Cabin Fever Makes One Do Crazy Things

I hate the cold.  Why I have remained in Upstate NY for my entire life, where the cold and gray can span from November to April is beyond me.  I will admit, the first chill at a Fall football game,  when I pull out my cozy sweaters  and hoodies and knee-high boots, is a nice change to the sweat of summer, but it isn't long before those same sweaters are bulky under my winter coat and the boots are slush-covered as I brush the snow off my car in the dark winter mornings.  And by February, even the chance of a snow day home from work has lost its charm.  I'd trade in the chance to sleep in for just ten minutes of the warm sun on my face.

Just this past week, we were home, again, because of snow.  This added insult to injury as mere days before I went for a jog in a t-shirt, and sweat doing so.  So yesterday, I found myself rocking furiously in my rocking chair by the woodstove, my boiling point spilling over.  I’d had it.
“We’re going for a hike,” I blurted to my boyfriend, Mike.  He peered suspiciously at me from the corner of his eye, as if he could sense the clausterphobic insanity behind my words, not trusting if I was serious or about to go mental.
“Ok,” he said slowly, cautiously, as if my mind could just as easily change or explode any moment.

We threw on layers and boots and headed out, albeit to our own 14 acres of wooded trails (suggested by a less crazed Mike), the effect was still immediate. The wind bit my nose and within 10 minutes the tips of my toes started to chill, but I was free!  I was away from the four walls that had been closing in, the dry heat that turned my skin to a flaky mess, the progressing pecks of my sons’ requests on my nerves.  Uphill we went, our breaths heavy and puffing in fast clouds from our mouths and nostrils, that being the only sound besides the cracking of frozen branches in the gusts that kicked up bursts of snow around us.  When we reached the top of the hill that borders our property, we were quiet.  Before us was a view of neighboring hills and the first twist of a valley that snaked the river downstream.  When we’d hiked there last Fall, it was still so alive — the trees turning warm colors and constant movement of life abound:  birds and bugs and swaying fields ready to be harvested.  But now, that picture was frozen, a dormant calm. I was cold, the open field, unobstructed by trees, drove the wind straight through me it seemed, but I was reminded why I am still here in NY.  The crisp contrast of white snow and gray clouds, the quiet of a world insulated by snow and hibernation, recognizing that death and cold of winter draws forth the gratitude of the life in summer’s heat, and vice-versa, all year long, season by beautiful season.

I'm an Expert -- Don't Watch Me!

Last winter I went skiing.  This probably isn't monumental for those who love winter and cold and the rush of wind in one's face as they fly, adrenaline-filled, down a snowy slope.  But for anyone like me, a 40-something whose only ski experience was as a 12 year old who didn't even make it down the bunny slope, the sentence is a loaded statement.

What prompted the experience was my boyfriend and sons, all avid skiers.  "Don't waste your money on a lesson.  We can teach you to ski better than those instructors you had when you were twelve," they said.  But, just like my 12-year-old self, I never even made it up the bunny slope.  What resulted was them attempting to persuade me to even get on the chair lift.
     "Just watch us!" they said, jumping in front of the path of a swinging chair barreling toward their behinds.
    "Nope.  Not gonna happen," was my response.  They just couldn't understand why I didn't get it.  Why me watching their skills as skiers wasn't transferring to me being able to ski.  It wasn't until I fumbled and slipped my way over to the Beginner Ski Lessons that I discovered what I really needed to gain some skiing skills:  skiing strategies.  The instructor started with me on one ski, shuffling in a circle to get the feel of moving over snow, my foot immobile. Before long I was up on two skis, able to turn back and forth, using my weight to guide my movement.  My instructor watched, offering feedback as I went.
     "Try to lift the ski a bit here," he'd advise, offering me strategies to build up my skills.  For the first time in my life, I made it down a hill in skis.

