The Wallflowers

Well, it's been a while. I was just thinking about how we see ourselves in the world. It has come to me that I have seen myself as the wallflower for as long as I can remember. Somehow on the outside, hoping to fit in. Hoping to be asked to be included.

And when I have been included, it feels priveledged.

I struggle to understand this. I do not spend lots of time thinking about this. But in the darker times, in the gray areas, in the more introspective moments that come from an emotional blow, or a heart ache, or a dark moment, I think and know that this is where I see myself in my core.

Perhaps all humans are like this, in their core. We seek connection. To look someone in the eye and feel as if you are heard. To really listen to someone. To take the time. To care.

So in our world of technology which we all embrace so eagerly, willingly or skeptically, or fearfully...but most of us do come around. We lose ourselves, but gain a fake connectedness that brings us thrills, for a time. But the connection that we really long for is still ellusive.

I am the wallflower. I always have been and probably always will be. I wonder if we are all wallflowers. If we are all waiting at the side of the dance floor, for a connection. Looking for that connection that was once there, but left, with no explanation. And of the times we left someone standing alone, across the room, without even thinking that the wallflower was there, feeling things we could not be aware of, and going on with our own lives, unknowing. The wallflowers among us; the wallflowers that we are...so the thing to is to reach out, when in doubt. When in doubt, reach out.

Monday

Monday is not my favorite day of the week; but now that it is almost over, I look forward to Tuesday, which is usually not as drab as Monday.

So...the search for the missing brothers in my life is sort of at a stand-still right now. I have not found out any more information at this point. But I have had some time to think about my half-brother Michael, and how much it means to me to have found him online and the recording of his life story. I have to admit I have been fantasizing about contacting him. But I won't.

I have come to realize that I am rather protective of my somewhat lonely life, and I know that sounds strange. What I mean is that when you grow up as an only child, with a sort of limited connection to your own parents, and just snippets of friendships along the way, you come to realize that there are only a few people in your life who really take the time to get to know you. Even long-time friends, over the years, develop perceptions of you that are stuck in a sort of time warp, and unless they really know you, really get down deep and try to understand you, and care enough to really listen, they will be caught in that old time warp, and they will start missing the real person that you are constantly becoming. Really, we keep the people that we know in a state of unchanging, perhaps because it's convenient; and perhaps because it's all we can do for the moment. I'm sure I do it myself.

It reminds me of Amba talking about the files we have on people. It's her idea about how we have files on people we know; scripts about them that sum them up. Things we have decided in our minds about they way the are and the way we expect them to be. Files. These files can be bad, negative things. They are expectations. Of course, people don't always behave in the same way. We are, each of us, ever changing. Even when we seem like we are doing the same old things, we are still in the process of changing in some way.

More on this later...I hope for tomorrow, which will be Tuesday, that it will be a good day.

Spring is Here

It has been a nice couple of weeks. I have been busy with some satisfying projects lately. I say satisfying because I have done some good work, made a little bit of money, helped out a worthy group, learned some things along the way, and have kept myself just on the edge enough to get that residual energy that comes back around like a boomarang. I created a logo for a local community group and it was well received. I have been working with Sarah's choir group, donating my time creating print materials for their upcoming concert. It has been a great collaboration with their board and artistic team; they are really a wonderful group to work with.

I have found some ways to help my mom out, too. While she was quite on the edge for awhile there, I have made sure that she can get by financially, get the help that she needs, and is safe, in a nurturing environment, and seems to be pretty much happy. She is much more engaged in her community than she used to be, and is quite healthy for a 92-year-old. I try to spend as much time with her as I can, and help her out a couple of time per week. What she likes most is me spending time with her. I need to remember that.

So, life being the balancing act that it is, is good right now. I have love in my life, and health, and energy. I am discovering ways to create new energy, and ways to keep the energy flowing. My kids are getting out there and living their lives! I love them each so much.

Welcome Spring! I am so glad you're here.

Post from zenhabits

Create a Sacred Space in Your Heart

‘Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.’ ~Thich Nhat Hanh

By Leo Babauta

Yesterday I had tea with a Daoist tea monk who said for tea to change you, you have to create a sacred space in your heart for the tea.
Imagine that space for a moment. How does it feel? What can reside in that sacred space? How different is it from mechanically drinking tea, without paying attention to it?
Now think about the difference between just drinking tea, as if you were drinking anything and not really paying attention … and drinking tea with that sacred space in your heart for that tea. It’s profoundly different, and it changes everything.
You can do that for anything, not just tea. Anything that’s important to you.
If you create a sacred space in your heart for something, it changes how you do it. It changes you, at the molecular level.
We crank through things these days — email, social networks, news, work tasks, calls, meetings, deadlines — and then the day is gone. This is a waste of a miracle, the day that we’ve been given.
Instead, create a sacred space for that which matters most:

• meditation, yoga, tea
• reading at bedtime with your child
• having tea with your spouse
• a daily walk
• writing
• your most important and creative work

Perhaps every moment should have a sacred space in our hearts, but we have to start somewhere. Pick something small but important, and create that space today.

Anxious

Yes, I am feeling a bit anxious. I have taken a day off to help mom with her process to get Medicaid benefits. There are 2 meetings today, one with a DSHS social worker, and one with a representative from Providence about the PACE program. The PACE program is a medical program for seniors to help them stay in place, either in their home or assisted living community, and receive the care they need. It is completely covered by Medicaid in this state.

