It's a pity

My spiritual director is coming for lunch tomorrow and all I can say is 'Thank God'. This week I have been tormented by self doubt and self pity.

In church on Sunday, the guy that sits behind us leaned over during the 'Peace' and commented that the kids were dressed pretty casually for church. At least I think that is what he said. I honestly couldn't really hear him. But oh did I take that and make a nice big club to beat myself with. I am a crappy mom. My kids are ragamuffins. They don't have decent clothes because I am too lazy or distracted to sort their laundry. I am too frazzled on a Sunday morning to notice the rips in Noah's pants until we are halfway to church and by then it is too late to turn around for him to change.

And I suck at drumming.

And my husband's business is falling apart and he is afraid to tell me what is going on because I am the.worst.wife.ever.

By the time the priests started blessing the sacraments, I was sobbing. The kids didn't know what had happened.

"Are you ok, Mom?" Noah asked

I tried to pull myself together.

Church is as good a place as any to fall apart. Maybe better than most, in fact, since it is not completely unheard of to weep in the pews for no apparent reason. But I couldn't help feeling that in the middle of my pity party, there was some sin at the bottom of it. Desolation is a construct of my ego and will. It is me being angry about the circumstances in my life and not taking responsibility for the things I have control over and letting God handle the rest. It is me acting like a victim. I said the confession with extra energy on Sunday. First the pity party: Sorry, God, that I am a crappy mother and a bad laundress and an insensitive wife and a shitty drummer. But then the real confession: I am sorry for feeling sorry for myself.

Now where is that laundry basket?

Painting swap

My mother's friend Michelle moved out of state to be with her new boyfriend. She is in her 60's and had lots of stuff. Too much. So she was trying to winnow it down to a manageable amount. She asked my mom if I would be interested in her dining room table.

Sure, I said. I'll take a look at it.

But we were out of town the weekend she moved, so her upstairs neighbor was in charge of letting people into the apartment to get the stuff she'd promised to others. We almost forgot all about it until one night after dinner Nguyen said

Let's go look at the table.

Ok.

We got in the truck, with the kids and headed to Providence.

The table is great. A very old funky maple top with oak legs. It had leaves at one point, but now makes due with a couple pieces of plywood. In it's closed state it is a big square.

The apartment was completely vacant by now, except for a painting leaning against the wall. It's back was facing out, so all we could see was the wooden frame and the back of the canvas. But somehow it looked familiar to me. I walked over and pulled it back from the wall. It was one of my grandmother's paintings. I caught my breath.

My grandmother was a magnificent painter. She went to art school in London in the 30's and had the beginnings of a promising career when she gave it up to have a family. Later, when the children were grown, she began to paint again. She taught art history at the Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts. Her technique was unique in that she never used brushes, instead pressing the paint against the canvas with a palette knife. I always said that a blind person would love her paintings because they could feel the images in the dried oil paint.

I am taking this, I said the neighbor. I can't leave it in an empty apartment.

Oh, she replied. It has been promised to someone. You can't take it.

I am sorry, I said. My grandmother painted this and I can't leave it here. Have the person it was promised to call me. I'll make sure they get it.

The neighbor looked slightly panicked when she realized that I was going to take the painting. I wasn't leaving it. I felt bad, but I wasn't leaving it.

Who is it going to? I asked.

Someone name Pat.

Oh. That's my mom. I'll get it to her.

But even in the empty apartment, I knew I didn't want to give it up. I had never seen it before and I was completely enthralled. It is a long, rectangular painting of a forest floor, with a trillium in the center. I was struck by the fact that the flower wasn't painted in... it's image was created by leaving blank white on the canvas and painting around it. It reminded me of the Japanese style of art, where the empty space is the image.

I brought it home and put it on the wall over the mantle. It looked as though my entire house was designed around it- the colors, the textures and tones. It was like finding an unexpected treasure somewhere. Something so precious, yet so surprising.

When I told my mother about it, she wanted it. She said I had to give it to her. I started to cry. This was my gift from Granny, whom I miss terribly. Ok. I said. You can have it. But let me hang it on my wall for just a little while.

