Mindfulness Monday: Witches and Water Slides

Witches

I think I was a witch in a past life. Or, maybe, my ancestors were Italian witches, practitioners of Stregheria, and it's been passed on through the generations to me. Or maybe the witchcraft comes from the English/Scotch-Irish side of me. I've always known I feel a connection to the earth and nature, but today I realized the depth of that connection.

While I was mowing the lawn, I got very emotional about moving. I don't feel particularly connected to my house, but every tree, rose bush, buckthorn, tiger lily and iris all have meaning to me. The flowers, bushes and trees (the ones that actually continue to grow) are my family's history. When we moved out here, there was nothing but prairie and cactus. Now, there's the rosebush (among others -- I love roses) that was my first ever Mother's Day present; the tree that we had the sandbox under when the boys were toddlers; the tiger lily I planted as a seed, and then kept trying to pull out because I thought it was a weed. It stubbornly refused to go away and now is a beautiful plant; the irises that came from my mom's house just up the hill. You get the idea.

Plus, the parts of Wyoming I'm going to miss are going to be the outdoor parts--the call of meadowlarks, the swaying grasses of the prairie, the smell of pine trees blowing in from the west, hiking in the Rocky Mountains. Eastern Nebraska is very different. I'm going to try to focus on making new mindful memories of the world around me, once I'm moved, and find the beauty in a new place. I need to remind myself to not be judgmental, but to allow myself to experience the differences with openness and curiosity.

And move as many plants with me as I can!

Water Slides

Saturday we had a going a way party for the boys at the newly renovated municipal pool. (I am happy to report that people actually attended, and fun was had by all.)

A little backstory is necessary before I continue the story. I am constantly telling my kids that they need to not let their fears get to them. They need to try new things, and try to overcome the things that scare them.

Typical parent stuff, right?

Keeping that in mind, I must admit that I am claustrophobic, and it seems to be getting worse as I get older. When I wrote those claustrophobia scenes in Finding Meara, they were from personal experience. It doesn't help that I have dreams I'm buried alive or stuck in little boxes (ie. coffins.) Earlier this year I needed an MRI and had a minor freak out in the tube when I sensed the closest part of the tube pass over my face on the way through so they could MRI my lower back.

Well, part of the renovations were two new water slides. Our side of the pool was supposed to utilize the blue slide. It sounded like fun, and I talked my youngest into going down the slide with me (for some reason I didn't feel I could just go by myself.) We got to the top, and I looked into the mouth of the slide, and saw a very dark, very small, very long tube and went, "Nope."

I tried to talk myself into it, but the fear overcame me and, since all the kids went before me and I had no one to try to impress, I told the lifeguard I had claustrophobia to save face and went back down the stairs.

Once I was back in the pool, I started to feel more and more awful. What kind of a parent was I, if I let the slide (aka my fear) win? I'd totally lost all credibility I'd had about teaching my kids how to deal with their fears. I told my husband what I'd done, and that I felt like I really needed to go try again. He agreed with me, and said he'd go with me. (Awww, isn't he a sweetie. He also teased me all the way there...)

At the top, I nervously talked non-stop to my husband, detailing to him my plan for how to actually go down the slide this time and not chicken out. As I approached the tube the second time, I utilized mindful awareness to turn off my amygdala (the emotional center of our brains) and noticed how blue the slide was and listened to the rushing sound the water made at the mouth of the slide. Then, before I could get afraid again, I jumped in the tube, closed my eyes and pushed off.

I can only imagine how silly I looked at the bottom of the slide. Because my eyes were closed, I wasn't sure I'd reached the end, and so sat there for a moment to see if I'd move any more. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the same lifeguard who had been at the top the time I'd ditched out was now at the bottom of the slide. I gave him a big smile, raised my hands triumphantly in the air and said, "I did it!"

He was nice enough to cheer for me.

What makes you emotional, lately?

Have you ever conquered a fear? Do you have any advice?

Something Bizarre Happened: Animals Acting Crazy

Two stories for you today. It was a weird November.

Demon Dogs

All through November I’d left work late, and by the time I got out to my children’s school to pick them up, it was dark. Because both boys’ classrooms are near a back entrance, I’d park near the door, we’d grab their things, and then just go out the back.

One night we left at the same time as the boys’ former kindergarten teachers. We were chatting as we walked out the door, and the boys went down the sidewalk ahead of me. Boy 1 stayed closer, but Boy 2 went all the way to the curb, about twenty/twenty-five feet away.

All of a sudden, two shiny black dogs popped around the corner of the school. I have tall children and the top of these dog's heads reached their shoulders. They were leggy, thin, retriever-looking dogs, and they were surprisingly aggressive.

One stopped near the kindergarten teacher and began barking at her, hackles up. The other, also hackles up, crossed behind me and Boy 1 to where he was a few feet away from Boy 1 and barked at him. Before it could get too close, I pulled Boy 1 behind me, and started to move cautiously down the sidewalk toward the car, and where Boy 2 waited on the curb. I didn't want to move too fast and set off the dog's chase instinct. 

