the sound of silence...

this was my favorite song at the paul simon concert the other night...i've always loved this song and had high expectations and he still moved me to tears...such a captivating melody and haunting harmony...i hear them both simultaneously and hear the sadness and remember sadder times in my life...grateful i'm not there now but still remembering...we should have taken our children to this concert...there were several children there but more importantly our children would have loved the show and know many of the songs...my daughter is busy attaching multi-colored feathers (scales) to her mermaid costume behind me as i type...off to try and pull this costume together before our halloween playdate party at my house tomorrow...

MPT #12 9th and 10th grade: search for meaning and identity

this was my 9th grade ID card...i actually liked it better than any other year...in between the feathered 8th grade hair and super curly permed hair of later high school years (photo below)...i was always on a quest for meaning and trying to figure out "who am i?" analyzing myself, life, what mattered...i always remember reading pop psychology books, personality books, philosophical idealistic books, anything i could get my hands on to figure out who i was...i always felt like i needed to deal with the "deeper" side of life which isn't really the focus for most people in high school...i was also quite social and the counselor or confidant to many (gave guys i had crushes on advice on how to get the girls they were interested in)...

i also spent way too many hours of my life writing in journals...analyzing myself, my motives, my dreams, my interests...so self-absorbed writing all the minutia of what i thought about instead of what i did...

i was trying to find my tattered and torn copy of "please understand me" which summarizes the meyers-briggs personality test into every day terms...unfortunately it was so over used and missing so many pages i finally tossed it and haven't replaced it...i am an ENFP which means i'm Extroverted (like people), iNtuitive (make decisions about life based on my inner sense rather than reality), Feeling (follow my heart over my head) and Perceptive (like my options open instead of set and structured). i found a book on temperament which summarizes my type as the "advocate"; an idealist who focus on the growth potential in themselves and others and wants a part in the process...always seeking to know who i am, the search for my "true" self...integrity is the foundation of my self-esteem (oh boy...i was always betraying myself in high school...giving in to gossip or saying what i needed to say in any moment to be liked by people i probably didn't even like that well...i hated how i was such a chameleon changing to fit my environment)...

i'm going to quote out of this book as it was so true for me "desperate to please on one hand, yet fiercely guarding their integrity on the other, they must skate on the razor's edge, no easy feat. they can never be sure they are real because their integrity is more important to them than their sense of reality"

"...their mission in life is to have a mission in life, thus putting missions just out of reach...they try to be spontaneous so spontaneity eludes them...they consciously avoid self consciousness and so are all the more self conscious. they wish to be in touch with their feelings, only to lose the very feelings they want to experience more intensely..."

oh, man, i'm feeling depressed just reading this. i definitely suffered from depression in high school. only my family really needed me to be ok, happy all the time, no conflict, no sadness...so i gave them that outwardly and internalized too much...sorry for the therapy moment...i think by the end of this week i'll be ready to reflect on what i was hoping to gain from this adventure to my past...i think i've learned how far i've come and how i have an opportunity to allow my children to LIVE their life instead of always stressing they aren't doing it good enough...so many regrets from high school i analyzed everything instead of doing it...i would have dated, taken risks...allowed myself to love and be loved...

i should add one other personality test i took informed me i was "melancholy-sanguine" which to those of you who know a LITTLE about this know it was quite the polar opposites together...i was basically intense, depressive yet social and outwardly happy...

i wish people knew me better. i wish i let them. i wish i knew my classmates better. i wish i had more time to write about this but my son needs me in this moment and that is more important...

i've joined mommy's piggytales MPT recording my childhood a year per week...by the end of the week i'll have finished up high school...check back tomorrow for more details...

the long and winding road

three people i love (marc--one of my best friends and later obsessions in college; manuel my best friend after college and to this day...also my husband; and marc's wife, karri, one of my best friends forever....we are kindred spirits and i'm so happy she married marc so we could become friends!)

