Loving a Quiet, Ordinary Life

January 28, 2020February 19, 2023Kimberly Bryant, Communications

How did you answer the question, the one single question that every adult asks every kid when they need to start a conversation, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a tough one, kids only really know the careers they see on TV or in their own small circle of people. They share those big ones, the ones that their families have encouraged: astronaut, football player, doctor, the President. I usually said I wanted to be a famous singer like Marie Osmond or the beautiful ladies called Dawn who sang with Tony Orlando. I loved their pretty clothes, I loved that people clapped for them, and I knew I loved to sing. In my secret heart, I wanted to be a singer all the way through my growing up years. And I could sing, I really could. I don’t mean in the way that we’ve all heard some poor, deluded American Idol candidates, who show up to audition so sure their voices are awesome because their moms always thought so. No, I had a voice that could have played pretty much any Rodgers and Hammerstein lead; if I had chosen to do the work, to study and rehearse and push. I had the instrument.

But I chose a different path. I met a guy my first day at college. I fell in love and got married at nineteen years old. I changed my major from vocal performance to elementary education. I made the conscious, deliberate decision to follow an ordinary life, to settle down and raise a family and have a little house and a conventional, safe career.

I had my first child at twenty-one years old, my second at twenty-four, and my third at twenty-seven. I probably changed thousands of cloth diapers, washed lots of them in an old avocado green washing machine that I bought from my grandpa, made baby food in a food processor, read Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? so often I still feel their rhythms in my bones, graded countless first grade math papers, matched socks, drove to baseball practice and dance lessons, sewed dresses and Halloween costumes, baked birthday cakes, emptied Friday folders, buckled church shoes, made love with my husband, made beds, made lunch, made…a life. An ordinary life.

c1eaddafe90f1180c29c1a7ef7b7b7f9 — Art by Charlie Mackesy

In the quest to instill a spirit of courage and daring in our kids, we encourage them to dream big; and dreaming big seems to mean fame. Perhaps prestige. Most likely hefty cash flow. We tell our kids (both families and teachers do this) that they can be anything they want to, that if they just want it enough and never give up, they will reach their goals. That’s good stuff. We definitely want kids to know that they are smart, that they have talents, that they can do good in this world. They should shoot for the stars!

But that’s not invariably true. Have you ever seen the scene, the incredible moment, in Little Miss Sunshine when Dwayne, the brother character, realizes he cannot be a pilot because he is color blind? To see the realization dawn in his eyes, then inhabit his entire body until his limbs cannot be contained, to see an entire childhood aspiration lost, and so an entire identity erased, is excruciating.

I think a lot of people go through a version of that internally every day. I know I did; not every day, but sometimes. I got lost in the piles of unrelenting dirty dishes, the long rehearsals when I taught my theatre students how to perform instead of working on my own art, or the constantly replenishing pile of bills.

Yet there were so many moments of enchantment- some troubling thorns, but more glittering magical seeds:

Kissing tiny boo-boos and bandaging little knees.

Seeing students hit milestones.

Swimming in a central Texas lake.

Preparing my Aunt Molly’s Thanksgiving dressing recipe.

Loving and losing pets.

Being baptized at age ten, then helping to baptize my own children later.

Giving a daughter away in marriage.

Holding that daughter close when it was time for her to file for divorce.

Being estranged from my adult son for a period.

Seeing the first ultrasound image of my grandchild.

Choosing over and over again to love my husband and to let him love me.

Somewhere along the way I realized that my life was pretty ordinary, and also pretty great.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of the beloved Little House book series, has said, “As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

laura-ingalls-wilder-quote-about-the-beauty-of-life-this-really-sums-out-my-goal-in-finding-amazem-best-quotes-life

What would happen if we taught our kids that an ordinary life is beautiful? That having a vocation, whether it’s accounting or bagging groceries is an honor; listening to music is transcendental; noticing the sunlight in the tree leaves is holy; sometimes sandwiches for dinner are perfectly okay? That life does not have to look like a Pinterest board? That children’s birthday parties don’t have to compete with each other or be Instagram worthy? That wedding proposals can be intimate instead of viral?

As I really dig into my sixth decade on this planet, I am choosing to love my ordinary life, to share my ongoing journey to heal from trauma and betrayal (both in childhood and adulthood), and to be okay in alone-ness. I am learning to be as grateful for playtime with my grandchildren as I might ever have been for grand adventures. Restlessness gives way, inch by excruciating inch, to contentment.

May you know that your own ordinary life is also precious. I hope so. Though we’ve all got to walk our own path.

What are the joys you find in your ordinary life? I’d love to know!

If you’re in a quandary how to start conversations with kiddos, this article is great. I wish I had had this information when I was raising kids and teaching school.

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/stop-asking-your-kids-what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up-ask-this-instead.html

Present Light: Fourth in a Series

January 21, 2020February 21, 2023Kimberly Bryant, Communications

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”

-Hafiz of Shiraz

When I began collecting and posting photos of streetlamps and lanterns, I felt compelled to remind not only myself but also the people in my small circle of the world that it is within our power to create, discover, or share Light. Light is ever-present. It is emitted by sun, reflected by moon, shining from stars, generated in light bulbs, flickering from the butts of bugs.

It is the essence of each and every one of us; bestowed within by the Divine One who orders all Creation. Light may be shadowed or temporarily hidden. Life has periods of darkness, to be sure, both metaphorical and literal. But Light is too powerful to be wholly snuffed.

This lamp is seen just outside the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We visited in 2017, and I was stunned by her beauty. I sat outside on a stone bench that may well have been perched on by a long-ago supplicant, taking it all in; I desired to be fully present in heart and spirit when I entered the edifice where so many faithful have prayed. My own faith has undergone so much turmoil, so much betrayal and heartache, that I required time to become open and soft of spirit, to sense the building as more than an architectural miracle. The balmy sunshine did its magic, though, warming me with the love and grace of the Divine One before I entered the cool darkness of the church.

2020 may be full of dark moments. I sense that it will. There is too much widespread pain and anger for it to be otherwise. And perhaps it is necessary. A breaking of the old ways to make space for the new. But let us each do what we can to hold up a light amid the shadows. Let us listen to each other when possible, knowing that some of what we hear will wound our hearts and challenge our values. Let us take care before flinging accusations or judgements.

It was a bright spring day in Paris, and so the lantern had not been yet lit. But its promise was evident: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Grandma’s Post-Postpartum Depression.

January 14, 2020February 21, 2023Kimberly Bryant, Communications

A couple of days ago, I found myself picking up, by hand, all the little crumbs and leafy bits scattered on the light beige carpet on our stairs. One by one. This, after stacking toys and reversing the hangers of each piece of clothing in our bedroom closet.

My husband is worried about me.

My daughters are worried about me.

I am a little worried about me.

Plagued by insomnia, heart rate excelling, breath accelerated; for three consecutive weeks I have found myself unable to sit still in my own home, my eyes constantly darting to and fro, seeking messes to straighten or clutter to eliminate. I do not exaggerate, my family pleads with me to stop, to sit down and enjoy a movie or a book or a chat. I fail. Tonight, my spouse stalled me by encircling me with his arms, saying, “Honey, stop. Sit down.” I lay my head on his shoulder for the briefest of moments, then replied, “I can’t,” then trudged upstairs to put dirty laundry in the wash. The garage has been cleaned, the cabinets cleared, the linens assessed and mended. I painted a bedroom on New Year’s Day. Even the slimy produce has been disposed of and the drawers of the fridge washed with hot, soapy water. That’s the worst job, isn’t it? I hate it.

Oh, and just two months after knee surgery I am pushing myself to walk 10,000 steps a day and/or ride my bike. Movement is, at this point, compulsive, though apparently and unfotunately not yet burning enough calories to erase the stocking-stuffer imported English wine-flavored gummy candy from my hips.

Amidst this frenzy of activity, there have been only two things that could stop me in my tracks:

Binge-watching the second season of Fleabag with my older daughter on the day before she returned to Los Angeles; we holed up in my bedroom with wine and chocolate to cram all six episodes of the divine Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her Hot Priest, and I took that break because my girl insisted. It was her one request before going home…

And my two grandchildren. One, a girl, is thirteen months old. She is playful and headstrong. The other, a boy, is only three weeks old. He is angelic and hungry. They and their parents live with my husband and me. It’s a blessing. I love having them. I do. Really, I do.

But I think I may be experiencing a bit of post-postpartum depression. Is that a thing for grandmothers? It should be. I bet it is, and we just don’t talk about it.

Recently, my husband and I met a new couple, lovely folks. As we chatted, we described our living situation: youngest daughter and her domestic partner living with us with their kids while my daughter finishes school and they try to get ahead financially. Incredulous, they said something like, “We told our kids once they finished school (and they paid for their kids’ degrees, a feat we had been unable to accomplish on our pastor/educator salaries) they were on their own, and we meant it. We enjoy our kids and grandkids, sure, but no way would we let them live with us.” Emphatic shakes of their heads emphasized their resolve. Maybe that grandmother doesn’t have any post-postpartum depression. She seems to have it pretty together. But this one? Me? Hell yes. I think I do.

I went looking to see what humorist Erma Bombeck might have to say about being a grandmother, certain that if she could find something funny to say, it would shake me out of the funk of anxiety, and she had nothing but niceness to say, she the pinnacle of rapier wit:

“Grandmas defy description. They really do. They occupy such a unique place in the life of a child. They can shed the yoke of responsibility, relax, and enjoy their grandchildren in a way that was not possible when they were raising their own children. And they can glow in the realization that here is their seed of life that will harvest generations to come.”

Why can I not “shed the yoke… [and] relax?” What’s wrong with me?

It’s a lifetime of perfectionist habits, partnered with a legitimately diagnosed anxiety disorder and a compulsion to be the best, most generous and helpful mom/grandmother/employee/teacher/etc…

Magnified by menopause. That, to quote Fleabag, “horrendous…magnificent” process that shakes us women up, down, and sideways.

Enough about how I have been struggling. We’re all struggling one way or another. What you may wonder, dear reader, is what is she doing about it?

Here’s what:

After a couple of months letting my anxiety prescription gather dust, I got it refilled and I started taking it again. Faithfully, every morning, with my daily 4 ounces of orange juice. At first, I did it because of the look of dismay on my husband’s face when he realized I had not been taking it. But then, I decided to take it for myself. So often, when those of us with a mental illness feel better, we think it’s time to take ourselves off our meds (and of course, we do not consult our physicians because we know what they say. I actually did ask my doctor and she said No and I did it anyway). It’s been a couple of weeks and I am feeling incrementally calmer.

I started letting my family help more. Right now, as a matter of fact, my husband is loading the dishwasher (so…many…baby…bottles…) while I write up here in my cozy bedroom writing space. When I got home from work today, there were dirty dishes in the sink and I left them there! No one in my household expects a constantly clean house. Just me. That’s my hangup, it comes from growing up in sometime squalor. Gotta let that stuff go.

I stuck to my guns with my new boss to get a private workspace. Is it in an old closet? Yes. But it’s my closet. It’s quiet. I can avoid the chaos of an open concept office (which is fun when you’re in an office with Jim, Pam, Dwight, Michael, and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin crew, but not so great in real life). The important part of this situation is that I stuck to my guns and spoke up for something I knew I needed.

I did yoga yesterday.

And I canceled a commitment I’d made to my extended family this week. I’d made it with the best of intentions. And I had tried to honor it. But I simply did not have enough time. They accepted it with silence, then someone else stepped up to do the job. The rest of the family is rallying to help her accomplish it, which is great. I think I disappointed or angered them, but I know that after all these weeks of crying, shaking, and lying awake, my health mattered more. Listening to my inner voice tell me where I had overextended, then doing the humbling work of canceling, was the best self-care I could do at this time.

What I am emphatically not going to do is send my daughter and her family away. They need help, and I remember what it was like to feel bereft and overwhelmed when a young mother. Maybe I am a sucker, but I want to provide a nurturing foundation for my daughter and her family. The best part of “grandma’s post-postpartum depression” is the exquisite beauty of being a grandmother, anyway.

Medication. Boundaries. Saying no. Self-care. Accepting help. Leaving the dishes. Hugs from my husband. Cuddles with two grandbabies. And plenty of the genius of Fleabag. These are tools for coping with the rarely discussed and maybe only case ever of post-postpartum depression.

Okay, Erma, I am ready to glow.

Live Small. Love Big: A Meditation

January 10, 2020February 21, 2023Kimberly Bryant, Communications

After an entire adulthood spent being told to dream big, to live loud, I am done. I simply am. We are not all of us meant to “live loud.”

I am, rather, inclined now to live small: smaller house, smaller wardrobe, smaller carbon footprint. Fewer possessions. Less noise. Limited spending. Streamlined living. Lean…

Not mean, though. The only place I want to live large these days is in all the multitudinous ways that we humans can share love. I yearn for more time spent in nature, more hugs. More forgiveness. More conversations that move beyond the surface.

I want to ask, “How are you?” and be answered with authenticity, though it requires I invest more time to attend the replies, to hear the stories that the people I meet are aching to tell.

I desire engagement.

And I crave that the Divine One, the wonderful Spirit who created me, will wiggle Her way into each tiny crevice of who I am. I don’t need Her to make me big. I want Her to take the smallness of me and connect it to the stars, to the seas, to the trees. To my grandchildren. To my children. To my husband. My family.

And to the unknown strangers at the border. In the Middle East. In the political party which is opposite mine. With relationship to all these, I become vast, my soul expanding beyond what is conceivable should I remain alone. My quiet spirit can then hear all the voices of the universe, my presence is both honored and honorable among Creation.

To live small does not mean timidity, nor a sense of inferiority. It is not self-castigation or minimalization. No, it is, instead, to walk in healthy humility. It is to comprehend that I am a wee part of a greater whole, she who lives among billions: billions of folk, stars, trees, animals. No more important, no. But nor less.

A path both wide and narrow. May it be so.

Tell Them a Story. Like Big Bird!

January 7, 2020February 21, 2023Kimberly Bryant, Communications

“Sunny day
Sweeping the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street?”

This morning, my daughter suggested we turn Sesame Street on for her one-year-old. We did, and oh, the feelings that swept through me.

It’s the first week of a new decade. My holiday decorations are stored, the garage is impossible to use while we try to clear the house of clutter, I used New Year’s Eve to paint a bedroom. There’s a new baby, just twenty days old, living in my house and distracting me from my chores (I am joyous to oblige him). Lots of fresh starting going on.

There’s also a lot of nostalgic wishing and sighing. A little angst- I still haven’t had a book published or lost the ten pounds I need to, but those are little angsts. The big angst is over people I miss. When you’re very, very young, like my two grandchildren, time has no meaning. Days? Months? Years? Decades? Pfft. When you’re a teen or perhaps a young adult, every new year may feel like the beginning, like a fresh start full of promise. Onward!

When you’re in the middle, like I am, you look forward and backward in equal measure. And this morning, with Big Bird on the screen, I didn’t just glance backward. My very soul seemed pulled right out of the now. The episode began with Elmo singing with friends on the stoop of the brownstone, the green doors opening to reveal Gordon, his father, and his son, Miles. They told a surprised Elmo and Miles, who couldn’t imagine that the two old guys might have been musicians, stories of their younger days as a singer and a guitarist. Gordon’s flashback included Luis and Bob, and my five-year-old spirit danced in recognition.

I have always loved Sesame Street. Its literacy lessons gave me reading, but its inclusive kindness gave me hope. I was a pretty lonely kid, and Big Bird’s gentle love for the invisible Snuffy was a source of great joy for me. When my own eldest was a toddler, I shared SS with her on the Lubbock PBS station; Ernie was her favorite. For her second Christmas, we got her an Ernie ornament for our tree. My father was with us that Christmas, and when we hung that Ernie, he told me that he remembered how I had loved the show as a small girl. I had never realized he’d noticed that. But I did, I really did love it. And my dad. He loved me, too.

Caroll Spinney, the operator and voice of both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, passed on my granddaughter’s first birthday, and as she stood at the TV screen this morning, I realized anew just how important it is that we pass along, to our children and grandchildren, all the things that Sesame Street holds dear: kindness, literacy, and story.

Story is power, it is magic, it is blessing and curse. Humans love stories. We draw them, film them, record them, write them, and tell them around campfires. My Grandma June used to tell the same family yarns over and over at gatherings, so often repeating herself that her kids and kids-in-law developed a hand signal: when Grandma started a story they’d all heard before, they would start flashing their fingers above their heads to indicate how many times they’d heard the tale. Then they’d all laugh, including Grandma, and she’d tell the story anyhow. Story is how the thread of a family can be woven in and around generations, creating a tapestry that is indestructible. It may become threadbare at times, perhaps worn or frayed, but the through-line will preserve a household. How can we share story?

Story can be long. My Grandmother Juanita was a seamstress; when I’d visit and she needed to sew for a client, she’d set me up near her machine with my own doll, fabric scraps, needle, and thread. I’d cut and stitch as she made beautiful dresses, while stories fell from between her pin-filled lips. Stories of raising children while picking cotton, stories of church. Stories about the women who came to her home for dress fittings. She shared an oral history with me that could not have been heard if we’d been in front of a screen. Those stories took hours of communication: her talking, me listening and asking questions.

But that’s not the only way to share story. There are ways to incorporate it into a daily life lived in such a way that our tales flow out of us, long and short, deeply profound or joyfully silly, memorable or not. Each story shared, no matter length or gravitas, builds a connection with each other: parent to child, roomie to roomie, teacher to student.

Though I usually shy away from creating a list, today I am giving it a try. Here are some ways to share story with your loved ones, whether family of blood or family of choice, friends treasured, or students respected.

The most obvious is to share meals around a table. Screens off. Though my hubby and I share our meals in front of a TV now, when we were raising kids, we gathered them around the table, television off, for dinner every night. Those thirty minutes allowed everyone to hear and be heard. It did get harder as they got older and began playing sports and taking dance lessons. But the foundation we laid in their younger years remains firm.
Leave the photo albums and scrapbooks out where everyone has quick and easy access. I used to spend hours poring over my parents’ wedding album and the albums of all the photos taken when they were young and my brother and I were small. Sometimes I asked my parents what was happening in a particular picture, but at other times I allowed these photos to be a jumping-off place for histories of my own creation. I personally have around twelve albums now of my own family. And if some of the cute decorations in the albums that moms of my generation were creating so lovingly during the 90s and 00s get torn, so what?
Tiny moments call for short stories. Washing dishes, tucking in, not making the team…all opportunities for stories that are just a couple of sentences. When I was tightening the key on the expander in my kids’ mouths (they all inherited my narrow jaw, unfortunately), I’d tell them tales of my own orthodontic nightmares, including the time when my inner upper lip cut open then sealed shut over the arch of wire running along my upper gums. These old stories gave them hope that they’d survive the ordeal, it let them know that I really did understand their pain, and it helped them to understand that I am a person who lived and loved before they came along.
Write things down. It doesn’t have to be pretty or even grammatically flawless. One of my most treasured possessions is the file of letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother during their courtship. Sometimes, I sit and read a couple of those letters that are in his scrawled, slanting handwriting, and I feel him and remember him so closely. Keep a book in which you grab a pen and write short notes. Your loved ones will be glad to have it someday. And it’s just not quite the same if it’s all done exclusively digitally.
However, sometime technology really can be helpful! Call and leave voice texts-not voice mails, but actual voice texts. They can be longer, can be saved, and can be listened to at convenience and on repeat. Since we’re all carrying smart phones now, you can simply pop in your AirPods and listen to a saved message from the one you miss.
When I was a kid, there was a rack of record albums sitting by my parents’ stereo console, I could pull a record out of its sleeve, set it on the turntable, and have a sense of my family through the music they loved. When I was a young adult, we were making mix tapes and CDs, assembling the songs we loved to tell others about us. Now, we can make a playlist and share it. And if we listen to it together, we can share the stories that go along with the songs. At our house, anytime Amy Grant’s “Baby, Baby” comes on, I have to tell the story of my daughter pronouncing it “Maven, Maven” as I drove our used sedan to work, dropping her and her baby brother off at daycare at Ms. Sharina’s first.
Traditions and rituals make wonderful opportunities for sharing stories. It might be a cooking tradition, a travel tradition, a holiday tradition. At our house, the kids (now 30, 28, and 25) get a new ornament on the tree every year. They have to hunt for it on Christmas Eve after our traditional dinner of tortilla soup and tamales. Of course there is Ernie, but also a baseball player or two, caps and gowns, and a sparkly frog. And when I hang them, everyone there has to listen if I want to tell the story of any ornament. There is one ornament we don’t hang now, it is the matched set of my daughter and her husband from the year they married, 2016. Custom made by an artist friend, they are perfect little replicas of my daughter and son-in-law on their wedding day. Their marriage crumbled after just one year, the weight of his opioid addiction simply too much to bear.

The stories will not be, should not be, exclusively happy. There are sad stories to tell: pets lost, marriages dissolved, arguments and deaths. But we should share them nonetheless. Our lives are the stories we live and leave behind. We have the power to create and share resonant truths. And from these stories of grief and struggle, we learn that resilience is possible.

More importantly, we have the privilege of authoring our own stories, living them daily in front and alongside the ones we love. May your story be heard and your life seen.

As the wonderful Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and my sweet Sesame Street said, “Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”

Interested in learning more about telling story in your family? I love this blog!