Tag: joy

Buddhism, Family, Marriage, Meditation, Parenting, Special Needs, Uncategorized

The Many Faces of Memory

Posted on by kosanford

I think a lot about memory.  As I get older I remember details or the way something felt, rather than events.  I can’t remember the name of my second grade teacher but I remember exactly what the hooks looked like where we hung our jackets.  It was a small hallway leading into our classroom, with hooks on either side.  There was a window at one end and when the sun would shine in you could see all the dust moving in the air. I liked that little room, the wood of the floor worn down by many years of kids like me, the hooks with our names written underneath, a spot for everyone. The only thing I really remember about that school is the coat room and it’s hooks, and the way the sun would slice into the space lighting up a small section of busy dust .  

 

Memory is all about connections, fragments of days and events stick around in my head, some feel random like the coat room, some are sweet like the memory of the day Colin proposed or the days when we met our kids. Some are still very sharp and real like the hours we spent in waiting rooms of doctors as we slowly unraveled Mae’s diagnosis of Autism. I can remember both the feeling and the details of these days with incredible clarity; the emotion of them accompanies the home movie as it plays in my head.  Sometimes it can be like reliving the experience, both the happy tears and the sad ones.  

 

I am always interested in how memory affects behavior. My sons don’t like getting in trouble because they remember how rotten they feel when they have done something they shouldn’t.  They are motivated to make choices that keep them out of trouble by the memory of a feeling.  I can’t really eat sugar any more, not because I don’t like it but because I remember that it makes me feel awful.  When I am struggling to motivate myself to go running or sit for meditation I remind myself how good it felt the day before.  Memory is a powerful force in everything I do.

 

I am always interested in the things Mae remembers.  Does she remember the feeling of the day we adopted her or of being on the airplane? Does she remember the feeling of all of the operations and doctors visits that filled our days when we first got home from China?  I remember the sadness, exhaustion, and helplessness of them more than I remember the names of the various doctors and all their grim reports. I always wonder if she remembers them at all.  

 

She has a very clear memory for the things that matter to her, she always knows where her favorite snacks are, and a stash of plastic for her to play with.  She remembers where we keep her swimsuit and is more likely to find the ID card for the pool than I am.  She pays close attention to the things she cares about, and ignores all the rest. She is my child and I think that she is brilliant; one of the ways I convince other people of this is using her memory as an example. She can’t speak but her very good memory is proof that she can learn, and I am always quick to point it out.

 

When you live with someone whose brain is largely a mystery, memory is proof of connections she can’t verbalize but that clearly exist. As I age, my memory is changing.  It requires more effort to hold on to the details.  I feel like my brain has become one of those vests that people use for fly fishing.  It is filled with pockets of information, song lyrics, old phone numbers, directions to homes I don’t live in anymore, passages from books long since passed on to friends.  My sons are always interested in my memories of life when I was their age, what was it like for me to be 11 or 12, they are often frustrated when I describe the memory of a feeling instead of telling a story.

 

Most interestingly is how we can change the role that memories play.  I remember that first crazy year after Mae’s diagnosis as a series of events, but also now in retrospect as my own personal endless Ironman.  My memories of having survived it are something I call on frequently to remind myself that nothing is impossible.  I have started to think of my memories like money in the bank, I can call on them when needed to provide perspective, motivation or to save me from myself. I have also learned through my meditation practice that I have a tendency to get stuck in my own memories. I have learned by watching my own mind that I can replay or relive events long since over and still feel the irritation or sadness that accompanied them.  It is a habit that does not serve me well.  Why not revisit the happy memories instead of the ones that make my blood boil?  Your memory can keep you from making the same mistakes twice and encourage you to repeat things that have worked in the past, but the best idea is to invest yourself and your attention in your present, because for better or worse that is where your life is actually happening.

Buddhism, Family, Marriage, Meditation, Mindfulness, Parenting, Yoga

By Any Means Necessary

Posted on by kosanford

As school vacation ended this past week, I was desperate for my children to go back to school.  When we have all been in the house for a little too long there is an itchy, restless feeling around the edges of everything they do.  In my body it manifests as massive fatigue. When they were all home it felt like a huge effort to do anything, the second they left I found myself energized and able to address my to-do list.  

I don’t like that itchy, cranky feeling, it feels like a lack of gratitude.  Sitting in my warm safe house with my three kids and my loving husband and feeling unsatisfied seems fundamentally wrong.  I know I only feel this way because I am desperate for us to return to the routine that comes with school and work.  Even knowing that, I search for an antidote, I remind myself how lucky I am, I sit for meditation, or go for a run.  Truly there is only one thing that really helps, and for me it is reflecting on the alternative.

