2007 November | Sarah Markley

Archive for November, 2007

Friday November 30th, 2007

“Mama, you can just drop me off this morning…”

Really? You want me to drop you off? I always walk you in, but you want me to drive through the drop off line and just let you out?

She seems confident and secure. She knows where her room is and where she leaves her backpack. In fact, her dad sometimes drops her off.

Something in my heart drops a little and something in the back of my throat catches. She wants this independence. She wants to be trusted in this, however small.

I pull around to the back, toward the drop off line, and begin peppering her with questions. You know where to walk? You know you aren’t going straight to the yard because of the rain? Are you going to go directly there? Are you sure?? The question behind all of this is am I sure?

I drive into the line, and stop. She says, “Thank you, Mama. See you after school!” She jumps out and I can’t stay to wait. I can’t wait to see if she gets in okay. The line is moving and I must join.

She walks across the wet playground toward the daycare modular, alone. She looks so little in its emptiness. She adjusts her backpack and throws me one more smile. In her eyes I can read her certainty. And that’s it. I have to turn the corner. I don’t see if she gets into her room. I don’t even see her finish her journey across the play yard.

I drive home, with Naomi in the back, and I cry – only a little. What perplexes me is that I am so proud of how she is growing up and beginning to understand the world. Proud of her confidence. But, I am also saddened by the stages of childhood flying by me.

I have to trust. I have to trust that my little girl has a Creator who is much more certain than I am that she will make it across the wet play yard to her warm classroom. I have to rely on that certainty, and not on my own.

Written at 9:58 am · (8) Comments ·

Thursday November 29th, 2007

How I wish that a toddler’s joy of life could be easily transferred to her adults! The reason she leaks delight from every pore is that she doesn’t have to worry or care about anything. Everything in her life is taken care of; her every need is met. Her nose is wiped, her hands are washed, her tummy is full and her bed is warm. Her parents take care of her and protect her. She has no need to be troubled or distressed.

But then, I guess, neither do I. I don’t have to worry. Its a choice I make.

Her ease at laughter, her wake-up-smile, her pure glee: it is all attainable. Joy isn’t simply born of freedom of responsibility, but of freedom of worry. And worry, again, is a choice.

So, today, I want to choose joy over distress, smiles over exasperation, and laughter over worry.

Written at 3:03 pm · (14) Comments ·

Wednesday November 28th, 2007

I wonder if relationships forged at such a young age last. They will always be cousins, but will they always share secrets by nightlight? Do these early bonding experiences, these days and hours spent next to each other, do they prove to be the glue of adulthood?

They will have to take responsibility for their own friendship in a few short years, and though their parents might encourage it, ultimately their love is their own. They choose to love and to be hurt or not hurt; they will each choose to hold the other in her heart. Or not.

My hope, my prayer, is that these 5 and 6 year old experiences will be a foundation for a mature relationship someday; that they will as young mothers, someday, smile about memories of long car rides and falling asleep on each other. I trust that they will use these visits as a base for the future.

New memories. New laughter. Many new smiles. Memory-building is a good thing.

Written at 9:48 am · (9) Comments ·

Tuesday November 27th, 2007

The clouds are high and wide this morning. The sunrise today makes them silver, stretching from horizon to horizon, typical of a California morning in late fall.

Last week I met a woman who said the Cambridgeshire skies were the best in England because of the low-profile landscape, without hills or mountains. She also said that the sky in the States is most likely more beautiful because of our wide expanses of land and prairie.

But as we drove to the airport on Sunday morning, we saw the sun rise over England, late now nearing winter at about 7am. We saw the sun rise, and create huge pink and orange brush strokes in the open Cambridge sky. No variation in the earth, just farmland and a brilliant sky above.

Its the same sun, shining on the same clouds, over different land. I don’t know which sky is more beautiful. I do know that I am the same girl, now on my own continent, and I’ve left England behind (and with it, our family).

I miss it and I miss them this morning.

Written at 10:06 am · (6) Comments ·

Monday November 26th, 2007

Naomi screams. She yells. She thrashes around and screams again. She kicks and throws things. She is almost 2, and she’s been stuck on an airplane for almost 10 hours.

