Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
– Bruce Lee
Saturday/Creative Day:Last week we went to the Hawai’i Museum of Science and Technology I loved it. This week there was a storm, the storm in our area, it’s the Kona Low, it is the wind racing over us like the wing of an airplane. It wants to lift things up and break them. The kids get scared, I think most of the community does, it’s wind, rain and snow at a fast rate, 50 inches of rain in 24 hours sometimes. But also it can be power outages or food shortages due to supply chain disruption, when power is down stores are down… I feel so much better now that we bought a generator, because we have a water pump the electricity isn’t just electricity it’s water and heat in our home, without it we don’t have a fire place back up. Last year I bathed the kids outside in the rain, in ice cold water, because we lost power for 4 days or so. The storm knocked down my favorite tree and our aquaponic system, since the plumbing broke it killed most of our koi fish by suffocation. Before having a bad experience I used to love storms, now I still like regular rain, but storm storms… less so. I’m glad the kids are talking about being scared, I think it’s worse to be a person who bottles up emotions. Anger and sadness can be bad, but concentrating them and stagnating them over time seems like it’s only ever worse. This year it was still tense during the storm, but I did feel like what we needed to fix after we could fix, I was happy the wood that gets knocked down might be used by my friends to build stuff. I feel like we can get and give help to our and from our friends now to get things back fixed even if they do get broken and that’s a good feeling. I feel at peace with nature, even though the storms are strong and destructive the same strong winds bring us abundant water for farming and sailing. I feel at peace with God for creating such a destructive system because there are also kind people to learn from and we can help each other rebuild. I’m happy the new stuff I made after understanding the power of the wind didn’t break and I’m happy that the old broken stuff was still broken, I didn’t just put it back how it was. I do get a certain “I believe in God feeling” during the huge storms, whether that is silly I don’t know, but watching the force of nature makes me see I’m small in the universe. I was happy to test the new garden gazebo against our storms… because now I can start the next one.
Sunday/Faith Day: Last week we went out skating. I bought two benches I wanted to buy that wouldn’t ship to my house before. I should probably have not got them until closer to the end of the month, but I’ve become so comfortable pay day advancing myself that I see my own fiscal irresponsibility even though for whatever reason it doesn’t bother me. In my heart a lot of things I wanted to happen are starting to happen, I’m getting closer to the three goals I had on my mind last summer even though it has taken me longer than I wanted it to (I wanted it to be by years end last year). As I approach my goals I wish I felt confident and responsible, I wish I felt sure of myself and reasonable, but there is always a voice of doubt, that what I want is crazy, how I’m doing it is stupid, that it won’t be good enough and that in the end nothing I do will matter before it crumbles to dust. I don’t know why I have that internal dialogue, but the listening to it somehow doesn’t stop me, I can’t stop having that at the back of my mind, but it can’t stop me from trying anyways.
Monday/Unity Day: Last week I cleaned up a friend’s house. This week I went back, I wasn’t sure if we would finish, but now I think we will. I noticed things need schema, like school supplies, toys, X person’s books, cleaning supplies, tools, kitchen goods, food goods, laundry, clothes, pet supply, current medicine, X project supply, pharmacy, office supplies, coins, small loose items, papers, mementos, things to return, party supplies/seasonal dรฉcor. I did feel a bit bad about over spending, I definitely correlate it to stress, I guess I need to find a more responsible and healthy way to deal with my stress.
GARDEN GOALS: Front: Stone Road, Milkweed. Back: Safe Paths.
Tuesday/Self-Determination:Last week I cut some frames for the art director I found out I really enjoy wood work, it’s a flow state activity for me. This week I went to a friend’s house to go to a friend’s house, I left my kids with a good friend and went to another friend’s house to clean, I didn’t spend a long time this time but I hope I made a difference. I feel so much pressure right now, even though my friend is under more pressure than me, I don’t handle pressure well and it doesn’t really help me to know other people do work well under pressure. I’m torn between I want to help because I’ve received a lot of help and support and I definitely want to withdraw in order to find a sense of inner calm, but it doesn’t feel right to do that.
PROJECTS: Stain Picnic Table
Wednesday/Collective Work Day: Last week a ton of little girls doing karate together. This week we got more frame accessories and painted pots. It was a rainy vibe, there was good music, I liked it. I like the salt water, I like watching the tide. It’s fun to have kids for the kids to play with, but most of the things I like don’t really depend on people. I like the sound of the waves and the sound of the rain together. The waves were large, they remind me of a painting my grandparents had about lovers who both drowned trying to swim to each other. It’s a romantic story when you are young, and just bad ocean safety when you are old. I needed to restore my spirit and the beach does that faster than other things, my son had me write in the sand for him, we got farm fresh produce to try, bread fruit, I had seen it, but not eaten it. It’s like a potato in a remote way, it feels powerful like Taro does, after baking it I wished I had either fried it or mashed it, it seems like it’s delicious if you make it’s mild sweetness come out, maybe with bread… But I didn’t know how to make it well so it came out somewhat a failed dish. But now I have had a new experience at least. It was great hearing live music at the beach, it was so beautiful it takes me away and I feel like a kid again and I feel safe and I feel home.
Thursday/Cooperative Economics Day: Last week helping out with cleaning up for an inspection, this week I am taking a break. I’m sore from moving a heavy desk, I am going to go back tomorrow, but today I am tired and sore. In my mind I feel anxious my dad is coming back soon, it’s so much more peaceful without him, he has so much anxiety about so many things that it really annoys me deeply. His fear held me back from many things as a child, now it holds us back from having a healthy relationship, since he owns the home I stay in it holds me back from building choices I would want to make… I want to break free of the circle of his fear, I don’t want to hear the tone of it, I don’t want to hear his reasoning, I don’t want to be restricted or affected by it, I don’t want to add up what it costs him or how much I hate it, I just want to be 100 miles away from him, but we share the same house and my husband is delaying buying a new one because it seems costs will keep going down, which makes sense. So I am grateful to have somewhere to be, but I know it drains my patience and wellbeing living with someone with unchecked anxiety and I am open to finding a way out to my own place, but here with my friends who are becoming an artistic and educational tribe with me.
Friday/Creativity Day: Last week there was a big storm so our normal stuff got cancelled. I’ve been reflecting with a friend that the deep theme of my life was flipping the bad of my life into good, it makes me feel trapped that my anti path isn’t my own path, it’s the opposite direction as my parents, but not a free curve. I don’t know what today holds, it’s the morning now, I love that feeling of omnipotence. In a few hours I will probably go meet my obligations, then I have a fun event planned for the evening, but at 6:15 AM, it’s not yet set in stone if this will happen how they are scheduled to happen. I really like not having pets, with pets you make arrangements or go care for them, without them you don’t have to go home, you can stay with a friend, you can go help without knowing when you will be back to feed your pet. I really like not having a pet. You have more money for birthday presents… I’m going to sleep over at my friend’s house today because it’s close to my project area, I couldn’t do that with a pet, but mostly they are always taking up mental space. My kids take up mental space, where are they in each subject, how are their ethics developing if at all, are they well, what are their interests, how can we be a good team together, do I need to apologize to them, I don’t have extra room in my mind for much else and pets are something I enjoy not having there. I like gardening so I am sure some people would flip the two and eliminate the mess, costs and work of the garden.
Last Year to This Year
Last Year: I was very happy repairing the garden, gardening, planting flowers with the group, enjoying life. I guess I was thriving, I didn’t realize how my dad and I had suck lack of common ground deep down, not how much it bothered me our failure at an emotionally healthy, supportive relationship. I didn’t realize my husband would move away, nor that it would take us so long to start being home owners (still not).
