Aidan's World

Our life and landscape through Aidan's lens:

Aidan's World

Our life and landscape through Aidan's lens:

navigating for the long haul

In August, I wrote a couple of times about feeling burned out and tired. I even talked to a couple of friends about it, and one of those friends brought it to the Real Learning board. It turned out, not surprisingly, that a lot of other people shared the same feelings.

I think part of it for me, anyway, was simple exhaustion combined with stress. I know that in our different ways my friends and I had had very challenging summers.

I think that also, when you've been homeschooling for, say, 15 years and you know you most likely, God willing, will have perhaps 15 more to come, you don't have the adrenalin that you have when you're closer to the starting line or the finishing line. You're in that middle stretch. I know that when I am working out (or trying, anyway!) I dread the middle stretch. It's like the road from Sacramento to Redding! (if you don't ever travel up the Californian I-5, substitute whatever makes sense to your geographical location).

You don't have all the visions/illusions that you started off with, and though you have a few satisfying retrospectives to think about, you also have plenty of ongoing concerns and anxieties. Whether small or large, these often are enough to act like leaden weights, or like a subtle nutritional deficit. (in midlife it's not uncommon to have a few of those, too).

All these things probably contributed to my "blues". The days have been going better, and the answer seemed to lie here, in what I wrote in my first "blue" post:

I remember praying for JOY in living out my vocation. And I found myself actually finding that joy. The daily details of house-maintenance, of spending time with my kids, of maintaining that pregnancy, became sources of deep joy for me. ....(once I embraced them)

Embracing indicates a sort of active receptiveness, an opening to possible vulnerability, but at the same time an act of strength. Sustaining is a nice word too. It seems to go with "embrace" as a sort of sign of life and love and a choice to nourish and come closer, rather than back off and detach.

It is a balance that is taking a fair bit of focus, but it is worth it. To truly embrace, you have to be there in heart and spirit. ... not fretting over the past or worrying about the future.

And when you are embracing, you might as well acknowledge there will sometimes be that "pointy chin." If you have a special needs child, you have probably already read this article: Holland Schmolland and no doubt, found parts of it both to agree and disagree with according to your own experience. This is the part I remembered best from reading it several years ago:

"In Schmolland, ...... you can show affection by giving a “pointy chin.” A “pointy chin” is when you act like you are going to hug someone and just when you are really close, you jam your chin into the other person’s shoulder. For the person giving the “pointy chin” this feels really good, for the receiver not so much – but you get used to it."

I think this part stuck in my mind partly because my special child at the time seemed to show affection by taking a bit of your skin between his fingernails and twisting! But also, it stayed in my mind because it was so much a type of something that seems to happen so much in life. There is always a bit of surprise, even humiliation and discomfort, in so many occasions of embracing what life brings. You can only laugh, and acknowledge it, and accept the good in it .... or not. Sometimes I don't. But recently I've been trying, and it has brought a certain amount of satisfaction -- and even, moments of joy and contentment. Deo Gratias!

In Season and Out

I have been thinking in terms of seasons recently. Alice said it nicely inTo Everything There is a Season:

We all strive to be faithful to any task we take up, and it is natural to feel a bit bad when our blogs fall out of rhythm for a while. Still, I would say that this, like so many aspects of Motherhood, is part of God’s plan for us. We should expect those inevitable quiet times, not feeling the least bit sorry when they come, but embracing them wholeheartedly. Let us rejoice in both the stories and the silence.

For some reason, it hasn’t seemed like my season to blog much. I keep up with my daily Schola and Studium notes, but that isn’t quite the same. Though I welcome visitors there, it’s really just a glorified spiral record-keeper, a space to keep my homeschooling notes in order to have them in some sort of order for the future. (And it works beautifully for that, I will tell you).

Will I be misunderstood if I say that things are working so well in our homeschooling rhythm right now that I hesitate to talk too much about it for fear I’ll upset the balance? That would give you the idea that by “well” I mean perfectly, and it is no such thing. If I were a toddler taking my first steps, and I got distracted by verbalizing “I’m walking!” (in toddler language of course!), I would probably topple. Not that I was doing anything like Olympic speed walking, but that I was actually functioning as a walker and would want to prolong that. So I would probably keep mostly silent until I got the new skill consolidated.

Homeschooling isn’t quite like that, of course. For one thing, what works at one season may not work at another. Perhaps it IS like that to a toddler — walking on the rug may feel quite different than walking on that bare wood floor, or walking on the porch with little gaps in between the boards. Even after 15 years of homeschooling and 2 graduates, I sometimes feel like a very beginner, and perhaps that’s a good thing, because after all, I have at least one beginner to the world in my home, my four year old, and it probably helps me mother him, to recognize vividly how new everything can be when you are just starting out.

My header gets a credit — my oldest took the pic it’s cropped from, at his college. I love the autumnal colors.

navigating with a bold and adventurous spirit

I am not sure exactly how I came across this blog: Maria Lectrix. I haven't downloaded any of his podcasts yet, but I sure like his choice of readings.

One of them I found was the Lorica of St Brendan.

