camp

12 July 2012

A Woman Adrift

I thought that a break from managing autism would mean less stress but what it has created is a vacuum in my attention span and total emotional disequilibrium. The opportunity to not build my day around the boy has made the opportunities that emerge less easy to embrace – maybe it’s latent exhaustion, or latent guilt, or just a loss of identity. I did not expect to be happy for him to be away, but the sudden moments of devastation take me utterly by surprise. There have been plenty of moments of grief in my life, but this physical emotional ambush is entirely new to me; I need to be able to identify the signs so I can see it coming or my family will stop going places with me. Add to this the realization that, while I was building my attention around him, everyone else built their attention around other things and people. With him away, I feel excluded. I haven’t yet figured out how to reinsert myself back into my own life. I’m lost, boring, and stupid.

And yet these are good problems to have because it means that he is doing well at camp and I don’t have to focus on making that situation better at this point. I recognize the luxury of breaking down and cannot decide if it is a process I have to go through or one I have to beat back.  Depression and self reflection and recovery all sometimes seem like the same thing to me. Healthy time and space or withdrawal from life? It all depends on the  moment, doesn’t it? On the quality of the thought? Sleeping too much or too little? I seriously do not know.

All I really do know is that an hour of absolute quiet here and there is what I always crave and is what is allowing me to process these thoughts now. No music, no TV, nothing but the humble spin of the clothes dryer and an open window that lets in the summer breeze. I think that if I can have these moments for part of every day I can get my groove back. And as I sit before my keyboard and type this I find – yet again – the startling image of me as my mother. Drinking coffee and typing, thinking, ruminating, and inexplicably driven to write down what is on my mind. How is it that I work so hard to cut new paths only to find myself on these well worn tracks? Am I carrying on a valued tradition or am I just a cheap knockoff of an extraordinary person? I can’t say that I am living in her shadow; our lives are so different. It’s more of a behavioral blueprint that my brain references without my permission. It is the best and worse part of me that makes me overly analytical and controlling and keeps me from being in the moment and thus I never appreciate anything fully unless it’s in hindsight. But I am really good at hindsight, I must say, which can make me good at planning, too. But this constantly looking backward and forward is making me dizzy and literally unable for focus on what is in front of me.

My sister has advice that I remember at times like this. She talks about making sure that you structure your life so that you are in “moving water.” I find this concept incredibly helpful because it can mean so many different things. When you are a stay at home Mom the difference between moving water and a riptide isn’t much. I remember vacations on the Carolina coast when I felt like I was standing still, bouncing gently in the water, enjoying the salt water’s ability to make the baby in my belly float independently.  And then I  realized I was a half mile down the shore from the beach house that was in front of me a few minutes before, carried south by swirling waters made stealthily swift by an approaching hurricane. I recall the sensation of emerging from the water, feeling the satisfactory weight of the baby settling back into place, order restored. I made my way back up the beach to the place where my life waited for me.

See how that happened? I started out in one place at the top of the post and now here I am making a metaphor out of a distant vacation. Equilibrium restored, for now.

11 July 2012

Day 11: Side Effect

We are down to a skeleton crew of three, with Dad traveling and boy at camp. Dinner is never this simple when there are gluten-free folks in the house. We ran summer evening errands at the end of a golden day and picked up pizza on the way home, which is more of a treat for us than it is for some – and we like it that way.

Time, now, to park in front of the computer and wait for daily photos posted by camp.

5 July 2012

Day 5: Coping Mechanism duJour – Play Journey’s Greatest Hits at Deafening Levels.

It’s true – we are making extra loud noise just because we can. A few nights ago night we took strange special joy in letting our other two kids bicker and poke each other incessantly in the car, something we could seldom do because the sensory overload would be too much. And when my husband downloaded and cranked the volume on Journey’s Greatest Hits I didn’t need to ask why or tell him to turn it down. Journey is music from the past, with memories entirely adolescent and totally devoid of any reminders of the empty bed in the house.

 

It takes me back to Michigan summers, the Stony Lake Bar, Vernor’s, fried mushrooms and double cheeseburgers. Journey playing on the jukebox, us playing Ms. PacMan in the corner, and an endless stream of Camp Miniwanca gossip. My friend Sooz and I contemplated the merits of VW busses held together by duct tape, Gore-Tex, and why anyone would say “INsurance” when they meant “inSURance.” We laughed at teen-aged girls who earnestly discussed the finer tasting points of their favorite beer: Bud Light. I had a psychic reading done in that bar that, in hindsight, told me absolutely nothing. Sooz is still in our lives, witty and wise in ways we could never have foreseen.