This Year: I am overwhelmed, as I was last year. I decided to buy flower bulbs as I did last year, very excited for that small loveliness. I am excited and overwhelmed this year which is how I felt last year, I wonder if reasons cause our feelings or do we assign reasons to feelings purely arbitrarily?
Live – Lift – Love
Live – I feel really alive gardening and now woodworking, I feel really alive at the beach, I want to keep doing those things that allow me to feel that way. I am excited to try to repair my green house and plant milkweed in the front garden.
Lift – I am happy to be helping to do something that has been on my radar for a long time, but it is hard and tiring too so I can’t ignore the truth of it, I will need some rest soon, but I am happy to get to do what I said I wanted to do, I get to prove my integrity to myself a bit.
Love – The more I do what I say I will the more I love myself. The more I keep teaching martial arts the more I love myself. Wellbeing comes from art, music and the beach, but self love comes from service gardening or teaching martial arts. I can’t wait for the new flower bulbs.
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
– Bruce Lee
Saturday/Creative Day:Last week we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival (Hanami). This week we went to the Hawai’i Museum of Science and Technology, it was really cool. Small but immersive and that’s what I like for a children’s museum. Without our friends it may have been not worth staying very long, but being there with our friends we could not only explore, but also jam on the piano or catch up or make jokes. It’s a pretty building and the layout is easy to see the kids so they can slightly get away without being unsafe. We had fries after and that was fun, the restaurant reminded me a lot of Brazil, not fancy, but lively and loud. The museum made me feel good, it’s not that far off from what we do and have, it’s toned down from big city normal as we also are so it made me feel like we are not that behind other non-profits in what we offer.
Sunday/Faith Day: Last week we went fishing at essence island, it was nice because my kids enjoy fishing (in a quick way) and I enjoy the sand and the environment, where there was once a healing temple. This week we went out skating, it was so rainy, I just wanted to relax, when we did get to the pavilion there was a beautiful rainbow pretty close to us, closer than I had seen a rainbow before. That was pretty, it felt like a blessing from the rainbow goddess. I felt good to be with my friends, but bad to be not resting when I could feel the call of rest from my body. Most of us were pretty moody, typically only one person is at a time, but today it was a grumpy day overall. On the car ride I complained a bit, but then I described things I should be grateful for, to skateboard, to see my friends and it helped me go from negative to neutral, but not really positive, it was a funky day for me mentally.
Monday/Unity Day: Last week I was actually happy about the front garden getting “finished”. A lot of it is finished, but one thing it didn’t get is milkweed to attract butterflies, I tried direct sowing it and that didn’t work out this time. Another thing is I’m not sure if I want a pebble road vs mulch. But it is more finished than it was. We were all a but tired we covered a little Social Studies and world history. I cleaned up the living room floor, vacuumed under the sofa, wiped the kitchen counters, set up the third aeroponic garden I had sitting in my room for a long long time. The whole house isn’t clean, but I started to clean it and take stock of what needs to get de-molded when I buy more de-mold spray. We folded some of our clean towels together, still behind on folding the clean clothes.
Tuesday/Self-Determination:Last week went skateboarding, it was really fun and we got picnic table lumber. This week we have the picnic table cut and since I got comfy on the miter saw I cut some frames for the art director, I sanded most of them with my daughter and son and still need to paint them. Choosing the sizes was a bit hard for me as an indecisive person, I chose 4×6″, 8.5×11″, 12×16″, 22×28″. When I work with bamboo I get into a flow, I also feel that way with this guava wood, I like to work with wood I harvested more than store bought wood.
The picnic table wood is cut, but not stained yet.
The frame wood is cut and mostly sanded, but not stained yet.
I was inspired by Eugene’s frame it look elegant and rustic, at least to me.
Wednesday/Collective Work Day: Last weeka small class with my own kids was nice because to include others I sometimes feel I ignore my own and I don’t want to feel like that, I want it to be balanced. This week a ton of little girls doing karate together, it was adorable, from one about to be two years old to one about to be six, very cute mix of focused girls attacking the new punching bag. The frames were really fun, we had our art project, our red morning glories and hibiscus tea seeds, our karate class. It was Valentine’s day exchange and a birthday so it was pretty big. I was happy the punching bag went well, I was happy so many people were into martial arts this week, I was happy to see the kids playing well overall, I was happy people took plants, people made frames. I was so happy to be with my friends and enjoy the day. I still only taught one class, but I did offer to do two so getting there.
Thursday/Cooperative Economics Day: Last week able to see a new garden where I hope to help grow an English Secrete Garden Style Garden. This week helping out with cleaning up for an inspection, I’ve been wanting to help my friend for a few years, but it seemed like it was never the right time. It’s scary to hope we are going to make a difference but one of my friends made me feel hopeful and positive about it. You never really know what will happen, but it’s hard to work hard if you can’t believe it is leading to success, or I can’t. Much later after failure you see how skills lead to being able to do things you couldn’t have done without the failures, but failures hurt so they are scary and disappointing. I want to help my friend clean up because I came from a messy house and I’ve never seen a messy home become actually clean in real life, I want to believe it is possible, that people aren’t stuck as clean or dirty, but can become more than they are. I don’t want to believe we are set in stone or that I am.
Friday/Creativity Day: Last week I planted roses. This week there was a big storm so our normal stuff got cancelled, everyone was in a bad mood lately and then the big wind storm hit, it really seems to be related, because it wasn’t just me, but the most happy go lucky people as well who were not feeling like sunshine. The storm is a scary storm, it knocks over trees, it breaks things, it’s hard to repair the things that are broken as fast as they get broken and it’s depressing walking by things falling apart all the time. I had time to talk to the kids about my son’s birthday coming up and order some coffee mugs, I had time to plan the next phase of our scout group and to think about the future, I had time to look for my daughter’s best friend’s birthday gift and do some laundry. I made some muffins. It’s not a restful day with the storm winds raging outside, but I did have hope to have help fixing my home and to help others fix theirs I want to help us become a community that does that kind of stuff.
Last Year to This Year
Last Year: It was when we formed a Non-Profit Corporation to seek grants instead of just being a free community class with no structure, I met so many people I was having trouble keeping their names straight. We started the tide challenge and a girl I now like a lot inspired me to keep trying with the science challenges.
This Year: Felt scattered for awhile, but seeing that some of my goals did get done from last year to this year made me feel better, the golf lawn hit a 1.0 for sure with grass (though it’s overgrown now), the front garden fountain hit a 1.0 it works and is cool (though I am waiting on stone path and milkweed). Reading about last year I am so grateful about my friends that I once struggled to name, they have taught me a lot and supported me and fed me and inspired me and just last year I didn’t know most of them.
Live – Lift – Love
Live – Sometimes I need a break, I may not impress my friends, but that’s how I keep being able to be the person I want to be is by shifting into neutral sometimes. That’s kept me patient with my kids and with myself. Productivity vs Productivity Capacity, being able to rest to be healthy to do something, it’s so important.
Lift – I’m really excited that I’m helping my friend clean in our Clutter Fight Club, I’m really excited to be taking our scout curriculum to the next level even if it is messy and unprofessional, I’m really excited to look for Sandalwood seeds or seedlings, I’m really excited to be more comfortable with boundaries that I’m heading off problems within our group and learning from our mistakes. We are bringing the community together, for fun, for social well being, also to educate, to celebrate and they all seem to be equally important and beautiful. I updated our Patreon and website pictures, I did a Patreon transfer just to test the system. I am super inspired right now by a frame project we just did that a few people tried.
