Ghosts-- Edited and updated.

I decided to dive into the past this evening.  Pulled out two old journals from the beginning of my relationship with Chris.  I wrote approximately ONE journal entry in the entire first year that we were married.  That is crazy.  Do you even know how much I write?  How much I wrote before that?  

To be fair, there were actually some brief snippets and notes.  I don't want to misrepresent things.  

Sept 13, notes from a poetry reading that heavily featured Kerouac. 

Notes from a concert on September 23 in the form of a list:
"-Jump pterodactyl backstage
-Steal tambourine
-Steal lead singer's bicep for Craing costume
-Expose bands that blatantly rip off Goldfinger."

NO idea what concert that was.

Then on March 19th there was a pro/cons chart in which I debated moving back to Cleveland.

Brief notes from March 27th about not writing and then mostly about the Women's History Month belly dancing performance that was coming up the next day and how choreography was going and about all the kids participating.

July 9th, a list of possible ways to spend the lawsuit money. There was a lot of travel on that list.

July 20th.  The only substantial entry from the entire first year of my marriage.  You can ask if you want to know what it said.  Pages long and thoughtful and gut-wrenching and honest and true true true.

Then August 4th.  It started out with me drinking a beer on the front porch by my lonesome and being happy to be taking a break from working on the new house.  There was some celebration of my accomplishments, but then some of the other stuff too.

Then nothing til December when I was pretty sure I had my first miscarriage.  After reading about that quick little pregnancy, I'm pretty sure it was real.  That makes two.  Poor little ones.  But before I miscarried, I already started listing names. Pretty cool to see what was on those lists.

And that was it for the paper journal.

So I went on line to dig up my ooooooold livejournal/deadjournal to see if I did my writing there instead.  I was bracing for some truly embarrassing stuff, but it was actually kind of cute, little helenthoughts of the past.  I was thinking "awww" and "how simple" and "wow that one line there was pretty good, babyhelen."  Anyway.  My research showed that there was very little online writing from that time in my life, too.  That's something.  That truly is something.  

Here are some entries that don't necessarily have word-merit and sound-coolness, but I liked 'em: 


From February 2005:  

got a hangover from pizza, documentaries and half a mug of green tea. weird.

feel like venting, but just saying that in public calms the urge somewhat. i'm going to make breakfast and go dancing with strangers. be back later unless i just make it a city day.


I like how I used to just go have city days with myself.  I look forward to when that happens again, to when I can just go make an extraordinary day happen like *snap* and go!  Station wagon ahoy!

From January, 2005 a few days after we got engaged: 


Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom. 


Anaïs Nin



This is one true gem because it highlights my supremely terrible typing skills among other personality traits.  So this here is my very first internet journal post.  I think it came even before my old geocities website (oh my peas did I really do all that?  could I still remember the html? ha!).  Friends, I would like to introduce you to a ghost: 2001 helen bednarz* all lowercase.  With a star at the end of the z.  Yeah, she's the one.  What a little kid.  Here's what she wrote.  Here's the FIRST thing she wanted to say:

you never know how much people touch your life til they leave it for a while. then you always seem to want to get them back. 

speaking of which, i was thinking about stuffi want to be one of those magical people. the ones that youalways remember adn the ones that don't even seem quite human... you know the ones i mean. They exist in your life, your every day life but they seem to have some ethereal glow about them- their actions do, everything. they are from a more enchanted place and you can almost see the magic rising off of them like steam. They leave a warm feeling on your eyes when you see them, even after they've floated out of your field of vision. They give you a feeling of (youth and carousels and new crayons and presents)when you think about them for a fleeting moment as you shampoo your hair or put sugar in your tea. they don't make you feel LIKE the (crayons)... just that feeling of magic goodness that comes from those (things)

Irony

I really like to sing and to dance.

I'm really not good at singing or dancing.

Like, not very good at all.

*shrugs*

*dances*

And this.

Freakin' this part.