this morning i woke up with "the long and winding road" song in my head...in my dream i was literally riding on a long and winding road...manuel was driving us and marc was in the front seat...they were both looking at me in the rear-view mirror and and i was leaning forward from the back seat to talk to them...i wish i'd written down the dream as soon as i woke up because now i'm forgetting the details...but i remember the sense of contentment...important pieces of my life coming together in one moment...feeling understood and glad they understood one another...i believe the last part of our conversation i was telling them how they are both such talented writers they should compile their work and get it published...my dream before that had been an anxiety waiting tables dream at brava terrace where marc and i used to work together in college (manuel also worked there at one point but not at the same time as me)...like i was in the weeds with too many tables to keep track of (similar to parenting on many levels) but i eventually pulled through...i got a LOT of sleep last night...i started our bedtime routine just after 7 and was probably asleep by 8...i definitely needed it...

yesterday i felt like i was barely holding on...like i wanted to turn in my mommy card...only i realized i never got one to turn in! i felt so incompetent and like i couldn't pull it together. didn't have the patience to deal with even the small things like brushing my children's teeth. and i was so easily frustrated with both of them. usually i can balance that feeling out with all the endearing things my children do and say and are...but i couldn't focus on those important things too caught up in my head congestion, cramps, exhaustion, need to take time to myself...i was thinking if i had to rank the day on a 1-10 scale i would ask for a negative number! but then i realized how dramatic and self-absorbed i was being and decided not to focus on "poor me" but instead just go to bed and hope for a fresh start today! well, it worked. i woke up feeling "resolved" in some way on some fundamental level. i suppose i dreamt about manuel and marc riding along with me because they are two souls i care about who i felt also understood me at some point (manuel still does and marc and i haven't really stayed in touch) and yesterday i was needing some understanding!

off to be productive....halloween photos coming soon...what a difference a day makes! i need to remember this next time my life seems so unbearable...

MPT #3 1st grade: embracing independence

ahh...procrastination...can be my motivator but when i have two children having meltdowns and not napping, i really need to take on this blast to the past project several days before it is "due"...here is my 1st grade school picture...again, naturally stick straight hair curled to my mother's liking, she sewed my raggedy ann dress...here is my daughter's kindergarten school photo from this year:
i came across many more preschool photos when visiting my mom's house so forgive my indulgence as i throw in a few more memories from those years (kind of cheating or evidence of my lack of organization/planning)...this photo was taken when i was a flower girl in a cousin's wedding. apparently i was being very difficult the day of so someone offered me a very large gumball if i'd cooperate and go down the aisle...i guess i then blew huge gum bubbles the whole way (though i do appear to be concentrating on my flower dropping task in the photo)...
here is the advertisement i mentioned in the last MPT "mommy's pigtails" post
i know this photo of my hands and feet is taking us even pre-preschool, but i included them because i've always had really LONG skinny feet...they've had lots of nicknames over the years and i've been self-conscious of them but finally i've reached a point where that is the size foot a 6 foot tall person should have even if it is hard to find a woman's size 11 shoe in normal styles...
here is another photo of my mom's dad with myself (left) and my sister (right)...
here is one of me, my mom's mom, my mom and my sister...i like the smirk on both of the adults' faces...
and one more of me cuddling up to my mom...i find this photo noteworthy because i became so independent soon after this age...
this was my sister's 3rd birthday (i was 6)...i can see my missing front tooth which was prominent in several other photos from this age...
here i am with my siamese cat "piewackit" my mom got the name from some movie and i have no idea how to spell it...i always thought it was weird...
here are some of our play chairs made into a bed...i believe my grandma made the bed cover...bright green shag carpet...lots of 70's going on here...
my sister and i liked to build and create together in these pre-school years...
here is the swingset in our backyard...me hugging my sister at the top...i believe these were children from the preschool she had in her home...
and here are yet more children from said preschool...i'm the 5th one and my sister is to my left...
here is a jungle gym of sorts in our side yard...
sometimes my sister and i would sleep together...
we also went peach picking as a family once a year and then canned and froze them...
i think i'm only a year or so old in this photo but i included it so you could see our classic orange station wagon...the back window even rolled down and you could ride backwards in the way back...
we also went on an annual quest for wild flowers...here i am with my dad (with his redskins hat) and sister in a field of wild poppies (california's state flower if you didn't know)...
i remember the year before i started school we took a trip to yosemite...once i get the children to sleep i'll include a couple stories from that trip...
and since halloween is almost here i thought i'd include this photo...also stories from trick-or-treating if i have time...
this is a photo of my daughter sea with her special little tiger "goggin"...i noticed in the next photo i was holding a white tiger for a photo, too, though i don't remember playing with it...
my mom really worked with the curling iron and feathering for these shots...also noteworthy are all the missing teeth and permanent top teeth coming in...
this photo of my daughter was taken last month when she lost her first tooth...she had just turned 5 so we both lost teeth early...
i always slept in crazy positions....here are those sponge rollers i was telling you about...
and finally, the end result of said rollers for my curly hair for my first day of 1st grade...

