A Weekend Without Graeme

I can't say what exactly triggered it, but a few weeks ago I decided to take mermaiden and willow_cabin up on a long-standing invitation to visit and to go without Graeme. I hadn't spent more than four or five hours apart from my son since before his conception--nearing three years of constant companionship--so when Daniel said he thought I was making a rash decision at odds with all my previous parenting philosophies, he was right. I was tired and cranky and wanting a break, yes, but mainly I had a sense suddenly that it would be okay. Daniel wasn't feeling so sure and as the day of my departure neared, he scrambled to be ready for his big single parenting debut. He arranged to have our regular sitter come each day to spell him, organized lists I'd written of activities and foods Graeme likes, and quizzed me about where in the house I kept all Graeme's toys.

I had a lot of emotions as I left for the airport.

Irritable. (Why doesn't Daniel know these things, too?)

Relieved. (I'll have three nights sleep, alone, and days without anyone demanding anything of me. No little fingers plucking at me, nobody to schedule a day around, nobody to carry.)

Guilty. (I'm a horrible mother to leave a nursing toddler suddenly. He doesn't know I'm leaving and he doesn't know I'll be coming back. I'm a horrible wife to leave Daniel with the baby. He works for a living. I'm a stay-at-home mom and look at this! I'm not staying at home or being a mom!)

Daniel tried his best to reassure me. He was scared shitless.

"We'll be fine. We have to be."

"Go and have the best weekend. You have to enjoy it to make this worth it."

~*~

I've been on LiveJournal since raynemaiden introduced me to it in 2004. Still, most everyone I've met here knows me as a mom. That's strange to me, since it feels like such a recent change to my life. I'm not a mom, people, I'm just a young witch grown a little older who is making it up as she goes. I don't know anything about kids, I just happen to have one of my own.

I didn't meet Sarah until I was pregnant with Graeme and in our meetings and vacations together since, there has always been Graeme and Daniel to compromise with. It seemed like, more than just about anyone, Sarah and Jenn knew me only as I was juggling all my other roles. I wanted to be able to be me with them, the me that isn't diluted and distracted, and that was only possible if Graeme wasn't underfoot demanding I be Mama all weekend. I guess you can add "selfish" to that list of feelings I was having.

So I left Graeme from Friday afternoon until Monday afternoon. Rather anticlimactically, he dropped right to sleep that first night. Daniel kept me updated with text messages. And so, pretty much immediately, I was able to forget my worries and guilt and enjoy the weekend. My breasts were killing me, but otherwise I had no ill effects from making such a sudden departure.

The boys met me at the airport. I imagined there would be a big, tearful reunion. Graeme would throw himself sobbing at me, cling and hug me and say my name, "Mama", over and over again. Instead, he looked sleepy and disinterested as I walked up. He didn't reach for me, he didn't say anything, and when I kissed his cheek he shyly edged away. The rest of the day, I tried not to feel hurt as he ignored me in favor of his toys, his television shows, and his adventures at the park. It seemed like he was weaned, too, as he showed no interest in nursing. It was good, obviously, because I'd be able to go out of town without him again. He hadn't suffered my absence and my hurt feelings were really nothing compared to that blessing. That night, as I carried him home asleep from the park, I couldn't get over how much he'd grown and changed in those few days. It seemed like our close mama/baby relationship had come to an end. He was so much bigger, too. I'd have to buy him a new pair of shoes.

I carried him up to bed. As I laid him down, he awoke in a sleepy panic, reached his arms up to me, and started to cry. "Mama! Mama! Mama! Na-Na. Na-Na-Na. Na-Na." So I scooped him up and he nursed himself into a heavy-limbed sleep.

~*~

As a surprise, and possibly because he's an engineer who can't help himself, Daniel recorded every activity of their days together in a timeline. There was also a load of digital photos he'd taken of Graeme and himself while I was gone, too. The timeline is cute because so much of it is spent in five and ten minute chunks. Graeme wasn't sleeping nearly as long as he usually does, either, and was watching a lot of television. It also seems that the boys were surviving on one noodle dish all weekend. Daniel said living with a toddler, entertaining them moment to moment was interminable exhaustion. Ha!