Brilliant Finds

In one of my dumpster picking adventures, a year or two ago, my brothers and I found a milk crate full of old records.  We were in our church clothes, picking through these musty records in a light rain and I came home with an armload of polkas and other good stuff.  Among them was this:  

Yeah, with the single of "I Want to Hold Your Hand."  But looks were deceiving because this record sleeve didn't have the 1962-1966 compilation in it.  Oh no.  It had MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR!!!  Which is the first Beatles album I ever bought (well, I went in half and half with Jack) and probably my very favorite.  The single is warped and not playable, but it looks cool.  I could probably come up with something to make out of it.  Someday.  Or not. 

Anyway, that was a great surprise.  

AND the Johnny Cash album I pulled out of the same milk crate was in really great condition!  I do so like good surprises.  My life's been full of 'em.  

Ah rich vinyl sound!  Oh damn.  Oh damn. Oh damn.  It's weird but the sound of records playin on a proper stereo like this makes me feel some type of way.

Meet Sansui,

This is it.   This is the stereo.  Ah that satisfying click of the wires into the back.  The slow, viscous feel of the knob turns ("I'll turn your viscous knob." "Oh now I'm blushing!")

What I really like about this is that music is the centerpiece of our living space like it should be.  And also, I like the way the kids are dancing a lot more. And I'm dancing a lot more.  

Except, EXCEPT, I used to have a lot more records but I gave a lot away after I had to dismantle my old stereo set up when I moved away from home.  I wonder if Dad still has Jazz Bach... mmmm.  But here, look on and fill your heart with gladness:

Welcoming the Season

Because everything isn't heavy all the time...

Holiday decorating isn't something I go wild for.  Many of my friends are domestic goddesses-- full displays for Halloween, Easter, Fourth of July, Boss's Day, you name it.  Not me.  I did make a pretty fancy bouquet of decapitated heads for Bastille Day that one year, but generally I don't care that much.  It's just more clutter and work I don't like dealing with.  Even Christmas decorations feel like that EXCEPT for the mantel.  It's my favorite thing to do each year, closely followed by putting lights on the tree (oh that battle!  the bloodshed!  the sap! the LIGHTS!).   Each year, it manifests differently. I wish I had taken more pictures of previous years-- like when I did pine garlands and clementines and twinkling lights.  That was pretty.  This year started with a blue disco ball motif, but I changed my mind and this is what we ended up with:

It's alright from straight ahead, but it's the details that make me linger when I walk past:

The mouse was the ornament Nora picked out on vacation this year.  It joins our collection with the fox and the skunk.  I made those little Santa hats a few years ago when we had my frame full of birds hanging in the living room.  The hats fit these critters just about as well as they fit my bird collection.  The gourds are from our garden and look just as good for Christmas as they did for Thanksgiving.   Gourd haters be damned!

My bird ornaments all found homes on the dining room garland-- that garland was from Papa back at UNISIX and the bird in the center is the one I had hanging in my curtains there, so it's just lovely and sentimental.  I almost didn't hang up the two cages that made their way into the collection-- they make me sad.  But in one, the bird has fallen off the perch, and a cage with a dead bird in it is just right.  I mean, the symbolism, right?  That's what happens, right?  So I figure it encourages the other birds to make the most of their freedom.  The other cage is empty--a threat?  I didn't like a cage hanging up at all, honestly, so I tried to pry the door open, but nearly broke apart the whole thing, so, eh, it went up anyway.  It was a gift, after all.

In other domestic fun, I spent nearly two hours moving the livingroom furniture around and setting up the stereo station.  True to the typical way helens do things like this, I moved things around no less than six different ways and ended up settling on the first configuration I came up with.  Coulda saved myself a lot of heavy lifting.  At least Chris helped me do the last move.  It would have been more annoying to go back to the beginning if I had to wrangle all that furniture myself. 

Delightful irony:  after moving furniture so much today and yesterday, I'm sitting on the floor to write.  Ha!

