Merry Matron Update!

The Matronly return to the blog has thus far been somewhat somber.  Here, she will update regular (for those hanging in!) readers with news of the day.

Wait.  She means year.    Slim blog pickings lately, she knows.

Friends, she is relieved and stunned to announce that it is a good era in the family life.  For the most part, people who live here like one another.    The details?

He Who Cannot Be Named (HWCBN) has one foot out the door.   The middle of his junior year is so far defined by academic and debate (varsity team) successes notable enough to be already be opening college doors in a variety of ways.   More importantly - on a minute by minute basis for a 16 year old -- he is the proud owner o fa 1999 Lincoln Continental, purchased from a neighbor by a fraction of the Blue Book value and stocked with music like this --

Okay, there is less palatable fare but we'll leave it at that.

Important to the Matron on that same minute by minute basis?   He is nothing but compassion, grace, and dry wit toward his mother.   These are the reasons she is not unhappy to get up at 5:30 am on school days to prepare a heartfelt breakfast (bacon!  scones! eggs!) -- every morning.  For which he thanks her.

Much has been written here about Scarlett, veteran of the stage at age 10.   Dearth here -- in fact, the Matron thinks that her last Stage Mother update was nearly a year ago!    Much has transpired since, none of it predictable.

Scarlett was first diagnosed with vocal cord nodules, a not -uncommon condition which resolved itself only to reveal a large lesion and hemorrhage previously hidden by the nodes.  These conditions?  Not so common.    Not only was the daughter immediately whisked off stage (she even quit a show, which is unheard of only to the point of tsunami in theater) her doctors at the University of Minnesota's Lion's Voice Clinic (best around) sighed that surgery was the most likely option.

Still.

Very Fine Surgeon Specializing in Singers:   "I would be unethical to perform this risky surgery on a 14 year old.  There's a .5% chance that the lesion will heal on its own.  We have to take it."

But the chance?  Required one month of complete vocal rest.

That child -- the one onstage since 8 and the center of an astonishing array of friends and social events -- was suddenly silent.  She took a medical leave from school.  She communicated with a white board and dry erase marker.  She said 'no' to sleepovers and trips to the mall.  No friends, except those able to adhere to the guidelines (few).  Instead of being in shows, she saw them.    She follows the surgeon's rules to the letter of the law, all in the hopes of avoiding a dangerous (to a developing voice) surgery.

And . . . she did it!!

The Matron remains in awe of this young woman's resolve and discipline.    She also remains  . . . here, she is at an uncharacteristic loss for a single pithy word.   How to describe having your 14 year old daughter tethered to the home front for a month?    The Matron is hugely grateful for that time -- but the medical leave from school and month of silence was a family endeavor.   Psychological fortitude was in demand from all the players (maybe even more so for the mama?).

She wouldn't trade that month for the world.  Or do it over.

Merrick remains the tag line, adorably uneventful at 9.   Give him a dog and a stick -- still --and promise him there's no school tomorrow and you have the prototype for Ideal Human.   The richer, more complex addendum to the tag line that is the youngest is that he is a full-body person, the kind who does not necessarily thrive in school or willingly pick up a novel.  No.

Merrick's Teacher:  "Mary!  It's so interesting that Merrick doesn't turn in assignments during the day.  He just does a couple of problems or something halfway and then finishes.  I ask him 'Merrick don't you notice that everyone else is working' and he says, yup."

Matron: "Can he stay inside during recess or somehow have a consequence for this?"

Teacher:  "I don't believe in punitive measures.   This will sort out.'

Indeed.  The Matron thinks that 'punitive' is sometimes promising -- and actually, a fact of life.   Also a fact of life, this mother would rather the teacher do the dirty work.  So much easier that way.   Unfortunately, parenting is not the easy path and this mama and her husband?    Trying to build responsibility into Merrick's bone structure.  

Life is good for the young people in the house are, in a word:  poised.  One is readying for college and another for that next audition, both ready to make that mark somewhere outside of the home.  The youngest doesn't yet know that he too is ready for launching, as it's the parents who be lighting that cannon.  Still, it's happening.