( A few days without Mama. What were they up to? )

The best possible result came out of leaving Daniel and Graeme together for the weekend. I had an awesome time. Graeme did just fine. Daniel discovered that he could be a single parent. And in the end, Daniel said that I could go away again anytime I liked. Best of all, perhaps, he finally understands just how difficult my not-having-a-job can be. In the past he's said things like, "Well, you've got all the time in the world." Now he sees what some of the constrictions can be with a toddler around. Yes, I have time to tippy-tap on the computer here and there, but those are stolen, unpredictable moments. I don't have a job but I have work that is a never ending 24/7 without lunch or potty breaks instead. I finally feel free, appreciated, and understood--a heady combination.

Weekend in New York: Arrival and Niagara Falls

Friday's travel was easy-peasy. I sipped a soy chai at the airport and then hopped aboard a short (hour and a half) flight to Buffalo that arrived around 5pm.
~*~
Universe Practical Joke #1: The flight was bumpy, though, and so all beverage services and getting-up-to-go-to-the-lavatory options weren't on offer. I'd been so happy with that toddler-unfriendly scalding hot soy chai of mine until I had to pee like crazy. A little plea, a little push of energy, and the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. I was off like a shot down the aisle and arrived to a small line. The flight attendants, clinging to their work stations there, muttered to each other about how they hated when the pilot turned the fasten seatbelt sign off during active turbulence. There were a few ominous wiggles and jolts. "I'll take what I can get", I said aloud to the powers-that-be, "because I have to go." Well, I could feel the suppressed mirth, the giggle behind hands from the ether as I stepped into the lavatory. I can't explain that better, but throughout the weekend I heard the laughing. :) So, it wasn't surprising when the minute I locked the door, the plane leaped and bounced and had a hearty belly-laugh at my expense as I clung to the safety bars and did my best to get out of there without hitting the ceiling or peeing on myself. I couldn't help but laugh. I had gotten my request, despite turbulence, to go to the bathroom. :D
~*~

mermaiden and willow_cabin were waiting just out of security for me and they had a handmade sign that read, "songtoisis". Ha! :)

We made some quick negotiations while waiting for my pink suitcase to wheel around into baggage claim, loaded up into Sarah's witchy bumper sticker festooned car, and drove off to find some of Buffalo's vegan options for dinner.

Oh! Let me say that some low-level circling in the airplane and then our drive around allowed me an instant appreciation of Buffalo's beauty. I saw the white mist of Niagara Falls, the satin gray drape of rivers and lakes and the green textured quilt of forest and farmland rolling out over hills, under impossibly blue skies. It has an old energy, a tree energy, that really calls to me. Such a stunning place!

Quite by accident, through the disappointing and unexpected closure of one place, we ended up at another. Merge, a vegetarian restaurant, was pretty shmancy and spectacular. We sat on display at a table in the window and had some verra tasty stuff. My dish was an ambrosial lasagna with pine nut cheese (how does one milk a pine nut?) and a side of broccoli. There were green beans baked into my pasta. It was heaven. Carby, vegan, great good friends heaven. :) I felt full and nourished and happy.

Though there'd been some talk of seeing The Tempest performed at the Shakespeare festival, we ultimately drove out to Niagara Falls for the sunset viewing there. I'm so glad we did. What a magic place! With the long summer night, the brilliant, slow sunset, the dancing white waters of the Niagara River and then the deceptively peaceful curving plunge of the falls, it was visually arresting. Energetically, it was weighty old energy, strong and waiting tree energy, and the luring siren-call of dangerous water energy. And hey, natural wonder of the world, I've seen it! :)

We walked along the shores of the Niagara River, watching the rapids increase into deep whirlpools, rowdy runs, and riotous tangles before it smoothed out on the horizon in one gracefully deadly plummet. There were crowds at the Falls themselves, yes, but most of the time we had a surprising amount of contemplative peace and solitude. It was a wonderful walk towards the sunset, crossing footbridges over the river, into the dim, primitive shelter of the forest, across spacious park lawns and back again through the breathing slumber of dusk.

