Eczema and the Secret of Habit

Summer is a time of miracles, things grow again, the garden and woods compel attention through their very sumptuousness of vegetation and bird song that is returned...and yet new once more, after months of cold and silence. Not venturing forth is a crime, even though doing so will exact a payment later.

More or less, each year, after a little sun, getting bit by half a dozen mosquitoes, using sunscreen, bug repellent, or all of the above on a glorious weekend in May; down I head, into the itchy hell-hole again. This is beyond my control, for now. (Some day, I shall control the sun's power too, just wait.)

What I am able to control is food, water, exercise, all of this is better than ever. Here is the secret; I just said "no". Thank you, Nancy Reagan. Eczema loves certain conditions, and certain foods in some people. When they are eliminated, it has a much lower rate of survival. So; gone and merci. 

Thank you as well, to a book I am re-reading; "Better than Before; Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives," by Gretchen Rubin. The basic tenet of the book is what is most helpful:

                                 "Decide not to decide." 

Think about it, or do not, just for a moment. Making a decision once is so much less tiresome than having to make it every single time one is confronted with a choice. 

In a nutshell; we do or do not do the very same thing every single day. It might look like this: get up and go for a walk, every single Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Go to the Y for a class every single Tuesday and Thursday. I do not eat sugar (or dairy, or whatever). Done. No more decisions to make. For a more strenuous elimination-type diet, this can be combined with the concept of a timer, see: Say au revoir to self-pity, or a limitation that lasts only a certain amount of time; a week, a month, a year. I have put wine on this timed approach (oh, and champagne, and margaritas...fine, anything with any alcohol.)

It is an empowering and liberating concept. But I really cannot linger to discuss it just now. My dog is pulling his leash off the door knob and losing his mind with waiting. He knows it is Friday too. 

Photos, No Photo

Relief; someone else admitted to the unmentionable, unthinkable thought that I have not really allowed to emerge from the depths of my mind; that part of my life seems to be...a blur. The moments I know to have savored, for I do remember looking into the eyes of each newborn, breathing in happiness and admiring the peaceful play of toddlers, the creativity of children. However, it is more the feelings I recall, not necessarily the years themselves. Those many years for which I was and remain deeply grateful, were also the years of sleep deprivation and constant activity. I am not sure I remember it all.

When someone casually talked about this, (is it a phenomenon?), I had been of a mind that this was something I had really rather not know about. You know, no? The "am I suffering from memory loss or early dementia or x,y,z?" nasty feeling. It is a good thing then, that someone came up with the  fantastic miracle of photography. With pictures to help, I remember, or recreate memories, touching upon moments like the fingers and minds of the very elderly gingerly reach out to touch a treasured photograph. 

But capturing our lives on film has its place and its limitations. Especially now. Early this morning, I wandered down to the bike path with my pup, sans camera/phone/audio book/way to contact mama. Thierry had just left on a 100-mile bike trip, all of the children were sleeping in on day 2 of summer vacation, and it just felt like perhaps, no one would need me for the half hour or so I might be away. I yearned for an uninterrupted commune with nature. Same bike path, same woods, but ever-changing. The bursting creek had dried up just enough for the island to reappear and there were no puddles to tiptoe through today. 

It always feels like the presence of a deer is felt just as I realize it has leapt across the path in front of me. I did not so much see her, as feel the swoosh of a large body as it landed on the other side. The doe stepped a few feet into the trail, turned to me and just waited. I have not seen a deer along the bike path for over a year. She stood looking back at me, I gazed into her deep brown eyes, and we stayed that way for many minutes. Such quiet and majesty in one being. I thought she was expecting a baby to follow after her. I looked back, nothing. She must have thought I would move on and leave her in peace. We parted ways. I was humbled and grateful for the vision, the deer was probably just happy I was leaving. I have no photo, but maybe the very presence or purpose of my phone has made me miss the deer all these months...maybe not.

Here are times in the past months in which someone, at least, had a phone or camera, for posterity:

G, the Creative Arts Academy 6th graders got their own show; glass mosaics, developed in collaboration with a few real life artists, at the Figge Art Museum

At the opening of the show;mosaic at right is the larger version done of G's by a group of students.

                         Easter morning, my girls hunting for eggs

A trip to Nashville, for an interpreting conference.

We made it a road trip; 2 kids, 2 colleagues, 1 rental house, 1 car, 1 heck of a trip!

  My French-speaking colleagues, in the tropical paradise of the resort for the conference.

                          Ch and me, being tourists for a day.

At the conference; for the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators: I presented a session (to decidedly mixed reviews, all the way from "extraordinary; professional and highly competent", to "a waste of my time" (ouch) for the first time. Luckily, the other presenters were pretty fantastic.

 V (left) in costume after a school production of "Heathers". Nothing but rave reviews for this difficult show!

It is really, really hard to take photos at a track meet. Ch is the bright blue blur.

C (right), addressing the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council on Immigration in France, the topic of her honors thesis; research she conducted there last summer.

Back in April; before it became national news; the Mississippi began creeping up our shores, above; Thierry on a Saturday bike ride with me. Below; just the very beginnings of the water that broke through barriers, spilling into and wreaking havoc in our downtown.

Yes, that is a train, this is the day that workers were installing rock to raise the tracks high enough to continue running during the flood. The barriers and the crashing down of the barriers came later. I had almost forgotten we'd taken a bike ride together that day...

Thierry took more, later in the spring, and it still looks about the same today; rains have plagued the region this season:

Hearing Voices

Rumi was right; there ARE whispers in the wind, just waiting for your ears and mind and heart to open to them. It is the reason to meditate and to take time for quiet. 