And yours truly?

After 16 months of agony and defeat, the Matron has accepted reality and the new number that comes with it.  She has no problem declaring her rightful claim on 50.  Indeed, she appreciates that there are some things in life that are, now, a younger person's game.    That's okay.   But there's a secret, enduring tool that yours truly possesses and that is her great, big, highly-functioning brain.   Now, this entity can give her no end of trouble (oh, the roads we take!) but can also shine when the body and beauty ache.   She plans to use it.

Starting with . . . . yours truly has been commissioned by an actual, real, professional, theater company to write a play!!    She's a hired gun here and grateful for it, so can't spill any details - yet.  But she will when the time is right.  In the interim, know that one intrepid writer will be getting paid for her work.   Other people will experience her work:  it will be staged!!   Tickets will be sold and an audience, clapping!

This makes one 50 year old very, very happy.

Now, you say:  how does she do it?    Career, teenagers, elementary school child, college looming, theater, marriage to maintain, play to write, dogs to coddle?!!

Here is the Matron.

Actually, not quite.   Her will of steel hasn't loosened but her desires have.  Slowly, steadily, the Matron has learned not to worry about work.  She doesn't.   Her job -- while it has its moments - is largely like chopping vegetables:  a task that must be done.   It isn't stressful but takes time.  When one is immersed in the task, there is joy in completion and excellence.   That's it.  She doesn't chat about colleagues or worry what might happen next, but has learned to show up and be a great teacher.    She dabbles here and there in other interests, as required, but as learned the language of "No but thank you."   This has meant a shift from being deeply engaged in college-wide issues, serving on lots of committees, and being tapped (and saying yes) to take on all kinds of leadership or interesting positions.    Not now, anyway.

Being a great teacher, she also has learned, does not mean spending hours and hours on semicolons in student papers.  That, friends, has proven a tremendous waste of time.  More on that, later.  But a more refined focus on writing instruction that doesn't require The Teacher as the only expert in the room has made this task much easier as well -- and pedagogically sound.   Blog post on this soon, she promises.

Perhaps the most significant change is much less quantifiable.  Indeed, it is nearly inexplicable and warrants her attention on its own little page here, which will be coming.  Suffice it to say, those 16 months building to that birthday weren't wasted away but produced transformation.  Something majestic, even.

Finally, the Matron's stalwart companion of 21 years?  John too turned 50.  Instead of wringing his hands for an entire year or buying a Harley Davidson, he woke up on May 19th and said:  "well, I'm 50" and then mowed the lawn.    While patiently watching his wife's extended breakdown.  He's eithe a keeper or crazy himself!

There, is the not so pithy but more complete, update!  

Happy holiday season, of all sorts, to each of you, dear friend and reader!

Carrying Suffering's Weight

Like most Americans, the events of last Friday brought the Matron to her knees:  literally.  She was on a run when the news filtered in through the radio headpiece:    the AP confirmed one victim and the shooter, dead.

"Oh!" panted the Matron, still intent on the task.  "Please let it not be a child but some adult that crazy person targeted."   

 A few minutes later, an audibly emotional radio announcer intoned that 18 elementary school children were among the 20 + dead.

The Matron stopped running.

There's snow in Minnesota and there she sat, weeping for those babies and their mothers -- dumbfounded in the face of Evil able to walk into a school and murder children.   Eventually she dragged herself home, only to spend the rest of her waking hours online and in front of the TV.

She cried when she picked up Scarlett from school and clutched He Who Cannot be Named when he walked through the door.   When it was time to get her 9-year old from a friend's house, just seeing the simple act of Merrick opening the van door broke her maternal heart.

Some other mother will never see that simple act again, not from the child she lost.

So bereft was the Matron that she spent two days uncharacteristically unable to move on.   Because that's what she heard on Minnesota Public Radio and read in the newspaper:  how to cope, how to explain, how to move past tragedy.     She was offered no shortage of expert advice in self-care.   The only problem is that advice came while she would be weeping or wondering at a world where "assault-type rifles" hang on some family's wall.

