Grammy Bliss

Playing with my grandchildren makes me happier than anything I’ve ever done! I had lunch with a friend of mine last week and was showing her pictures of my trip to England over Christmas, celebrating with Amelia and Finn. She lingered on the last ones in the stack—the photos of the 3 of us together. “You must make sure you show these to my wife because it’s the only time I’ve ever seen you truly happy and I know she would love to see that, too.” They have known me for 35 years.

My three weeks with the kids went quickly! We didn’t “do” a lot of planned outings. Mostly we were at home hanging out. When I think about the activities we did do, I remember how tired the kids got, the meltdowns, the challenges maneuvering with the stroller and the terrifying chasing of a “dashing away” 3 year old. It was fun to go into London, to a castle, out to lunch, walks in meadows the countryside—but the real fun was when we were at home.

Amelia will be 4 at the end of February. She is at the age where she is a bit bossy, wants to be independent one minute and held and cuddled the next. She is sweet and a bit fearless, a little shy, imaginative and fun. We engaged in imaginative play almost the entire time I was there.

She gets terribly frustrated with her little brother when he interrupts her imaginative ‘world’. He is infatuated with her and everything she is doing. He wants to do it, too. She deals with him by pushing him away. He thinks when she does this she is playing a game and pushes back. That is when she gets the most angry and either takes her toy he has in his hands, pushes him too hard, hits him or otherwise reduces him to tears. He, at 18 months, is devastated and cannot understand what has just happened.

I had many opportunities to explain to Amelia how you give a little child something you don’t want so they leave what you’re playing with alone. It became obvious that she was getting something out of upsetting him because no matter how many times I intervened with another toy for Finn, she preferred creating the scene and getting the negative attention.

Finn is a little “light being”. When he walks in a room everyone smiles. You simply cannot help but feel uplifted by his energy. He is fun, having a great sense of humor and beyond his years because of having a big sister to follow around. His biggest frustration was not having the language to communicate all he had to say. This would reduce him to tears sometimes, even though there was constant help from everyone to introduce him to words that would help him express himself.

Amelia and I met around imaginative play. Sharing that over-ruled all the dynamics between she and Finn and her parents and her. It gave us a platform to hang out in that grew stronger the longer I was there. It became so sweet and connected over the 3 weeks. It was a stretch for me to go there, as I haven’t had the opportunity for 60 years. It reminded me of playing for hours with my best friend, Becky, starting when I was 4. I found myself drawing from those memories as I played in my imagination with Amelia.

I found Finn beyond his age in terms of his ability to play independently, as well as parallel play with Amelia and also engage in imaginative play with us. He negotiated all of those levels of play easily and seemed to enjoy them equally. He especially loved his toys and cars and balls and playing of all sorts.

What Finn found the most exciting was singing. The whole family sings all the time, possibly carrying on the love of music his Grammy and Papa engendered to Shannon and that supported Shannon becoming quite a singer himself. Finn would sit playing with a toy and start to sing, not entirely with all the words, but in perfect pitch and rhythm. It was marvelous! He was so happy at those times!

One special time for me I remember clearly was when we all had a tea party. Amelia had invited all her stuffed animals, Finn, her mother and me. She had gotten a new tea set for Christmas and we were sitting around the living room “playing”. At one point, she poured tea for Finn and he pretended to drink it and eat imaginary biscuits. We all loved the party!

It was searing to come back to Colorado after being there for 3 weeks. Coming back into my life without my grandchildren seemed almost too much to bear. I had experienced and gotten used to living in such bliss. Amelia was feeling the loss also. She has no sense of time but decided my coming back for Christmas next year would ease our anxiety of separation. I just might do that!!!!!

Unscathed by a National Disaster

Last week the part of Colorado where I live experienced horrendous flooding. The water made all of the mountain streams flash flood into the cities and farming communities below. Hundreds of people lost their homes. Several thousand were evacuated. The damage was extensive. Entire towns were taken out and no longer exist at all. It will take years to rebuild bridges, roads, houses and other structures, as well as businesses. The storm was called a National Emergency Disaster fairly soon after the flooding started and the National Guard and people who had helped with hurricane Katrina came to rescue people and help with the devastation.

Everyone was on alert. My phone announced every few hours for a number of days that flash flooding was a possibility. Day and night the phone would ring or vibrate. Many roads were closed because of water covering them or bridges that were washed out. This made travel nearly impossible. People were advised stay at home unless absolutely necessary so that emergency vehicles could get through.

Blessedly, my home was spared. There was a drainage ditch nearby but it did not overflow—although all the people in the area kept close watch on it. The rain was torrential and steady for days. My parking lot was constantly covered by several inches of water all through the weekend.

I will be forever grateful that I didn’t have to deal with losing my belongings or have to wade through mud to recover them, as many have had to do. Even though I didn’t encounter physical harm or disaster I can’t minimize my experience of the disaster.

Emotionally the flood was frazzling. Fear was the overriding feeling that accompanied the rain and the flooding. My anxiety level was through the roof! I couldn’t relax and the rain just kept falling and pounding. I couldn’t leave and go anywhere and that created a trapped feeling, one of my all-time most challenging feelings. It took all the energy I had just to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

Many people lost electricity. I did not. That didn’t take away the anxiety that it might go out and I might be without my phone—communication with the outer world. I had plenty of food and found myself eating just to calm myself.

I am certain that many people were affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the ordeal. I know all week even after the sun came out and everyone started assessing the damage, I was tired and emotionally wasted. I had to be particularly gentle with myself. I required less activity and more sleep. It was definitely a healing process that I was encountering and I am just now beginning to feel like myself again.