And there were late nights driving through the Western Michigan corn and asparagus fields, windows down, music blaring. One night the moon was so large and full we turned off the headlights and drove only by the light in the sky. I still have my National Asparagus Festival tee shirt, the one that says Every Inch Edible – now that my eldest is the same age I was when I did and wore such things, I recommend neither the no-headlights trick nor the slogan on the shirt. But we sure had fun.

And now we drive through New England orchards in broad daylight, windows down and Journey blasting again as my teens sing at the top of their lungs and play air guitar – and when we go to the movies they make me play Ms. Pac Man because they can’t quite believe that I can kill at it.

Maybe everyone else has been doing this all along – cutting loose, being loud – but it’s new for us and it feels good in a way that keeps us from feeling sad about the boy we miss.

3 July 2012

A Week of Milestones

The first week of July is full of memories; for most everyone this is likely true with the holiday but this year I am compelled to make a list:

  • 90 years ago our Mother was born (July 3)
  • 59 years ago our beloved Foxleigh was born (July 8)
  • 34 years ago we had our last 4th of July on the River in Cedar falls (July 4)
  • 34 years ago we moved to Saint Louis (July 8)
  • 30 years ago J&J were married (July 3)
  • 22 years ago I started my job working for the President of MIT (July 1)
  • 20 years ago Dad threw a 70th birthday party for Mom; that trip was the last time I saw him (July 3)
  • 19 years ago we bought our house (July 1)

And this year we took our boy to sleep away camp for the first time. It is hard to say how pivotal this year’s milestone is, but I am more conscious of it here in the moment than any of the others, that’s for sure. And the image that goes with it is of our garden, where 19 years ago the only blooms to be seen in early July were the lilies on the right; all of the rest we have planted and tended ourselves with the expanding sunlight, a lovely cascade down from the elegant Japanese maple. We found that by taking down a birch and a pear tree we freed up enough water to sustain the maple, green the lawn and provide sun for the perennials. We didn’t plan it that way, it just seemed right to trade shade for sun near the house and all of the other things followed.

2 July 2012

Day 1: I Miss the Grocery Store Rules

Off to camp for just over 24 hours and everything was just fine until we went to the grocery store and realized I only have to make one kind of dinner tonight. No special burger, dog, or pizza, just the regular stuff. I was okay with all that – happy, even – then, stashed under the checkout on the way out, I saw the ice melt with the Road Runner on the package, and no one said “Beep! Beep!” in my ear. I realized that for the next several weeks I will not need to invoke the local grocery store rules:

  • No Road Runner sounds.
  • No Tigger bounces.
  • No yodeling.
  • No skipping.
  • No chasing.
  • No DVDs.
  • No Scooby Doo gummy snacks.
  • No buying every single container of lemon sorbet, box of Rice Chex, or package of gluten free chocolate chip muffins (one of each only).

There are dozens more and they will all come back to me every time I go to a different store. There will be days when the suspension of the rules will come as the relief it is supposed to be, but today there’s just an empty space where the “Beep Beep!” usually is.

30 June 2012

The Pre-Tromp Romp

Now is a good time to note that, however camp turns out, we have learned and grown enough in the last two weeks to make it worth it. From a delightful and heartwarming exchange with the creators of Hoops & Yoyo to the deepest conversations ever with our boy about growing up and what camp is for, we have already made great strides. We have packed a summer’s worth of activity into one week and watching our growing children do the same things they always have shows us how much they have grown physically and emotionally. So, for a moment, we smile and breathe easier, understanding that we were a little better equipped for change than we thought. Hearts full, fingers crossed – here we go.

Photo: a parade of sparklers.

25 June 2012

Tromping Back to Camp

We love the Hallmark characters Hoops & Yoyo, and have for many years. They provided our first family doubled-over-in-front-of-the-computer moment, and our youngest memorized all of the dialogue from their tale of The Runaway Marshmallow (watch them all – you won’t be sorry). But even as we continue to buy Hoops & Yoyo greeting cards it has been a while since our marshmallow moments. Now our older boy is going to camp – sleep away camp – for a long time. We never really thought we would find a camp that would meet his needs and still be camp. It has been a long process to get to this point and I still can’t write about it quite yet except to say that the dialogue from The Runaway Marshmallow is all that stands between me and tears when I think about separating from my boy. We know that it is the right thing; we know that he will love it; we know it will be hard for all of us to not be together as a family for a large part of the summer. And so we make light of it by making all references to camp as “tromping back to camp!” I hope I will be able to write about it in a good way, and if not, well then I’ll be be back in September. The tromping begins next week; wish us luck.