Love – I love the way having a scout group has brought my children more social opportunities, family is good and school is good, but friends are so soothing to the soul and they make you see things in a different way. I love that my children are a part of the group we are a part of, which makes me happy, I’m happy to do it for others, but I’m also happy to take from the community they have a lot to give me and teach me and I don’t hate help and knowledge. I guess I found faith, I found that to make something special you simply need to believe it’s special and what that means to me and for me. For me it’s not faith in God, but faith in humanity and if I have any faith in God, it’s the faith in the God in humanity (I’m not very spiritual of a person really, but that’s me).
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
– Bruce Lee
Saturday/Creative Day:Last week we went to pick up my son’s playhouse since we were getting mostly better. It was nice that we could afford the $125 playhouse, it wasn’t something I would have had growing up, even though it doesn’t seem like that much money now, it just wasn’t something my parents would have had on their radar. This week we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival (Hanami), been spending a lot lately, but I wanted the kids to have at least one souvenir from Hawaii when we are away spending time with my husband. Over spending has helped me feel a lot better after being depressed about being sick for three months, so, hmm, not trying to justify it, but I am noticing “bad things” are done for a reason, because they help in some way. My over spending is toned down from last year, and I intend to keep toning it down until it’s “spending” but I thought it would be easier to really change if I worked at it bit by bit. So I’m going to try to reduce groceries from $200 to $150/week and though it sounds like a lot, I live in the state with the official highest cost of living so it is what it is.
Sunday/Faith Day: Last week was my wedding anniversary and I was pretty depressed, but then cheered up taking the kids to the zoo. This week my dad and I took the kids fishing at Coconut Island, my son made his own pole. We caught an Indian Fish and put it in a little pond I dug next to the rock wall. The kids had a lot of fun with the fish, we all hope it will be okay, there is a risk when you catch and release that the stress will kill the fish after. It was nice being in the sun without feeling nauseated. It was a peaceful day between my dad and me, though I still found conversation tiring and kind of pointless, or at least not worth the effort for me, with a lot of misunderstandings over nothing important. I am happy my dad and my kids get along even while I have given up having a comradery of my own with my dad, I do want good things for him, though it’s hard for me to be patient with the way he communicates, because I don’t like it.
Monday/Unity Day: Last week I was very tired trying to do what was once normal for me. This week I feel pretty decent energy wise and mentally. I’ve been reflecting about life from last year to this year and although progress was slow, many things I wanted to do are done or happening now, so that’s both humbling that things take so long and inspiring that they happen at all. I added the pond pump to the UV filter in the koi pond, tightened the tubing, encased it in a large net box, added a solar pump to the overflow pond and added the deer scarer pump to the front fountain, something I wanted to do last year… I’m still happy it happened at all. I want to be someone who finishes things, but most my life I’ve had more ideas and messes then finished projects.
Even though this took a lot longer than I expected looking at it now it met a lot of what I wanted, when I first moved to the forest I wanted to respect the forest, but also diversify. I didn’t move any ferns/trees to put in this wall/bamboo/fountain/sunflowers, I developed a friendship with the birds, rocks, land and rain over time, all my water comes from rain, so these are rain fountains, there are fish in the pot my daughter caught and water plants that must come from elsewhere on the island. I feel like my garden is in harmony with the animals of the forest and balanced between what I want in my life and the character of the forest around us. I’m more at peace with where the bamboo is now even though it will take time to grow, and I’m happy I got a morning glory that is not typically invasive and I’m happy the Mexican Sunflower adds nutrients to the soil. Something about moving water in the same pot I once had an urn of a miscarried child makes me feel like life and death are connected in a cycle.
Tuesday/Self-Determination:Last week recovering from being sick. This week went skateboarding, it was really fun. My son skated with me a bit and my daughter rode her scooter. I enjoy the feeling of trying to be balanced, I don’t know if it’s because that’s where my emotional process is or not, but it takes me into a flow state and kind of connects my past and present because I wanted to skateboard and did as a kid. Until 16, then I started college and tried to use my time being responsible, so 21 year break and now at 37 making progress again. In my family we maintain our physical body well, our balance, strength, capacity, my dad is turning 70 and bought his first kayak this year, so it’s not that we are abnormally strong or capable, but what we have we mostly maintain so I can look forward to perhaps a life time of skate boarding. We got some lumber to make a picnic table. We ran into the preschool teachers it was nice to see them and for them to see the kids.
Wednesday/Collective Work Day: Last weekwe had two new karate students and I felt like I did when I first started teaching, which is honored to shelter a new interest in art, even though martial arts is thought of as sport I really do feel it as art as well. This week we did do one karate class, but I was a bit too relax to organize a second class. I think I will in the future, but I’m still rebuilding myself to where I was before. After last class I was inspired to get some more equipment, just a little kid punching bag, a timer, and counters, but the punching bag did get a lot of use actually by my own kids and I think it will continue to get a lot of use. The whales are back, others have seen them, I haven’t yet, but I find it extra special to be next to whales, they seem like a symbol that the ocean is still not toxic and that we are sharing the beach in harmony with something greater than ourselves, I guess they are a living symbol of God to me. There is a myth that all reality is the dream of a whale and we are just a dream, that’s probably why they are so high status in my mind. I can’t believe people used to hunt them, and use them for lamp oil, I don’t think I could ever eat them. As much as I like trees, I would rather chop down a tree to burn than use a whale for oil.
Thursday/Cooperative Economics Day: Last weekgetting my strength back after each active day. This week able to see a new garden, which is always fun, checking out how other people run their permaculture garden/farm is pretty helpful, though so far every farm I go to is a different type of weather than I have so it’s somewhat usable, but not exactly the right layout for me to copy in my garden/farm. I wanted to understand the goals and style of the gardener so I can help and over time I started to understand and it’s mostly hardscaping that needs to be done. I like gardening for vegetarians because for normal eaters I wonder if they will even harvest veggies or not, but I believe vegetarians are likely to use and enjoy whatever they harvest so I see it as a really good investment of energy. I’m noticing that gardens that have an herb place, veggie place, ornamental place (and small plant nursery) are easier to tend, even if there are some things mixed up having that mental idea of I need to tend the veggies or check them (while the herbs and ornamentals can mostly be left alone) is helpful. My head and my heart filled up with ideas for the garden and mostly hope, whatever ideas shift or change is fine, but I hope to help make the most beautiful garden here where there is perfect sun and rain and good airflow and no cold pockets, here I want to help build the most pretty garden, where as I prefer mine to be calm more than spectacular.
Friday/Creativity Day: Last week I planted corn, and peas at my friends house, I’m jealous of the butterflies there, but they planted milkweed and I didn’t so the jealousy doesn’t make sense (I guess it never does). This week I brought down roses for a friend, they are climbing roses, so maybe they can take over the back fence someday… I bought some bolt cutters and welded wire. Then we had the same friends over. We cooked together, which was the first time for me in a long time, I’m trying to get back into cooking. I made simple mistakes like not greasing my pan, not making enough rice, making it too wet, forgetting how to chop. Not to be dramatic, but after COVID my brain had to relearn some simple things, a mind fog kind of took over that I’m shaking off, even though my body is back to strong, my mind is only at medium strength and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by things I once did without thinking about them. I started some second generation sunflowers in the morning and that is cool the seeds will get more and more naturalized to Hawaiian sun and weather.
Last Year to This Year
Last Year: My husband just started working in this state and I thought we would all be a family together here.