 Scarlett:  "Mom, you should stop watching the news."

John: "I know, I know, sweetie.  Just don't go there.  It's too awful."

The Matronly Mental Health Self Talk:  "Don't project your own 'stuff,' know your boundaries, model good self-regulation for your children, don't get sucked in, move on and be a better person in honor of those families."

Not one thing worked -- not even NPR.  Instead, she of most-excellent imagination went over and over the terror those children may have experienced and the parents' grief.  What is the extent of f human suffering?  This seems unbearable.   What kind of country have we become, when a 24-year old man walks into a school and slaughters  helpless children (using the weapon his mother legally purchased).

In desperation, on Sunday the Matron went to Clouds in the Water Zen Center, hoping against hope that the Sunday 'sermon' (Dharma talk) would take on the horror in the same visceral, full-body way in which the Matron seemed destined to experience herself.

Friends, she was not disappointed.

The priest -- a woman about the Matron's age -- just picked right up where the Matron was.

Priest:  "I cannot move beyond Friday's events.   I am weeping, rooted in suffering, trying to understand how to incorporate this into human existence."

The Dharma talk turned into a conversation where Priest and community members talked.  She doesn't need to go into those details.  You know them.   The world moved in that conversation:   gun control to suffering to children to mental illness to video games to presidential politics.

Here -- in a paraphrase unworthy of the real deal -- is how the Priest wrapped them up:   "I think that not only is it okay to not 'move on," I don't think we're supposed to.  What does 'moving on' mean?.   We bear witness to the most unimaginable suffering.   The Dharma tells us that we are all connected and that life's work is the end of suffering.  So we are where we should be, thick in the middle of it."

Here she paused.  "This particular tragedy tells me that we must expand our grief pool.  We should reconsider the expanse of human suffering from which we find shelter from on a daily basis.  That shelter from suffering is a luxury we can choose to set aside."

And the Matron knew in that moment how much she pulls out the luxury of shelter --- how she understands that death, disease, and war define the lives of millions while she turns on her flat-screen TV or debates the merits of those new boots.  Suffering from which she shelters herself is not limited to what's far away.   Friends and family crippled by addiction, mental illness, or existential despair are often those she avoids:  good boundaries and self-protection.   Yet these people are suffering, too.   

So the Matron left Clouds in the Water feeling more firmly situated in her grief.    She understood that asking the big questions were precisely what the situation warranted --and she was glad to be reassured within her religious community that there really is no 'moving on' from the human condition, a condition she shares with the mothers and fathers of Sandy Hook.  

And Ethiopia, Pakistan, South Detroit, and four blocks down.

Sometimes feeling better isn't 'making things right' but seeing the world differently.   Let's open the grief pool, folks.   That's an action statement, from voting differently to lobbying to alleviating the pain of a friend to whatever ways in which we can do right and live our own lives in ways  that work against pain (large and small) and suffering.   

  In the end, that's how the world changes.

And . . . the Return

Last week, the Matron intended to return to this blog.  

Hmmmmm . . . . sort of like "did you do your homework?"   The answer wouldn't be no, but 'not yet.'

The  Matron has been in a year-long, deeply interior place.    She sees a light at the end of that tunnel, but, friends, it's a flicker.  And it's not the bright, comedic, light of youth.

On November 26th, the Matron turned 50.    When she first started this blog, she was a solid mid-forties, and the Matron Moniker?   A joke.    

It is no longer:  50. 

The Matron is not a greeting card sort of person, so those "you're halfway through" elbow-nudges fall on deaf ears.    The life expectancy for a woman in the United States, born in 1962, is 73 to 80 years old.  

Folks -- that's 23 to 30 years.   

As any hard-working human (especially us mothers) knows, one day is an eternity of task and emotion:  we fall into bed with long to-do lists and impressions of the relationships and people the day left behind.     On some level, the Matron feels like those potential 20 some years are a gift!!   Each day a universe, an eternity.

On another -- she barely remembers yesterday.  Do you?  