We arrived at Sarah and Jenn's home in full dark, the pups waiting eagerly for a nighttime walk. There were tummies to rub and ears to scritch before we drifted off to our beds to sleep. I'd had such a full day and here I was going to sleep in the house they've crafted down to the very last detail to reflect love, love, love and being included and invited into that haven. Having gotten a text message from Daniel that Graeme had gone to sleep, "piece of cake", I was able to surrender to sleep completely. Such luxury. :) Such a perfect day.

( Photos here. )

Weekend in New York: Visiting Lily Dale

Saturday morning dawned sweetly with soft light blooming in the bedroom. Jenn and Sarah had insisted that I get their bedroom, choosing to sleep with their menagerie of pets on an air mattress in the living room while I was all snug and dreaming in their room. So I slept the best I have in years and they probably slept the worst. :D :/ Oh, noes! That's just the kind of friends they are.

Their home reflects them so well. It is decorated with sentiment. Even their backyard still holds reminders of their wedding--silk floral petals nestled and fading in the grass. Perhaps most humbling, so many gifts I've given them over the years are displayed with pride of place in every room. They've collected together the love they share for each other, the love for their families, the love for their friends and it all surrounds them in this little happy home. What a place to have my weekend retreat, to refuel and fill up and reconnect. All that good energy was better than any spa treatment could have been. :D

So Saturday, after a tour of their backyard paradise, we loaded up into the car with some Luna bars and headed off through the misty farmlands to Lily Dale, a Spiritualist town of the late 19th century that is, even today, populated by a large and vocal number of mediums and psychics. We arrived, like the Partridge Family, in matching light skirts and flip-flops to a sudden torrential downpour.

Universe Practical Joke #2 was that I'd packed, as a last minute impulse, my hooded raincoat. Leaving the house and considering the overcast skies, I'd asked if I should run back to get it. Sarah said "No", I think, but mostly I nixed the idea myself because I was both too lazy to negotiate the pet gates again and too vain to consider pairing my purple and lilac coat with my emerald and gold skirt. So, obviously, from the moment we arrived it was ominously dark and dumping buckets of chill rain. Within a few minutes, many of which were spent huddling under the uncertain shelter of a fire station overhang, we were soaked and freezing cold. We met up with Sarah's best friend Maddie and her sister, Laura, in a crystal shop called "Bargain Outlet" or something and I asked myself wryly if they'd have any bargain umbrellas. We shopped for longer than necessary, just to stay out of the rain, and just as we were leaving I discovered they did have some bargain umbrellas displayed incongruously with the tumbled gemstones. Only $4, too! What a bargain! So then the minute we abandoned the shop to dash through the rain elsewhere, I discovered just how shitty a $4 umbrella can be. I got what I asked for though! (And soaked, still.) I was, fortunately, in on the joke. It was really funny in a sopping, freezing, skirts-stuck-to-your-legs, flip-flops ruined by mud kind of way.

Slowly meandering through the quaint and colorful town had lost some of its appeal. Instead, we dashed and splashed to some vendor tents, had lunch at a conveniently veggie-burgered cafe, and then arrived in time to sit in on a Spiritual meeting.

The meeting, emphasized as a religious ceremony, was held indoors at an auditorium. The audience/participants settled into rows of folding chairs, in various stages of damp and soaked. Up front, a handful of mediums took turns "serving Spirit" by offering messages from the spirits they saw hanging around. While we were a party of five, none of us were chosen to be read. We'd arrived kinda late and were seated in the back, so maybe that accounted for it, but I desperately wanted to be read. I also could hardly hear so far back. I was on the edge of my chair, stretching to hear, yearning to be selected. It was interesting, though. At one point, I thought I should pull my Grandma Jane through to me, in hopes that it would get one of the mediums' attention. I concentrated and then she was there, sitting in the empty chair to my right, companionably listening to the medium. A latecomer, a guy in a raincoat, breezed in and sat on her, really indignant with that, she started and laughed, gave me a hug and took off. I guess I didn't need the medium to give me a message. I know she loves me. I know she was there.