More thanks

I want to hold this thanksgiving in my heart.  Something about it feels special.  Arlo Guthrie sing alongs, setting my uncles laughing,  Krampus and Bellschnickle, swallowing my pride and playing a really good game of chess,  praise for my pies,  kids are in great humor, chapping my hands from so many dishes washed,  bathroom dance parties, discussions of inexplicable scripture (also more explicable scripture) at the dinner table, a little bit of psychotic music and train crashes, some football, a fire in the fireplace, cat people...

I feel calm and happy.

Thanks

You who know any ounce of me know that gratitude is the refrain for my song.  And on a day devoted to giving thanks, the need to speak it feels even greater.  Even deeper.  

I don't have words for it all.  Not shareable words, but I was writing in my mind earlier and I'll try to capture what of it I can remember (worded less gracefully, connected less fluently).

--Oh, and a necessary quick interlude before I go on-- can we sing the praises of French press coffee?  Can we take a moment to bask in its innate superiority?  Okay.  I'm done stalling.

I guess the gist of it is that I am grateful to recognize the God behind all of the difficulties I have faced in my life.  I know that in the physical pain I've faced, my body crumpled and broken, He draws me closer to him.  In the guilt of dark wishes answered, He draws me closer to him.  I know that in the ache and sadness, in the worry and uncertainty, in the hope and in the wind dropping from my sails in open water, He draws me closer to him.  

It would make sense to prefer an easy life.  And I do wish to be delivered from all these thorns that catch at my skin so I can dance and dance and dance, but I know that I wouldn't feel as constantly drawn to Him if it were that easy.  Or I would, but in a less complete way.  The struggle and the wait has a way of deepening my connection to Him.  Probably, obviously, because it requires faith.  

The gratitude helps me welcome the hard parts.  I try to embrace it as another chance to prove my mettle to the One who trusts me with questions this big.  I don't usually feel like I need to prove myself, but with Him, I want to be worthy of who He is and what He's given and worthy of the promises in store.   And I'm grateful for the opportunity.  It's a many faceted love. So I feel lost sometimes, yeah.  And I want to get churlish and demand answers.  And I feel so in love with the One who made this world and so glad He sees all the beauty I see.  I feel frustrated and unsure.  And I feel confident that He's giving all of this to me for a reason.  I feel humbled and small and grateful for all of the goodness He's poured into my life.  I feel like I'm a cup with no bottom.  I want to faithfully receive what He has to give me in full knowledge that there will always be more good than bad.  That even sitting and choking  in a broken Corolla, I could see the micro-slivers of shattered glass make the most beautiful motes in the slanted sun.  

Ach this is getting listy and I hate when my writing gets listy.

But right now, in this heap of heavy I've been carrying for months and years, I'm grateful for the parts that are drenched in gold.  I know He's got God ideas-- which are better than my crazy-eyed plans.  And my crazy-eyed plans are damn good.  As much as I long for the answers and the green light, I close my eyes and breathe.  He's there in my breath, filling my lungs with exactly what I need right now.  It's comforting to know that what I've been given is what I need and I fully, gratefully intend to embrace it.  Even the thorny parts. And when I bleed, I'll gently tuck my wounds in the bigger ones He suffered for me.  And I'll know it's nothing because I've already been given everything.

It's not the typical Thanksgiving pie motif, but Faith, Hope, and Love.  That's what my heart spoke to me today.
And love and love and love.

Love

Nora is currently playing a game in which the bananas are madly in love with each other and keep standing up and saying "I love you" and giving each other kisses. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Some nights

... and other nights you stand in the kitchen and cry.

Tears fall on the stainless steel.

Musics

One of the things I treasure most of more of all of the real relationships I have with other people is the music sharing. I was shared this today and it's beautiful.

First, a flashback:
I remember walking to class aside Dave K (oh worshipful Dave! You moonbeam! You, song of life and elderly tapdancers on aeroplanes ((You spelled it that way when you spoke, without knowing, but I knew!))) (listen to the whole album.  In order.  With headphones.  Walk in the snow.  Feel the cold and the heavy)  (and then fall in love with me. and life. and reading Kafka. and fake hot chocolate I improvised with old kisses and  boiling water while your sortafriends ate like kings.)