Last New Year’s, Colin wasn’t feeling well.  He was tired, stressed and his back hurt.  In fairness, we are both tired and have been since Ben appeared in 2004, so when he complained of exhaustion, I ignored it.  When he talked about his back hurting I told him to stretch, put your legs up the wall and breathe deeply.  When he said he was going to see a doctor, I shrugged.  The doctor ran a million tests and they were all inconclusive. Colin’s face  was slowly turning gray but I couldn’t see it.  I was too busy thinking about the details of our life.  The kids’ schools, our leaky roof, our muddy driveway, my own aches, pains and frustrations.  I was so engaged in our day-to-day that I wasn’t able to see that my husband was fading away.  Or maybe I didn’t want to see it.

In February he had an angiogram, and they found and cleared a significant blockage, one they call the “widow-maker.” At the time I just focused on how lucky we were. I heaped praise on Colin for seeking out a second opinion. I talked about the miracles of medicine and joked that he had eaten his last cheeseburger.  We have a habit in our family of turning difficult realities into punchlines and this was no different.  He would joke that with his new “gear” as we referred to the stent that he was like a newborn; he could throw himself into bad habits with gusto.  I would feign horror, knowing that we would find some easy middle ground.

It wasn’t until the end of this year that I really thought about how differently the story could have ended.  There are many skilled practitioners of Buddhism who can find gratitude without thinking of what could have gone wrong.  I am not one of them.  As 2015 ended, I found myself thinking more and more about what could have happened, about my life without Colin.  Not just the practical financial aspects, which would be grim at best, but also the impossible loneliness I would feel in his absence.  When I find myself irritated by the hundreds of water glasses he manages to use and leave behind in a day, or the peanut butter with a knife sticking out left on the counter after lunch, or the fact he never quite remembers to close the fridge….  When I see those things and start to think to myself “what the ????” I think about the other ending we could have had to 2015, the ending where my husband got so gray that he disappeared altogether.  When I think about that I don’t even see the water glasses or the peanut butter.

One of my favorite phrases in Buddhism is “skillful means.”  It is used to describe the many different methods available to people as they search for truth.  The longer you practice, the more clear and efficient your means become.  It isn’t especially skillful to appreciate the life you have by imagining the worst case scenario.  But for now it’s what i am working with.  I cannot seem to learn the lesson enough times that the real treasures are hidden in the most ordinary days.

6
Family, Marriage, Meditation

On any given day……..

Posted on by kosanford

mae every dayI have a very dear friend who lost both her father and beloved uncle in a very short period of time.  For years afterwards, when she was talking about any situation that was disappointing or inspired any feelings of sadness, she would start the sentence by saying, “I know no one is dead but…”  It was as if after the immense pain and trauma of the initial loss she felt she was never entitled to feel sad again.  I understand this; in the years since Mae’s diagnosis, the tsunami of disappointment and sadness that we wrestled with made any daily disappointments seem trivial.  For a long time I would fail to even register irritation of any kind, even when I started to return to myself.  I would dismiss annoyances by reminding myself that I had a child with Autism, and therefore this broken car mirror, or internet that won’t work, or any number of other minor bothers weren’t worth my time.

In some ways, though, this is problematic. After my wedding, a very joyful day, I didn’t imagine that I would never feel equal happiness again.  Nor did I compare everyday moments of contentment to the major rush of happiness that accompanied our wedding.  Imagine if after a long, delightful day at the beach with our family I turned to Colin and said, “Well that was fun. I am happy —  I mean not like wedding happy — but happy.” I am not sure he would feel like it was a positive assessment.

We don’t wear our happy experiences like armor to protect us from future happiness, so why do we feel that our painful experiences should protect us from future discomfort?  There is no amount of perspective that will make you immune to the ups and downs of an ordinary life.  Every day is filled with opportunities to feel virtually every emotion available.  In any given hour, I can have my feelings hurt, I can laugh, I can be embarassed, I can be in love.  That can go on all the time every day. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

I think that perspective is only valuable if it doesn’t prevent you from really feeling everything, both good and bad.  It is okay to be annoyed even if it is just because your pedicure was smudged.  I can also be inordinately happy when Mae’s very expensive almond milk yogurts are on sale.  Yesterday, I was practically giddy because while I was walking the dog she expertly pooped in a mouse hole of some sort, which meant I did not have to bag it and carry it home.  It was thrilling.  I decided the dog was a genius, and my days of picking up poop were over. By the time I got home I had forgotten about it completely because I noticed that the molding under the door was loose and I was immediately absorbed in how to fix it.