The next day, my mother called me and said I could keep it. She had talked to Michelle and they agreed that I should have it.

I have another painting of Granny's in my guest room that is a favorite of mine, but never really looked like it belonged in my house. How about if I bring it over, I said.

It is stunning on my mother's wall, an explosion of teal and purple and apricot, a copse of trees on a rock in Georgian Bay in a storm. The exact right painting for her.

The exact right one for me.

I miss you Gran. Thanks for the painting.

Prayer

My husband and I have been having some problems with our business over the last year and yesterday some of that stuff came to a head.

So today I talked to my priest, and can I just tell you? I can't imagine what it is like to live life without a community of faith. No, he didn't have any real answers for me. He asked a couple of questions and made a few comments and suggestions, but mostly he listened. And at the end of the call, he offered to pray for us. Which brings me to tears to even think of it. Because there is something so powerful knowing that you are being prayed for. That in the intimacy of someone's relationship with God, in the power of the moment of their connection with everything that is power, you are there.

I pray for my priests, every day, too. I pray for my parish priests and my spiritual director. And my church. It is powerful, offering the people and the community you love to God.

I admit my prayer life has been somewhat half assed in the time I have been a Christian. For some months, I am more or less steady with some kind of daily check in. But whole months have gone by where I was spotty at best. I'd hang my head when my director asked about it, embarrassed to admit that I was inconsistent with it. Because why wouldn't I want to sit with God every day? Why wouldn't I want to listen, pray, speak to him? I don't know. What else matters?

Big Bang

I decided to create a blog for my drumming stuff. I call it the Big Bang, which tickles me since it is an offshoot of the Big Dunk.

The Bang will be more technical stuff about drumming. I hope that other drummers will want to comment or even post. I hope to include stuff about the local drumming scene in RI.

Come visit if you are interested!

Obsessed

My mother says I come by my drumming obsession honestly. Everyone in our family gets obsessed with what they are interested in. She with theater, poetry and writing fiction. My brother with computers, then digital photography. My father with skulls and boats and growing artichokes in Newfoundland. It must be in our blood.

I watch djembe videos on youtube. Some are wonderful. There is a guy from San Fransisco who moved to Bamako, Mali, married a Malian woman and spends all his time documenting Malian drummers on video and posting it on the internet. He sells drums and cds, arranges for radio interviews for his teachers and hosts visiting students from the United States and elsewhere.

I was worried that, being a woman, I wouldn't be able to study in Africa. But then I found out about a group of women from Guinea who travel the world playing djembe. They call themselves the Amazones and they are all magnificent. I love that they are large women... not tiny skinny like most of the male djembe players. I dream of going to West Africa some day and taking classes.

Last night in class we had a big group. 8 of us were playing together. We even had a djun djun player! At one point my teacher had us all playing different parts of the song. All of us playing different rhythms, layered on top of one another. By now I am pretty steady and can hold a beat. I realized that my friend Lucia and I were holding the whole thing together because all the others were new. We were the most experienced in the class, and were the only women.

I want to go see Amazones live.

Crack

Is it just a symptom of getting old, do you think? Or maybe it is because I carry around heavy kitchen tools all the time. Or sling a mahogany Djembe in a bag over my shoulder.

In any case, I woke up with the same crick in my neck that has been there for weeks. Couldn't turn my head to the side. Called and asked my chiropractor if he could fit me in. He could. So I wrapped up a big batch of cranberry almond bark and brought it as a thank you for squeezing me in.

Why I love my chiropractor: He manually adjusts my neck, which means he holds my head and cracks the bones with his bare hands. Then I get manhandled in all kinds of crazy ways while he cracks the bones in my shoulders and upper back.

I found out today that he no longer accepts my insurance, which means I have to find a new bone cracker. Darn.

Can this be Paradise?

Church was way busy this morning: Lectio Divina at 9, wrangling the talent for a stewardship testimonial during announcements, various trips to the bathroom with boy A or boy B. All craziness designed to pull me, kicking and screaming, from the feet of the Beloved, which is where I'd rather be on any given Sunday thank you very much.