so i have a lot to write about...as if i didn't already have too many photos...but i don't have a very good organization...i mentioned during my preschool years post that i didn't attend kindergarten so this was my first year in school...i honestly don't remember the first day that well but it is because i more or less walked out of my parent's home and never looked back (figuratively and literally)...i embraced independence as i chose for the theme for this year...ready to be on my own...i may have actually been TOO independent at this age which is a theme that will run through later posts...

i attended a 12 year christian private school (all 12 years i might add) and just recently co-chaired the reunion planning committee for our 20 year high school reunion (more on that in later posts)...my teacher was mrs. krominga (no idea how to spell her name...it sounded a little bit like captain kangaroo, a show i liked from about that era...there were about 30 students in my class and there were 2 other first grade classes...the school was about 5 minutes from our home and my dad usually drove us to school. he worked right down the street at the university...this school was very influenced by both the predominant religion of the little community and the medical center/dental school/professional and those ideas will run through later posts as well...for now, my early memories of first grade include LOVING gymnastics (which i was in most of the time i was in school despite my height and awkwardness), being very social/verbal/competitive in school "i know the answer!" sort of obnoxious student...i remember competing with a boy i had a crush on...more on him in my 2nd grade post...

i remember this year as being quite carefree...i enjoyed school, extracurricular activities, friends, my place in the world and embraced my independence...