This Year: My husband has been back in another state for awhile, we miss him, we should be going back and forth with him in the future when he finds a place over there. I worry that he didn’t spend enough time with the kids when they were little, that is something we will never fix in the future. But it’s something that wasn’t necessarily his fault, it wasn’t something he fixed, but it wasn’t something he caused. It was caused by him needing to work full time, it was caused by the kids not being able to fly easily during the pandemic, it was caused by my dad and him not being able to live together happily. It was his fault that he didn’t take time off when I asked for help (and he did have time off at work), it was his fault that he moved out of our old place to save money without thinking about where we would come back to, it was his fault for not buying his own home in this state, in those ways it was his fault. So it was both not his fault, and his fault in various ways. As a wife I will always remember he didn’t help me much with our two kids, it’s not out of spite, but it’s engrained in my bones that I carried their weight mostly alone, that my mind bore most of the decisions, and my heart took in most of stress. I’ll never forgive him for telling me he would help at night, and then sleeping while I did everything, before we both went to work in the morning. Not because I don’t want to forgive, but because I can’t. When things are hard, he goes on break, someone is left on duty, and that someone is me. Over time you know when things get hard, that person isn’t going to be there, and you can’t see them as someone who is going to be there, even in your imagination, anymore.
Live – Lift – Love
Live – There were a lot of beautiful moments this week, it is a lot easier to feel that way when you are no longer sick. I’m settling into my own life again, I’m happy to be not fighting with my family even if they aren’t supportive we aren’t fighting, I’m happy to have a lot of love and support from my friends and I’m happy to have cooperation from my kids, they are starting to act like my team members and not my enemies… Especially teaching martial arts makes me feel alive, but so does the ocean, I’m trying not to cut out the things that I enjoy in life. It has helped a lot to write/blog because I notice in a deeper way what I really like, what I don’t like, and how I feel about things.
Lift – Teaching martial arts two parents said thank you and one checked out the Youtube practice video to maybe practice at home, so that was significant because those that practice at home will take home another level of skills and learning than those that don’t. Simply because without the home practice people tend to forget the blocks ext. I don’t always have interested students, but sometimes I do and that’s an honor to be the bridge between what kids WANT TO and what they CAN, I like to be that bridge when I can.
Love – I love my friends here, I ran into two at the cherry blossom festival and my kids got to play with theirs at the park and it was kind of special to see them in a new place. I’ve made more friends in 2 years since moving out of the city than I had combined in 35 years of living in the city. It was fun seeing one of my friends working selling her jewelry, I had been wanting to see her at work for awhile and it was just a surprise to see her work, it’s very pretty and the arrangement was very pretty as well. I’m so proud of the three jewelry making friends I have now, I would never do that or have a business, just like some people would never teach martial arts at the beach… We are different people, but we are learning to live our best lives together I think. I haven’t asked them, but I feel like they are in that state of being where you want to find your best life and working on changing what needs to change bit by bit to find a way forward.
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
– Bruce Lee
Saturday/Creative Day:Last week, I was very sick. This week we went to pick up my son’s playhouse for his birthday and to get groceries for the first time since having COVID. 10 years ago I felt tired hiking Half Dome in Yosemite, now I feel tired going back to grocery shopping with my two kids, I never imagined how tiring errands would be with kids, my kids have been more rewarding than I imagined, but also more exhausting than I ever imagined. It took me 7 years to learn how to discipline kids “properly” or “functionally” at least, so it could have been easier had I more knowledge, but here we are now I have my daughter’s special needs diagnosis and treatment and a basic ability to discipline kids and how to play with kids, so we are learning how to live together, how to make school work and I don’t regret having my life mostly spent teaching and taking care of my kids for now. If I regret anything it’s not having my own place with the money I made working, which I did a lot before the kids, but here I am now.
Sunday/Faith Day: Last week I lost all hope in my father meeting me half way as a good family member to support me emotionally, I don’t think of him as a good person any more. I don’t know if I will feel better once we have time apart, but I’m afraid not, because I’ve always felt irritated by the way he treats me and I’ve dismissed my own feelings because people say you should respect or care for your parents, but I’ve grown tired of not liking the way he disrespects me up to whatever limit I set and across the limits as well, I’ve started to think that it doesn’t matter what other people think I should think about my dad if they don’t have to live with him. I don’t know if he is eccentric, demented or just different than me, it’s an uncomfortable ambiguity, I know he likes to live in a weird way, I know that he had different values than I do, but I don’t really know if it’s unsafe for him or just less neat than I would like things… a lot of elders start blurring that line and it’s hard to say what is messy vs what is unhealthy vs what is self neglect/abusive conditions…. it’s hard because you care for your family and want the best for them, but your best isn’t their best, so they want to keep old sauces because “it’s not really bad” then they have moldy food and you hope it’s because they don’t want to clean the fridge yet, then all their stuff smells moldy and you clean it, then you wonder how many times you will have to clean their stuff without them participating in maintaining a system to try to prevent mold and you can’t help but notice they don’t help you make it easier. Essentially their dirt spills over and they are giving your kids moldy toys as presents and you don’t want to offend them, but you don’t want to smell their dog urine and step over their dog poop and try to demold the gifts they give you and fight a battle with cockroaches when they are on the cockroach side and not your side. Loss of faith becomes more of a way of being then a simple lack of faith, it’s a negative amount of belief in the other person to be reasonable, live in reality, care enough about you to keep the shared space livable in a normal sense. I don’t have faith in my dad getting better, but I have faith in myself to do my best to either keep the kid’s space clean or move out eventually. It’s my 11 year anniversary with my husband so we went out to eat (me and the kids) and to the zoo, but my husband moved out of state for work and so it’s one of the only anniversaries we spent separated and I was sad about it until the actual day when being with the kids cheered me up. My husband is looking for a place for us right now and I am kind of homesick for having the kids together with him again, familysick? And kind of family poisoned by spending too much time with my dad in a row…
Monday/Unity Day: Last year I wrote “I don’t like the family tension but I can refuse to feed into it more than what it is on it’s own.” I’m still doing my best with that. Last week I cleaned mold off the bottoms of shelves. This week I was very tired, I started doing a handful of normal people things to try to work back into our “normal” lives. School with the kids was exhausting, I got mad at my dad for bothering me about the kids whining a pretty standard amount and that was exhausting, hate is exhausting, I just don’t know how not to hate my dad anymore. If I knew how to not hate him I’m sure I would just to be less exhausted by hating the things he says, the mess he leaves, the way he undermines me as a parent and a person… I was thinking it wouldn’t be better when we got better, but hoping it would. It hasn’t so far.
Tuesday/Self-Determination: Last week sick with the Coronavirus. This week unsure between if I am sick or well, trying to get back into things we did before. My son started his writing practice book and I noticed he jumped from working on letters to a writer. I’m proud of him, even though it’s a bit draining working on writing with him. I’ve put off making more spelling flashcards for my daughter and that makes me sad, but it is what it is. I’ll get to it soon. My daughter has been drawing a lot and writing books, I’m very proud of her for making her dreams materialize in that way and being pushy enough that the things she wants to do generally happen, where as I let many of the things I would want go by because I’m not an advocate for my own happiness as much as I am for my kids.
