Hardest

Weekend

Ever.

No Words.

This Sucks.

Growth is hard.

The Universe Speaks

The greatest gift a parent can give a child, Linda, is the ability to become independently happy.

And the greatest gift a child can give a parent is exercising that ability.

Happily,
The Universe

You gotta love the Universe, so wise. We are on the home stretch here in the Rhia goes to School sweepstakes. Did the shopping, started packing, spent her gift cards (that she needs to mail the thank you notes for, errrghhhh!) You know how you anticipate something for a really long time and then you just get to a point where you just want to get on with it? It's time to move on. I know she feels it. I know I feel it. It's weird. I guess this is maturity where you know things are gonna be tough occasionally but you know they are going to be great occasionally too.

Acceptance. And maybe a bit of excitement. I'm gonna have a kid go to college! (2 kids actually) No one in my family has ever gone to college. My mom didn't go past the 8th grade, my dad the 9th. They come from very poor folk, they had to work and help support their families, there was no time for school. My mom ironed clothes and worked at People's Drug Store, my dad became a welder and eventually became a builder with his own business. We are blue collar people. My brothers are both construction and HVAC workers. I am of course, a no collar worker. Rhia is the first of my side of the family to actually go away to college and have the whole dorm, well rounded education thing. This is amazing if you think about it.

Barry's family has all been to college and are very wealthy as a result. Doctors, teachers, scientists... To them this is an inevitability. To my family (and me) it is a jaw dropping fantasy. I'm so proud of her. I am so amazed at her perseverance and tenacity in knowing what was (is) best for her and insisting on it. She has a gift of knowing the right thing to do even when everyone, including her parents, are telling her to do something else.

Both of my kids are blessings to this poor ole uneducated yoga teacher. They have the best of both worlds... book learnin' and street smarts or should I say 'heart smarts'? I have always been able to trust that they know the right things even when I don't agree with them. And Thank God, I learned that lesson so early and let them go with their own guts.

When I was 16 I found this poem and it became my blueprint for how I would raise my kids. I pass it on now...


On Children
~Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Dropping it.

So, I have decided to drop it. No need to continue. One of the basic principals of Zen is to drop the thoughts, become like water when the splash occurs. Ripple and become smooth.

Witness the circles but don't get caught up in them. We are the water. Not the circles. It's pointless to keep going over the same things over and over unless the goal is to have something to go over and over. That's about $4000 worth of wisdom right there. Free as my gift to you.

So I have added a new title to my list of titles. Smellologist. A new friend of mine has been calling me Wise Woman due to an inside joke about Witches vs. Wise Women and I think I'm going to start signing things as Linda Miller, WW. Smellologist.

In other news, the Olympics start tonight! This is humongous in our household... We usually bring our king sized mattress down for 2 weeks and sleep downstairs in front of the big tv so we don't miss any of it but in the interest of my business and Barry's back, that's probably not going to happen this year. Plus we have a DVR. Have a bit of a dilemma tonight though. I LOVE the opening ceremonies... love them. Watch every minute, cry, laugh, rejoice, I'm such a sap. We've been invited to watch them at a very fun place but we are worried about watching them instead of the fun. Oh yeah, I have a DVR. Not the same though. I do feel a bit guilty watching cause we really should be boycotting and supporting the Dalai Lama but I think the Dalai Lama probably wouldn't want us to penalize the athletes for China's atrocities... it's so complicated being a thinking person.

Do I seem a little scattered to you? It probably to be expected right now.

Last night at yoga, there was a big crew so we were in the church. During relaxation, I laid down after talking them into peace. Usually I stay up and make sure everyone is okay. But I'm sort of tired, you know? I must have drifted a bit because the next thing I was aware of was a really spooky voice.... and it seemed to be coming from the sacristy.... and I thought it was Sheree. (?) I bolted up, looking around for her and she was laying in relaxation on her mat.

First thought: How is she DOING that????