One of the benefits of teaching is our deep knowledge of content, and proficient skills as readers and writers.  It's also one of our downfalls.  Skills that we perform automatically are often the most frustrating to teach because we don't remember those strategies that grew our proficiency.  At times we don't recognize that a student might not need to watch us perform the skill to learn it; he/she needs strategies to scaffold their ability to perform that skill automatically.  Often watching an expert perform a skill can make a student feel like I did when I watched my sons and boyfriend hop on the chair lift:  Nope.  There's no way I can do that.  But offering scaffolded strategies can.

Meanderings

“Mom, look what my guidance counselor did for me,” my son said, handing me a handwritten list.  On it were the names of colleges spreading across the Northeast.  “These are all the colleges she says we should visit this summer.”  I quickly put the list down.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s talk about it later, ok?”  And as he walked away, I realized I have not really come to terms with the fact that one year from now, he will be leaving.  I have not come to terms with his absence, or my freedom.  It is a strange juxtapositon of emotions.  I am acutely aware that I am not the first nor the last to have felt this way about a child leaving for college, and that understanding leaves me feeling both comforted and alone.  Another part of my life I will learn from.

As Oprah says, “When you know better, you do better.”  I always did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time.  I, and anyone for that matter, collect lessons and tools along the way through the messy and beautiful events and experiences that make us both individuals and a human team.  I know my son will head out into the world with the same vague map I had in front of me at his age, doing the best he can with the tools he has collected.  It is the same map that my mother and her mother and her mother and you have as our life paths meander and cross.

Anxiety Meds: Writing

Yesterday, I found myself with a microphone, a guitar, and wine.  Little Buddy and the Dream, the duo my boyfriend and I started just a few months ago, was about to perform gig #1.  In front of us people mulled about, sipping and tasting in the open space of the post and beam winery.  The room smelled of warm spices and Merlot.  White strings of lights glowed here and there, the wood stove warmed everyone, and the quiet chatter created a cozy, relaxed calm to a chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon in February. 

Inside me was quite the contrary.   Inside me, my stomach churned.  Invisible fingers snaked through my chest, squeezing here and there as I tried to breathe.  The cathedral ceilings -- were they getting closer to the floor?.  Was the room suddenly quieter?  At what point, exactly, had I decided that I could sing?

"Think of that place in the first song you always screw up," I heard a sneering voice whisper.  The Committee had arrived: that group of voices who attack my confidence.  Try to throw me off course.  The internal voice bouncing in my head.  I tried to fight back.

"Just breathe," I told myself.  "Count to five through the nose, count to seven out the mouth."  The Committee had other ideas.  They raged on.

I often look at content of my life story as a narrative so predictable it would be a goldmine for Hallmark movie writers.  As the main character of this narrative, the events of my plot have seemed to go in that cliche direction:  leave unhealthy marriage, struggle as a single mom, find wonderful man who jumped on my crazy train to love me and my sons even with our overflowing baggage car.  Yup, that about sums it up.  Most days I look at life like a train of coincidences someone else imagined in which I just search for a place to jump on and start my real life.  Even in this random plot event -- a gig at a winery -- that the mystery writer thought would add some excitement to the storyline, was going as expected.  Nerves. Voices of dissent. Fear.

The guitar struck the chords that were my cue to sing and we were off.  I would love to say that I had a sudden moment where I was enlightened by the realization that I HAD jumped into my life.  That in the middle of singing "Rhiannon" I realized I had taken to my life like a bird in flight!  When really, I was so nervous and stressed about remembering the details of my singing lessons and getting my timing right and hoping I hit those high notes correctly that it all pretty much passed me by.

At the end of my day yesterday, even after the compliments and the requests for future gigs that my mind cried "Success!", I still felt like an outsider peering through the picture window of my story. That was, until I opened my email and saw this:

And as I began to write my slice of life about my first gig the power of the writing process took hold. I considered my own narrative and who actually is writing it.  Much to my wonder and amazement, it's me.  I am the conductor of my train, the writer of my story, the composer of my song.  No mystery writer exists!  In my next gig, I will listen to the lyrics instead.