But then, as I walked back out to the pew after bathroom break #2, during the latter half of Communion, there was a shift in the music. The choir started a 10th century monastic chant. Gentle. Quiet. Solemn. Beautiful.

I got back to my pew and dropped to my knees and spent the whole piece with my head bowed.

Oh thank you, Lord.

Afterwards I told the choir director that it was my favorite piece of the service.

"Really?!" He said. "Me too.!"

drum nut

Last night I told Nguyen that I had a rhythm beating in my head all day. It's a little like an 'ear worm'. You know, when a song keeps repeating itself in your brain?

This rhythm is one that I have been having trouble playing in class. Each piece of music that we play has 5 or 6 different rhythms. We play each rhythm for awhile and then our teacher, Sidy, plays a transition for us an we are supposed to jump right in with the next one. For some reason, I have a hard time transitioning to the second rhythm in the sequence...

So that rhythm has been banging around in my head for the last couple of days. Here's the funny part: In my head, I am hearing my teacher playing it... not me. My drum has a low, dull voice. His is higher pitched and sharp. Plus, he differentiates very clearly between a slap sound and what is called a tone sound. In my own playing, you can't really hear a difference yet.

So, in my head, all day long, the sound of my teacher playing the second rhythm of Sidiyasa.

One famous drumming teacher (I can't remember who) said that if you can sing a rhythm, you can play it. I wonder if hearing it in an endless loop will help me play it better? I'll tell you next week, LOL.

Camping as spiritual practice

A year ago I knew I was in trouble when, while camping on the Cape during Columbus day weekend, I spent much too much time being cranky and not nearly enough time enjoying the beautiful weather and wonderful setting. I talked about it with my Spiritual Director afterwards. I confessed to it in the confessional box. I apologized to my husband for being a shrew.

I don't know why camping can bring out the worst in me. I so easily veer into control freakishness and impatience. It seems to do this to Nguyen, too. He has a strange alter ego who emerges when we are in the woods. Macho, controlling. Between us it is the clash of the titans.

This weekend was different. We were on our shakedown trip with our new to us pop up camper. We have never had a pop up (pup) before, so there was plenty of opportunity for disputing how things work and what is the best way to set things up and how to pack most efficiently and where things should go in the campground and should we unroll the awning and does it look like rain and no, I don't care for beans, thank you. I even had my period, which is an automatic notch up on the cranky potential factor. And we had our nephew with us, which added to the boy energy, which can, admittedly, leave me needing solitude.

But something has shifted in the year since our last Columbus day weekend. First, the confessions. I think it served to bring home the fact that churlishness is, indeed, a sin. It certainly leaves me ungrateful, which is, in itself, sinful. But it also ruins everyone else's time.

Second, I am working on letting go of control. It is a lifelong habit that has been turned upside down as a Christian. Giving it over to God is the ultimate surrender of personal control... and I think, little by little, it is sinking in.

Finally, I realized that we only had one shot at making this weekend a joy. We can not go back and fix it if we ruin it with bad attitudes. We cannot take back what is spoken, or unspoken, in anger.

The weekend was mixed... wonderful, hot, cold, rainy, good food, bad overpriced food. Exhausting and relaxing. Quiet and noisy. But I think I maintained a pretty even keel throughout. My nephew and kids had a blast.

The pup made it through with only minor damage and wet mattresses from having to fold it up in the pouring rain.

We made it through with mostly good humor and some wonderful memories.

Decompression

I am finding it hard to be motivated to do much of anything this month. I don't feel like cleaning my house. I don't feel like working at my kitchen tools job. I go through the motions around chores. All I want to do lately is read my bible, take naps, and play my djembe, surf the net for new and interesting campgrounds on the Cape, maybe study Vietnamese for our trip.

Maybe it is because the activity level for a stay at home mom with two-little-boys-who- refuse-to-go-to-summer camp is high over the summer. For three months there is very little time to myself. There's lots of relaxation, but it is always syncopated with the kids activities.