In her tears, she says “BINKY”. She takes her pacifier and throws it. She yells for it again, and throws it again. She yells “NIGHT NIGHT” wanting her blanket. I hand it to her and she throws it off. “DRINK!” I give her a sippy cup with milk and she tries to throw that (so glad she didn’t hit the guy in 25E because she has kicked him enough on this flight).

I figure 25E is okay, he’s a dad. But his middle-school aged kids sitting next to him have been doing their homework quietly for hours. I know someday that will be us, but I also know I don’t want to rush it. The days of play dough and stickers will be gone forever, it seems.

Everything I give her, this whirlwind of energy in the body of a toddler, everything she asks for, she decides she doesn’t want. I am trying desperately to understand her little mind, her heart. She gets what she asks for, but it doesn’t satisfy whatever is fueling her fire. She is unhappy, evidently, and as her mother, my inside desire is to soothe and calm her. My words are nothing to her when she is in the midst of a tantrum, and nothing said or sung offers any salve.

She just doesn’t know what she wants.

And even though her vocabulary has grown exponentially in the past weeks and month, she still does not have enough words or self-knowledge to express herself adequately. She doesn’t know so, neither do I.

So today, there are more tantrums. But they are in the comfort of my living room or backyard. She is free from her car seat and stroller, for today at least. I look at her, try to figure out what exactly it is she wants, and try to provide the right boundaries for her.

I sincerely want to be able to see inside her, deep inside the complexities of this baby. I know there is a lesson to learn here, in her: to ask for things carefully and to thoughtfully consider what satisfies. And also, of course, what does not.

And not to throw the binky when someone gives it to you.

Written at 10:48 am · (10) Comments ·

Saturday November 24th, 2007

Adjustment.

Adaptability.

I am learning how easy it is to adapt. To change. To get used to something new. Like driving on the other side of the road. I’ve only been here for a week, but already it seems half-way normal. Even on the pavement when passing somebody, it seems polite to walk to the left rather than the right as we are used to in America.

Even in my runs here, I’ve began to jog hugging the left and not the right side of the path. I did it without thinking this morning when I passed another woman jogger (the ONLY one I have seen since I’ve been here): she ran to the right and I the left. It just seemed to work; and it also worked in my brain.

The baby eventually got used to the time difference (just in time for us to go home) and both of the girls have adjusted well to travelling (being on a train or in a car or plane for long stretches of time). There have been some whines, but for the most part, they seem to have adapted well.

It makes me wonder if there are other habits in my life I could easily drop if I just tried; things that I could live without if I merely made the effort. I could adapt. I surely could adjust.

I am packed up. We are ready to go. Our last adventure begins tomorrow morning as we travel home. Door-to-door our trip will begin at 7am Cambridge time and end at 7pm California time, roughly 20 hours of different legs of our journey. I know that once again, tomorrow will be a day of adjustment, some tantrums, but an adventure nonetheless.

Written at 9:46 am · (6) Comments ·

Friday November 23rd, 2007

London in November is, to me…the train from Waterbeach to Kings Cross, with runny noses and the eastern sun beating on our warming faces.

London is Naomi yelling/screaming the entire way from the train station to Parlaiment Square in a cab (we tipped the cabbie 8 pounds because we felt so bad for him) because she simply didn’t want to sit down. London is ducking into Westminster Abbey and paying anything they would charge us because of frozen fingers and cold ears.

London, for me, today is my amazement at the Poet’s Corner (Chaucer!!) and the tombs of Elizabeth I, Mary Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots.

It is taking a short wave at Big Ben and then jumping into the first cab that would stop for a painfully obvious American family. London is letting Naomi “stand” in the cab toward the museum so she wouldn’t scream. Some fights I am going to just choose not to fight.

London is the Subway sandwich shop that sold something familiar for the kids to eat (sort of).

London is savoring the British Museum while Naomi napped in the stroller and watching my older daughter take her first look at the ancient world. It is then whisking the family through the Roman Brittain section because, after her nap, she wanted OUT of her stroller confinement.

London is catching our train home only to find the rest of work-week-weary city headed to our same destination. We stood for the 60 minute train ride and Hope fell asleep on the floor sitting on her father’s feet.

London, for me, in November, is way too big and amazing to see with two wonderfully adaptive, but young children. But, we did jump into this freezing pool with both feet and had a glorious time.

Written at 11:23 am · (6) Comments ·

Thursday November 22nd, 2007

We patchworked the dinner today, but I am thankful. Its wildly difficult translating European metric cooking temperatures and amounts into what I know… the jury is still out on the pumpkin pie.