Wednesday/Collective Work Day: Last week we stayed home sick, this week we returned to the beach it was a double birthday, we did karate class, but didn’t have our normal instructor. The ocean was beautiful, I forget because it’s our local habit to complain about our small number of beaches, but what we do have is beautiful. My son swam and my daughter had a great time playing with new kids and her friends, she loves new people so the beach is a great place for her because it has travelers and new kids constantly. It’s nice to feel the calm wonder of the ocean, but also nice to see people we know. Our group is large enough to be more chaotic then I like, but it’s good for the kids to have enough friends to play group games and it’s interesting to see the various social dynamics that develop between kids based on temperament and interests. When I come home I feel supported, which is not home I feel around my own family… I keep wanting it to be, but I don’t have a solution or even hope of one anymore.
Thursday/Cooperative Economics Day: Last weekletting out a lot of festering disappointment. I wanted to get some stuff done around the house, cleaning or repair work, but I didn’t. I was physically tired from going from the least active I’ve ever been back to my normal amount. I felt great Wednesday, but Thursday it hurt everywhere, or especially my legs, neck, chest, shoulders, face, eyes, head… I didn’t regret anything though, it was a really enjoyable day at the beach a new child played with the big blocks and we had karate class, I don’t know what happened between when our group didn’t exist and now that we do, looking back it was the theatre teacher, before we had her we didn’t move beyond a certain spark of kids activities, for some reason she kindled that into our flame and when we lost her we didn’t go out. She is a really special and supportive person, she makes you feel like no matter how big the job is or what your dream is, you can really do it and starting today. I miss her, but the group is okay as a whole, we have people who make you feel like that, two, but they together don’t carry the same force of hope that she did, she was a light house in the darkness of indecision and procrastination, she didn’t tell you what to do, but she lit up the shadows of your own darkness to show you what lies hidden in your soul/being and she didn’t ask you to do more, but she let you know somehow that you can and should live your life on the edge of what’s possible. She inspired me to greatness when I would have been content eating a themed dinner like tacos or something else good and ending the day there. But after being inspired I found I didn’t know how to handle personal ambitions vs my home life and it kept me going that the personal ambitions were not personal, but for our community to rise together, to find better ways, to remember to make time for what already is at our finger tips. Now I’m learning how to do the paperwork end and that’s fine, but I miss our theater teacher, she was very inspirational and fun, so everyday with her would be fun, she really rose from whatever bad things were going on to make the day special, I don’t really know how to do that, but I do whatever I can do, which is something different. I’m a consistent person when I can be, I guess I provide the same energy as the rock wall I built yesterday or the edges of a garden, the energy of stability and limit and designated places, where as our theatre teacher was more like a shooting star, something you don’t see often, something you remember even if it’s not for a long time you are together.
Friday/Creativity Day: Last week I was sick and the days are passing in a blur. This week we are better and I was able to go to my friends house, it felt very nice seeing her, it was grounding to see those people who care about us. We planted corn, and peas, her garden is an interesting place, it’s built on a rental home so that it is temporary, but it’s still full of love. I worked on a rock wall left half way finished and making a new planter, removing some broken glass and rubbish, trying to level the path down from the top to bottom of the hillside. We buried a bucket of bokashi into the soil, it was cool after taking out all the leaves and mass from pumpkins to be putting back into the soil. It was a nice day of the kids having fun and spending the day in a flow state, it was nice to see my friends have their house set up in a cozy and pretty way after seeing them move, it’s the only time I’ve really seen others move and settle in vs myself. Sometimes I don’t really settle into a place well since we moved a ton when I was growing up. I enjoy being myself around these friends since it’s been a year we have been hanging out they all know me pretty well. Kind of overspent on garden stuff at night. Ran an errand to Home Depot for my dad it felt like an olive branch, I do want things to be the best they can between us, I just don’t think that bar is going to be a high one.
Last Year to This Year
Last Year: I wanted to do a small garden fountain in a pot, I just got that done, it took just about a year… last year I had my husband and chickens living with me and took for granted how they added joy in my life. This pot was my whole garden at first when I lived in an apartment, it’s where I kept my lost babies urn, until that became lost too (I think my husband threw it away…) and now it’s a mosquito fish pond here in the front garden.
This Year: I don’t keep chickens anymore because my dad complained a lot about their poop, but this year the front of the house is covered with dog poop instead. It has been both difficult and rewarding living alongside my dad’s mess. On one hand I am permitted my garden projects that are messy, and on the other I can’t quite keep things within my comfort zone with the added housework.
2017 Outside Garden Pot to Grow Carrots, then Inside Garden Pot to grow Sweet Potato. I worked some OT for the pot rather than pay with money, it always felt a little more special because of that. It was a barter.
2022 After adding a pathway through the front area I wanted to do more and imagined a fountain area. I used thin weed cloth, which got totally overgrown, and pebbles that got all scattered around. I want to do pebbles again, but I want to lay concrete, mortar, or waterfall foam so that the pebbles won’t get scattered by wild chickens in our area. I put a stronger weed cloth in and cleaned out the pot.
The plans I had called for moving an old rock wall further back and moving the chocolate bamboo further back. Some bamboo died in the process, but that became a small toddler fence at my friend’s home.
This garden is where we grew pumpkins last fall (plus sunflowers and morning glories). It’s been slow going to work with the rocks and ginger and raspberry and level the hillside under bramble from Uluhe/Old World Forked Fern.
This was our first sunflower bloom, both the kids were happy. This garden exists in a living way, because it’s my daughter’s garden, it’s a play area, a learning area, a science area, a healing place to relax. I’ve learned that we belong to the garden more than it to us, but I’m happy we “own” the lot, so that my kids will be able to see what happens in each garden when they are much older. I never had a garden, nor a continuity of a garden, I’m sure it’s a good thing in your heart to see a garden, and know how it has looked over time. Drawing plans for it, and making them happen has made me feel like I have the power to build a better life (though it has been slow and hard).
Our “terrain” is lava rock so there isn’t any top soil, everything that has to get leveled is one rock at a time, everything that is dug is digging through rocks, then plant soil needs to be brought in.
So I use the rocks to build walls as I move them, but the process of digging them, moving them, stacking them, adds time to all the garden processes, then the weeds we get need to get cut back, but I’ve started laying thick weed cloth so that the weeds either don’t grow on pathways or at least are much smaller because growing through the cloth does keep their size down significantly when they do grow on top or through.
As I become more and more landscaper and less “gardener” I learn to mulch pathways so that I can walk to maintain the plants, this row of hedges came from a gift cutting and I grew it over a year or two? Then I clipped my own cuttings and some day we will have privacy after the last type of hedge plant failed to grow fast in our area… So I’m proud of these plants because that was the first time I had success with cuttings and actually my daughter grew the first “mother” plant.
Two months ago we installed this small play nook so my daughter had somewhere to be while I kept working on the front garden. Plastic is king for our area since the rain won’t ruin it and the mold can be washed off…
It took me about a year to get this far with this front garden, but there were a lot of improvements, in safety taking down the old wall that was unstable and putting up this one that is pretty stable, expanding the space so it isn’t clastiphobic, adding weed cloth and mulch does a lot towards making weeding faster even though weeds still come across or through to some extent, having a clear path makes it easier to apply ant or slug bait because you have a sense of where your perimeters between cultivation and ornamentals are. The copper tape has helped with slugs, but they do still crawl across when things create a pathway for them. As far as I know the mulch has neither worsened nor helped with slugs. I can envision that the bamboo growing back and the Mexican Sunflower hedge getting fuller will be really beautiful and help separate the garden from the front street.