Will the next 20 pass this way?

Friends -- she does not mean to be depressing you.   But rather than not write, the Matron has decided to plunge full speed ahead into honesty and reflection.    Yes, there will be humor. . . . remember, she has two teenagers and a 9 year old.  Sitcom material.    

Children don't keep this Mama young -- just awake.

Update coming on details -- a young man picking colleges, an actor recovering from an injury, the 9 year old slogging guns and dogs-- but for now, the Matron signals a return.  She has time (more on this too) and renewal. 

And very, very, painfully aware that time and renewal are temporary gifts, entertained at this minute.  No more.

Wherein the Matron Talks Politics

The Matron has turned her voting decisions over to her nine year old son.

Presidential Politics

Merrick:  "Mom, is it true that Mitt Romney tied his dog to the top of his car and DROVE on a vacation?"

Matron:  "Not privy to all the details, but yes.  That's true."

Merrick:  "Can you say it for me?"

Matron:  "?"

Merrick:  "Exactly what he did.  Say it so I can be sure."

Matron:  "Mitt Romney tied his dog on top of the family car and drove to his vacation."

Merrick:  "With the dog on top?"

Matron:  "Yes."

Complete horror overtakes the child.

Merrick:  "AND WE LET HIM RUN FOR PRESIDENT?  CAN'T WE ARREST HIM?"

Well, the Matron fell right out of her binder, laughing.

The Marriage Amendment in Minnesota

Minnesotans will be voting on whether or not to amend the state constitution to mandate that marriage can only be between one man and one woman.  Mormons must leave the state.

Merrick:  "If that amend thing passes, do Ann and Ann, Ricky and DJ, Aunties Chris and Susan, Holly and Betsy, Marc and Paul -- and Amy's Moms, you know, the Lauras  - do they all have to get a divorce?  By force?"

Matron:  "Honey, they're not married.  It's illegal right now for anybody who's not heterosexual to get married.  So nobody's married yet."

Shock on Merrick's end.

Merrick:  "You mean Lilly's moms and Abe's moms and the spermer dad -- and the Aunties -- NOBODY'S MARRIED?"

Matron:  "Not as in 'legally,' -- no."

Merrick:  "Nobody told all their kids, you know."

The Matron's only solace is the amendment passes?  Merrick and is kind are next in line to make these decisions.   Things will be different.

The Matron Has Not Been Sleeping!

Oh, loyal and lovely readers!

Yours truly is not completely abandoning her blog.   No.  She did dip through that near-divorce period.  But after a trial separation, she realizes that the cannot bear to severe this tie.   Mostly her divorce flirtations were an attempt to move over to Wordpress, but she's going to stick with Blogger.

Instead, the Matron has been fully engaged in life-on-the-ground:  everything is going great!    But this Fall, with an eye (and stomach ache) looking forward to the cost of college, she signed up to teach (gasp!) 130% time instead of the regular 100%.

This was:  A Bad Idea.

Yes, that extra bit of cash has come in handy, but the Matron has slogged through up to 200 pieces of student work A WEEK.   Much of these:  papers.   But the extra class --the one that has stopped her writing life, in all its incarnations -- ends on Sunday!   Papers will be tidied up and packaged in short order, and life returns to normal.

So will the Matron!  Thanks for being here.  Just knowing that there are reader - -friends, now -- wondering what's up, made her want to return!

Sunday, Meditation

Today, the Matron finally felt back on her feet -- and back to the blog.  

Priorities, ordered:  family, job, grant application, book.   If a task at hand doesn't fit into one of those categories, she's tossing it out.   A few old commitments will tag along into this new focus, but anything new? Not happening.  

Because . . . yours truly began that book, the long awaited 'third time's the charm' pile of paper.    Wish her well:  it's a memoir.    High end personal dish, she hopes.   Every single life is a story, from the first breath to last.   She's just penning hers.  

She took that life outside today, on a spectacular Minnesota afternoon.   If the word "Minnesota" elicits pollen or polar warnings, that's actually true.  But about three weeks a year, the weather is perfect!  