"Not all early Irish literature was written in the vernacular! From the Acta S. Brendani (as reprinted in the Patrologia Latina supplement IV), here’s a very long prayer of the kind the Irish called “lorica” — the Latin for “breastplate”."

The text can be found here.

Looking a bit more, I found a blog called A Whistling Train with a tribute to Saint Brendan. It has another prayer attributed to St Brendan:

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea? Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honor? Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, without sword and shield, without food and drink,without a bed to lie on? Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke? Shall I pour out my heart to You, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land? Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea? O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?

There is a list of books about St Brendan here
More information about him here.

For many years I have said this prayer with my own son Brendan:

"God of sea and land, you endowed your servant Brendan with a bold and adventurous spirit, to occupy himself for your business on the great waters, and revealed to him your wonders in the deep. Make us, who recall with thanksgiving his life and ministry, zealous to be pioneers and pilgrims for the faith of Christ. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."

Poetry Friday: Serenade at the Villa

Oh, my poor neglected blog! How long it has been since I typed regularly here!

I was going to post Eugene Field's poem Little Boy Blue for Poetry Friday today -- and then I found that Nissa had already posted the very same poem on the very same day. Anyway, that gave me an excuse to browse through her nice blog, Simple Gifts.

So for Poetry Friday:

Serenade at the Villa -- by Robert Browning---

THAT was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.

II.

Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music; that was I.

III.

Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
In at heaven and out again,
Lightning!—where it broke the roof,
Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

IV.

What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing’s best was done,
To my lute I left the rest.

V.

So wore night; the East was gray,
White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers:
There would be another day;
Ere its first of heavy hours
Found me, I had passed away.

VI.

What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?
Say, this struck you—“When life gropes
Feebly for the path where fell
Light last on the evening slopes,

VII.

“One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my step from wrong;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.”

VIII.

Never say—as something bodes—
“So, the worst has yet a worse!
When life halts ’neath double loads,
Better the taskmaster’s curse
Than such music on the roads!

IX.

“When no moon succeeds the sun,
Nor can pierce the midnight’s tent
Any star, the smallest one,
While some drops, where lightning rent,
Show the final storm begun—

X.

“When the fire-fly hides its spot,
When the garden-voices fail
In the darkness thick and hot,—
Shall another voice avail,
That shape be where these are not?

XI.

“Has some plague a longer lease,
Proffering its help uncouth?
Can’t one even die in peace?
As one shuts one’s eyes on youth,
Is that face the last one sees?”

XII.

Oh how dark your villa was,
Windows fast and obdurate!
How the garden grudged me grass
Where I stood—the iron gate
Ground its teeth to let me pass!

Works for Me -- "Clean Up Pegs"

This was one of Leonie's practical ideas -- works great if I can

(1) plan the pegs in the first place.
(2) remember them at the right time.

Attaching small tasks to "pegs" in the day.

When the kids were little we always had a "quick pick up" after homeschool morning and just before lunch. I would hum a song and the kids would see how much they could tidy before the song ended. It was fun and it really made a dent in the mess.

Recently, I have been trying to remember to attach a "pick up little toys in corners" peg to our various errands. That is, if I remember, before we leave for a place, particularly the market and library, or before they start computer free time, I have them inspect all the wall corners for the little Lego bits and other stuff that seems to accumulate -- for some reason.

Still Around...

....still spending most of my time at my Schola et Studium blog.

I wish I could think of something to say that would fit on this blog, but so far, still thinking.

I can't seem to do detail and big-picture at the same time. It's either one or the other.

Maybe when things slow down (life has been busy around here!) I'll be able to think more than one thought in sequence.

Until then!

Little Therese and Aidan

This is the anniversary of Aidan's transplant. If you remember, 8 years ago in 1999 was the year St Therese's relics were touring the US. Elizabeth Foss and the members of CCM had prayed for a shower of roses for us during our vigil, and St Therese responded with a generosity we will never forget. The touring of the relics was just one example. We used to joke -- joking was a stress-buster for us, a way of dealing with the sheer tragic oddity of our situation -- that next a concrete rose would fall off a San Francisco skyscraper and land on our heads.


There was one time, when Aidan was doing very badly after his transplant, that we got a holy card from somewhere with a picture of The Little Flower's older, suffering face -- when the disease had taken hold and she was clearly battling severe pain. The card quoted her, "To love... is to give everything... and to give oneself."

At the time Aidan had had a major stroke and was completely paralyzed on one side. We had fought so hard to help him stay alive and now it looked like he might be alive but no more. All that was left at that point was love... just love. It wasn't a feeling. It was something like the "dark night of the soul" -- a nothingness that was more powerful and strong than anything I had ever felt before.

Just around that time, standing by Aidan's cribside, I felt a presence that was very like someone standing right behind me at my shoulder. I think God must have given me a grace of really sensing His "cloud of witnesses" and particularly that of her, who promised to "spend her heaven doing good on earth" and to "send a shower of roses from heaven."

One of the most memorable parts of the movie Therese was when she was struggling in her last days and hours before death. The movie transcended itself there. It made me cry especially because it brought to mind Aidan's agony in the days before and after his transplant.