Deciding

The last 12 months have been a hell of sort. Plans made. Chaos. Redemption. Unanticipated joy. Life.

I'm reading my son's art history book from his senior year at Harvard; The Story of Art. It's a slim book by E.H. Gomrich. After many years of enjoying and making art I revel in in his ability to effortlessly, beautifully and seamlessly pulls together the arc of creativity over 10,000 years. If the lines are bold - likely Italian masters. If the surface is miraculously detailed - northern and likely Flemish. He is an old soul and his threads are carefully crafted from a life of observation and inspection. I read this and pour over the color plates and feel a spiritual rush; all things are explained. All things make sense.

And this is how I see my life evolving. Art, science, teaching, curiosity, passion, advocacy, creative restlessness are coming to this place at this time. I get to choose. I get to make the decision about what to do next. In the past I've given this choice away. However painful the responsibility may feel - and the pain is palpable - the ability to choose feels safer than delegation.

A long time ago, someone pointed out that the pain I was experiencing was the result of a mis-match in my values with the organization around me. This seemed a frivolous detail. Now I understand it is the central issue.

If this appears to be an oblique rant - apologies to the dear reader. If there is any up-side to aging, and worn out knees, the inability to drink wine easily, forgetfulness are a few of the multiplying downsides, it is the ability to see the whole. And I wonder if that is the real religion, seeing the whole when we spend so much of our lives in a state of self-made disconnectedness.

Being Isabel

A short video made in a recent production class. Wanted to share this more broadly. See it here

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=388877857650&comments=

Radient Purpose

My daughter is taking Calculus at college. Two hours nightly she works through problem sets with her father; he in Concord, my daughter in Vermont. It is hard, hard work given her challenges with numerical sense; an outcome of trauma to her left lobe. I remember slogging through partial differentials with my father, face to face, as an engineering student. It was hard work and math was a strength. This tenacious purpose -- to make good in Calculus -- to enable her to go to vet school gives ME strength. It allows me to sleep at night, knowing that this purpose burns in her.

I am dreaming of having a purpose and I think it is about identifying all the digital appliances (soft and hard) that can automate the things that are hard but trivial. Isabel forgets where her phone is. There's an app for that. Her concept of time is completely different that the world around her. A shower can last for 60 minutes. Days and weeks seem to be inter-changable. Meals are often missed. There must be an app that corrects for this. Perhaps my instantaneous decision to go to engineering school, +30 years ago, was a preparation. Likewise, my husband's mathematical talent was a gift in preparation.

Blazing with Potential

Remember that when I first began this sporadic blog, I used the phrase 'blazing with potential' to describe the Winsor girls, en mob, at a Roxbury Latin play.

And Isabel seemed so angry at the mob, and the scene, and I felt her anger and my own.

And now a phone call with Isabel is deep with moments of potential. A concern or brief annoyance or even anger that turns soft and aware so quickly. Her growing wisdom of herself and the world feels inevitable. She listens deeply and connects. I hear here becoming stronger and clearer about what she can become. Her deep, deep keel and abundant creativity makes her blaze. I love you dear Isabel and all that you are.

Immense Presence

My daughter announced she was going to Montreal.  Finis.  I fretted and devised alternative plans - try staying in Cambridge for a weekend - close to home.  She said "I am going to Montreal".  She went to Montreal. She had a memorable weekend. My daughter can go to Montreal. 

Redemption

My friend Bob, when listening to my news of Isabel, managing her freshman semester marvelously well, emerging, said 'update your blog'. And I realized that this was a sort of annunciation; words in the midst of thousands of distractions and confusion that are essential and important. I've thought this through over the past 10 days and finally am here.

Isabel's annunciation came several weeks ago in the midst of a highly charged and awkward social entanglement. She said: I am not lost. I have a vision and I am pursuing it. At 19 I was lost, and purely by grace, emerged a decade later. 30 years hence - purely by grace - I am able to hear my daughter state her vision. That is the redemption. My own grasping - a weakness for pessimism has not dampened Isabel's ability to identify her future.

Home again in 7 days.

Unbearable Lightness

15 days from now my daugher will be a freshman in a college in Vermont. I repeat this to myself and to others with the same unfamiliarity and disbelief I had when becoming engaged. I say, "I am the mother of two college aged children" or "My duaghter is going to Landmark College in the fall. " I pretend that this is like thousands of mothers saying that their daughter is going to college in the fall. I bought dorm room things at Target.

The dumpster arrived last week and I began to 'throw out'. I had piles of consult write-ups from Children's Hospital and IEP team meeting notes. I had carefully filed them, copied and forwarded them to nice people in Isabel's ever expanding universe. Gone. No more.

And part of this throwing out was archeological unveiling and the old life that emerged - now laid bare. So I feel shakey wondering what is next for Isabel and for me. I taught her how to reocrd her own voice mail on her cell phone. She deighted over this creative act - one more step to independance.

I feel lighter- the excrutiating weight of guilt and fear somewaht abated as August 28th nears. Like air, like water, like sleep - a deficit that is somehow replentished.