Chalk Art at the Stroll and Roll

There were smiles.

Most of all, there were smiles.

 There were flowers

 and butterflies

 and trains.

 CTG was remembered

 by family and friends and new immigrants whose hearts were in the right place, 

even if their English was just a little bit off.

 The path was 3.2 miles round trip, and it was, no doubt a

  There was an acknowledgment of the sense of community.

There were races begun

 and ended.

 There were pleas for help

and notes that ran out of room. 

 Can't you see the little one knowing that the words were more important than the spacing 

and not wanting to lose the connection by moving his feet and stepping back ?

There was lots of love

 and lots of inspiration.

 There was relief

 and more love.

This one comes in two parts:

"I *heart* you dad and my dad 

said I *heart* you too"

 That's all there was. 

"I LOVE".

I want to meet this person.

 There were instructions of all sorts.

 And much marking of territory

 Last year, at the first Stroll and Roll, Little Cuter and SIR drew a HUG SPOT.  

It made everyone smile, so we made some more.

 They took on interesting incarnations.

Someone wanted to stop and hear a story.

 Some were obvious.

I wish I'd been here to see this one in action. 

 This is the one in the same spot they put theirs last year. 

Over the course of the day, it acquired a serif, a smiley face, and rays of sunshine.  

Though this may be an option for some,

next year I plan to walk along with everyone else.

This year, I walked one way, 

stopping to take pictures of the nearly 300 pieces of chalk art.

A year ago, I could barely get 100 yards down the path.

Two years ago I was at the grocery store with Christina-Taylor.

I haven't the faintest idea where I was three years ago.

I'm looking forward to the day when that will be the norm.

For now, I'm going with the love.

Strolling and Rolling

I was up before sunrise on Saturday.  TBG was, too.  I ran to the bagel store and then put on the last layer of warm clothing and I was off to the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Linear Park at Canada del Oro Wash for the second annual community get-together sponsored by BEYOND!  There were events all over town commemorating those we lost and moving out and beyond the tragedy into the world around us.

Gabe Zimmerman is remembered by his family and friends with a tribute to the natural world.  As one of the Prince Milers repeated all morning, "there is a lot of nature here," at Christina's park.  Some of it has expanded with the irrigation provided by  Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation

Just look at the top of that barrel cactus, filled with water on top, skinny and dessicated below.

 Some of it was here before the park, 

but can be appreciated from the rest areas along the way.

It's not graffiti; it's chalk art.

There were many tents and dance troops and Jazzercize classes at the main event downtown at Armory Park, where an anonymous donor created free admission to the Children's Museum for the day.  There was a hike at Gabe's trailhead, led by his mother.  I couldn't be sad about being unable to hike his trail; I was busy sponsoring GRIN's Stroll and Roll at the other end of town.

 There were kids everywhere.

There were proud chalk artists 

and the world's largest therapy dog.

But mostly, there was love.

Tennis Mom AZ, who comments here often, brought her family to share the love.
They drove all the way from Mesa, just to say HI!

and to draw a magnificent tribute on the pathway.

That's what it was all about.

As someone else wrote:

You helped me to heal, and I thank you.

Tomorrow's post will be chalk art from the event.

Two years ago tonight no one knew my name.

How quickly things change.

How hard it is to adjust.

Two Years ago Today

Two years ago today, as you are reading this, I was spending the day with Greg Iles. I went to yoga, just as I did every Friday morning, and then I came home, took a shower, and got into comfy clothes. I poured myself the first of many glasses of sparkling water, and curled up on the couch, on a bed, on some lounge furniture outside in the sunshine, and I read. I started on page one, lunched on yogurt in the 200's, and took myself out for pancakes at 10pm with 80 pages left to read. I met some lovely people at IHOP and went to sleep content.

The next morning, I was shot and Christina-Taylor was dead.

In no more time than it took to type that sentence, a sunny civics lesson turned into a nightmare. I was in the thick of a where were you when you heard about it? event, and I didn't even know it. I was anesthetized and surgerized and transfused, but I was not aware of anything beyond my narcotized self. My family tells me that I asked for Christina every time I opened my eyes, and that they told me the truth every time. I remember opening my eyes and thinking that I should ask about Christina because they would be expecting me to ask about Christina but I didn't really need to ask because I knew for certain what had happened to her.