What a day for a run!    As of late, the Matron has felt more kinship with exercise.   Yes, she's pounded the pavement, done a mean downward dog, swam laps and spun the elliptical, but mostly it felt like duty.   Now, she's quite fond of those runs -- fond enough that some sort of actual sign-me-up real race might be in her future.  In that spirit, she decided to time her run.   She doesn't wear a watch while running so she checked the kitchen clock and sprinted out the door.  Four miles would be behind her in no time!

Eight blocks in, much to her complete delight, she saw a neighbor who is also an old friend from another era.  They hadn't really talked in at least year!  So when the Matron saw Trudy trundling through her yard, she did what you would do:  she stopped for a conversation.

Back on the road, the intrepid running calculated that lost time -- seven minutes.    She did her mental mechanics and got back on the timing track . . . . . for about another mile.  When she had to pee.

Now the call of the bladder is the Matron's most constant companion on her runs.  She is forever in debt to the Parks and Rec workers who unlock certain bathroom doors at 6 am, without fail.   The Matron knows exactly how much time it takes her to walk into the park building and pee (in the right place, people).  Three minutes.

Foiled again!    Inside the public bathroom was a very young mother with a toddler and an infant.   It appeared that everybody was crying . . . the baby was screaming, the little girl wailing and the poor mom?  Just about ready to burst.  The Matron hadn't seen anyone waiting for these folks outside so she wondered if the mom -- a teen, really -- was on her own.

You guessed it.  The young mama handed the Matron a bottle so she could hold (and pacify) the little guy while the mama took the toddler to the potty.  Everybody did their business, including the Matron eventually, she handed the baby back and went on her way.

She had no idea how to time that one.

Still -- there was a sense of schedule!   There was the home stretch, unfolding in front of her!   This is the prettiest part of the run, right along a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River.  The view is spectacular!

Which is precisely why the young lovers holding hands and kissing, STOPPED the Matron -- very, very nicely and apologetically --and asked if she would take their picture against the stunning city and river backdrop.    They were all dressed up:  suit, skirt, heels and tie.  And super happy.

Here, the Matron gave up.  She tossed aside that schedule and intention, and took a whole bunch of (she hopes) not too fuzzy photos!    It turns out that yours truly has a keen photographic eye, as she even did some arranging:  you, here.  No, turn that way.   It was wonderful.

Just to make the whole thing perfect, as she was running home she decided to stop by and introduce herself to a new neighbor, check on her dear friend Ann, and pop into Stephanie's house up the street.  All in all that hard-core, timed kick-ass run?

Not as important as all those people who got in her way.

Sunday, Meditation

The Matron fairly flew to her regular Sunday Mediation Group.  She loves these people beyond reason, a room populated by other souls who search.

Today,, yours truly needed that meeting, that half hour of silence shared by a handful of people.   She was in a mood.

Actually that mood dogged the Matron all week.   She was irritable and overwhelmed.   The heart of the week included the three required "Professional Days" at work, most of which involved college faculty stuffed into an auditorium listening to people talk at them.  One day this activity last SIX HOURS.

Yes, six hours of sitting.  While people talked.

The Matron can't even tell you what transpired during those lectures as she was mightily occupied with her Kindle and Anne Enright.   Indeed, over the course of those three days, she managed to read everything Enright has ever written -- and she recommends you do the same.   Start with The Gathering. 

But this was the Matronly state.  Not present.  Discontent.  Distracted.  Annoyed.

Her husband annoyed her.   Children, grated.  Even the dogs, the dogs!  One must be in a particular state of mind to welcome the mad swoop of love from an 82 pound coon hound.  She wasn't there.

After much searching, she realized just one phrase -- and one alone -- described her.  The Matron was a fussy bitch.

Now, the combination of fussy-- its implicit prickly and prissiness--and bitchy--with its all out snark and critique-- is pretty much an entirely uncomfortable place to inhabit.   One must remain in a state that is both snullen, dark, critical and snappy, WHILE ALSO offering prim critique of the unacceptable world infringing on one's own pristine (and practically perfect) state.

