Rain

   Today is ballet day ~ which means it is Tuesday. I didn't go to ballet last week because I was sick so I am even more excited to do tendues and jumps in the first, second and third position wearing ballet shoes and leg warmers than I might have been.
  Something I often think about is comparison. In this ballet class I can't for one second THINK about comparing myself to anyone else. If I did ~ that would be it for me. I am just not flexible, I am not fluid, I am not good at remembering more than three things at once and the list continues in my head. When I go there I try to be in the moment, enjoying what I CAN do and leaving it at that. So far, thankfully, that has been easy to do.
   I compare myself often. It is automatic. I love beauty and order, little treasures, bright colors. I have this image in my head of what I would like to look like daily or what I would like my house to look like, how I would like my children to act, the list goes on. It just doesn't happen. So that means I guess I throw my hands in the air and just give up. I go back and forth between trying and just giving up. The days I can let go of comparison I feel relieved and lighter. It is so discouraging you know? One day will I be able to really let it go? Will I stop looking at other people's abilities and talents, how they are doing so amazingly, and stop feeling so less than? I think I have more good days now than bad though ~ I have grown up a little. That is something. Something is something!
  Another thing ~ I keep going around this circle and ending up at the same place! I feel unsatisfied with my job, my vocation. Lately I have had two children talking to me so rudely. It is challenging to not feel like they are controlling my feelings. I want to act like a child and cry and find someone to hug me. It is ridiculous. I feel like I am not sure what tools to pull out of my mother tool belt to ask for respect. It has been a pretty consistent onslaught these last couple weeks. It is happening every time I ask something of them, every time I need help. So with this going on, with the same issues of how to feed everyone with all the food issues everyone has, how to ask them to help around the house when they just wont, how to not feel like a total failure each and every day and to not live in that? I want to be able to hold onto the triumphs so much more than the failures, but I seem to cast the pearls away and hold the coal close. Why?
  There is power in stopping all the thoughts swirling in the whirl pool that is my brain. Today I dropped my two middle children off at an art class and instead of driving straight home back to it all ~ I pulled off the road just for a moment. I was at the end of a street and I walked up to a path and stood and listened to the rain falling on a field in front of me. The mountains were almost invisible in mist and all I wanted to do was to be able to describe how the rain sounded to me. I stood there trying to let everything else in my head just drain away for that little bit of time and find a word that described the rain. Somehow I thought it would help me feel like I was capable of something :)
   I love the sound of the rain. Last night I woke up and could hear it falling and it made me smile. When I lived on the farm we had a tin roof, and sometimes I would sleep upstairs just so I could fall asleep to the rain falling on the tin roof. It is a melodious comfort to me. Rain falling in a field sounds totally different than rain falling on the ocean. On one of our anniversaries my husband and I went kayaking on the ocean. The Ocean was as smooth as glass and the rain started falling. It was such a beautiful sound. Like the most delicate clink of a glass. When you are in the forest and rain falls it has to filter through all the trees. If there is no wind the forest has this damp hush to it. Everything is heavy with jewelled drops and everything you brush against baptises you and you are soaked quickly. Rain on a field though ~ today I wished I could just go out to the middle of it ~ sit down on something dry ~ and just listen. It is the most hushed and sweet melody. The rain drops make their own music as they connect with the winter grass, the cold saturated earth, the vines that are entwined. Today for those few minutes I had  ~ to look, to listen, I felt so thankful. I could hear, I could see. I was filled and it was what I needed. I couldn't find the perfect word. I drove home and walked back in that front door and kept going. So that is all. This post doesn't flow or make a ton of sense. I just needed to write this out. The children are all fighting outside the door and I have to keep yelling interventions. Ballet is in a couple hours and I have to muster up the energy to get there. Once I'm there it will be lovely. If you are struggling with things that seem too overwhelming, so relentless, I extend my sincerest empathy. It is hard to be in this place. It is going to take continued work! It is going to take perseverance ~ peering out past ourselves and yet excavating ourselves on deep levels. It is worth it just not easy. Enjoy the rain :)
Love Tansy xo