I was there. Of that, I was aware.

I was thrilled to watch Christina watching Gabby and then I was lying on the cold cement, holding a dying child's hand. There was no interregnum, no pregnant pause, no uneven splice to the scene. One moment it was joy. One moment it was not.

Of all the pieces of this puzzle, the suddenness and the finality are the hardest to grasp. That they came one upon the other doesn't help. That they involved gunfire just adds to the impossibility of it all; I'd never been in the presence of a handgun or a bullet before that day. I was certain that the rent air and the Batman-like-POW!-SPROING!-ZZZZZ whizzing past me came from a gun, though I don't remember seeing either the shooter or the weapon.

I went from imagining handshakes and introductions to watching my Congresswoman slide down against the flags of her country and her state. I went from grasping small fingers in delight to tugging on that hand, begging it and the rest of her to stay with me for just a little while longer... telling her that I loved her.... that I was going to bring her home to her Mom.... hollering, “Damn it, don't you leave me here alone on this cold sidewalk, young lady.”

In an instant, everything changed. Nothing will ever be the same.

There are some pieces which bring me joy. Those of us who were there that Saturday morning are a lovely bunch, if we do say so ourselves. We are engaged and warm and wish we'd never had to meet but are totally thrilled to be in one anothers' lives. We're an extended family, with kids and great-aunts and grandparents galore. We've shared a singularity. There is so much we don't need to explain to one another. There's the right amount of sympathy and strength in our every encounter. It's a community unlike any other.... except, perhaps, in Aurora, or Newtown, or Columbine, or Virginia Tech.

There are some pieces which move me to action, now that I've found a place for most of my fears and dreads. Limiting access to weaponry to those who can pass a smell test of some sort or other, bringing data retrieval systems into the 21^st century so lists can be monitored with ease and accuracy, creating community facilities where the de-institutionalized mentally ill and their families can find medication and counseling and a sense of community without stigma are things to which I'll be devoting some time and attention.

There are some pieces which still surprise me: that the story still has legs, twenty-four months down the road; that strangers still hug me in the produce aisle; that businesses are delighted to donate to my worthy cause; that I am a celebrity. I've gotten used to the intrusiveness, balancing my discomfort against the benefits I can reap.

I stand on a platform held up by the souls of those lost and damaged on January 8^th . That's an awesome responsibility, and is the easy answer when someone wants to know how I manage to go on. I am here and capable while so many are not; it would be disgraceful to do nothing with the life I have before me.

The harder answer, the one to the question I asked two years ago,

I know that it is possible to watch the light go out of another person's eyes.  I do not know if it is possible to live with that knowledge. 

  remains elusive. My plan remains the same:

I do know that I will try.

from What I Know, written January 16, 2011

For those of you in Tucson and its environs, I invite you to join TBG me as Cornell Cares at the 2^nd Annual STROLL AND ROLL tomorrow, Saturday January 5^th. The event takes place at the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Linear Park on Shannon, west of Ina from 8am – 11am.

Part of the community-wide BEYOND! commemoration events, the Stroll and Roll is a chance to get outside and get moving and connect with your friends and neighbors. Each One Take One is our motto; grab a neighbor, a colleague, a friend and bring your sneakers, skates, bikes and trikes and wheelchairs and walkers to this flat, 1.6 mile (3.2 miles out and back) paved trail.

Go as far as you want for as long as you want. There will be crafts and sidewalk chalk and a Donate-and-Pull giveaway box.... and hopscotch and hugging circles along the path, just for fun! Come by and say “HI !”

Parenting

BlogHer's Facebook post sent me to an article on parenting adult children. My friends are asking for support as they say NO to their tweens and teens. A reporter asked me if I blamed the shooter's parents.  For a woman with an empty nest I've been thinking a lot about raising kids lately.  It's not an easy topic.