Beck, Sea Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?

but this, in today's moment:
approximately minutes 16- -17:19 Oh my!



Can I be trapped and untrapped forever?


Tell me what it means?

Aren't the lyrics below so deliciously kitelike?

"So in looking to stray from the line
We decided instead we should pull out the thread
That was stitching us into this tapestry vile
And why wouldn't you try? Perfect weather to fly"

I dig "tapestry vile"

\ 

And finally, one of my favorites:

 Now I'll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart
So take my flesh
And fix my eyes
A tethered mind free from the lies
 And I'll kneel down
Wait for now 
I'll kneel down 
Know my ground 
 Raise my hands 
Paint my spirit gold 
And bow my head 
Keep my heart slow 


My. Goodness. I kill these fruitflies who attack my apples.

I kill them with mercilessness like a Hindu Goddess. A bare (small)breasted goddess gnashing gnats. Oh dance with me Oh dance
Oh dance with me
Oh dance
Oh dance with me
Oh.
dance.
Oh.
Dance. Oh.Dance.

This feels like the right time to drown in some Elliot Smith.  "Keep Writing, Helen" he said.  That man.  That soft, pockmarked man.  Oh, an embrace I treasure!  Oh the boisterous women I admire!

Kite flying

Tonight's writing may happen in a series of posts, for the sake of post-erity, and posteriors, and post scripts (oughtta be more of those in life).

So we went kite flying today.  This is the kite I flew:  


I picked this one because it was called "hot" (see the tiny caption?) which I liked better than being cool.

Kite flying is a funny thing.  It's like having a dog, in a way, because strangers come up to us to strike up conversation:  "How do you make it dance like that?"  "What's it made of?"  "Where'd you get it?"  or just "That's a nice kite."  It's like having a dog because it lets people come up to you, but you don't have to feed it and it doesn't stink up your house.  It just feeds you.

Emilia and I had to have a talk about talking to strangers.  She admonished me after I chatted with the little boy who rode his sister's bike over to watch us flying.  He picked his way across a muddy field til he was close enough to call out "Hey, that's a nice kite!"  And we talked a bit, as much as we could with Nori clinging to my cheek.  After he left and I toyed with my regret at not offering him a go at the kite (hindrance being the baby stuck to the upper left side of my body that kept me from being able to give proper kite-flying instruction),

Emilia admonished me for talking to a stranger.  This is the second time this has happened.  She had a long talk with me after we picked up a down-on-her luck stranger last month and took her to find a hot lunch.  How do you teach your children to be cautious but to show love to strangers who need to admire your kite or ask about God at the playground?  How do you explain the way you have to listen to God speaking in your heart?  How you have to read the situation and watch your wallet, but give and give and give and share and give some more, your peppers, your kite string, your time and attention?  How you have to give your own personal gut-punched self a backseat so you can be there for someone else?  How do you explain that to a six year old?  And how do you explain the way you listen to intuition and the God speak?  How, when you're just learning to listen yourself?

I guess the doing is witness and answer enough for now.  I tried to explain listening to your heart, but she looked at me with skeptic's eyes.  My first baby one and look at her now.  I'm proud and in awe.  It makes me feel so small.

So let's change the subject to kitier things?

This is the kite I wanted to buy this summer:



But these are the dual-string stunt kites I really want but don't know if I can justify buying because, let's be honest, I'm not that skilled (am I?  maybe I am?)  I like the design on the top one better, but mainly I just want to try my hand at real kite flying.




Aren't they gorgeous?  Can't you just SEE them ducking and diving??  Can you hear the squeals of delight?  And feel my sun-stung cheeks at the lakeshore?  I can.

So why kites, Helen?  Why the thing with the kites?  Why, on this muddy suck should-be-winter day do you convince the kids to get muddified and go across to the field and fly kites when they'd rather be doing safe indoor things?