Last year I wrote these project goals:
> Butterfly Garden Project 2022: Looking at the front garden plan trying to break down steps, 1. building the wall by the hedges to move the rock pile in the way of the bamboo as well as to define the front area. โ๏ธ 2. planting the bamboo behind (in front of) the rock wall โ๏ธ. 3. defining the area for the bamboo to grow into. โ๏ธ 3. weeding the garden beds/bamboo bed. โ๏ธ 4. putting down weed cloth and securing it in the paths. โ๏ธ 5. gathering and placing stone (mulch) in the pathway. โ๏ธ 6. planning a near by place for compost. โ๏ธ 7. trench for electrical. โ๏ธ 8. placing fountain pot. โ๏ธ 9. Fill and assemble fountain. โ๏ธ/โ๏ธ 10. Adjusting fountain possible water plants… โ๏ธ find a place to return outdoor toys… โ๏ธ
> Butterfly Garden Project Update 2023: 1. Finish Fountain Feature, 2. Ask About Electrical from Lamp Post, 3. Start Milk Weed Starts.
Live – Lift – Love
Live – There were a lot of beautiful moments this week, it is a lot easier to feel that way when you are no longer sick. I’m settling into my own life again, I’m happy to be not fighting with my family even if they aren’t supportive we aren’t fighting, I’m happy to have a lot of love and support from my friends and I’m happy to have cooperation from my kids, they are starting to act like my team members and not my enemies… Especially teaching martial arts makes me feel alive, but so does the ocean, I’m trying not to cut out the things that I enjoy in life. It has helped a lot to write/blog because I notice in a deeper way what I really like, what I don’t like, and how I feel about things.
Lift – Teaching martial arts two parents said thank you and one checked out the Youtube practice video to maybe practice at home, so that was significant because those that practice at home will take home another level of skills and learning than those that don’t. Simply because without the home practice people tend to forget the blocks ext. I don’t always have interested students, but sometimes I do and that’s an honor to be the bridge between what kids WANT TO and what they CAN, I like to be that bridge when I can.
Love – I love my friends here, I ran into two at the cherry blossom festival and my kids got to play with theirs at the park and it was kind of special to see them in a new place. I’ve made more friends in 2 years since moving out of the city than I had combined in 35 years of living in the city. It was fun seeing one of my friends working selling her jewelry, I had been wanting to see her at work for awhile and it was just a surprise to see her work, it’s very pretty and the arrangement was very pretty as well. I’m so proud of the three jewelry making friends I have now, I would never do that or have a business, just like some people would never teach martial arts at the beach… We are different people, but we are learning to live our best lives together I think. I haven’t asked them, but I feel like they are in that state of being where you want to find your best life and working on changing what needs to change bit by bit to find a way forward.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Saturday/Creative Day:Last week, finally cleaned the bathroom, I was impressed with myself because I was sick so I didn’t expect to get to it.This week was a blur, we took a COVID test, we did have COVID, I don’t know for how long it was coming on because we had fevers for a long time with the other flus ext we have been having. It hit me pretty hard since I have asthma, but not as bad as those who need the hospital. I didn’t take good care of myself since my kids were sick too, so I took okay care of them and myself, but not as good as if it was only one sick person. I couldn’t hold water down due to nausea, I didn’t feel like suffering so I took Dramamine and that helped a lot, peppermint helped too. My sister made a lemon ginger soup and I think that helped a lot, but it’s hard to say, even with everything I did to feel better I was very sick for two days and then medium sick for a month.
Sunday/Faith Day: Two weeks ago I was getting tired ofmy dad’s communication style and this week we were essentially fighting. Though I walked away from a prolonged fight, he swore at me and said all the things to me I assumed he felt, that he didn’t support me or my parenting, that he wanted things his way and found my ways annoying that he didn’t respect my boundaries above his own convivence. It’s horrible to hear those things, but it does make me feel sane that the suspicions I had about how he felt were how he felt and why I feel so drained parenting around him, constantly feeling either undermined or judged. I don’t love him enough to have a really passionate, back and forth fight about anything with my dad. His opinions cause me a lot of exhaustion because he makes me being myself the upstream direction, when he isn’t around me being myself feels like an effortless flow. He has a desire to be respected, but his outbursts and disrespect of others prohibits much deep respect for him to develop. On a positive note I was excited to get some new school supplies, dictionaries, writing work books. Being sick with COVID wasn’t easy, but living in a dysfunctional family made it twice as bad. During hard times is when you see if you are part of a good family, they could make it better, or they can make it much worse. It saddens me for my kids to see weakness from the elders down, in our family older people don’t know or act better, it’s the opposite. Our kids are our our hope for emotionally functional, ethical, whole human beings and we are trying more not to damage them, then to guide them, because we are a broken and lost family from my parents generation, I am a pivot just trying new things, striving to be healthy and non-toxic, and my kids are more able to have integrity or genuine meaningful relationships than myself or my elders. I don’t feel brave or happy to give my kids a better life, instead I’m jealous, and I grieve that my family of origin was so messed up and broken. I do do my best always, but I’ve never fully felt good about all the toxic things about my parents passive aggressiveness, or critical lashing out at children who don’t support their adult emotions, which they don’t have healthy patterns to manage on their own. Even if I’m grateful for what my parents have done for me and given me, the overall emotion for the way they raised me and the relationship we have is hate. I hated the way my parents treated me as a child, but as an adult I saw that parenting is very hard and relentless and I understood that they worked hard, though I still hate the way they treat me. It made me strong having to rely on myself, but I would trade that any day for parents that supported me instead of opposing me or even ones who stood aside without feeling the need to discourage me.
Monday/Unity Day: Last year I wrote “I don’t like the family tension but I can refuse to feed into it more than what it is on it’s own.” I’m still doing my best with that. I cleaned up mold that was bothering me, I’m cleaning it more than I ever used to clean, but it grows so quickly that there is always some mold that makes me feel guilty I haven’t gotten to cleaning, I feel paranoid it leads to us being sick more than other families and I and the kids worry about them getting asthma, but it’s a tropical reality to deal with some amount of mold more than in dry places where it happens once or twice a year on accident, our whole environment molds and walls, ceilings, floors, baseboards, all items, clothes, paper, books have to be de molded monthly.
Though I had a lot of chest pain this week, which I have seen doctors for before, but they aren’t interested in investigating due to my overall good healthy and kind of youth… and I haven’t felt good, I’ve made small changes in my environment, scrubbing the shower, doing a good job teaching US history and I see that I’m making Towards Choices, things that lead me to my goal life, which is where I use healthy discipline instead of ranting at my kids in a toxic way, healthy organizational habits where grime doesn’t sit and clutter doesn’t become a hazard, healthy education where the kids have strong skills for spelling, math, chemistry but they have time for art or music or interests, I haven’t cared at all about cooking or healthy eating, at this point in my life I’m tired of worrying about healthy eating, healthy eating didn’t keep us healthy, unhealthy eating hasn’t affected us in reality, unless we get diabetes or high cholesterol I actually can’t find it in my heart to care anymore. My daughter lost faith in God this year and I’ve lost faith in “healthy” eating, maybe I don’t know what healthy is, but in that case I still don’t and to hell with it.
