All Kinds of Wonderful

I'll bet the title of this post surprised you. You are not used to wonderful here at The Striped Nickel, are you?

Well, if you've been dropping by for a while, perhaps you are, but perhaps you've forgotten. Or think I have forgotten.

I haven't.

Here is some of the wonderful going on around here as we speak:

A. Benjy, Benjy, and more Benjy. He is doing so well, and his school is so amazing, I have to pinch myself a few times a day to make sure it's not all a dream. Readers, he is LEARNING, and not exclusively on his own. He has FRIENDS. He is MUCKING OUT HORSE STALLS AND FEEDING SHEEP.

Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. Not at all. I just cannot believe it and shouting allows me to hear it better. It's true, all true.

I love that boy so damn much it hurts. Seeing him hurts in a joyful way, and not seeing him hurts in a missing-you sort of way -- but not-seeing allows healing all around, so it's good. So. Very. Good.

B. Saskia is wonderful. WONDERFUL. Did I mention wonderful? Not sure what Lars and I did to deserve our girl besides contribute some genes of a very mixed nature -- when you have a spare eight hours or so I'll tell you all about our...uh, colorful families -- and teach her the things we strongly believe to be true. Which means she has a deep sense of the urgency of socio-economic justice for all. And she loves books and animals and people and ~OPERA~ and actually has the voice to SING it.

Also, she finds the dog-speak I use when I talk to Noo Noo hilarious. We laugh uproariously at the dinner table when I ask the Hound if he is ready for his Pill-Pocket with a yiddle Pred-nisone inside.

I appreciate that, because really? I think it's probably just weird.

Then again, we celebrate the weird in this household. Pied-beauties, eccentricities, things and people on the far-reaches of "normal."

Oh, and Saskia has brought music back into my life after a long, dry spell -- my own Sahara of the Bozarts, to borrow a witticism from some 20th-century southern writer but I don't remember which one -- and for that I am so grateful. Music was everything to me -- music and books, that is -- until life became so hard I couldn't fit them in anymore. There just was no room.

But every day now, there is more space in me. Every day I get to hear bits and pieces of arias and art songs floating through this house.  Sometimes I get to have them whole. And boy, does that make me happy.

Have you had enough, Readers? I hope not, because there is even more wonderful afoot here. There's Lars, of course. Everyone needs someone to make fun of, and Lars is always willing to oblige.

Somehow he has always managed to love me, even when I could not love the life I was living, or myself. He loved me through those forty pounds Risperdal packed on me, and through the long, sick period last winter and spring, when they fell off. He takes me as I am, the Gestalt, the whole package, imperfect as that may be.

Lars is good people.

Today I had the privilege of thinking about, and talking about, some of the issues that matter most to me, with some very thoughtful people. That there are real things binding all of us humans together, and that much work is yet to be done so that every person is treated with equal dignity and offered opportunities to be happy and to thrive.

It sounds so simple, but somehow it's not.

BUT: I am lucky to live in a place and at a time in which these conversations are possible. How utterly cool. How hopeful. How wonderful.

And finally, there is this:

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).  A Shropshire Lad.  1896.

LIV. With rue my heart is laden

WITH rue my heart is laden   For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden   And many a lightfoot lad.   By brooks too broad for leaping         5   The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping   In fields where roses fade.

A tiny poem, a profound thought. My Dad gave it to me as a gift when I was maybe ten or twelve. He did not write it, of course, but he wrapped it in tones of love and offered it to me so we could cry together. To this day, I hear those eight short lines in his voice. I thought of it last night because Saskia was talking about the generation of English poets writing around the time of the Great War. This was written earlier, but it trembles with that same unbearable sense of loss you find in Thomas Hardy and Wilfred Owen.

Readers, I have been thinking about "With Rue My Heart is Laden" since last night. It is so sad, yet so utterly beautiful.  Nearly perfect, I think. I hope you like it, whether for the first time or the hundredth. It's the final bit of wonderful I have to share with you until next time.

I hope next time comes soon!

