny.  And that when I died, he was going to make a bed with glass sides, so he could go and look at me every day.  And he was going to keep the bed in his house so he could look at me every day because he would miss me so much.  Hibiscus said she would cry if I was dead and she looked at me.  Emerson said he would not ever, ever cut me open and take out my heart and things, and Hibiscus agreed that she wouldn't cut me open either.  Emerson was going to look at me every day.  They agreed that in order to get a skeleton, you have to cut the dead body up and take the bones out, and they weren't going to do that.

Emerson said, in a loving and secretive manner, that if Hibiscus didn't get married, she could come in his house and look at me in the glass box every day too.  Hibiscus said she would cry and cry if she looked at me because she never wanted me to die.  Emerson said he would look in the glass box and see how beautiful I was and how much he loved me.

Hibiscus suggested that possibily she did want to get married.  Emerson said if she married someone else, some other person, someone else, then she couldn't come in his house every day.  Hibiscus started to get annoyed, and replied that when she birthed a baby, she wasn't going to let Emerson come see either.  Emerson said if she married someone else, she could come to his house to see me in the glass box maybe one time.

I suggested that I hoped that when they were grown up, they would still be a loving brother and sister and be welcome in each other's houses.  Just like we went to Gramcy's house sometimes.

Emerson immediately offered that Hibiscus could come and look at me in the glass box every Sunday after church, which coincidentally exactly the same schedule on which we visit Gramcy's house.  Hibiscus said he could see the baby she birthed, too.


And that was our evening at gymnastics!