After the meeting, the weather took pity on us, bedraggled and cold children. The sun came out in patches, drying our skirts and hair, allowing us to walk down to the lakefront to talk and swing our feet in the water. Laura, sacrificing comfort in the name of our entertainment, ended up wading fully clothed and chest deep through the water. It should have been obvious given her sister, but she proved to be the absolute cat's pajamas, the bee's knees.

We piled into the car and drove just a bit outside of Lily Dale to a psychic fair that was being held at the Fellowships of the Spirit. They had $10 ten minute readings with a roomful of random psychics and mediums, so we each sat down for one. I was unnerved by my psychic. She was in the back of the room, without a client, watching the door intently and practically staring me down. It was intimidating to choose her and walk back there, though she was certainly nice enough when I arrived and spent a lot more than the 10 minutes talking with me. I'm a skeptic, really, when it comes to paid psychics. I believe everyone can develop their psychic abilities but I also believe that anyone can cleverly, vaguely make stuff up in order to seem more psychic than they are. I think she showed some sense of who I am, said some things I agree with, and in other places seemed a bit off of truth. I don't know. Some of it is embarrassment. I don't take compliments well. So what she said, with that grain of salt, was:

Watching you walk up, I saw you had two spirit guides protecting you, one man and one woman, very tall like the Masai. I wanted you to know they were there.

You and your friends (Jenn and Sarah), when you walked in the room had such energy together. The whole place came alive. I can tell you that the three of you create a whole. You have different interests and you are each your own person, but together you are very good for each other. I get the sense you didn't grow up together which is good, you would have fought but together now as adults they are very good for you.

I see you as a very earthy type. You have your feet on the ground and a clear vision of where you're headed. Obviously, life takes you on detours to learn, but you'll always keep coming back to that path. In the next few months, you'll veer off a bit to observe something in the pagan community near you, to collect information, but you'll ultimately have your initial feelings about it confirmed and you'll move back onto your original course. You are the outsider observing the group.

Your husband loves you, you know. You have this big Valentine heart I can see around you. He loves you so much and he's very supportive of you. In the next few months, someone with long dark hair, a mustache, medium-height, someone you already know or may come to know will try to pull the two of you apart. He'll befriend you or your husband with the goal of luring you away, so be aware. You've got the intuition to avoid the problem, but trust it.

Your son is so cute! And so smart. So smart! Understand sometimes you'll need to sit back and say, "Just go ahead" when he wants to clear out the cabinets. He's exploring and it is because he's so smart.

Soon you'll have a choice about whether to have or adopt another child. I don't think you're pregnant now, though I suppose you could be. Either way, the decision will come soon. The pregnancy, whoever has the child, would have a rough patch but will ultimately turn out okay if you relax into it and let go. The child is a daughter, another brilliant child who'd keep up with her brother. What one doesn't know, the other does. They're so smart, with so much energy, you'll have her and you'll say, "Enough!" and have just the two children, your boy and a girl.

Your husband complements you. What you're good at, he isn't. What he's good at, you aren't. It is not a soulmates thing, I don't believe in all that, but he's very good for you"

I sorta closed down a bit on her earthy/set path talk, but now that it has sat a few days I understand it. Just as I shied away from the knowledge that I was on the Straight, not the Bent or Crooked energetic path, the Red Ray, so I also don't always claim what I am. But I am on the straight path and always have been. I've always had a keen sense of self, an unshakeable conviction in my own thoughts, and an overpowering sense of right and wrong for me. I cannot be turned from what I think is right, where I want to go, which does seem to be that straight set path that I do, though only briefly, flutter away and back to now and again. It is possible I'm pregnant, though unlikely, and I will be going back to the OB/GYN next month for my first checkup since G's birth. Will I get some news there that leads to a choice? I guess we'll see.