So, lately, I am in what my friend Emily refers to as 'receive' mode. I just don't really want to DO much of anything. I just want to BE.

I got a bruise on my palm while playing my djembe last night.

Listen

The other night
At my drumming lesson
My teacher listened to me

He bowed his head
With his drum in his hands
Eyes closed
And after several minutes
Began to play and I knew that he was singing back to me
With his drum.

(I'll never forget it)

And then yesterday
At the lunch that should have been
Fish
My spiritual teacher listened
And when he spoke I had tears in my eyes because even now it moves me
To be listened to

So closely.

Please God,

Let me learn to listen as well as these teachers do.

Happy Happy Africa

My brother Jake came home from Botswana and Namibia yesterday, thinner, tired, and happy. It sounds like it was a wonderful trip! After dinner last night I went over to his house and saw some of the photos. Amazing. Elephants, rhinos, hippos, crocs, giraffes, zebras, baboons and tons of wild colored birds.

I am glad he is home safe. When he has some photos on his gallery site, I'll post the link.

Better get my earplugs

I have arranged for my drumming teacher to go to my kids' school and teach all the students about Mali and drumming. He is going to rent 60 djembes and have the kids come in in huge groups to learn a little about the culture and try out some rhythms. Isn't that great? I told him I will volunteer to help out and bring my two drums to share.

I can't wait to hear what 60 kids on djembes sound like. Wow!

The principal of the school is thrilled because it is the week after the big testing and she is sure the kids will LOVE to blow off some steam.

Fear of Paperwork

Is there an official phobia for that? Fear of filling out forms. Fear of bureaucracy? Fear of spelling bureaucracy wrong?

I sat at my computer with social security cards and old passports and birth certificates and had to print the same form over and over because I made mistakes and God forbid to mess this up because it is the State Department and if you mess up your passport applications, you are so screwed.

But I think I am done.

Tomorrow we go to the post office to get our photos taken and submit the apps and hope that we never end up on the wall with those OTHER photos.

Whew.

Next: Airline tickets and visas from the Vietnamese consulate. Then lots of shots for diseases that should have been eradicated a century ago. (Can you imagine cholera for crying out loud? My friend Michael actually caught it when he was in Thailand a few years ago. And rabies, but that's a whole other story.)

I found a gorgeous little Inn about a block from the beach in Nha Trang. It is called the Perfume Grass Inn. At $17 a night US it is a bargain, too. And I can't wait to try the mud baths. And grilled lobsters for $3. And hanging out with my in laws. And visiting my husband's home town.

Wonderful.

Even with the paperwork.

6 years later

and I still cannot talk about it without weeping.

Is it rhythm?

I seem to like rhythm, in my life, in my religion, in my week and in my drum. I like the cycles of the church year. I like the predictable nature of my week, with Sunday at church, Monday drum class, Tuesday bible study, Wednesday noon mass (this is a new addition I am trying to do regularly.) The structure creates space in which I can be

creative

or productive

or lazy.

Drumming class was just me again last night. The first time I was alone with Sidy, I was scared to death of messing up because I knew I couldn't hide behind someone else's drumming. Which meant, of course, that I got nervous and messed up a lot.

Last night was different. Something shifted. How this works is that I am playing the recurring rhythms while he solos. It is part of the learning process to get stable enough in the rhythm to allow a soloist to work off of you. Last time, I was too tentative... quiet, unsteady. I didn't feel like I was able to hold up my end of the conversation, so to speak.

But last night, I played powerfully. I recovered faster when I screwed up. I played loud enough and fast enough that Sidy could play inside and around my rhythm.

At some point, people came in to the bar through the back door. My teacher is a performer. When there is an audience, you can sense that he kicks it up. I was able to keep the rhythm going. I created the structure that gave him the space to break loose. I think we sounded good.

I had a big blister on my palm last night. When I got home, I excitedly showed Nguyen. Look, I said. I got this from playing.

My shoulders hurt today. I couldn't be more thrilled.

PS: Happy Birthday to me.

