scrapbook

“Peace,” says my niece April, looking right at us, making a peace sign with her right hand. “Love,” she adds while forming the fingers from both hands into the shape of a heart on her chest. “Chicken,” she laughs, putting her fists under her armpits, pulling her elbows up to her shoulders and flapping her arms like a chicken. “Grease!” she yells snapping her fingers while swiping them across her face. “Peace. Love. Chicken. Grease!” we hear through cackles of laughter and much flapping, snapping and signing. Getting more and more animated, she goes through “Peace. Love. Chicken. Grease!” at least a half-dozen times bouncing around my mother’s living room like a cheerleader in the last inning of a football game.

Pretty soon we’re flapping, snapping, signing, smiling, and boogying right along with her. Yes, there was plenty of giggling too.

Big Papa and I contemplate whether there is any connection between ‘peace’ and ‘grease’ other than that they rhyme. But hey, if eating a fried chicken wing or two will beget world peace, call me a cab to Ezell’s as fast as you can. Or even a smidge of inner peace. I’d like to start there.

Seeing April’s exquisite pleasure in learning this new, it-girl of the moment rhyming cheer does, in fact, leave me feeling a bit more peaceful with the world. When I think about the reasons why I want to be a mom in the first place, this is one of them.

How easily we “age out” of these simple pleasures, a three-year olds fascination with the bug crawling across the floor or a seven-year olds obsession with learning the names and habits of every dinosaur in the Jurassic period.

On my trip to the east coast, I brought back my ‘Beth’s School Years’ Scrapbook, chock full of my Kindergarten through eighth-grade class photos and intimate details about my height and weight, new friends, activities, achievements and awards.

In the first grade I “learned to pronounce my S’s right” and how to swim. By third grade I hoped I’d grow up to be a movie star. My achievements in fourth grade included 26 push-ups in one minute, learning to play the violin and being able to hang upside down. As a fifth-grader I had by-passed my movie star aspirations and wanted to be a writer. Adult self…are you listening?!

While I take a certain pride in my kid-like ability to experience sheer joy from a visit to the farmer’s market or the way I enthusiastically embrace the first spring day over 60-degrees (Big Papa will tell you “Let’s go get ice cream!” is my sunny day late-March call of the wild), I know how easily I get bogged down with the adult responsibilities of daily life.

I go. I do. I go. I do.

Being a mom will entail quite a bit more of: I go. I stop. I sit. I watch the kid for awhile. I forgo doing most of what I’d meticulously planned on my “to do” list.

Some days I’m sure I will feel frustrated as I try to break old patterns of running hither and yon to simply sit by my wee one and read the same story over and over and over again. But I think, or at least I hope, there will be an equal number of days when slowing my walk to match the pace of my four-year old as he stops to inspect each and every crack in the sidewalk, is exactly what the doctor ordered.

At the end of the day, the moments when I stop and smell the roses, seem be the moments I remember most. And the small simple pleasures are the ones that really blow me away.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away.”

A couple years before I met Big Papa, I dated someone for about six months. When that relationship ended, it really took the wind out of my sails. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but there I sat, in an all-too-familiar and very unhappy place. In the midst of my misery, I managed enough self-awareness to observe that I kept repeating dysfunctional dating patterns with some knock-off version of the same kind of guy. Like Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I was done with walking in circles only to find myself back where I’d started. First, I found a fabulous therapist, which turned out to be a brilliant and life-changing maneuver on my part. Then I started knitting.

Knitting had experienced a renaissance about the time I gave it a go. This was not our grandmother’s tea cozy and afghan sort of knitting. The age of ‘Stitch ‘n Bitch’ had arrived. I joined the cool and hip take back crafting revolution.

When I was knitting, I was completely absorbed in some other-worldly dimension. Time passed without notice. Sound faded into the background and, miraculously, the tornado in my mind stopped spinning.

During this time, I remember one time when I was at my friend Jena’s house watching ‘Six Feet Under.’ She’d invited a few gals over and attempted to convince me, a non-T.V. watcher, that this was a show worth falling for. She kept trying to draw my attention to what was on the screen in front of me, but I was completely oblivious, enveloped in a world of my own.

I spent the better part of the next six months glazed over in a knitting haze. My first project was a cute little sleeveless top knitted with burgundy ribbon yarn. Next I tried my hand at felting, knitting up a purse big enough for an entire family, only to toss it in the washer and come out with a soft fuzzy raspberry-hued stylin’ bag. I knit and purled my way through a few classes and several chicks-only knitting circles. And then I stopped.

Maybe knitting had finished serving duty as a distraction in my life, or maybe it was just time to move on toward new goals. I still think fondly back on knitting and hope I might pick up the needles at some point down the road. In fact, I’ve thought about it quite frequently as our adoption journey saunters along.

If I had a penny for the number of times folks have advised “just keep busy,” I’d be sitting on a windfall. Countless adoption articles suggest a plethora of activities to “take your mind off the wait.”

Knit a blanket for the baby. Have a yard sale or donate old household items. Start a scrapbook. Go shopping for kid stuff. Go on vacation and enjoy time with your partner. Read about adoption. Join an adoption support group. Take classes and learn about your child’s culture, language, cuisine and traditions. Keep a journal or write letters to your child. And, the ever present, decorate the child’s room.

By now, if you’ve read a few of my posts, it’s pretty obvious I’m not a sit-on-the-couch-and-watch-Oprah sort of gal. I maintain two blogs, this blog about our adoption and another about our remodel of the Urban Cabin. I try to write two posts per week for each. I’m also a part-time editor for a non-profit organization that develops international HIV/AIDS/TB curriculum. We’re in the midst of our house remodel which is many small projects all rolled into one. I take spinning classes and lift weights six days a week. My father, who is in assisted living (and recently fell and broke six ribs) needs this or that on a weekly basis. I do my best to make time for a small cadre of friends. Recently there was all the planning involved in our trip to Armenia and, prior to that, the onslaught of paperwork, classes and dossier preparation.

Saying I’m a busy babe would be an understatement. But the truth is I still stress-out about the adoption. It’s not that I don’t have moments when I find myself in a blissful, mindful and unworried place. I do. Writing, cooking, photographing, spinning at the gym and time spent just hangin’ with Big Papa put me in a peaceful frame of mind. I don’t think about the adoption all the time, but it isn’t far removed much of the time.

It’s fair to say I still have a ways to go when it comes to quieting my mind. My brain easily slips into multi-tasking mode more than I might want it to. For someone who is a doer, like I am, I expect not-doing will always be a challenge. But I sure would like to work on finding my way down that path. Because despite what everyone tells me, I find that “keeping busy” only alleviates just so much mental gymnastics. At least for me.

Peace. Love. Chicken. Grease.

Gettin’ busy