After Lily Dale, we drove home in time for Sarah and I to take a sunset walk around the adjoining meadow with Poesy. The grass was shorn into a close, dry stubble and as the light slipped away, I found myself getting poked by harsh stalks around my flipflops.

Universe Practical Joke #3 was when a particularly uncomfortable wheat stalk jabbed my instep. I stopped for a second to pull my foot out of my sandal and to examine the bottom of my foot when I discovered, OMG I'M BLEEDING EVERYWHERE!. My foot was covered in blood. I couldn't believe it! Such dark blood, too. I rubbed the arch of my foot, searching for the wound and wondering why it didn't hurt, when my hand came away with some tissue that looked suspiciously like a berry skin. Waitaminute. OMG! AM I BLEEDING?? Or did I get a berry sandwiched between my foot and my shoe? Yeah. That'd be option B. ;) Hi-fucking-larious. What is with all these jokes? It was funny, granted, but I'm feeling foolish and laughed at a lot this trip. :D Some trickster God is having a ROTFLMAO moment. I could hear it. Sarah and I laughed, too.

Oh, wait. I totally forgot stuff. Between Lily Dale and me impaling myself on a blood-filled berry, we went out for dinner at Amy's Place, a vegetarian diner of excellence. I had vegan mac and cheese and a vegan BLT, both of which were perfectly crave satisfying. YUM! :D We also went to drool over Breyers and dollhouse miniatures at the Niagara hobby shop.

( More Photos. )

Weekend in New York: Farm Sanctuary, Picnic, and Ritual

Sunday morning, Jenn treated us to the most fabulous vegan breakfast of my life--banana french toast with margarine and syrup and fresh picked blackberries from their backyard. YUM! Seriously, the vegan food gods might also be the practical joke gods because they were following our every move in New York. :D

As a birthday surprise for Sarah, who turned twenty-five last week, Jenn announced our big secret plans--we were going to visit Farm Sanctuary one of two farms run by the animal rights organization of the same name to provide shelter for animals rescued from factory farming conditions and to educate the public about those horrors. Not only was it this vista of red barns, rolling greenery, and beautiful animals, but it also was a haven for us as animal-lovers, too. Each of these hundreds of animals, ducks to cows, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, geese, pigs, had managed to secure for themselves a Black Beauty happily and safely-ever-after story. They'd gone through the most brutal conditions, bodily mutilations, at the hands of humans and somehow were still there being loving and accessible, approaching eagerly any newcomer with requests for pats and scritches. A drop in the bucket, right, considering the billions of their fellow animals that are slaughtered here each year, but it was like a safe place to love. I could brush the flies off the face of that bull, laying contentedly in the grass of his pasture, without having the slightest bittersweet fear for what would become of him. It was clear. He'd live there, die there, and be buried there. I can't describe it well enough. It was like a respite for me as a vegan where all the food around me was vegan, where all the animals around me were treated with the utmost of love and respect, and where the volunteers that massive workforce all shared my values. I could completely relax there, let down my guard, and feel peaceful.

We went on a tour of all the buildings and fields, made a lot of new animal friends, and then meandered back to the gift shop where I bought just about every junky-junk vegan convenience food they had on offer from Crispy Cat candy bars to a school lunch reminiscent pizza. We nuked some of our food in the staff microwave, had lunch there, stuffed a decadent S'Mores on top of all that pizza, and then piled back into the car for the drive home.

The long summer days really helped us get a ton of stuff done!

We drove the couple hours home, stopped at the grocery store for some picnic foods, and even visited a thrift store. At home, we had a great little picnic in their backyard before getting ready for Sarah and I's big planned ritual.

Sarah and I always talk about the ritual we should be doing anytime we are habitating in the same place at the same time. It never happens. We were technically in ritual together at Diana's Grove but that was a big group thing that neither one of us was really facilitating, so it doesn't count. How would our personal ritual styles mesh, if at all? This time, we planned things a little more, including me bringing some of my altar items so we could combine tools and scheduling Sunday night to devote to magickal whatnot.