Tuesday/Self-Determination: Last week sick with the Coronavirus, this week still sick. I found out a week later a lot of people in our area were sick, especially kids, we really slowed the spread in Hawaii, but now that we are getting sick work places no longer care and there isn’t financial assistance anymore, I wish that it hadn’t become a political issue as much as it has, but here we are now, this is when our community is ill and it’s no longer in vouge to get time off or rent assistance. I’m grateful that we had a lot of food going into the sickness so there was no need to shop, I’m one of the bigger eaters and I can barely eat so that did help, but we had a lot of frozen food and food starting off, I wouldn’t want to get anyone sick with this, it’s not killing us, but it’s a bit more unpleasant than the normal flu.With the normal flu I was tired, I was sore in my throat, I had gunk in my lungs, with this one I’m not tired because I’m too weak to do normal stuff so I just sit around like a gargoyle, unhappy, but very upright, I am sore in my heart which makes me paranoid to avoid activity even more, I have a ton of super sticky gunk flowing out of my lungs at a gross rate, I drink a tea or coffee then excrete mucus into the cup at a gross rate, but the mullein tea dissolves it enough that it doesn’t stay in my lungs, when it does build up there it feels like I’m drowning. I feel bad because other people have it worse, they don’t have food stocked, or money to be comfortable, or a place to be alone and be able to use the bathroom without cleaning it for others, I feel bad others were more sick and died, I feel bad also that other people were less sick and got back to life after a day or didn’t even notice they were sick. I know it’s illogical to feel bad about being not sick enough and too sick, but that’s how I felt, which is why I almost didn’t write about the week I was sitting in bed with COVID. But I may want to remember someday, that we fell in the middle, that we were sick for a month, that I didn’t like it, that the half of the family that was vaccinated didn’t get less sick or recover better, I may want to remember that there are reasons I am stressed out and don’t preform better my tasks I want to get done, I also have been going for over a year and don’t want to break the streak.
Wednesday/Collective Work Day: Last week we stayed home sick my daughter had a high fever I was looking up what doctor to take her to if it didn’t break in the next few days, there isn’t a lot to choose from where I live. I found a doctor but didn’t go because her fever broke and we COVID tested at home and found out why she was sick. I’ve had diarrhea almost the whole COVID, if I don’t eat I don’t have to get up so been doing a lot of not eating and not drinking so I can enjoy sitting up in bed with my tea/spit cup. I was using spit towels, but the smell of COVID spit, or mine at least, is nauseating, and for whatever reason the smell of spit cup isn’t? I am sick enough I don’t feel bad for not doing much. I would have let the kids play instead of doing school work if they would play without going crazy and getting in trouble, but they won’t, so we did our easiest school work, spelling, history, English, no piano, no Spanish, not this week… but even as we are sick I see a lot of improvement in the subjects we focus on. I’m “integrating” the material so we learned about Lincoln dealing with civil rights and ethics, and also Ghandi and then Martin Luther King Jr reading about Ghandi and also Nelson Mandela reading about Ghandi. So it’s a message of how the world affects America and how America affects the world and I find it inspiring that America does affect the world in being a think tank, then looking back on the Bill of Rights you can see how we became a think tank. I had a hard time putting it to words that all our amendments show both progress and flaws, injustice is why there were amendments, but the fact we moved forward says something good. Essentially I don’t agree and am not a fan of the founding fathers America, but I am a fan of Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of America, so I’m happy that my kids learn real American history not the lies I learned in public school in the 80s, because some American history is great or beautiful, but when you water it down with lies it detracts from what was special and when you call us the greatest it seems to detract from the reality of the suffering and disfunction that was inherent in colonialization and what really boils down to unlawful subjugation of one group by another group who invents a fake right to do illegal things and then believes in their right that others may not do those same things to them. It’s amazing that people went from fighting a just war to smoking pot in one generation, from my dad’s generation of wealth seeking to mine of minimalism and relationship building/experience seeking, to now we want even our fast food delivered to our houses and we are on opioids and depressed at the stress of life. America’s freedom has been as dark as it has worthy, freedom to subjugate others, murder, steal, victim blame, sell drugs, take drugs, but also to dream of civil rights, to work towards equality free of class and race, to imagine things, discuss things. We are free thinkers more than free people in some regards, but that freedom to think hasn’t lead to good health, but rather increasing anxiety and depression, the freedom to create a life style has lead to unhealthy physical choices, unhealthy fiscal choices, often unhealthy ethical choices. Freedom isn’t free. During the pandemic the loss of freedom was worse then my loss of imagined safety or security or stability, I never identified with being an American despite having always been one, but I had always been enjoying the sense we had more freedom than the rest of the world and more public say on government intrusion and restriction, but that was simply not the case in 2020, we had an average amount of freedom similar to China, and that murdered my sense that we live in a country that is above average. The rhetoric of history made me believe the US is both horrible and wonderful, but in my experiences living here are that it’s a mediocre country in health care and education and treatment of women or creative people and average in safety and stability and economy, somewhere from mediocre to average is what I’ve experienced, but to be fair it’s never been horrible in my life time. Sometimes it’s questionable or messed up, but I’ve not had to walk over dead bodies to escape from my slaughtered village, there is injustice and there has been large scale injustice, but what we deal with today is walking over one dead body not a village of them… people still slip through the cracks, but there is some sense of being willing to sacrifice for others, there is stability provided by those who sacrifice for us, it’s not quite solidarity, but there are good people and there is the capacity for further change within the limited freedom we enjoy. My son felt bad that president Lincoln got shot, he said “poor president Lincoln,” I never heard anyone else say that, I think most of us see famous people as vessels for history and fail to see them as people, my daughter didn’t have that reaction, she was more surprised that presidents could be shot. Watching Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln and Ghandi get shot proves that weird phenomena I have trouble explaining about US history, Martin Luther King Jr and Lincoln both got shot for freedom of speech, which is a right of the bill of rights (the first one), but rights are not by default protected, so it’s a freedom, but it’s a freedom that isn’t free. I struggle to explain that we don’t have rights as much as we have goals to have rights someday, I don’t want to deny what there is, but what there is isn’t the same as what there is on paper, history is so much more fictitious and distorted or at least subjective then the other subjects I teach that it leaves me feeling confused and somewhat dirty so much more than teaching the music scales or multiplication tables, history is a subject that I don’t understand but am trying to teach, which is a place I don’t like to be… but nonetheless it’s going well, my kids are able to see how it ties together from place to place, period to period in a way I never did. Even though I don’t love history I want them to be informed about why things are structured the way they are, and history also holds a lot of insight to human nature and perhaps better ways of life balance from before we modernized and became riddled with anxiety and depression so much that it seems to be the minority who has good mental health.
Thursday/Cooperative Economics Day: Last week very sick. This week somewhere between sick and very sick, not feeling super eloquent. I feel broken, I feel like my family is broken, I feel like my country is broken. I went to check my student loan amount to see if the law suit against my school failed or went through, there was a -$20,000 loan forgiveness application but it couldn’t process because it’s under a law suit, so I can’t pay my student loan of -$40,000 repayment will restart in June I think, but I can’t start the application about any reduction because the country isn’t able to agree if there should or shouldn’t be a reduction, the country is in essence fighting between how much power the president vs local government should have, something going on since Lincoln’s time. I miss the kids having their father around since he left for work, it’s our 11 year anniversary Sunday and we are apart because of COVID, it through off where we lived multiple times, because it changed our travel months because we couldn’t fly out of California at all, then we couldn’t fly out of Hawaii without a mask on my 2 year old who wouldn’t wear one… I’m sad to be spending my anniversary without my husband, we aren’t divorced but the kids have been apart from him so much over the past 3 years I feel like he is missing them growing up and though he isn’t helpful to me much, he means the world to them. He is looking for a place for us to resume living with him our normal half the year, I don’t know how long it is going to take, we would have bought a started home if it wasn’t the pandemic, other people bought and sold, but he is skittish of home buying and now waiting for the market to bottom out further. So another way COVID destabilized our family life was the housing shift up and now down, in our case it got in the way of having a home and for many months being together, and in the months we were together there was trauma I really believe wouldn’t have been there without the stress that added to taking my daughter to therapy, but maybe the therapy will long term have provided us with better mental health than if we didn’t need to go and then go? Because we learned PCIT, parent child interaction therapy, which shifted my mind from kids should do what they are told to, we should train our kids to do what we expect them to do, which was really good to help me reach my goals, but it put me at odds with my dad even more than before, which had been draining… I think the one word to describe COVID as an event and as an illness was “DRAINING”.
