To Michael On His First Birthday

To Michael On His First Birthday

There is that you in a far off dreamtime
Where you were so new and wrinkled
Smelling not yet of this world.
So many faces surround you with
Wonder and awe, marveling in
Humility before you.

We built a fortress
And the wise women gathered
Who fed us and came to you
Each kissing you leaving a mark
On your soul with her gifts.

You discovered the allure of the night
Resisting sleep so that all secrets
Could be yours to hold
Because life and death merge
In the shadow lands.
All wisdom is held there.

Those days are whispers,
Sounds almost heard but dampened
By the fog rolling in after midnight
As backyard dogs howl guttural and wild,
Lonely for the pack.

You became a great teacher, who
Trusting in depths within my soul ,
Compelled me to return again to the abyss
But the wise women were there
Reminding me to learn from you
And to not be afraid.

Now closer to the mouth of the cavern,
Daylight dances haphazardly on the walls.
We linger in the darkness so we
Are not blinded as we emerge
And lose our way.

Your little hand rests in mine,
Our hearts and breathing fused.
My great spirit guide,
I know you will not leave me
For we are one now and
Our shared strength is unconquerable.

The Suckitude Which Has Been My Blog

I really, truly, honestly thought I'd rock blogging after Michael was born, even if I simply defaulted to shameless kid pictures and poetry of other people. But this last six months has challenged me so, so much.

After showing signs of starting to sleep pretty well for a baby, something hit Michael with a vengeance at 5 months old and the kid became the worst sleeper I have ever encountered. I mean there's tired....and then there's up every 45 minutes all night long and sleeping no more than 20 minutes during the day tired. Couple that with one of the most intense periods yet of emotional withdrawal from my husband and you have one hell of a pretty crappy half a year. (And yeah, yeah, yeah---I know I'm not supposed to talk about him in public places like that. But if you don't like it, then you better just quit reading my blog now. Because, quite frankly I don't care any more. I am an imperfect woman, living an imperfect life....deal with it or move on)

It's truly hard to imagine how much that little sleep can stretch you as a human being, especially when you spend vast stretches of days at a time giving and giving touch to people, and almost never speaking to another adult. I have had a hard time maintaining even the most fundamental basics of my life, let alone something which requires much thought or creativity-like blogging or reading or scribbling a few lines of poetry. All things considered, I feel like I've held my own. We've all been fed moderately well, I have gotten everyone everywhere they've needed to be--only once forgetting to pick someone up (I know, I know--but you try to keep track of 7 people besides yourself and their ever changing schedules. Trust me it's a good ratio) , the kids have been learning stuff which even looks like real actual school work, I even spend time hanging out with each of the kiddos from time to time, I've been managing to exercise regularly, I've maintained friendships. But oh holy crap, do I feel empty and completely tapped out as a human being!

However, underneath this stretching, pulling, and crumbling I feel like there is some new creation starting to spring up. Like vegetation pushing up through volcanic waste. I don't know quite for sure who this she even is. Perhaps she's a weed. Perhaps she's the beginning of a giant cedar tree. But she is growing little roots and starting to break through the soil. I think she is going to turn out to be one hell of a woman. But as with all seedlings, right now needs lots of sunlight, shelter from heavy storms, a bit of nurturing and loving and just enough luck to make it tall enough to stand past the snowline.

So if you're reading this, can I ask you if you see me to just offer me a hug and say "I love you, Shannon." Unless you don't love me, then just a hug will do, even if you're not a hugger--will you just give me one anyway? I need it more than you can possibly imagine, especially if this newest Shannon, who I really think is going to be the best version yet is going to flourish.

Hope to blog more regularly now, but no promises whatsoever as to the content. Probably, like me, a little bit of everything.

Poetry Fridays

Alrighty---to break my bloglence here (we have been plagued by illness after illness and then moved into a period of great Michael fussiness which we seem to be slowly moving through)--let's go with a Poetry Friday.

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

Here's a little one I wrote today...which isn't really the poem swirling around in my brain, but maybe a sort of warm up exercise for what is coming....hopefully.