Sarah and Jenn are the artists and magic-workers behind the Glamourkin jewelry line and I'm, besides their friend, a huge fan of their spells and invocations as art jewelry. So, imagine the joy and pressure my crafihobbled self felt when Sarah invited me to help her make my own Glamourkin pendant to charge in ritual and invoke something new into my life. It was an awesome magical process. I don't know how they do it because making one pendant, with a ton of help, took hours. :D But still, clumpy glue-job by yours-truly and all, I ended up with the perfect, soul-truth pendant. :)

It was late night when we went out to the dark and starry backyard, set up our joint altar, and cast the circle. It was perfect, acting together, finding and delivering the messages each had for the other, journeying out to the stars within ourselves. I felt filled up, reunited, powerful to the very edges of my being, aware, beloved. The silver-blue heatless fire of the Underworld poured into me and all my doubts about not being fiery enough were put to rest. I have a different source of fire and it is perfectly proportioned out for me. Within me is no mistake, no loss, no lacking. I am perfect for the Work I am meant for and supported by those, like Sarah, with whom my Soul has journeyed so often with.

I am complete. I am divine. I am loved. I am good.

What messages. Unfortunately, the Universe-at-large wasn't quite done with me until Monday morning when I encountered Universe Practical Joke #4. I'd had the perfect weekend. I'd hugged Sarah and Jenn goodbye and was prepared for my leisurely, nap-filled hour and a half flight home. I got through the security checkpoint and had sat to retie my running shoe when suddenly, like wet paper, my worn jeans separated in a giant gaping line and my thigh, crotch, butt went on display for all to see. It was like my jeans were trying to rip themselves into a denim bikini bottom by separating the entire pants-leg. HOLY SHIT, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! MULLIGAN! I CALL A MULLIGAN! DREAM SEQUENCE CAN END NOW! Only, it didn't and I was stuck without any change of clothes or even so much as a spare sweater or something to tie over myself. I tried not to draw attention to myself and my plight as I gathered my bags, patted my butt to see how much of it was still covered, and walked with a silent tattoo plea of "Make me invisible, make me invisible, make me invisible" all the way to the bathrooms five or so gates away. Thankfully, there was nobody in there so I could really examine myself from all angles in the full-length mirror at the entrance. Okay, so it was better than I'd feared. It hadn't started to rip up the back or the front, where the heavy zipper and pockets preserved me, but otherwise it was pretty absurdly obscene. Someone might wear jeans like that as a ripped fashion, but they'd have to be hookers who'd gotten snagged on a barbed wire fence when trying to escape a pimp. There was only one hope for me--I'd have to rock it like it was intentional. Otherwise, everyone would stare if I went all embarrassed and announced it to everyone that my pants had ripped like whoa and thank god I wasn't wearing super attention-getting underwear but my super white skin against the denim blue was beacon to the eye enough.

I was laughing, but it was definitely tinged with a "Why me? Please stop this!" whimper. Well, at least I could tell everyone on LiveJournal. I took some photos which are too absurdly embarrassing, in retrospect, to show here, too. ;) So I left the safety of the bathroom, instead of attempting to will myself to die in it, and walked down to my gate. I had a lot of time before boarding to think about all the ways my pants could continue to split and the long, long, long walk in Chicago that awaited me. Shit. I had to do something. So I sat down with my backpack to think, and placed a few "God, please help me" phonecalls the Underworld and finally decided that I'd walk to the end of the terminal in hopes of finding some touristy sweatpants. Near the very end, with little hope left, I saw a sign for a store called, "Everything ASAP" and that joking trickster giggle sounded, "Even pants!" in my ear. And, thank merciful practical joking gods, there was a giant pair of men's sweatpants hanging on a rack in the back that, once purchased and cinched up, rolled down, rolled up, became the most comfortable fuzzy comforting ass-covering I've every had the joy to wear. ;) Oh sweatpants, I love you! I don't think I've ever been more grateful for a piece of clothing ever. I wanted to roll around and dance in those big, baggy "BUFFALO" sweatpants.

It was a great weekend. Perfect, really, right down to my pants-fail and heroic recovery. :D

( Photos. )