Little Brown Feet

So I'm sitting on the couch and look up to see a little brown foot hanging over the stairs, and I call out, "I see a little brown foot." My godson replies, "No, there are two little brown feet." Guard my heart, Goddess, I'm falling in love with a three-year-old. Bittersweet thought, that.

Four hours from home are two children that I've only seen a few times. They don't know I'm their grandmother. My heart breaks for the loss. I dream of the day my younger son has children, and I have the funds to see them on a regular basis.

Atlanta

Yesterday The Fiber Geek called and told me her daughter has experienced trauma. She's in New Jersey on a job, and won't be flying back to Atlanta until really late Thursday. The sound of the concern in her voice was enough. I took three days off and I'm in Atlanta. I type this from the basement bedroom of her condo. Her daughter and Little Raven, age three, are upstairs taking a nap.

It's strange to occupy this space. It's time to revisit the past and heal old wounds. The new few days will be an interesting journey. I think I'll use the time to put some old things away that I've carried for many, many years.

It's strange walking around the house. So much has changed. But that's still my Disney plates on the walls. That's still Cameron's mural in the corner. This was the place I came when my life imploded. When neither son would speak to me. When I lost my home, my grove, my life as I knew it. When the world of technical writing and steady pay checks ended and all I could find for work was nannying for $20 an hour.

I read a book once called The Winnowed Woman. She talked about the same things happening, and her life was separated like the wheat from the chaff.  It's been nine years since my life imploded. When I traded dreams for survival. When I had to accept I would never be a part of the boys' lives the way I wanted to. When I realized that I cannot choose a good man, and before I realized I could choose a good relationship with Cameron. When I learned that spirituality is breath, not a grove, not a priest and not a priestess. And that they, too, can be fooled by illusion. It was a time of bitterness, pain, and loss. I still grieve. Perhaps I always will.

And yet, like the Phoenix, I live.  We have an extraordinarily modest home in desperate need of repair. But we have a home. And we, Cameron and I, share a miraculous relationship of joy, appreciation, depth. I have become a priestess, a therapist, a partner, and a better friend. Not such a bad outcome...

Where I am Now....

I seem to be waiting...change creeps along, promising transformation. But life happens while we wait. I continue to work as a substance abuse counselor. I never stop marveling at the stories, the lies, the illusions and the surprises my client present on a daily basis.

I'm also working with Safe Homes Rape Crisis as a therapist. My hours of service pay for my supervision to complete my licensure requirements.

I miss blogging. I miss the words, the keyboard yielding thoughts, ideas, and moments of transformation. But exhaustion dogs my steps, and the most I seem to manage is pushing a mouse around Facebook games. Maybe this weekend, for a few moments, I can find my voice. My best friend called saying her daughter was experiencing life in high gear, and the results were not good. The Fiber Geek is New Jersey for a couple days more, so tomorrow I drive to Atlanta to spend some time with her adult daughter and grandson.

The next few days promise to be interesting.

My New Hero

A New Me

On January 1 this year I weighed 292 lbs. When I moved to SC from Atlanta, I weighed 189, so that was a substantial gain in only seven years. A lot of it came on when I was working as a debt collector. The worst time for binge eating was just before Cameron's hip surgery, when I would often stop at Bloom for fudge.

Because I didn't eat the whole thing at once, but over several days, I told myself it wasn't the same as binging. Truth was, I was consuming too many calories. And each bite prevented me from dealing with whatever emotion was in front of me.

About mid January, I decided things had to change. I couldn't afford to wait any longer. The heal plantar fasciitis had mostly healed. My knees hurt every day. It's time. I had dreamed of putting myself on NutraSystem, but financially, that wasn't option.

Mamaw always wrote on the back of pictures. On this one
she wrote: "Rosemary Modesitt. Sept 1985. Cindy had just
given Rosemary a Mary Kay facial." I would have been 22,
and she would have been about 66. She was a size 14.

This is where the journey gets a little weird. I channeled my grandmother instead. My grandmother was food for me. As a kid, when my mother slipped away in her schizophrenic craziness and wasn't feeding me enough, we went grandma's every day. I never went hungry at grandma's. She was a rather difficult woman to approach emotionally. But when I was about nine, Grandma Haynes, who lived next door, told me the secret. Mamaw showed her love with action. And love was food. She made all my favorite foods and made sure I never went hungry. She controlled portions and calories, while still making things YUM. If I wanted both kinds of pie, she cut portions into slivers and I got both.

Mamaw grew up during the depression. Her family were poor dirt farmers. I remember going the farm until I was about nine, and having to go out to the pump for water. I dreaded the outhouse. She managed to go live with an aunt when she graduated from high school. In exchange for caring for her aunt, she received enough money for tuition, and went to college where she majored in Home Economics. She taught HomeEc until she was 62 when she took early retirement.

So I've been shaping my cooking around what she would have done. I get a desert every day (2 chocolate chip cookies only have 180 calories!). A couple of days a week I have a New Castle (140 calories). We've taken a page from Montel William's book, and drink Green Drinks all day long. Funny how they slow caffeine withdrawal. I only had 4 sodas yesterday instead of six. May eventually be able to get off them all together!

I've started a private journal at livestrong.com so I can track calories taken in and calories burned, as well as fitness. I'm doing Richard Simmon's Sweatin' to the Oldies more days than not. And it's working. When I weighed at work this week on the digital scale, I was down to 276 lbs.

And I'm in the kitchen thinking of my Mamaw. I miss you Grandma Rose Mary. I know you'd be proud.

Conscious Men

This is amazing. While women are more than intuition, inner wisdom and emotion, these qualities are very much a part of the sacred feminine. I feel honored to have viewed this video. Indeed, I wept as I viewed it.

Angry Teacher Raps About Getting Unjustly Fired

I'm the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of teachers. We have 17 school teachers in my family, including my youngest son. I'm not a teacher because when I was in the 7th grade, my grandfather asked me not to teach. He had been threatened with a 2x4 in his shop the previous semester. My grandmother, a home-ec teacher, had a student brandish a knife at her the same semester. No teacher is paid enough. No teacher should ever get a pink slip because of a budget. Our children are too important.