If I had it to do over again..... give me a minute while I bask in the joy of the chance to right the wrongs and correct the missteps.... if I could try again I'd do less for them.  I'd leave more bumps in the road and not try to solve their problems to spare them pain.  That's not a terrible regret, but it's there.

We each have our own do-over lists, I'm sure, whether we concentrate on  the parenting we received or the parenting we doled out... or both.  I brought my  "I will never do THAT when I'm a mom" list to my child rearing and laughed when I heard G'ma coming out of my mouth.  I can say that I was aware when I was aping inappropriate behaviors and that I tried to stop myself before I was too far gone.

In the year I was examining the concept of patience as a New Year's Resolution; I learned to be patient with myself, too. I'd never done this before; I couldn't be perfect right away. Everything was so new, and kept on getting newer.  The problems didn't go away as much as they morphed into a new incarnation of the same old thing.

The decisions come upon you when you are least prepared.  Expect the unexpected and you'll be on the right track, trusting your instincts when all else fails can help you set your sails in the right direction, but seeking the perfect solution will get you nowhere, fast. Those are the lessons I'd share, if anyone asked.

I remember sitting on Little Cuter's bed, she pouring her heart out, I wondering what I could say that would be useful/helpful/meaningful.  I could comfort; she was always willing to receive a back rub to help her relax. I could listen; when she was on a roll there was no stopping her.  I was stymied at creating a teachable moment, at turning a trauma into a triumph of the will, at making lemonade out of this particular lemon.

She was in first grade.

I became increasingly incompetent as the years went on, or so I felt.  As they share their childhood memories with me, I become aware of the phrases that stuck, of the reactions that had an impact.  Big Cuter, sharing his thoughts on privacy and the interwebs, reminded his father that "Mom once said I should never do anything I didn't want printed on the front page of the New York Times.  I remembered that, so I live my life on-line and I don't worry."  Mom got that line from her father; it was a good thing he was lurking in my head when I shared that bit of wisdom with my son.  I didn't think it up myself; I'm not that good.

Most of my best lines have come from others.  Seret and TBG come at acceptance from the same place:

She: It is what it is. Smile and move on

He:  Once you've said yes, smile and move on.

I second guess everything.  Having these two in my life steers me closer to moving forward than anything else I've encountered, and both phrases rattled around in my head as I moved through parenting the Cuters.  Knowing that I am not omnipotent, looking forward instead of reliving the moment - those were lessons I hope made their way from my brain to my childrens' hearts.

I don't suppose that I'll know what they really heard until I watch them parent their own kids.  For now, I'm offering free advice to my friends who are in the throes of it, and biding my time.  I'm feeling free to judge those I feel are lacking and those who are surpassing expectations.  I'm sharing the love and getting lots back in return.

I'm not sure all my answers are the right ones, but they fit comfortably within my soul.

 

 

Sunny Days

The sun came up this morning and I was glad to see it.  The clouds were beautiful this week, but the gloom was starting to wear me down. I've become sunshine-addicted, a total weather wimp.  Without a big blue sky overhead, I feel deprived.  Have I been unworthy, oh, Weather Goddess?  Have I been unappreciative of the wonderfulness that is the desert Southwest in January?  Did yesterday's longing for San Francisco's clear skies push Tucson's clouds closer and darker over my house?

I'm sorry.  I'm really really really sorry.  I'll try to be more grateful in the future.

The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that I am the luckiest woman on the planet.  Three bullets went through me and none of my vital organs were injured.  Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that none of my organs, vital or otherwise, were injured, except for my skin.  Bones, tendons, joints, nerves and ligaments all came in for a beating, it's true.  But, reattaching and reconnecting and rehabbing will make them heal.  There's nothing scary about it.  It just takes work.  If I keep at it, if I pay attention to the instructions my team of experts aims in my direction, if I work through the discomfort, nothing else will go wrong.  I may not recover as quickly or as fully as I would like, but I won't take a step backwards if I stick to the program.

Gabrielle Giffords continues to inspire me to keep a smile on my face and steel in my spine. My mental images of her share the same, sunny backdrop.  Gabby on her motorcycle,  Gabby and Mark posing for their wedding portrait, Gabby walking through the desert with three silver belt buckled, scuffed booted, moustachioed County sheriffs towering over her - she's glowing in the reflection of the heavens' delight in her presence.