It is unfortunate that we can never be inoculated against sadness, embarrassment or irritation. There is no quota on disappointment in life, some have more, some have less.  By the same token we have endless opportunities for joy; there is no limit on what can bring a smile to your face even in the darkest of moments.  I am grateful for the perspective that being a special needs parent has given me, I am empowered by it.  I never wonder what I am made of and that is a very good feeling.  At the same time, I have to remember that just because I have perspective doesn’t mean I should deny or ignore the ordinary bumps that come up in a day.  Some days are great: you get married, you have babies, you see old friends. Some moments are great: you laugh hard, your daughter speaks, your children are swimming together, your dog poops in a hole.  Some days are awful: your daughter is sick, you have crazy medical bills, your car won’t start, you have hurt the feelings of someone you love…Sometimes it can all happen in the same day, because life is like that. Just the way we would never say that a balanced meal is made up entirely of desserts a balanced life is filled with every emotion.  The important thing is to allow yourself to really feel, to really connect to the life that you are having, because up or down, it is the one you have.

 

2
Family, Parenting, Uncategorized

It’s not about the gold star…

Posted on by kosanford

MomMy mother doesn’t like gold stars, in fact she doesn’t like attention of any kind and feels about applause the way a cat feels about the bath.  In her own quiet steady way my mother has made her life about finding the beauty and the magic in places where other people can’t see it or don’t think it exists.  She does this in small ways, like choosing the Charlie Brown christmas tree every year despite the fact that there are many gorgeous, full ones available.  And in large ways by spending her career as an advocate for the rights of women and children all around the world.

My parents have sold their house.  It has a plaque on it that says “John Knapp House 1760” in case you thought your eyes were deceiving you about whether or not it was old.  The people who have bought it will perhaps tear it down. We knew that and recently signed the demolition papers that accompany the sale.  The land is worth more than the house to anyone but us, and for the most part we have made peace with that strange reality.  So, recently when I walked by my mother’s house and saw that she was planting pansies I couldn’t help myself.  I laughed and said, “Are you gardening for the bulldozers?”  In my family we have a long history of taking uncomfortable truths and whacking each other with them until they stop feeling weird.  She looked at me, smiled and said “No, it’s still my house and I would like to look outside and see pansies.”

She is right of course. She won’t move until August, which is several months of looking outside your window at no pansies.  Do I think it is a little bit like the band playing as the Titanic sank? Absolutely.  If she didn’t plant them no one would notice except her.   We are all too busy going a million different directions. She didn’t plant them for us, or for the bulldozers, she planted them because she loves them. My mother has built her life around the belief that no matter how grim a situation there is always the opportunity for the human spirit to triumph.  Whether it was giving voice to those most downtrodden on the other side of the world, or believing in the power of spring flowers to uplift us all.

She has quietly taught me and everyone who knows her that there is the possibility for magic in all things. That life’s most beautiful and poignant moments come in the places where we least expect them.  We can choose to see the joy and possibility in our everyday, not because we want gold stars, but because it makes for a better view.

 

Family, Marriage, Meditation

Every day, choose joy…some days it works

Posted on by kosanford

ImageOn any given day, I am a chef, a maid, a chauffeur, a doctor, an engineer and very often a UN peacekeeping force, and that can be before breakfast.  I am exhausted and empowered by the number of problems I solve every day.  Having three kids, one with special needs can mean that I have to remember both the pythagorean theorem to help B with his homework and try and figure out why M is banging her head…..concurrently.

I really believe that we have the power to shape how we feel about things.  There are certain facts of my life.  I have a child with really significant special needs, I have a curve in my spine that were it straight, I would be two inches taller, which would make me skinny.  I curse a lot.  Sugar is the one wagon I can’t stay on. Despite my best efforts, I still want to be cool.  My hair is getting gray really fast. I was not grossed out yesterday when I said to one of my children “please don’t pick your nose at the table and eat it.”  I am who I am, I admire women who are elegant and glamorous.  Instead I am the kind of woman who often accidentally spits while speaking.

One thing that has always been true about me is that I am an optimist.  In the days and weeks after my daughter was diagnosed with autism I found myself profoundly sad, it rested in my bones.  I worried that I would never feel like myself again, I missed myself.  I was serious all the time.  I went to bed reading medical textbooks, and spent my days in doctors’ offices.  I longed for fart jokes, or for some sense of lightheartedness to return to our lives.  I thought it never would.

I was wrong, it did.  One morning, I woke up and felt a little bit like my old self, and gradually the rest of me came pouring back.  I now know that while an obstacle itself may not be a choice, my response to it can be.  I never expected to have a child with whom I couldn’t speak, but I cannot let it break my heart.  I wake up and know that I will be faced with lots of opportunities for perspective.  Sometimes I succeed and make a difficult moment into an easy one by taking a couple of deep breaths and just moving forward.  Other times I unleash a string of profanity and feel sorry for myself.  Each moment is a chance to be honest about who I am and show up for the people who need me.  Life does not always lend itself to joy.  Joy is a choice and we can make it every day, and on the days we don’t, we can forgive ourselves and move on.