Second thought: Duh. It's the music.

Third thought: Who's music is that?

Final thought: Hello McFly!!!!

After thought: Wouldn't it be funny if I had bolted up and all my students were standing over me wondering if I was ever gonna wake up and take them out of relaxation?

Even funnier: What if it was Sunday and all the churchgoers were coming in wondering why we were all laying there around the stage? Still.

I think it may be time for that vacation....

You wouldn't believe it....

I can't believe the last few days. I'm not certain what all this craziness was all about but there have been times when I thought this may be it. I have ran through such a range of emotions and been so insanely pressured and busy that I haven't begun to deal with what I thought I would be dealing with. I really have been at a point where I thought I may crack. Really. Me. Man. This has been nuts. I'm thinking the worst is over...for a while anyway. Like 9 days. Then the real worst comes. And the best. All at once. The good news is: Rhia is going to college at Montreat. She will be able to go.

For the last 6 months we have been working with the college and FAFSA (federal funding for college) to try and get our numbers changed since Barry's company has cut his pay by 1/3--he works for a civil engineering firm and as you know, the economy is down the tube. Rhia is scheduled to start school on the 15th. On Saturday we get a notice from the school that after submitting and re-submitting and re-re-submitting all our paperwork and getting notice from FAFSA that they cut the amount they think we could spend in half... the school basically said, "that's nice, here's a bone but you still owe your whole life savings.... oh you don't have a life savings? sucks to be you!" Sigh.

I had to dust off me old Linda Miller-financier extraordinaire hat and figure out what the heck we were gonna do. Trouble is it was buried under 21 years of mothering, foster parenting, therapuetic nursery care, yogaing, reiki-ing, 9/11, snipers, and we won't go into all the other personal tragedies that ate my brain. I'm sure you have all experienced the last 21 years as brain eating magpie fish.

And then the tree cutters came.

We have a tree in our back yard that I may have blogged about before. We call it our God tree. In a moment of supreme presence, a face became obvious. I don't really care what you think about tree huggers-- I (and my family) proudly wear my badge. Our backyard is a certified National Wildlife Habitat. When BGE came out to discuss cutting down our trees, I was reasonable. I agreed with them about most of the trees that were near their lines, we worked out what branches, the gentleman looked me in the eye and said they would not touch my God tree. It's nowhere near their line, if anything had to be cut it would maybe be a branch. So, trusting that they would keep their word we were amused when they came out the first time, all 10 of them, took one look and all 10 filed away. We thought maybe they would change their minds and that would be just fine with us. I don't really care if my power goes out-- it's kinda fun actually...for the first 5 days.

Anyway, as I was getting ready to go to work on Monday, they came back. I smiled at them, removed my clothes from the clothesline (yes--I dry my clothes outside, what else would a good tree hugger do?) and I went to work. Now, remember, I was already stressed to my max. Had just been to the doctor who prescribed tranquilizers and get this: yoga for my 150/100 blood pressure......

I came home and they had cut all the branches off my God tree. All of them. Hadn't touched another tree on the lot. None of the ones we discussed. Only my God tree.

The last time they came through and butchered like this I let my german shepherd loose on them. I looked at Suki, my little eskimo spitz, who was hiding under the table scared of the noise and figured I needed to be the german shepherd.

15 minutes later I had the supervisor for BGE, the city forester & the state DNR rep out. But the damage was done. It's not as if they could super-glue the branches back. So, I made them agree to not touch another tree and got those bastards out of my yard. The wreckage left behind is heartbreaking. I couldn't start dealing with it until yesterday because I needed to keep dealing with the whole financial thing for Rhia. Who was heartbroken about her God tree. As was Cory. And don't even start Barry on it... It's just ugly, our family feels like we were butchered, we were lied to, they took advantage of my being gone to ...... whatever, who knows what their vendetta is.

to be continued....

How I spent my summer vacation.

Mmmmm.....