Reading Year

Dickens for the winter,
wrapped in thickness and safety and warmth.

Spring for things never read,
full of discovery and newness and expansion.

Hemingway for the first hot days,
clear and quick and a drink in hand.

Summer for Tennessee Williams and Southern writers,
ambling and languid and brutal.

Scholarly works and realism fill Fall,
cold and inside and impersonal.

What Have We Done

Someone asked for advice about parenting as they added a new baby to their family and how larger, non-punitive families function. We're pretty dysfunctional, always kind of swirling along like Taz but this was my advice:

My advice is kinda worthless because it's kind of non-advice.

• Keep listening to yourself and trust your instincts.
• Forgive. A lot. Yourself and others.
• Begin again and again and again---as many times as it takes--and it's going to take a lifetime.
• Focus on endurance rather than patience.
• Laugh. A lot. At yourself and others. Seriously as moms we say and do and witness some of the most hysterical things if we can just learn to not take it all so seriously.
• Let go of expectations--they're just pride and are ruinous. Rather have an idea of the goal, but remain detached from results and allow the journey to take whatever course it will take.
• Be in the present--lingering in the past or the future will always make the present a mess and diminish your joy as well as your effectiveness.
• Don't forget that you are a person with needs, too. Include yourself in the plan for meeting everyone's needs. You don't honor yourself, your children, or God by neglecting your own personhood.
• Enlist help. Ask for help. Beg for help. Not asking for help is just pride and is ruinous.

And going from 2-3 means you now have more kids than hands and that is a huge leap. Give yourself time to develop the skills you need to deal with that reality. Every new kid means a new shift in balancing everyone's needs and the immediacy with which we can meet needs---and that always involves grieving through to the resolution stage. And it's hard to grieve with a gaggle of children always needing you.

Poetry Friday....with a twist.

Poetry Fridays where we say:

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

This Friday I'll post a poem I just wrote. I haven't written a poem in an awfully long time--but part of my Lent is to try to write something everyday and this is what I ended up with.



The blackness of the
fingered
trees
Their tortured grasp of
gnarled
hands
That reach moonward through
blue-black
night
Creak whispers into
changing
wind
As stillness groans just
out of
reach.

2.18.2010

My Lenten Beginning

2/17/2010
There are things which I know I believe.

1. All people after the age of reason have hurts and wounds, vices and flaws with which they struggle.
2. All people have love as a basic need. All people are inherently lovable.
3. We have a responsibility to love.
4. Faith essentially comes down to relationship. Because of that our whole lives revolve around learning how to give love and be loved in healthy interdependence-learning how to enter into and cultivate healthy relationships.
5. Suffering, while not to be sought and always to seek to be alleviated, teaches us compassion and if done well brings us wisdom through humility.
6. We are all connected. Those who live now, those who came before, those who will come.
7. Regrets come from what we leave undone or have done poorly in far greater measure than what we have done.
8. Beginning and beginning again is desperately important. Reinventing ourselves and allowing ourselves to be renewed in ongoing response to our world, our circumstances, and our failures is what allows us to grow.
9. There is no merit in self-deception. Without being open to seeing ourselves as we truly are, we can never become what we hope to be.
10. The road to sanctity is one which is long and arduous. It is the work of a lifetime.
11. Love never ends. The love we share ripples out into the world endlessly.

So that I don't Abandon My Blog--Birthday Pictures!

It's been crazy around here. We seem to have so much going on and Michael has decided recently that he wants to be held pretty much all of the time. I can type one handed--rather proficiently, I might add, but I still find it difficult to blog one handed. It's hard to focus, as well as to navigate added pictures and such.

Last Sunday Jane turned 7!!! We went to the mall to shop and get her ears pierced, the next day she and her daddy went out on a date.









On Wednesday Andrew turned 3! We went to Burger King for milkshakes and to play on the play place. Then he went to the John Deere Store and to Sears with daddy.





One of Andrew's coolest presents was made for him by my dad. It's a box which contains different screws and screw drivers and wrenches. On the other side of the box are the wholes for screwing in the different screws. Andrew LOVES it!