Friday/Creativity Day: Last week I was so sick I didn’t care about my lack of productivity this November/December/January. This week I’m sick and the days are passing in a blur of managing nausea vs dehydration, feeling pretty bleak but wanting to be supportive and inspiring to my kids. When they ask for the next meal and I make it, I feel like a hero, then I go rest, the stress from being at odds with my dad doesn’t go away, but it simmers down. He apologizes and then immediately goes back to criticizing my kids in a way that irritates me and I can keep silent about hating him, but what I can’t do is even imagine ever really loving him or respecting him no matter how much I try to be grateful. Ghandi said “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” That inspires me to just accept that I hate my dad, that I will probably always hate him. I spend the day online reading about other people who hate their dad, which is about 50% of people and I know my dad resented his dad, but I think he didn’t develop good communication skills himself, so though I don’t blame him for who he because I do blame him for who his IS now and I don’t hate him because I want to hate him, but it’s just impossible not to hate him for me. When I am around him I have trouble singing, playing music, feeling comfortable, talking about my goals, I’m afraid of him throwing a fit I don’t want to deal with, trying to bring me to his view points in conversation which he won’t, blaming others for his emotions which makes me upset and sad, and now I’m afraid of him swearing at me in front of my kids, which makes me ashamed of him, ashamed he hasn’t learned better then that. The way he argues only makes people hate him, and I haven’t found a hack to not care enough to take the burden of hate off myself, even though I would like to not care, it affects me enough that I do care, because it is a bad environment and it remains as bad blood between us because the apologies are insincere. I don’t expect more, I don’t expect him to get better, I don’t expect him to understand, I think he has either growing dementia or just a personality that he is right and he will yell at you to not prove it… But it’s a lot of dads out there like that, maybe the average dad.
Last Year to This Year
Last Year: I was cleaning, excited to teach chemistry, restarting teaching martial arts, we had our chickens still.
This Year: I don’t keep chickens anymore because my dad complained a lot about their poop, but this year the front of the house is covered with dog poop instead I don’t see how he doesn’t find it gross to leave poop all over the front yard and back yard and pee smell in his room. I don’t want to talk about it with him, I don’t want to talk about anything with him. I wish I had saved more for my own house and I wish I had a dad who wasn’t both picky and dirty. I felt bad for hating my dad’s mess and guilty about mine, but that didn’t feel any better then admitting to myself it’s hard for me to live with someone as dirty as my dad is comfortable being, but it has always been both difficult and frustrating living alongside my dad’s mess.
Live – Lift – Love
Live – I was on survival mode getting through cooking for the kids, spitting up mucus and all of us running fevers until we got better from COVID, I had moments of joy with the kids still, it’s just kind of an underachieving blur that runs from meal to meal.
Lift – Looking at last year lifts my spirits, seeing that we did have chickens, it meant a lot to me for the kids to experience real agriculture during agriculture class online, online school is not something I’m going to bad mouth, it’s a tool I use, but integrating it with hands on learning is a completely different experience. Even though we may not keep chickens anymore I really enjoyed that my kids had the experience of raising chickens from chicks and collecting eggs, it was a really connecting experience between my kids and myself and my husband and myself, even though it divided my dad and I what really divides us it the way he responds to his anxiety, not the reality, and not that he has anxiety, but the way he expects others to understand and then be ruled by his fear is really off putting for me. If I would have lived my life based on his fear I wouldn’t have married, I wouldn’t have kids, I wouldn’t have done martial arts, I wouldn’t have gone to Brazil, I wouldn’t have drove a motorcycle, I wouldn’t have ever been myself or lived my fullest life, it’s really frustrating that instead of working to manage his fear around his life he wants others to manage their lives around his fear that he doesn’t fully communicate so it’s not only stupid, but a stupid guessing game, and I don’t like to play stupid guessing games about restricting my life based on fear. It lifts my spirits that we had chickens before, I just wish I would have had my own home to have them on my own terms, that was a mistake not to save more for that. I am glad I once hoped to live my best life at my dad’s house, even though it didn’t work out in the end, I had an open heart to start fresh with him and just see how we got along.
Love – I love my children, though I feel unsettled at times by not being a home owner I will always fight with others to try to protect my children from being criticized excessively or being exposed to toxic media or toxic ideas. It’s more about that I love them and want them to go through life with healthy coping skills that will let them live their best lives. I was noticing feeling a lot of hate this week, but when I think back on it, it had always been there. The reaction of a sensitive child with a critical parent is either to crumble or hate and I chose/chose to hate it. But by ignoring my own feelings of discomfort in the name of giving my dad a chance to know the kids and perhaps to get along with him and have a positive relationship with him as an adult I gave up the chance of feeling comfortable in my own skin, feeling more at ease raising my kids without judgement and being able to focus on my own goals/dreams/well being without near constant distractions from him wanting attention or complaining or just making the noise of his preferred life style that interrupted mine. I felt less peaceful to enjoy loving my children and felt less love for myself while living with my dad this past year and if I could go back in time I wouldn’t have put myself in the situation of living with him with my young kids, now that they are almost big kids, I regret not being alone with them to play and be silly and be happy without the burden that my dad brings to the table emotionally whenever he is around. I know why I tried out of hope, but also wanting to have our family know each other and to make sure I knew my father as much as I wanted to know him before he is gone someday. I did all those things, but I didn’t realize the cost to my kids knowing and liking my dad would be me knowing for sure that I don’t. Mostly he off balances me when I am already struggling to balance the kid’s school vs play and I want to organize my stuff but I’m playing catch up cleaning our mess and his mess until I give up all together. I wanted to see if it was a good fit, but what I found was that honestly it was a bad fit, my loud, messy dad doesn’t really like loud, messy kids and I don’t like him either, not honestly. So super negative and maybe hard to understand if you are reading it and not seeing it, but it feels therapeutic to write about what has been draining my energy and why some of the goals I had last year are still on my plate this year…. I may delete it later, but without writing it I didn’t really allow myself to be honest with myself and I didn’t realize how much I was trying to get along out of guilt to be a good daughter, when I maybe can’t be a good daughter, maybe I wasn’t meant to be a good daughter and a good mother and I’d rather be a good mother and fight with my dad any day he calls my son greedy when he isn’t or complains about our noise when he is just as loud constantly. Any sense of wanting to get to know my father more has been replaced by regret that I didn’t use the time and energy to get my own home found/bought/set up instead. But the one thing that happened is it drove me to create our scout non-profit to be out of the house and that was good, so I have something beautiful and good born out of something strenuous and bad just as my kids are good things that came from my bad childhood in a sense. So good from bad, but I see a lot of work left ahead that I have a responsibility to become a home owner and put more distance between my dad and I so I can breathe easier and enjoy life more, because I’ve given him a fair chance now and a lot of time and memories with my kids and now I’ve extended the olive branch enough and it’s time to start setting up a sanctuary for my own well being with either emotional or physical boundaries, but I’ve suffered enough trying to support my family during the pandemic and trying not to ask for much, now I need to be honesty about what didn’t work, what doesn’t work and where I can go from here.
Born to Be Alive 