Photo Courtesy flickr/creativecommons/EddieB55

The dog that was barking at the kindergarten teacher was too fast, and I was too far away to do anything more than watch, when it stopped barking at her and ran at boy 2. Thank God the dog stopped about a foot or two away from him, hackles still up, and just looked at him. 

Boy 2 flinched like he was going to run and I yelled to him to stay still. He did, but the tension in his body and face screamed that he wanted to get the hell out of there. I pulled Boy 1 faster down the sidewalk and prepared to get bit, because there was no way I was going to let the dog bite Boy 2. I was in a quandry because I didn't want Boy 1 to be in the middle of a dog attack, but because of the other dog, I had to make sure I knew where he was.

The other dog solved that problem, though. It came up on the other side of boy 2 and then the first dog started to bark at him. I honestly thought "Oh no you don't!" I let go of Boy 1 and rushed up behind the one dog, shouting in as deep a voice as I could and waving my arms around, "You go home! NO! Go home!" I must have startled them, because both shied away, and went beyond boy 2 into the parking lot.

I continued yelling at the dogs, grabbed both kids and got us to the car, and then the dang dogs came around the car and barked at us some more! I'd already gotten the door open, so the boys piled in and I yelled more at the dogs, which worked to keep them away and I rounded the car and got into the drivers seat.

Sad to say, but I figured the two teachers were on their own. I heard them yelling at the dogs when I started yelling at them, but as far as I know they never moved from the spot where they initially stopped when the dogs came around the corner.

The scariest thing is that both dogs went straight for the littlest people. I'm just grateful that they didn't actually attack either boy. I was prepared to beat the crap out of both of them if they did, but I shudder to think of what might have happened if they both attacked at once. There was no question in my mind that I'd do whatever I could to stop them from hurting the boys, even if that meant I'd be the one to get hurt. It was crazy how non-emotional I was. It was just a fact.

Scary Squirrels

Have you seen the commercial where the squirrels attack the man in the white shirt and tie? If you haven’t, let me describe it for you. There are ten to fifteen squirrels on the ground and they slowly approach this man, tails twitching, with expectant expressions on their faces. The sheer number of squirrels kind of freaks the guy out and he starts to back up and that’s when the squirrels attack. They jump onto his chest and back and sink their sharp little teeth into his neck.

I found the commercial quite humorous until my sons and I went to the park the other day. We took a dirt pathway off the main pathand

Photo courtesy James Barker/freedigitalphotos.net

soon boy 2 said, “Hey, look, squirrels.” About four or five squirrels slowly approached me and boy 1, coming right to the ends of my shoes. They looked up at us with beady little eyes agleam with hopes of peanuts being handed out, I guess. However, what flashed through my mind was “Are they rabid and are they going to attack us like the commercial?”

Uneasy with exactly how close they were, and by the crow sitting up in the tree watching us like a harbinger of doom, I pulled the kids further down the pathway. And they chased us! Some kept cover behind trees, while others followed us brazenly down the pathway. I have to wonder what they would have done if we did have peanuts to give them. Maybe being peanut-less was the only thing that kept us from being attacked.

Did you have any bizarre goings-on in the last month?

Tell us about it in the comments!

Three Reasons Why Revision Make Me Nervous

Photo Courtesy of BK Images

For those of you who have written novels and gone through the revision process, this might seem like a silly post.  Why on earth would revisions make a person nervous?

The answer (in my case) is threefold:

1.  It begins with my personality.  Besides the fact that being prone to anxiety runs in the Italian side of my family, I was informed several years ago by a colleague that I am an "external processor," rather than an "internal processor."  That means that I have to talk my thoughts out, often to another person, to give them form and structure.  (Thank God my husband is extremely patient.)

My problem is that I'm not to the point where I am ready to show any writer friends the manuscript, and my husband isn't versed in the craft of writing and revising fiction. I can't even use him as a beta-reader, because he hates reading in first-person.  This inability to really talk out my thoughts and concerns leaves me a little befuddled.  I can't seem to make a decision that I don't doubt.  Which leads to reason number two...

2.  I am no longer working on the first-draft.  That means I don't have permission anymore to make crap.   I am supposed to clean up the first draft "mess" and shine it and make it all better.  The problem?  I have never written a novel before.  I have never revised a novel before.  I must still rely on instinct as to the process of revising, as well as what I'm doing to "fix" my novel.  Which leads to reason number three...

3. Remember that risk post a couple of weeks back?  Well, I am stretching and growing, both as a writer and as a person. It feels uncomfortable.

The simple truth, though, is if I don't get going, I am going to fail.  I will still have the first draft of Finding Meara, as well as any number of other first drafts, waiting to be revised when I'm eighty.  I will never know if my work was publishable or not, because I didn't give it a chance, because I was too afraid to revise wrong.  How silly does that sound!

Last night, I decided to just dig in.  If I don't get the process "right" and it takes me forever, such is life.  If I don't get started, it's going to take me forever, anyway.  I might as well get on with it.  And who knows, maybe it will all turn out okay!

Which kind of "processor" do you think you are?  Is there anything about the revision process that makes you nervous?