Did I really type that?  Where, oh, where, is the snarky New York heathen who used to reside within this perforated skin?  What has happened to my ability to belittle the sentimental, to call it mawkish and over-wrought? Though MTF may mourn her passing, I'm enjoying being surprised by what she left behind after the bullets stopped flying.  When I find myself waxing eloquent on the gods' enjoyment of that which is Gabby, I have to smile.  I'm not just channeling an ancient worshiper of Artemis, I'm understanding just how she felt.

There's a connection between the land and the sky and the psyche here that I've not found anywhere else.  I've been attached to a specific place, a space that brings me joy, but the edges have never been quite as sharp as they are here, right now.  Snow-capped rocky mountains and flora with the strangest shapes G'ma has ever seen and clouds perched atop peaks, stuck in the biggest sky since Little Cuter and I drove across Wyoming - these are the backdrop to a quick trip to the store for milk and eggs.  They are impossible to ignore.  They define the space.  They force me to think and consider and compare and contrast.  I feel small and powerful all at the same time.

As I've been ruminating on why I lived when so many didn't, on why my deficits can be conquered when so many can't, on how I came to be so lucky, I've had bright blue skies behind me.  The topic skirts around the darkness that lurks at the edges of the story and the light helps to brighten my thoughts.  When the clouds roll in and the rain blurs my view of the mountains outside my window, it's all too easy to fall back towards the abyss.

I am so grateful to the sunny skies.  I will try not to take them for granted any more.

More Hugs

That's my resolution for 2013, and I'm sticking to it.  

Just saying it out loud makes me smile.  Putting it into action makes me smile.  Thinking about it makes me smile.  I've not even begun the new year and I'm happy already.  I think this one may be a keeper. 

In the past, I have considered the concept of patience and I have embraced radiant health.  The former moderated my waiting-in-line behavior, the latter gave me a year without illness or injury.  The next year, in a perforated state, I was forced to do more than consider a concept and avoid the flu - I was the picture of enforced inactivity, stuck in a holding pattern with nothing to do except visualize my bones knitting together. I'm not sure they count as resolutions when there is no choice involved.

I re-read the last post of 2011; I've certainly come a long way.  I am not mired in the past, though I am still dealing with the consequences.  I am less labile, more focused, ever more pleased with the direction my path has taken.  I am ready to create more love; I've spent the last year harvesting so much of it that it seems only fair.

I've taken my cue from Ms Levine's kindergarten class.  They wrote stories about kindness which they read and then presented to me.  Their reward for all that work was the chance to give me a hug.  I sat on a little kid's chair as, one by one, five and six year old authors opined on love and caring and being kind before they turned, some shyly, some with great enthusiasm, all with real emotion, and put their arms around me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - it is impossible to be sad when little ones are hugging you.  

As the anniversary of my intersection with bullets approaches, I find myself becoming a bit twitchy.  I'm more comfortable with the memories, and parts... some awful parts.... are coming back to me.  A year ago, I might have spent some time down the rabbit hole.  This year, I'm finding myself out and about, soliciting donations for GRIN, walking with Amster's brood, filling the holes that used to suck me down and in with hugs... and standing on top of those hugs to reach a breath of fresh air.

Sometimes, the hugs aren't physically delivered.  Sometimes, they come packaged in a door held open with a smile, or a boisterous Thank You! from a Salvation Army Santa.  I'm concentrating on giving them more than getting them, counting on the Beatles to be right about the rewards coming my way.  

Hugs are non-judgmental.  Hugs are asexual.  Hugs are a spontaneous reflection of joy or compassion or anything in between.  They are all about sending the love, and they don't require a thank you note.  They can be used to take the edge off a prickly situation, and can convey what words, at times, cannot.

Mostly, though, they feel good.  

I'm sending the first of many New Year's Hugs to you and yours, denizens, with sincere wishes for a wonderful year ahead.  After all, the sun came up this morning, and we were all here to see it. By definition, it's a good day!