The First Angel

Yesterday's angel post brought a mama friend to mind, Kate, who had made Jessie (back when she was just a wee thing, but still full of piss and vinegar!) a window overlaid with art (Jessie as an angel) and inspiration (six symbols of spiritual strength and the feminine).

The original source of the piece was a polaroid picture (remember those?) taken at a church bazaar, where you could put your face into an opening in a wooden cut out angel figure and have your picture taken as an angel. Jessie was so small Dan had to hold her up (you can just see him in the background) and she jutted her chin out in a way that she had that indicated the beginnings of either defiance or determination. Anyways, a glimmer of something that all my mama and women friends recognized and honoured.

Kate borrowed the polaroid and created this delight, fashioned from a cast-off window and stained glass paint. It was a miracle gift to Jessie, and to me. A blessing of love, reflection, depth, and beauty.

Today Kate and I messaged back and forth (we no longer live in the same city), sharing images and words from that time long ago. And I thought of all that Kate taught me (and teaches me still), and meant to me (and means to me still), and brought to Jessie's life (and does, in her own way, still). And I am grateful that the window, which transforms the light, is still there for Jessie to explore as she grasps her own womanhood. May all our girls have such magical women in their lives, a clutch of feminist fairy godmothers.

For those curious and intrigued, this is a shortened version of the symbols:
Light One: Full Moon and Three Stars. full moon=matriarchal, primary feminine sign, protected or consecrated space where all participants are equal.
Light Two: Fate. the three goddesses of fate (fairy godmothers) who hover over infant's cradley proteching and supporting the child in mystical ways.
Light Three: Interlaced Cross. a sign of interdependent dualism, think yin/yang. Earthly world is horizontal and green, spiritual world is vertical and purple, and they interlace, what happens to one must affect the other. 
Light Four: Ladder. sacred laddeer with seven rungs, ladder to heaven, also leads to the heaven in the first light.
Light Five: Spiral. Death and rebirth (and of particular meaning to Kate, appearing in each of her pieces and a symbol of divinity for her)
Light Six: Triple Arrow. symbol of unity.    

Thankful Tuesday: A Daughter Like Jessie

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk. 

While I kept a list this week of things I was thankful for, it got recycled with the grocery and house to do lists as I was trying to clean the piles of papers vying with the contents of the kitchen cupboards (don’t ask) for space on the dining room table. So last night, as I put aside the editing I was working on and asked Jessie what I should be thankful for, she said “Your friends!” And when I told her, yes, for sure, but I was also trying to keep the focus on these transition years and it would take a full-length book to thank my friends, she said, “You can be thankful that you have a daughter like me!”

And I am! Because even in this mess of growing up, in this mess of driving, problem solving, present buying, sex educating (her me), and money managing, Jessie reminds me that it is all about people. About friends, and lovers, and husbands, and mothers, and spirit cousins who gather in darkened candle-lit rooms to be still and quiet together for half an hour every week. It’s about connectors, and fitness instructors, and old neighbours with new dogs, and strangers who use the “r” word and are then corrected and accept the correction with suitable contrition. It’s about church friends who invite Jessie to sit for a while, and church friends who invite her to work for a while, and church friends who offer to teach cooking and sewing and public speaking when I have lost all patience for any of that.

It’s about mama friends who hug her and love her when I am almost at the end of my patient and thoughtful loving and am running on gut and instinct. It’s about long-time from forever friends who bicycle in sub-zero weather wrapped in layers of wool and Polish-knit sweaters to teach my daughter to sing and want to come back for more. It’s about husbands who vacate basement offices to let mothers work in peace and quiet and without incessant Say-Yes-to-the-Dress whining and drama in the background.

And finally, at the end of a long day, it’s about Jessie who lets me sit beside her as she nestles into her bed, and read her the daily gospel and reflection from my favorite gifted Advent book (God With Us, if you are wondering). And then remembering/telling the beginning of the Godly Play Advent story . . . Advent is the time when we are all (and this is where Jessie gifts me with a long graceful arc of her hand, sweeping, pointing to an imaginary spot in the distance), all on our way to . . .  Bethlehem, we singsong together.

Peace on your journey.         

Thankful Tuesday: A List

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk. This week I am thankful for:

• Mentors for Jessie who handle her chronic lateness and disorganization with just the right balance of lovingkindness (Jess, you are a very important part of this organization and we all love your contribution and creativity and hard work, so we would never fire you or ask you not to come back) with realistic and accommodating consequences (we won’t pay you for the class you were late for, especially since you were leading it). I am learning so much from them about gentle teaching.