Not my actual birthday, but the anniversary of my baptism.

4 years ago today, I was 'whacked over the head by the Holy two by four'* of Christ and life hasn't been the same since.

Halleluja.

Thanks be to God.

*thanks to P.D. for that great expression, LOL.

Vietnam

Big doings around here...

About a week ago, after getting back from our camping trip, my husband received a letter from his father saying that his health is deteriorating and that he doesn't feel well. He has had several strokes over the last few years, so we were immediately concerned.

We have thought about traveling to Vietnam a lot since Nguyen's trip back a couple of years ago, but time and money (and the hassle factor, I think) have prevented us from moving forward. But you know what? We have to go now. We want Nguyen's dad to see the kids in his own town before he passes on. We want the kids to see their dad's homeland. Heck, I want to see his homeland. So we put the little trailer on the market and sold it within 2 days. It is going to finance our trip.

In February, we are traveling to Nha Trang for a couple of weeks. Maybe three. But at least two.

I am intimidated by the 23 hour plane ride and the 8 hour drive from Saigon to Nha Trang. I am a little worried that I am not usually at my best in humidity. And I am pretty sure I am going to miss western food at least a little. But I am also incredibly excited, even as the list of things to do gets big before we even start. (Visas, passports, inoculations for terrifying diseases.)

It feels, though, like this is some kind of major shift in our lives. I think it is going to be huge.

Off we go.

Breakfast of champions

It's not cheap, ($1.75 per container) but if you can find Fage Greek yogurt in your area, grab it. It is, without a doubt, the best yogurt I have ever had.

So, breakfast:

1/2 an apple cut into chunks
7 oz. container of Fage 2% plain yogurt

Mix.

Eat with a big tablespoon.

Then lick the bowl.

Thank God for hot water

After a weekend of camping in a place with no hot water, no bathrooms (think porta johns) and no showers, I was READY to come home.

Not that we didn't have fun. The campground is great, with a little pond stocked with fish, miles of hiking trails, great sites with fire pits and picnic tables and friendly neighbors. And the weather was spectacular as only an early September weekend can be. The sky was brilliant blue and virtually cloudless. The temperature was in the 70s during the day and down to the 50s at night.

We have a very cute camper called a Casita. It is made of molded fiberglass, which means it is pretty lightweight and doesn't leak. (No seams!) It has many of the creature comforts that make camping more fun. A comfortable bed with down pillows we inherited from my grandmother. A little refrigerator and a propane stove. A sink with cold water. It's a cozy place to hang out. (Pictured above, in our driveway.)

My favorite part of camping this time was cooking in the dutch oven. I am learning as I go along with this. This time I made two dishes. The first night was a dump cake. This is a concoction that was invented by the boy scouts. It involves cake mix and canned fruit and is surprisingly easy and delicious, except I left it in the fire too long and it ended up a charred mess.

The next effort was MUCH more successful. I made chili with cornbread. First, I fried up the onions in oil, then added a couple of pounds of ground beef. Once that was cooked, I added the chili spices, a can of tomatoes, some tomato sauce and a can of drained black beans. I put that in the fire and checked it regularly for about 20 minutes. When it was done, I mixed up some cornbread batter and dropped it on top of the chili. Put the giant cast iron lid on and covered it with a few embers from the fire. About 10 minutes later I brushed the embers off and opened the lid. Like magic, the cornbread had baked on top of the chili. It was absolutely delicious.

We saw lots of animals this time. The chipmunks, of course, with their little holes at the base of every tree. Each morning I was awakened by the red squirrels fussing in the trees. We saw a garter snake and dozens of kinds of dragon flies. The kids went frog hunting in a swamp and sank up to their knees in the mire while in hot pursuit. We kicked open a rotten log and found a couple of salamanders. We saw hawks and sand pipers and all manner of creatures, great and small.

I managed not to get too cranky when the campsite was left a mess by all three of the menfolk.
The kids, for the first time, were given free rein in the campground, tooling around on their bikes, or walking down to the beach on their own.

It was a wonderful way to top off a great summer.