We are going into London tomorrow (with a stroller and the baby) and I am not sure how it will turn out, but I am thankful. All I know is I can’t miss the opportunity: sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet even though you know the pool will be freezing.

We celebrated Thanksgiving today in a country with people who are most likely thankful for what they have been given, but don’t set aside a day like we do. I am thankful for being with family today, and for being one of four adults with five hyper children.

We’ve been passing around a cold in this house and now I am sick, but I am thankful even so. It slows me down and lets me shrug off a little of the stress.

I’m thankful for taking a walk late yesterday afternoon pushing Naomi in the stroller. We walked the little streets of Canterbury by ourselves and we bought some things together in a tea shop and in a little Catholic store. I’m thankful for quieter times.

I’m thankful that Hope seems to “get it” on our visits to the cathedrals and the old sections of the towns. She watches, she touches the walls and she seems to be ingesting it. It’s more than I had hoped for. She’s not even six years old.

Today is Thanksgiving and in some ways I feel thousands of miles away from most people I know. But I am also in the middle of a loud house full of love and kindness and the voices of kids singing (fighting sometimes). I am thankful for that.

I am also thankful that even as our dinner was a little patchworked today, it was hot and filling and tasted good. And it was shared by people who love each other dearly.

Happy Thanksgiving from England!

Written at 11:09 am · (7) Comments ·

Wednesday November 21st, 2007

Its odd. This country. I’ve studied its history, read its literature, taught students its plays, and it has always been romanticized in my mind. Films, both current and historic, picture England in a way that seems other-worldly to me:

Beautiful. Ancient. Deep. Romantic.

Nothing like my life in California. Nothing like driving to dance class or working out on the treadmill. Nothing like my normal me.

But walking down the streets of Canterbury today, (after having had my first and hopefully only stress breakdown of the week) I was struck with how normal and wonderful it is here. English people are nice and normal. Burger King and KFC are the same (except for a few diffrences here and there). School kids walk down the pedestrian streets after being let out of school looking for the candy shops. It seems the English are in awe and appreciation of their heritage just as I am, however their castles and cathedrals slide in between cooking shops and juice bars in the shopping districts.

And there are electronic keypads on doors hewn in the fourteenth century.

The gate to the courtyard of Canterbury Cathedral is literally adjacent to a Starbucks. From the Starbucks windows you can see the actually entryway to the impressive building. Its a little strange.

England still is romantic and medieval and mysterious to my California mind, but now it also seems homey and comfortable and familiar. It still is a bit foreign to me (I am reminded when I see bags of frozen minced lamb and beef and kidney pies in the local supermarket), however I see England now in the faces of the girls who work at the coffee counters or behind the bread shop window. I can see it not just as a world I’ve created in my mind, but as it is.

Written at 1:59 pm · (4) Comments ·

Tuesday November 20th, 2007

My oldest little girl seems to be growing up even more on this trip. I can almost see her gains, and leaps, and strides as they are happening.

She is having trouble sleeping in the middle of the night because of the time difference still. She doesn’t get upset, she doesn’t whine…she just quietly walks over to my room, knocks on my door and whispers: I can’t sleep, Mama.

I go into tuck her in, to make sure she’s warm and safe in an unfamiliar house, and she asks me to sing. I tell her it will have to be a whisper-song, and I sing to her. When I leave, she is still wide awake, but I don’t hear from her again the rest of the night. She is making some adult-sized choices.

Today we went to Ely to see the cathedral. It is beautiful and big and it is the first time Hope has seen anything like it at all. She calls them Castle-Churches. They have a childrens‘ map and the older girls took off looking in the corners and among the statues and stained glass for the clues. They found the shrine of St. Ethelreda from 674 AD and they also found the tomb of a beheaded bishop from 991 AD.

For a minute I couldn’t find Hope, and then I saw her, by herself, staring at the art at the altar in a small chapel. She was alone and quiet and studying what she saw. I walked up behind her and asked her about what she saw. She said, “This is AMAZING, Mama”.

She reminded me of myself. Not at that age, but of me now:

searching for art in the mundane, seeing beauty for beauty, being awed by the ancient.

It is truly beautiful to witness her grow up in this way.

Written at 2:25 am · (5) Comments ·