Want to share your own wonderful in the comments? That would make my day!

That Wilfred Owen Sure is Obscure!

It was pointed out to me this morning (by a practiced reader of poetry of all shapes, vintages, and sizes) that the poem I included in my last post was kind of obscure.

It sure was! That's how you know it's good. ;)

But seriously, the gist is all you need. And the gist is simply this:

People who are dead to feeling might seem blessed, because they get to avoid the worst kinds of hurt. (In the context of WWI, the terror of those relentless, screaming bombs; the writhing agony of fallen comrades, etc. In our own context -- well, you name it.)

But people who are dead to feeling are really cursed, not only because they miss out on intense joy as well as intense pain (you can't drop one without dropping the other), but also because they lose the greatest chance life gives us human beings -- the chance to walk in other people's shoes. To love and to be loved. To recognize the gift of life, because we also know the sadness of loss.

That, Readers, is all.

Shame and Joy

Funny how shame and joy often travel in pairs. At least, they do in my life.

Yesterday I wrote a post that was beneath me. Only I didn't know it until someone I love gently told me so. And then I was ashamed, and I was also flummoxed. I thought, "What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that?"

The answer is, I wasn't. I was panicking, and I was feeling very sorry for myself and my boy and my whole family. The former is a fairly common occurrence in my life. The latter, not so much. I can't let it be or I will just come undone. And that would not be pretty.

I deleted that post last night. Then I tossed around all night worrying about whether I am just a crappy person. And also about what was going to happen at 11 this morning.

What happened at 11 is that Benjy's hospital case manager and I met with him in the "living room" on his psych unit to tell him how his life is going to change in a couple of weeks.

I believe, in my heart of hearts, it will change for the better. But I did not know what he would think. and I did not know if this talk would hurt like hell or feel good, or whether we both would cry.

The case manager and I told him he will be going to a new school, and that he will live at that school. That it won't be forever, and that after he starts there he will no longer be lonely and sad, and that he will have lots of structure in his life and all kinds of wonderful things to do that Lars and I cannot provide for him.

Such as archery and tennis and fishing and boating and snowboarding and work with animals, and therapeutic horseback riding. And possibly haying (??) and ice-fishing. And overall, an expansive new world.

Not to mention, friends and friends and friends, and they will  be kids like him so they will get him, and he will get them.

We are going to choose between two schools and then he will go for an interview and hopefully in a couple of weeks he will finally find his place in this world.

God I will miss him. I told him today that he will be living somewhere else because we love him so much. And he got that. He did.

He seemed shocked for a moment, and it looked like he might cry. But he didn't. He said he was okay. And after I told him all about the new things that would be entering his life he said, "Thank you. Thank you for doing this for me."

And I held him and tried hard not to cry. He said, "Can I stay at my new school until I graduate?"

And I said, "One day at a time."

I didn't even mention that one of the two schools is engaged in repopulating a certain kind of quail, and every year during the season when quails lay their eggs they raise over a hundred chicks.

I couldn't tell him because the decision is not yet made -- but if and when I do he will go nuts.

Long-time readers of this blog know that Benjy LOOOOVES birds.

Anyway, the grace and maturity with which he accepted the coming change -- a HUGE one -- was stunning. It made me happy, really happy. And he was happy, too. I took him out for a celebratory lunch. And to Target to buy some much-needed shorts and PJs and a board game to play in the evenings with the other kids on his unit. He was with me until Lars came home, and after the two of them played some Frisbee we drove him back to Boston. To his now-home. And soon enough we will be driving him to another home.

But after the first month we will have him weekends if he wants to be here. And if not we will spend a lot of time in Connecticut or New Hampshire, wherever he ends up.

And let me just say this: none of this would be happening if it weren't for all the amazing folks who have devoted time and energy to helping Ben. Social workers and doctors and special ed administrators. And friends. Huge shout out to our district's SPED team, who responded to Benjy's need with compassion and without hesitation. These are pretty amazing folks.

Tonight I think I will sleep well. I hope so. Tomorrow's another day, and we'll see what it brings.