MPT #2 preschool years: can't get enough attention

i thought this first "piggy tailed" photo would be appropriate for the second installment of "mommy's piggy tales" recording my childhood...i also have this photo as my thumbnail in various places...i suppose i still feel a child at heart...so i have a bunch of disclaimers i'll leave off as i'm not sure they explain much or enhance what i'm trying to say...in fact, i'm not sure what i'm trying to say at all which makes it difficult to weave my theme through these 15 childhood tales...so instead i just found the photos i have on my hard drive (most childhood photos are at my mom's house) from my preschool years and i figure i'll weave a story through explaining them...the fact that i had these photos scanned for our wedding reception slide show indicates they had some meaning for me...i'm not sure how old i am here eating whip cream at my neighbor's house...i've always had a sweet tooth...one thing i wish i hadn't passed on to my children...
i've also always been very verbal and loud and talkative...i guess i was one of the first to talk in sabbath school (and one of the first to walk...sea, my daughter walked at 9 months and 1 week old)...i remember from a very young age saying "look at me! let me just show you one more thing! watch!" etc...i could never get enough attention and always had more to share or show or do...i remember trying to get the attention of all the adults whenever my parents had people over "i can play that game, let me try" etc...
this next photo was taken with my neighbor ginky...this was a real live lion though i'm told he was probably sedated to allow this photo...still kind of crazy...i like to take risks so this photo seemed appropriate to show that side of me...my son is not as occupied as i wanted him to be while i try to record this so i can't go into all the stories of time spent with my neighbors...kristin was 5 years older than me and doted over me from the moment i was born...she told me recently that she used to build a block tower for me every day and then wait for me to wake up from my nap so i could knock it over. that story brings tears to my eyes just knowing i got that kind of adoring attention (my daughter is 5 right now so i can imagine her with a newborn). she continued to foster my development, play with me, spark my imagination, build me up, tell me how brilliant i was, etc. as i grew up...i believed her and attribute a lot of my self-confidence to these early years with her...i regret i don't have photos of us together...
here i am struck by my prominent bangs (my mom has been lobbying for me to cut bangs on my daughter) and my CURLS! i notice this because my hair is naturally stick straight but my mom was so obsessed with curls she would curl my hair with a curling iron or, put my hair in pink sponge rollers when i went to bed at night...i still like my STRAIGHT hair to this day probably because she pushed this so much...
this photo was taken by a professional photographer in my parent's home town and he liked the photo so much he used it in some printed ads for his studio...actually i'm looking at it again and this may not be the photo i was thinking of, but it reminded me of that idea...i can see the purple jacarunda tree in our front yard in the background...there are many of these blooming in san diego and for some reason they remind me of my dad...we spent a lot of time together in that side yard, under those blossoms...photos in front of the tree...i want to plant one at our house to be a constant reminder of those years and of him (he passed away 4 years ago if you didn't know)...
this is the photo i accidentally deleted in my last post of my mom with her fancy hair and my dad...sitting in front of our fire place...
this is a photo of my dad's dad who i called "granddaddy" (also what my daughter sea called my dad before he passed away), my grandma meme and me holding my dad's hand...i love all the 70's polyester prints...
this is my neighbor "ginky" again with my newborn sister marci. i am just over 3 years older than her. this is a noteworthy photo because apparently my parent's camera broke when she was born and they were unable (or unwilling) to borrow one or have anyone take any newborn photos so this must have been my neighbor's camera...
this photo is of my mom's dad "papa", me, my sister marci on my mom's mom "mimi"'s lap next to my mom with her extra high hair...this was taken at our dining room table...my mom recently told me a story of my papa giving me a bag of 50 cent pieces for christmas and how thrilled i was to have money, count it, play with it...i regret he died before i turned 10 and i didn't get to know him better...he also liked to write and i may dig up some of his stories to share at some point in this childhood recording journey...
i love this photo of our family...you can tell how much i adore my dad (that will probably be another ongoing theme how i was a "daddy's girl" and my sister and my mom paired off)...this photo was taken in our side yard...
this i believe was taken at my sister's 1st birthday...
nothing in particular i wanted to say about this photo except i like how we are both happily sitting together, 70's decorations, pigtails...my sister looked up to me at this age and i was probably as mean to her as sea is to her little brother...that would get better with age...
my mom looks like a quaker or something in this photo...she sometimes dressed my sister and i alike...i don't know if i have mentioned yet that my mom's dad was a traveling sales man who switched jobs and moved the family across the country every 6 months or so...my mom really wanted to build a house and "root it to the ground" and never move...she still lives in the house i was born in...this photo was taken in front of our house before any houses were built across the street...
here is another matching outfits photo...my mom sewed these dresses...
and here is a fairly recent shot of my daughter sea wearing the same dress...

one more xmas shot...i like our barrettes...
here is a photo from my 5th birthday...my daughter sea just turned 5 so this is coming full circle for me...
finally, i figure my mom was exhausted watching us at this age so this seemed like an appropriate end photo...
while we are on the topic of sleep, i just wanted to mention that we still co-sleep with my 5 and 2.5-year-old...by OUR choice...i think the oldest is almost ready to be on her own...but i sometimes wonder how my relationship would have been with my parents if they had co-slept with me. i ask this because apparently soon after i was able to walk, every night after my mom tucked me in bed, shortly after i would sleep walk out into the hallway between my bedroom and theirs and sit down with my legs crossed in a pretzel and then lie my head down on my feet and SLEEP like that until my mom came and put me back in bed. (i'm still really limber in yoga moves from these early stretches!) i also slept walked and talked a lot.

