by Allison Moore | Jan 6, 2017 | Day by Day |
“Becoming is better than being” —Carol S. Dweck
I love this grey, wet weather—such a treat in Southern California. It does slow us down though. And then we’ve all had colds, which also slow us down. All during the last week of school holiday. Actually, it has been nice to relax into this no-pressure time. So much for starting the new year with a bang…more like a ka-choo! At any rate, we are still in exhale-mode.
I’ve written here before about Growth Mindset…but at the time, I was probably referring to ways that Vernon might grow his brain back. In the end, it was clear that he had a very fixed mind that literally could not learn. But I want to challenge my own mindsets, so that my own brain might grow. It may not grow back, but it can grow forward! To get a better handle on it, I’ve been reading the book Mindset by Carol S Dweck and thinking about my perceived strengths and weakness. Maybe that’s why, that almost on a whim yesterday, I not only signed myself up for a photography class at the local college but signed Maki up too. (I did ask him first!) I figure it’s something that will make both of us smarter and more able, and its something we can do together. We both need to keep learning, it doesn’t matter if we are thirty years apart.
I feel that is something I miss, coming back into the next chapter of life: After Vernon. At least while taking care of him, I was learning as I went. I didn’t like it, but it kept me engaged in something I thought was positive and important,—even strangely fulfilling. People used to tell me I was a good advocate for him, and sometimes I was even called a good caregiver, but those are things I learned to do because I had no choice but to practice them. In time, I gained confidence, but the skill wasn’t a natural talent…it was a developed one. My brain changed. Now I can’t look to Vernon’s health as a reason for growth and learning. But I can look at the kids—I can certainly learn to be a better mother. I can look further into the things that interest me, and I can develop them. I can learn to work better on the areas that hold me back. And hopefully this will all dovetail into my career, complimenting all the bits and pieces of stuff that it has always been filled with. Or maybe it will change it entirely. It’s a messy path, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be successful. I just need to keep learning how to do it!
There is much to look forward to. Many challenges…mostly in my own mind. Here’s to learning, being teachable, getting better with time…for all of us!
Recently, Maki had a real upswing in his guitar playing. Suddenly after years of simply noodling around on the instrument and practicing off and on, he could sit down and teach himself several songs in a row. He was also writing his own music and recording it. I asked him: “What changed? You used to not seem very interested. Now you are playing guitar all the time.”
He shrugged: “I finally knew enough to really enjoy it.”
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” —George Bernard Shaw
by Allison Moore | Dec 31, 2016 | Day by Day |
Happy New Year’s Eve. Hopefully you’ll get a chuckle out of this story, as did I when it happened.
I’d given myself a present for Christmas, just an impulse buy—a necklace I’d found whilst shopping for gifts for others. To justify my spend, I put it under the tree, signed as Vernon. As my widowed friend Sandy says: “Just because the husband is gone, doesn’t mean the gifts have to stop!” On Monday, I put it on before visiting my friend Lucy. We walked her dogs around the block, but on our return, I realized the necklace was gone. I didn’t expect to find it, as I kept telling Lucy, as we retraced our steps. I told her it was silly of me to even attach his name to the gift, when really I bought it for myself. It was stupid of me to even make that kind of trick-attachment to any item, creating sentiment where it wasn’t before. And sure enough, I didn’t find it.
Later in the day, when we were about to leave, I had the impulse to check my clothing, perhaps the necklace had fallen when I took off my scarf. At once, a golden glint! It had fallen into my BRA, tucked away without my notice for the past several hours. Maybe it was from Vernon after all! 🙂 The humor of ghosts—it’s an acquired taste.
Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks for being alongside my family through this past one. I am forever grateful. Many, many blessings upon all your heads! And may your ghosts make you laugh.
by Allison Moore | Dec 30, 2016 | Day by Day |
I was 6 when Star Wars came out. I guess I was old enough to see it in the theatre, because I remember the experience. Justine, now 6, is really into Star Wars movies too. She dressed like Leia for Halloween. The Princess was a great role model for little girls then and now. We are both sad about Carrie Fisher’s death (as is Maki, who has been a Star Wars fan since he was very young himself.) We ALL grew up with her in our hearts.