See, here's where I think the fascination lies:  It's in the tethered and the control.  We all secretly (secretively, oh wordplay) are rooting for the kite to escape.  Have you ever had a kite escape?  We did.  The very day we found out Jonah would be a he (and lied, we lied and lied and lied).  And our pirate kite escaped.  And when you feel the string go slack and watch the kite lift, you drop the string and run, but, if you're a Helenka, you  chase the kite every moment heartwhispering "Go, you kite!  be free!  Head to Iowa or Memphis or to the apartments off Broadway, but go!!" And still, you run to the tree line, you plow through the underbrush and scan branches searching for the skull and crossbones that's supposed to be yours to control, to allow slack, to bring in.

But I hold the line (blue spool is 90 lb line; red spool is only 50).  That day I only used fishing line.  I held the spool on a branch.  I thought I could control it enough-- could a trout or a bass really be stronger than a pirate kite?  I thought.  I thought wrong.

But I love the interplay between control and release.  I love the way we ache for it to soar, we try to control it, but when it breaks free, we run and we cheer.  Oh, how we cheer.

I love the ache of the forearms as I reel in what feels like a mile of kitestring.  I love the way it's worth it to know my kite got the highest.

I love the strangers who come to say "what's it made of?"  "where'd you get it?"  "is that your kite?"

How I Feel Most of the Time

This pretty much sums it up perfectly, except in my version there is a little bit less of a lurpy background dancer presence.



"I feel like expressing myself now, and I could certainly use a release!"

Daily Gratitude

It's that time of year again-- posting my daily gratitude in a public place.  I forgot to start posting over the weekend, so please walk back in time with me a few days and then, if you are so inclined, please join me in sharing your gratitude for the world.  This kid wouldn't claim any kind of wisdom or great worldly understanding, but I can say that cultivating a more vocal spirit of gratitude makes a big difference for me.  It allows me to tune in to the blessings and tune out the sad trombones...although, now that I think of it, that womp wahhhh sound is something to be grateful for, too.

So here we go.

November 1st Daily Gratitude: Brothers, great company, stopping in the middle of party prep bustle to read about King Solomon, the Cleveland Museum of Art.

November 2nd Daily Gratitude: The fellowship in a group of women I know, driving alone so I have complete control of the soundtrack (and can sing like a madwoman), going back to Evolution Yoga after a too-long hiatus, and feeling God's beauty wrap around me and support me.

November 3rd Daily Gratitude: Crazy looking handmade dresses from the thrift store, having friends to talk to on rough days, ropes + yoga, laundry + Munk/Walking Dead, wordmath.

November 4th Daily Gratitude: Work days at work, guitar in the background (and how it makes my brain work so much better!), spontaneous thrifting adventures, a chance to teach yoga (that's a blog post in itself) walking in the wind, coming home to my kids and those hugs and that garden and playing outside, watching a large cardboard box cartwheel down our block in a beautiful way, and then watching my darling husband run across the street, dropkick it, roll over, rassle with the box, and bring it home for us to fill with leaves.  Laughing hard.  Play dough, bath time, Nora's constant talking, love love love is all around.

Post your own gratitude!

This is the Stargazer sculpture at the CMA

 

Dreams

My dreams last night, like my thoughts so far today, were constantly interrupted by the people in this house.  So they came in images:

I pored over a map to study isobars up close.
That was one whole dream.


Next, in a patch of grass,
beside the staff parking lot,
joined by Nora,
and, a short distance away,
a small group of female acquaintances,
I sat in the sun and found a four leaf clover.
It was not a perfect one,
two leaves over-large and two were just right,
but it was the one I had been looking for
to settle the four leaf clover drought that's lasted
most of the summer.
I looked up at the sun glinting off the building.
I tried to photograph it to share what happened
but kept getting interrupted.
Two students walked over and asked to see it.
"It's not real" they said.
I held it up for them like an offering.
"Wow, it is real," they said.  "How'd you do that?"

Then the cat and the kids and the noise woke up me.

But oh, symbolism!  You are quite the delicious torment.