So, all this stuff requires lots of paperwork, and getting all the ducks in a row to prove that mom is eligible. I have no doubt that she is, but I will be relieved when everything is set up and working well for her.

Fingers crossed.

Talking About What I've Found

I told Sarah about my half brothers Michael and William tonight and what I have found out about them recently. I didn't think I would share this so soon, but it felt good to talk about it with her.

She reminded me that she has a video interview of Dad from several years back which I had forgotten about. She had interviewed her grandpa as part of a video class project. She recounted that Dad had talked about the incident when he had come home in 1943, and apparently found Margaret in bed with another man. If this is true, it would explain all the shouting and fighting that Michael remembered at such a young age. Is it true? I really can't say at this point. But, it does add some fire to the story.

So, how can we assess the past. As Patrick reminded me, there are always explanations for things, and are people really evil? Probably not, just caught up in circumstances beyond their control maybe? Or maybe they are lost; sometimes desperately lost, trying to find their way, but all they can do is stumble and run into walls as they go. I remember Dad saying to me once that there was a period in his life when he had gone away, and lost his memory; perhaps he had a breakdown. Maybe the things he had experienced at this point in his life were too much for him to bear; maybe the realization about his life was just too much. I wonder; and I believe that he was someone who was lost, for a time, and in his life he fought desperately to just survive; and that was his natural state.

So, I will keep searching on the internet for more info about Michael and William. How can I not?

Family Search: Michael's Life Story

So in the midst of all this searching, I happened upon a most amazing thing. I found my eldest half-brother's recorded life story from 2010. So I not only was able to hear quite a bit about his life, but could also hear his voice...which was somewhat haunting and enthralling at the same time. The quality of his voice did sound a lot like Dad's, with a slightly different accent to it, very subtle; like a different area of California.

He was soft-spoken, and sounded like a gentle, kind person. He started off recounting his earliest memories from childhood, about when he was around 2 years old, and his brother, William, was a baby. He talked about one day when his father came home and an argument started between his mother and father, and there was lots of shouting, and at one point his father became extremely angry and picked the very young Michael up and threw him against a wall and then he fell onto the couch. Then his father walked out, and that was the last time Michael saw him. So that was his very last memory of his father...my father.

Hearing that for the first time sent chills through me. I never expected to find such a bit of history by searching the internet. It goes to show that you never know what you will find when you first start looking, and, I guess, be careful what you look for; you just might find it.

I listened to the recording of Michael's life story, which was part of a Voices of the Sages series that his church had put together. It turns out that Michael found Jesus Christ about 17 years ago, and is considered one of the Sages of the church, recounting the way he was saved and what it meant to him, and how it changed his life forever. He did not speak any further about his/my father, except for that little bit when he was 2 years old; but I began to wonder about his life, and how that episode influenced how he went through his life, and how he eventually found Jesus. He seemed to believe that he has always been searching for something, floundering around, and now was "saved". If it had been any other person recounting this story about his life, I probably would have stopped listening to it halfway through. But, since it was my half-brother, and I was hearing his voice for the very first time, I felt very compelled to listen to his story all the way through. I wanted to know how he felt, and why he felt that way. I wanted to know him. Hear his voice. And see if I could find, or feel, some kind of commonality that might link the two of us together.

I have wanted to find my 3 half-brothers ever since I was a little girl. As I got older I came to believe that it would never happen, and that it really didn't matter.

What brought me to this search in the first place? I guess I was thinking about my dad, on his birthday, on the day he would have turned 96. I was thinking about the few photos that I have from him of his sons, and the one wedding photo of him and Margaret. I began the internet search by looking up his and margaret's names...and found a newspaper article about their wedding announcement on November 20, 1941. That was golden. That eventually led me to Michael's recorded life story on the church web site. It is amazing to me how many parts of life we can now access through this electronic entity we call the internet.

So I feel connected, but I will never contact my half-brother, Michael. I would not want to interrupt his life now. Oh, I would like to sit across a table and spend some time talking with him. And have some time to tell him just what my father was like, and how much I loved him, and that he was a good person, and all of that. But, I do not want to interrupt his life.

The Family Search: Margaret & Michael

I have had some success this past week. I found Margaret first of all, and a newspaper article announcing her and Dad's marriage on November 20, 1941. Since then, I have found Michael and William online, and it has been quite stunning and somewhat shocking to say the least.

In this search I have found out some information that I have been wondering about my whole life; or at least since my awareness of their existence. I actually found an audio recording of Michael's voice where he is telling his life story. This was very emotional for me, as it was him explaining what happened in the early years of his life, and when Dad left. He was about 67 years old, only a few years ago.

This is the terrible reality of how violence can go on from generation to generation. The violence that Dad experienced as a child, the lack of love from his father, the sight of his own father walking away and never coming back - this was the horror that his children experienced and the awful reality that Dad had to face knowing what he had done. I don't know how he could live with himself all those years. But I do believe that to cope with what he had done, and to go on in his life, he eventually must have decided that he would never let that happen again, and he didn't by the time I came along. He loved me, and I new it. He was always there for me. And he never harmed me.