In my childhood, I knew instinctively how to listen. Growing up Catholic, I was encouraged, and obliged to spend time in prayer, worship and contemplation. Then I got older and forgot, relying instead on prominent voices of society, of expectations, of being the best "me"; yes, but in order to do something that was always just out of reach.

One of these voices from the past returned to me, bringing a flood of memories and provocations, just the other day. The BVMs or Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary took front and center stage, out of the blue, rising out of the sea like a watery image from the past, great and vivid and life-like.

I accompanied my darling daughter, a junior in high school, on a visit to a couple of the colleges on her "where I would do anything to be able to attend" list in Chicago. Northwestern, the first on the day's agenda, was breathtakingly beautiful, on the shores of Lake Michigan, which, if you've never seen it, is most ocean-like in its breadth, color and beauty. The campus is self-contained and made up of a village of austere, New England-like buildings alongside brand new, glass-filled wonders. The scholarship is so renowned that they are not attempting to sell you on the school so much as inform you about the liberal arts program and the opportunities that are there because Chicago is there. I am for the liberal arts education model, in support of a well-rounded person capable of understanding the world on more than one level, so this held much appeal.

We made our way across the second campus of the day, and this took a leisurely moment, since the magnolia trees were blooming against a background of green sea-like lake and blue, blue sky, and each step was a marvel to behold; waves crashing against the rocks lining the campus. This was Loyola University. As we neared our destination, we came across a plaque mentioning the BVM's of Dubuque...my BVM's! Now Loyola is Jesuit (the scholastic branch of the priesthood, if you will), and these particular BVM's are to education what the Jesuits are to the same. Mary Frances Clark and her friends were the founders of the first college I attended, and a fearless bunch of educators hors pair. Early in their lives, they took on the mission of educating girls to improve their prospects; from Ireland to New York to Dubuque, Iowa. Clarke College, now Clarke University, was founded by the sisters in my hometown. Here they were at Loyola. Their mission, invited by the Jesuits to found a woman's college, was to help girls and women pull themselves out of poverty through education, especially immigrant women whose lives were entrenched in misery in factories full of danger, or worse. The BVMs I knew as a student were no less revolutionary and dedicated.

                                 Mundelein Hall: with angels Uriel and Jophiel standing guard
                           Them angels be  4 Stories High (like Ursula in the Little Mermaid)

The more surprising connection? Without knowing any of this, it is here that my oldest daughter is about to begin law school in the fall, in order to become an international law and immigration specialist, at Loyola. My alma mater had caught up to us in this odd, tiny, extraordinary way. 

       The graduate in her own space, with family; brothers on left, Dad, Grampa, Grama, Child,          Mama, siblings in front.

For me, this was a reminder of the kinship of all and of the impossibility of ignoring this fact as I walk upon the earth. There is no true separation between people and places, except for the one we attempt to create through divisions and labels that suit us. The interdependence of each nation, person and critter, as small as it may be, is reality. As a woman and a mother, it is the responsibility I have to leave the world a better place than I found it. The answer, alas, is not simply telling my children how to live their lives (not that I do not do that every single day), it is to model a deeper level of care, of faith and roots, which comes from that still place inside  I cultivate.

A School for Mom? The School of Awakening

Not everything happens for a reason. There may be an order to the world, but it is punctuated with randomness. Yet, when it makes sense, reading signs that converge to point to a bit of interesting insight can prove useful. 

For months now, I have hesitated to post what might be described as indiscriminate scribblings of a mind occupied with hearth and home and small things, when the world seems full of large, scary ones. But writing brings joy, to me and maybe to you as well. Happiness and beauty found in the everyday wonders that surround me are my only defense, the only "bulwarks against casual cruelties," that I am free to offer, as Gregory Cowles of the New York Times Book Review phrased it, in describing "The Book of Delights" by Ross Gay*. A book of delights? That little phrase was encouragement enough to return to some blog posting, a raison d'etre.

And I have a promise to keep; I was granted a scholarship to study mindfulness in an online course with Eckhart Tolle and Kim Eng for six months. A dream come true for those familiar with their work, in a place called "The School of Awakening." In my application, I said I would share this journey and what I've learned: in real life and in writing.

Either extreme inarticulateness or an interruption followed each effort I made to complete this post. I've debated whether to call the events a menace to creativity...or a good excuse not to own up to independent action. The last attempt I made was on the first day of Lent, one of the above-mentioned signs that seemed like a propitious occasion for beginning. What is the cross but an outward symbol of suffering, death, healing, new life to follow? What a good time it would have been to write about soothing the suffering inside ourselves and in the world. As we now approach the Summer Solstice, it is time, to write about healing, to warm up with the season of life and sunshine. 

The School of Awakening has been my faithful companion these past months, and my guide to grounding when the earth seemed crumbly beneath my feet. There have been long hours of absorbing, ruminating, searching and sitting with a particular teaching in meditation. Eckhart Tolle and Kim Eng have shared much wisdom, peaceful insight and practical methodology without making it dogmatic.

My take-away from the many sessions is the steady, common thread running through many spiritual practices, in essence: search out the quiet inside, by paying attention to the here and now. Be responsible for ourselves, for our own reactions. 

These reactions stem from many factors, many of them internal, based upon and sitting upon layers of past pain. Seeing the pain for what it is; as the place that sends us to an unpleasant outburst, creating a fresh cycle of pain, is the first step to resolving it. 

It is only in the innermost realm, in paying attention, that you can find and ponder deeply this truth, but it is in the world that you must exercise mindfulness. The world will not slow down and be quiet for you. You must cultivate and bring the quiet space into your life and the lives of those you touch. 

*March 3, 2019: "New and Noteworthy," describing "The Book of Delights by Ross Gay in The New York Times Book Review.