Being in a National Disaster but being on the outside is an interesting experience. It reminded me of growing up in Kansas when tornados would whirl through and we would huddle in a root cellar or in the basement until it passed. This time, though it went on for days. The flood of 2013 will go down in history as the worst in recorded history. I can’t believe it happened all around me and I was not directly affected by it like many people. I feel deep gratitude, as I don’t know how well I would have handled losing everything or being displaced.

No. I don’t feel like Noah. I don’t feel like the end of the world is coming, either. Mother Nature has always charted her own course with the weather. It’s just that now people are living in the way of her path. We will all come together and find our way out of this horrible catastrophe but it will take a long, long time.

Becoming a Grammy on the Other Side Of The World

My grandson, Finn, was born yesterday. I am so ecstatic I can hardly contain myself! He is beautiful, plump and healthy. Perfect! I could go on and on—but hasn’t everyone listened to a new grandparent at one time or another? To avoid mushy redundancy, I will simply say I am very, very excited to watch Finn’s life unfold and to find out who he is.

I wanted to go. I wanted to be there to hold him when he was newly arrived and welcome him to the world. But, my son and his wife live in Great Britain.  I live in Colorado. I admit I was attached to the newborn “thing”. I love newborns! I love how they smell, how they sleep, how the nuzzle up and their lovely gentleness. It is a miracle how they arrive, as if from another world. Birth is a mystery that fascinates me and always has.

It took me probably too long to hear my daughter-in-law’s request for space. At first it felt like a slap—an “I don’t want you around”-kind-of-rejection. After a while, I took the high road and kept perspective. From that vantage point I realized a greater thing—my place in the process of Finn’s arrival was to help  them from the other side of the world.

But, “what does that look like?” I wondered. How do you participate energetically from thousands of miles away? I needed to pull out my metaphysical hat to remember the answer to that question. This one was going to need BIG thinking.

My emotions were scrambled and ENORMOUS as I tried to calm myself enough to wade into this territory with a different approach. Once I really began listening to my feelings the situation began to shift. I needed to let my emotions direct me to what I wanted. What I wanted was to be the best, most helpful, loving Grammy possible.

I calmly meditated on what this might look like. The image conjured was of loving children. I was flooded with images of my son when he was born. It felt like my heart would burst. There was more love than I ever imagined. It didn’t take long to feel the pattern once again. Concentrating on and holding  “love” energy was what I did in my son’s birth and entry into the world. Now, as Grammy, the process was the same for Finn.

I felt the hugeness of the love. I felt the energy of love. I felt the bouyency of the energy of life. I felt part of something much greater than myself. That energy had no bounds. It was not personal, situational or in one particular place or another. I didn’t own it. It was simply there for me to be held. I liked it! A lot!!!!!

It was an easy small step from this awareness to transferring love to Finn and my son and daughter-in-law and their little daughter, Amelia. I could just think about them and feel the love and light. There was an endless bounty of love. In fact, love seemed to expand exponentially as I was immersed in it. I had found my place to be the best Grammy possible on the other side of the world.

Last weekend, before Finn’s birth, I got an indication from my daughter-in-law about when it would be good to visit them. October. I am thrilled when I think about going. It helps me formulate a concrete plan. I will undoubtedly enjoy it beyond imagination. Still, I am blessed with the awareness acquired through the process of Finn’s birth:  Love is bigger than personally being in one place or another. Being part of something does not exclude you. You can participate in something wonderful and be on the other side of the world. I love being a Grammy!

Stillness...

“I am not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” –A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

When I arrived back to Colorado after being away three weeks I felt as though I was in shock. Everyone I talked with said it was “normal” to feel “off” coming back this way from Europe—“it would take a day and a half for each time zone traveled”—“it took them over a week”.

So, I let myself be gentle, nurturing, listening, caring, still. I quieted the chastising inner voice that was annoyed as I slept when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, didn’t go to my classes at the Recreation Center and generally cut off all activity with the outer world.

It would rear its ugly head and spew out angry, vicious accusations. This was challenging the first few times I did venture out—to make a phone call, get groceries, gas up my vehicle--because I couldn’t help but feel bombarded both internally and externally.

I was reminded of other times when “everything just seemed to be going wrong”. I have distinct memory of trying to move through those times of blocks and seeming mazes. Each time I was left exhausted and going nowhere.

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it”. – A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Since I have been forced to pause, I will take the opportunity to reflect. What I feel is as if there has been some sort of shift. I don’t know if I have energetically changed, my world has or a little of both. All I am certain of is that my energy in relation to other people and things in my life is different.

“Different” is quite vague, I realize. The subtlety of the change—while I feel it as huge and final—has an indistinct, nebulous and temporary quality about it. My experience of it is not unlike being on a train and having the breaks thrown on and slowly screeching to a loud and grinding halt. You are still intact, still on track, but stopped for no reason that you know.

How is this manifesting in my life? I don’t feel like I fit in my skin. I am tenuous about knowing who I am, who I have been and who I will become. The most noticeable manifestation comes from the recoiling dislike of me I feel from other people. Rejection would be a mild feeling-word to describe this phenomenon. I wonder what my vibration and energy are doing to attract this?

What am I doing with this disconcerting experience? Nothing. Everything. I am lying low, not taking anything personally, letting people and things fall away, holding steady through the disappointment and confusion I feel and spending a majority of my time alone.

The one thing I am certain of and grateful about this familiar experience is—it won’t last forever. I will patiently ride it out, appreciate my solitude, cherish my ability to love and take good care of myself through this slow-moving and dark time and have the wisdom and maturity to trust the transformation and conscious change that will become apparent when this is over.

“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,” said Pooh. “There, there,” said Piglet, “I will bring you tea and honey until you do.” –A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh