Subarus, Essence … and a Little Snot

Posted on February 21, 2012 by lauralavigne

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I walk out of my mechanic’s shop, my eyes focused straight ahead of me. Not until I hear the familiar sound of the car door shutting behind me do I let myself go.

And then I sob.

I sob so hard just as I hear “the voice” ask me if I have lost my mind. Me, the queen of getting rid of stuff is having a freaking breakdown because it may be time to let go of my Subaru.

The head gaskets need to be replaced. This, after I just got new brakes, lights, timing belt, tires and other goodies. And the head gaskets are a big deal. And yes, the car has 242,000 happy miles on it. And at some point, it is time to let go.

Chris sits by me and holds my hand as snot threatens to run down my nose. Not my best moment.

But the day continues and being Action Girl, I begin the process. I place a ridiculously lyrical ad on Craigslist. I start looking for a new car. I click on my own ad. Twice.

I know what needs to be done. My heart hurts, my head keeps running the numbers (and really, the numbers are not really pointing in a crystal clear direction) but I feel this little thing inside of me, this little bit of intuition that says “This is right. there is something important here, something I need to see.” And my intuition has never let me down so I listen. And I keep checking Craigslist.

The next evening, on our way to dinner, I am going through another “should I really sell it?” moment when I decide to take a look at the Essence. What is the Essence of this car? What is the Essence that is so hard to let go of? What is the Essence I will want in my next car?

Well, first of all, there is “Pretty-ness.” Yes, maybe it is silly but I like a pretty car. A “pretty to me” car.

Then there is Convenience. My Subaru is very convenient. Chris being well versed in the Essence extracting process, poses the question of what Convenience means to me. And just as I open my mouth to answer, just as I open my mouth to speak about The Five Seat Belts and all the-room-in-the-back-for-the-coolers-and-tents-needed-for-road-trips (like the one we took to Mexico a few years ago), I feel my heart swell. I feel my heart swell because all of a sudden I get it. I get the Essence, I get the heartbreak and I get what my intuition has been trying to tell me.

This is exactly what I am being asked to let go. No wonder it hurts so bad.

The road trips, the “all of us in the car” times. These are gone. They have been gone for a while now. Two of my kids have their own cars and when I hear them talk about road  trips, they usually mean road trips with their friends. Which is really the way it is supposed to be. Which is perfect. And which I had not fully looked at square in the face until that very moment.

At once, I felt the “click.” I felt the murkiness of my pain lift into a clearer sort of pain, a better sort of pain. I knew what was going on. And what was going on was good. It was just right. It was time.

Within minutes, I had visions of a bright yellow two-seater, or a bright orange 1974 convertible bug. Something very unreasonable and oh so wonderfully impractical. For a few minutes, I rattled off some pretty outrageous possibilities. Possibilities that were all about Me. Was I reacting? You bet. Did it feel good? Sure.

So here we are today. Whatever happens next with the car really doesn’t matter. I may pay for the head gaskets and keep it. Or sell it. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that my little Suby has given me yet another gift: the gift of “refreshing.” The gift of really seeing what IS.

What IS is that our togetherness as a family no longer hinges on road trips or cramped runs to the grocery store. It has changed, the way things change when they grow, when they thrive, really. And as kids get older, we all get to discover a new form of the same Essence. I look forward to it.

In the end, it’s never really about the Form. It’s never about the car, the house, the stuff.

It’s always about our heart and what /whom/ where we choose to attach it.

Hence the occasional snot.

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A Little Bit Tough

Posted on February 17, 2012 by lauralavigne

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It has been a tough few last days. It has seemed like a constant flow of being asked for flexibility, for adjusting, for letting go, for flowing.

Kids transitioning from kidhood to adulthood and the sweet pains involved with that. Theirs and mine. Navigating the constantly changing waters and trying to remain true to me – and to them.

My car and making some tough decisions about it. Witnessing the dissonance between my heart and my intuition and being humbled by noticing my attachment to a machine. Allowing myself to inquire about the essence of it all and sitting with the discomfort of the answers.

My Roxy dog and hours spent at the vet, holding my breath as he examines a big lump that showed up on her beautiful face almost overnight. Hearing the word tumor and being brought back years ago, to the first time I heard that word – from my dad’s own voice describing his own tumor. Waiting for the test results while everything else continues its chaotic ride.

Love and the craziness of it. Having my heart attached to a man whose choices sometimes scare me and hearing “the voices” whisper in my ears – getting in the way of my melting into him. Until I do, once again. And am so thankful for it.

And this morning, my phone. My phone who spent the night in the rain and now refuses to do its work.

See? None of it huge. None of it life threatening. And yet, I know something is off when this is the first time I have written in over a week.

Here’s to movement. Here’s to knowing that the cycles wont stop. Here’s to breathing deeply when life is really easy, knowing it won’t last – and that it’s okay. And here’s to trying our best to breathe deeply when it is not as easy, knowing that it won’t last either.

Life is … rich.

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She is Leaving Again

Posted on January 31, 2012 by lauralavigne

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The first time she “left,” I cried. She was going to Camp Orkila with her class, a mere island away, for a few days (two?). When do kids go to Camp Orkila? 6th grade maybe?

I stood on the ferry terminal sidewalk and my heart felt tiny and as though it couldn’t take a breath.

But she came came back. And it wasn’t very long after that that she wanted to go to France. She was in 8th grade, then. She said that she was going crazy here and I could tell that she wasn’t exaggerating that much. So somehow, she went. She got on a plane and spent a few weeks in the same boarding school I had spent some very important years of my life, decades before. She sat in the same rooms, smelled the same smells – and spent her first birthday away from me, her 14th birthday. That day, my heart felt funny again but it was getting used to it.

She came home. Kind of.

For her 15th birthday, she asked me for one gift:  to promise her that she could go to school “somewhere else” for 10th grade. She knew – and I knew – that once I had made the promise, there was no going back. In September, she began to take the daily (6 am) ferry to Lopez Island, where she grew herself some strong roots, a life long connection to a strong community and remained for two years. It wasn’t the most convenient scenario by a long stretch but it was a really good one, a really expAnsive one.

She graduated.

While many of her friends were busy filling out college applications and educational scholarships, she got to work on applying for a year long scholarship to go abroad on a student exchange program. The process was lengthy and she spent many hours writing essays, scheduling and attending interviews, filling out endless forms and making many, many copies. The whole time, she had no idea where she would end up.

In June of 2009, she boarded a plane to Brazil.

I met her there a few months later. By then, she was speaking Portuguese fluently and had created for herself a new community, a new home. In that country far away, she spent her 19th birthday.

But as she said “there really is only one home” and she came back. She came back and she, who had always said that she wanted to go to college really far away, picked a college just a few hours away from home. For a few months, she was a college girl and I could hear in her voice that even though she was giving it a good try… something wasn’t quite right.

She came back at Christmas and told me that she was taking a break. That she needed to travel some more, to go photograph the world. So for Christmas, her dad got her a camera and I got her a backpack.

She is leaving at 5am tomorrow morning on a big plane to Dublin and while she is traveling with a friend, I know that there are no 6th grade teacher going with her, no host family waiting for her on the other side. I have seen “Taken” and I am no Liam Neeson.

She doesn’t have a whole lot of money and her return ticket is for the end of May. She is planning on spending her 20th birthday in Paris and having not been home in eleven years, my heart is having a talk with my mind (and mostly my checkbook) about the remote possibility of meeting her there.

I am so happy for her, so proud of her for not knowing where she is going or really how she is going to get there but knowing herself enough to recognize that she wants to GO. And making it happen.

There will be more school, there will be leases signed, there will be bills to pay and there will possibly be a family to love and care for. But for now, she is going.

And my heart still finds it a little hard to breathe all the way … 

 

 

 

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No, Thank You

Posted on January 30, 2012 by lauralavigne

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A few days ago, I received a “Facebook Event” invitation. I knew that I didn’t want to attend and in order to clean that little piece of my day up, I clicked on the “decline” button.

My mind immediately moving on to other things, I was surprised that simply declining had not completed the process. Suddenly, in order for my “no, thank you” to be submitted, I had to fill out a little box that said “explain why you can’t attend.”

Explain why I can’t attend?

Oh boy. I didn’t like that one bit.

First of all, did I say that I could not attend? No… in fact, in this particular case, I could easily attend. I just don’t want to. To put it another way: I choose not to.

So, that’s the first important piece for me, here. The choice part. I really like being able to  choose not to do something even though I could. And I also like feeling completely okay with expressing that choice and (and this is the big piece) not lying about it. Not even a tiny toonsy bit. Not even the tiny little lie that says “let me check my calendar and get back to you.”

Now, let me tell you: this is not something that has come naturally to me. Growing up in France (the land of polite evasion) and in a family that seemed to have a stronger pre disposition than most for “white lies,” I had to really extricate my own voice. And now that I have it mostly honed, I am not ready to let some weird little Facebook system get in its way.

Ok. Second part of my rant. “EXPLAIN.”

Why in the world would I have to explain my choice? Why is a simple “no” not enough?

And what happens once I have “explained?” Does my explanation go sit on some jury panel somewhere (most likely inside somebody’s mind) in order to be deemed acceptable or not? Why? By whom?

So, no. I won’t be attending this time. But I do thank you for inviting me, I truly do.

 

 

 

 

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At Last

Posted on January 24, 2012 by lauralavigne

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I bought a new Mac (that’s a whole post waiting to be written and I need to work up to that one) and for the past few days, have been going through the process of switching all my stuff from my old Mac to this new sleek machine.

And I am resisting. Oh boy.

My old Mac IS … old. It is cracked, it’s missing a few teeth here and there, it has many, many miles and it shows. But I love it. And I am not one to “upgrade” stuff casually (ever seen my phone?)

But it was time and I knew it. So here I am. Doing it. One folder at a time, one little thing that I didn’t know mattered at a time. Gently.

A couple of days ago, I decided to take one significant step and listen to Pandora on the new computer. I took a breath, brought up Pandora (which took milliseconds) and hooked up the cable that leads to the speakers. It was the day Etta James died and at “At Last” started to fill the room. Ah…. my eyes closed and my hips started to move. But WAIT!!! Only one set of speakers were singing. What the heck?

HA. I knew it. I knew it. This new shiny computer is nowhere near as good as my old computer. It only plays one side of speakers. Ha!

Tanissa saw the wheels turning in my mind. She could smell the weird satisfaction that was rising up in me. All she said is “Mom, I am pretty sure this is not the computer.”

But it was. I knew it was. Shiny and with a back lit keyboard and the latest operating system (“Lion”, it’s called) and completely unable to give me three minutes of Etta James.

So, I called Apple Care. And I told them. I told them about how my brand new computer only used one set of speakers whereas my crackly old one could play the hell out of “At Last.”

And the guy listened. He was very nice. When I was done, he cleared his throat and said: “let’s go ahead and try a couple of things, here.” Ok. “First, can you plug in some earphones and tell me if you hear out of both ears?” All right. I can do that. Get the earphone, plug them in, click on some music. Yup. Both ears.  “Thank you. Now, let’s go ahead and try the speakers again. This time, let’s have you wiggle the plug a little bit.” Nope. Only one speaker (I knew he could hear “the weird satisfaction” in my voice. I could hear it too and was a little unsettled by it). “Hmm…. I tell you what. Let’s have you try it on your old Mac, just to be sure.” I thought I’d indulge him – and show him how well the whole thing worked with my old buddy, here. Show him how until this new machine, I could blast the heck out of my speakers. Except… I couldn’t. Cable into old Mac, Pandora full on … and only one speaker. Damn.

Right then I knew. And right then, he knew. My guess is he knew a few steps before then. But he was so very nice. And even at that point, when he knew that this whole thing had nothing to do with the computers, he was willing to stick with me. He started: “‘mam, how about if you step behind your stereo and you and I check out a few connections?” Oh man.

I quickly thanked him and told him that I thought I could take it from there. As soon as we were off the phone, I took a look and sure enough, only one cable was plugged in. The other one just dangled there, and I swear it was smiling.

It is so darn easy to make assumptions; to assume a cause and effect. Especially if it will serve our story. New computer, no sound. Must be the new computer, huh? It is so easy to decide that whatever is going on has to do with this new thing / person when really, it’s most likely just us, doing the same old thing (in this case, I am thinking my cat and her love for playing with wires)

Hmmmm. How easy it is to ascribe responsibility to “the new thing” when really, it’s still the same old thing going on (I think my cat likes to play with the wires).

Well, my new computer and I are getting to be friends. To tell you the truth, it’s pretty awesome. And for the first time in a good while, I am able to type this to you this morning, without double wiggling the “O” key and without having a mouse attached to make up for a beat up track pad.

And while listening to Etta James. At last.

 

 

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