So many beloved entertainers and cultural lights have gone out this year. This is what happens when you love people…they die. We all know it, but yet we keep loving them. People we know and people we don’t know. Its been fascinating to see Death come to the surface so much in our society this year… to join others in grief on this strange scale. As a culture, we’ve always been crazy about our celebrities—especially those who die young. But it seems we have come to a place where we imagine they will never die…even when they are of age. David Bowie died last January, nearly a year ago, and it set off a seeming trajectory for so many other lights that followed his trend. I probably noticed it more because it seemed like there was this general grief of a generation or two alongside our family’s. What a year to go! Lots of good company.
But the year ended with Carrie Fisher (one of my favorite writers, who did worlds of good towards the forces of honest sharing and mental health) and then a day later, her mother, Debbie Reynolds, one of the last queens of Hollywood’s Golden Era passed away too, we can only suspect it was a broken heart. The two were tied through so many issues, so much spotlight (negative and positive), walks through drug addiction an need for attention, etc. They were bonded in love. I can’t help but think how I would feel if my own mother died (I would want to die) or if my daughter died (I would want to die) so in this way, I can imagine a little of what they would have felt. Being a loving daughter and a loving mother, I am deeply touched by the closeness of their deaths. I think many of us are. Death is a horrible part of life (the end of life, actually) but there is poignant beauty there too. It is the end of the journey.
Let us journey well. May the force be with you.
by Allison Moore | Dec 30, 2016 | Day by Day |
I’ve heard from others that the dreams would come. Dreams about the deceased. Dreams about death. I’m not really a night dreamer (or if I am, I don’t often remember in the morning.) But last week, when we were up at my brother’s, I dreamed that I’d been diagnosed with some sort of cancer that could only be treated by drinking the milk of a special kind of cow. So I bought the cow, and my church came together to pay for the use of the large area of land it grazed on. Perhaps I was inspired by the green hills we’d been walking Christmas Eve. The dream shook me though. It was so vivid that it stayed with me till now. (The internet tells me that cows in dreams signify nurturing or motherhood, as well as docile nature.)
Last night, I dreamed that Vernon and I were going to renew our vows in a simple ceremony with family around. Afterward, he went missing, and we realized after a few hours that he was probably lost in the woods. Then I woke up, slightly panicked and sad.
by Allison Moore | Dec 28, 2016 | Day by Day |
I wrote this last month for my writer’s group. Might as well share it now.
It seems to me that the world started falling apart after you were hit. Of course it’s not a sudden thing, but the clarity of it, no one can ignore. It’s been a week since the election. My heart is so heavy. You led me through so many of these things in the world, we’d hash these concepts out in the safety of our own walls. I didn’t always agree, but over time, I saw that you were most often right. No matter what, at least we weren’t alone. I miss having you here for this, it’s hard to be alone at home with my thoughts about humanity. It used to be us against the world within our walls. Now it’s just me by myself.
I used to half-joke that when David Bowie left the planet in January, he knew what he was doing. And as the year progressed, many of his kindred spirits decided to heed the call from space. The men who fell to earth took off again. 2016 has been a tough year, I wish you hadn’t left me alone in it. I know you held on as long as you could. You never meant to leave me.
This is a different kind of loneliness than I’ve felt for you yet. The truth is…even with your mind and body so severely disabled, we still had each other. There was purpose in caring for you, great love from the soul. And now that you are gone, the world has become even weirder and it seems the accepted rules of society are suddenly merely guidelines, it seems. Everything is upside down and tragic. I feel the pain of your absence anew. I still have to live in this changed world, and figure it out without you.
Justine’s lates drawing.