i have so many more stories from this age but they all sort of blur together instead of forming a theme or outline building up to who i am today...i suppose some of the basic info i'll share (without supporting photos) is that i lived in the same house in southern california for 18 years before leaving for college. we lived on a hill with a gully behind our house and i spent many, many years exploring trees/bushes, digging trails, hiking, and enjoying the outdoors. i had several neighbor friends who were all older than me who i looked up to and learned from...they were all creative yet a little depressive themselves and i feel they were big influences on me...i was always seeking their attention and approval and they were usually happy to give it to me (i figure at their age their peers were not showering them with as much attention).

one specific activity i remember enjoying was riding down the hill we lived on in a red radio flyer wagon. i would sit in front and my sister and our friend sat behind me, legs wrapped around my body. i would use the handle and turn it left or right to steer the wagon and we would run over stink bugs as we flew down. this is particularly scary to recall as there was a blind curve in the road and cars could have come up and hit us...

the last thing i guess i'll mention from this age is that my mom ran a preschool out of our home for a few years before i started school. so i not only had her as a stay-at-home mom, but a lot of early socialization from other preschoolers. i believe there were 8 students and she had big round tables and little chairs, a chalkboard, and lots of art and school decorations from her years teaching 1st grade. i didn't go to kindergarten (just attended this preschool another year before starting first grade) so my school experience memories won't start until my next post.

i had hoped to pull the "can't get enough attention" theme back through...in my free associations with these photos, that was the idea that came to my mind...that was true for much of my life, but especially in those early formative years.

i'm visiting my mom this weekend and hope to dig up more photos and uncover more memories for future recordings. i am enjoying the journey and glad to be doing it with a group!

free association on recording my childhood

i have taken on the ambitious endeavor of recording my childhood through mommyspiggytales.com...check out this link if you want to join in the next 24 hours or so! my leader is gretchen who has gone through this process before. here is a post about recording her mom's childhood this time around (her mom died suddenly last year). my dad died 4 years ago and it still seems so new...unfathomable...i would totally love to do the same thing for him next year.

this first photo is taken with my mom in our neighbor's pool when i was just a toddler (she can't swim and hates the water so it is really quite surprising)...i'll be relying on her for my first post in the series; (TOMORROW!) my birth story...i'm sure we'll both have a lot to learn about each other through this process...i'm going to check with gretchen on how to go about weaving a theme through my posts...i think there are definitely many i could brainstorm about...but first, as we blast to the past together (look behind) i thought a photo of me from behind would be appropriate...
the ideas i've been tossing around in my head that all are sort of inter-connected are:
--searching for me
--feeling misunderstood
--explaining myself
--finding me and moving my focus to others (my family)
--self-absorption
--being a child again through remembering
--allowing myself to play and be a child with my own children in the present
--mindful parenting/unconditional parenting...resolving this lack in my childhood and repairing it with my own children

before children i spent 7 years working on my master's thesis...the main themes i was exploring was the importance of integrity in self-concept, meaning in life and happiness...so i think if i was to summarize my goal for this recording of my childhood it would be something like:
"the quest for me: finding the balance between who i am, happiness, meaning and living outside of myself" although just reading that i am confused and i'm supposed to be the one presenting these ideas...that is why this is my brainstorm post, right?

did i mention that i always wanted to be a writer as a child/teen/adult but never felt i could be because i got too depressed or self-absorbed or sabotaged my efforts...too caught up in deadlines and lack of motivation and having too much to say and not wanting to cut anything out and rambling and believing my perspective was more important than the story i was telling?...i still have a lot of these same issues but i'm hoping to move outside of myself, look at this through my daughter and son's eyes as they hope to learn about their mommy...so i have a lot more to say...a lot more disclaimers and "forgive me for ___" which i then do anyway...i'm still self-absorbed but look forward to reading everyone else's stories and presenting my own with the emphasis on my children...here i am about to go off the high dive into the DEEP end...metaphorically speaking i'm ready for the plunge...thanks for joining me!