• Mail for delivering prizes won from a 31 for 21 blog contest, especially when they come from Colorado and include a wonderfully inspiring book by Margaret Bender (of The Ordinary Life of an Extraordinary Girl blog) called From Grief toCelebration: How One Family Learned to Embrace the Gift of Down Syndrome. And, the bonus, it’s signed by Alex. I am so looking forward to reading this!

• Boyfriends who take girlfriends (who happen to be daughters) to Remembrance Day ceremonies and hold them when they cry in remembering all those who died during war. This was Jessie and Drummer Boy’s first date totally devised, arranged, planned, and executed by themselves, independently. What a thoughtful and heartfelt date. Jessie returned at the end of day still swooning from sharing a meaningful time with DB.

• A lover and life-partner I can call a husband (because we arenow married, after 25 or so odd, really odd years) who is willing to put all to do lists and agendas aside to walk the Westboro strip with me in balmy weather, wandering in and out of bookstores and shoe stores and coffee shops and little local boutiquey design stores, holding hands and kissing every now and then. Ah, for those late warm fall days and someone to share them with.

• Friends who read your blog and take the time to email you (because you have both been in and out of town and in and out of work, and have not actually talked or seen each other for more than a week) and say they like it and say that what you write resonates with them in a way that is not limited by disability or even circumstance. Friend who like your writing and encourage you to keep doing it, even when what you write about is streaked with desperation or frustration.

• Opportunities that emerge that coincide with Jessie’s passions and gifts—for performing, for advocating, for infiltrating the mainstream—and that make the world seem like her oyster. She is (we are!) so graced to be living at this particular time, when barriers have been broken down and she is part of a new generation forging new roads into the heart of the community. As an early traveller and pathfinder, she is making connections and dealing with people who crave her generation’s input and are willing to see her and her peers’ gifts and contributions. So even though there is still prejudice, mostly there is opportunity and openness. She is well loved and respected. That is a good life.

And for Mama: Monk’s Thankful Tuesdays, so I can pause at the beginning of my week, in the midst of deadlines and rescue missions, and breath in blessings.

What are you thankful for? Write is and post over at Mama: Monk. 

31/21: Thankful Tuesday: 'Tis People, 'Tis People

This is Tuesday, so I am joining in the Thankful Tuesday party over at Micha Boyett’s blog, Mama: Monk . These thankful Tuesdays are the just the kind of weekly discipline I sometimes need to shake me out of the cave I occasionally hole myself up in. Like the discipline of meditation, the discipline of being thoughtfully thankful has its own sweet blooming, no matter what you plant or subsequently feed it. So , having emerged from under the dark duvet and having secured the flyable items that are potential storm projectiles, I am sitting down here to focus on the graces and blessings that I think I missed being thankful for this last week. Mea culpa. Alleluia. We are indeed an Easter people!

And I am grateful especially for:

• Our local Down syndrome association, which hosts the most amazing annual general meeting and dinner dance where everyone is full fed (for free, both cash and gluten) and loudly served the hottest dance music that keeps everyone—from the tinnies to the grandparents—dancing. 

• The fulsome tribe of DS mamas and their wry edgy humour and bear-like love of their babies, even when they are babies no more and are exploring where their raging hormones are leading them. These mamas who laugh and share and snark and gently correct the clan of adolescents at the table, while nodding vigorously in recognition at some tale of poor or sketchy mothering. Who, in nodding, give new breath and energy to the going forward, to trying new strategies, and most importantly to laughing at our own foibles.

• Parents of the young dancers taking Kids Propeller dance who come to Jessie’s defense when she arrives late and we complain, a bit, just a bit, about her lack of responsibility. They all, each and every one of them, share small stories, bits of her teaching that we never get to see or hear about, that demonstrate her care and growth in that role. The ways their children relate to and love Jessie. The ways that she encourages this care. May all adolescents have such defenders and fans as they separate from their parents. 

• My friend CG, who drags me out to small town Ontario to eat pulled pork in Irish pubs and sit in old leather-backed movie theatre chairs in a small theatre with an even smaller audience to listen to the compelling and richly plaintive voice of Lyn Miles singing sad coal mining and forlorn love songs. My friend who drives through rain with me and listens to me rant and whine and is still game for a conversation about God and churches and Greek philosophers and vegetarian cuisine. Who will read my blog and email me offering home and hearth and a place to work while the workers work on our house, complete with delicious dinner, including dessert and maybe even candlelight if the power goes out. Who also throws in reassurance that my daughter will in fact be fine, will live a good life, and we will get to see that sooner than we think . . . and so she offers me comfort in all the broken bits and places that need a bit of tenderness. So I am immensely grateful for my tenderizing friend, CG.

That, I realize, is a lot to be grateful for, and more than reason enough to crawl out from under the duvet. So. What are you thankful for?