A woman of considerable talent, the Matron managed both, pitch perfect.   Her poor family tiptoed around, not knowing if they were to be subject to sarcastic commentary or passive-aggressive critique.  Mostly, John, of course.

"How nice that you slept nine hours!   I was SO happy when I was vacuuming the cars at 7 am after checking my email and sweeping, just knowing you were getting really good sleep."

Or her favorite:  "No, really.  I'm FINE."

So she roared into meditation (again, that talent allowing her to straddle multiple, contradictory emotional states) all fussy and bitchy.

THAT'S MY ZAFU, IDIOT!!!

That's what she wanted to say to the 75 year old grandmother of 12 huddling on a cushion.   Instead, she closed her eyes and the miracle -- the regular, predictable and life-saving miracle -- of silence took hold.   She succumbed to the roil and ripple of silence, the breath in the room.

And felt better.

That more settled state situated her in a more receptive state of mind.  You see, fussy and bitchy project.   Fussy and bitchy is reactive.   The Matron's particular fussy-bitchy state certainly found its origins in the world around her, beleaguered and overwhelmed by the stacks and stacks of tasks stealing every hour.   She didn't write all week!  Didn't meditate!

The Matron went over her woes -- this considerable list, this stack of woes -- with a friend after meditation.

The list?  She's teaching more than full time (130% -- for the money) and that extra class is brand new, and online (Creative Writing).    Not only that, add on the details of children!  Performing Arts high school for Scarlett, auditions, rehearsals, the endless stream of friends and outings!  Why, even on Sunday, the Matron had three hours of attending to the actor ahead.    He Who Cannot Be Named's debate team needs money and yours truly?  She is the grant-writer savior, hoping to plow out at least 20 to major local foundations.  If you haven't written a grant?  It takes hours.   Then the driving, the friends and there's Merrick:  tennis, drums, and the extra tutelage means slogging to tutors.    If she wasn't already Over-Burdened, the Matron began the process of applying for a Fulbright to be used during her 2014-15 sabbatical.   Plus, she's strutting her stuff for a massive grant application (50 grand and 5 thousand to three finalists), is revising a novel and oh . . . she'll have about 150 students.  Don't even get her going about cleaning the house. . . and OH.  She has to WRITE A PLAY for a local theater company.  When in the world will she have time to write a play?

But a strange thing happened as the Matron moved down her list of troubles.  Her voice trailed off a bit . . she became hesitant, unsure.   A little bit embarrassed.

These are not troubles.

You may already know this, reader, looking at the above List of Woes.  Not one item - not one -- on that list is an actual problems.   The so-called burdens she's been railing against all week?  Gifts.  Gifts born entirely of success, hard work, and no small amount of luck:  engaged children, a solid career, aspirations, a lovely large house.

The Matron has been commissioned to write a play.  And was whining about it (there's that talent again).

As God-Buddha-Oprah-Allah-Universe is her witness, the Matron did not know this until that electrifying, reality-shifting moment on the sidewalk.  All that worry, all that 'to do' settled on her shoulders like an ocean,  is entirely 100% good stuff (okay, except maybe grading freshman comp papers), things she herself set in motion.

She's overwhelmed with opportunity.  She gets to teach Creative Writing!  And Contemporary Fiction, Introduction to Gender Studies.  That's fun, folks.   How lucky - -how fabulous -- to have a super-smart, top-five-of his graduating class son keen on debate --and if that's not enough, that she possesses the precise skill he and his team need, that grant-writing experience and ability.  How amazing -- spectacular and singular -- really, to have a daughter like Scarlett?   Talent, joy and kindness trailing her across every stage she's ever walked.   How lucky that the Matron was able, at 44 and after staying home with children for a decade, to not only land a job at a college but establish a career.   Then there's writing. A gift that's pure lose-yourself-pleasure.  She'll be doing a lot of it, soon.

Fussy Bitch packed up her broomstick and flew home.

So did the Matron.  Lit.  With gratitude.