Category: Uncategorized

Things Only Stressed Out Women Dream Of: Last Night, I Dreamt of Godzilla.

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Indeed, I did dream of Godzilla last night.

At first, I saw him coming up out of the ocean.  His body was so huge, his bulk actually moved the water up and across the land, flooding the shores and nearby streets.  I watched him stride up and down the coast, planning his devastation on the little coastal town, staring down buildings and eyeballing structures.  His Godzilla screams were deafening, and the little people ran everywhere, trying to find a secure hiding place.

And then, suddenly, I was inside Godzilla and watched through his eyes the destruction of buildings with sonic screams.

It was crazy.  I didn’t fall back to sleep after that dream for quite a while…

“A Godzilla dream is an indication that you are feeling that some part of your life has spiraled out of control. The situation you are struggling with in your life is winning out. It is getting the best of you and is begging to be taken care of. You need to analyze the situation and find the best solution for your problems. Then tackle it bit by bit. The out of control giant monster can be defeated little by little. By analyzing the Godzilla dream, you may even be able to find symbols of things that will help you overcome this out-of-control feeling.”

Did I mention I just began to pack the kitchen last night?

Good heavens.  How many rusted cookie cutters do I need to throw out?  …many.  A broken popcorn maker I got the kids for Christmas a few years ago?  Why on earth do we still have this.  The busted Magic Bullet. The Magic Bullet cups I never use. 6 old vases, do I see 7?  They are all sitting outside by the trash can, as of last night.  I have 2 cupboards finished.  I have 2 more cupboards of similar natures, as well as 2 junk drawers stuffed to the gills with kite string, rubber cement jars, old bottles, sandpaper and who knows what else we have forgotten about.  All things that we are not taking with us, that’s for sure.

So, I might be a little more anxious than usual; which is understandable.  Ben suggested I take the kids to the park today, which is a good idea. We finally have a sunny day, and I think we all need a good, solid Vitamin D fix.

The thing, though, is that I don’t think I feel stressed.  We still have a few weeks to pack, and everything is coming along at a nice, even pace.  Today is a normal Monday, tomorrow will be a normal Tuesday.  Yet, Godzilla dreams might be a sign that my auto-repress function is working at full speed.

So, I’m going to stop being anxious and resume being awesome.

Got on the treadmill this morning, I’m showered and dressed….with shoes…and back in business.

Auto-Awesome: Engaged

No! Not The Rocking Chair!!

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman, Redefining Motherhood, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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This is my beautiful rocking chair.

This was the first thing I brought into my nest when I first became pregnant, over 11 years ago.

Before the crib, before the bassinet, before we even bought any swaddling blankets…there was the rocking chair.  I remember going to a huge warehouse filled to the brim with cribs and changing tables,  and a little corner in the back filled with a variety of rocking chairs.  I found one that I knew I would love forever.  With beautiful cream embroidered upholstery, cherry wood frame and a seamless glide, this was the symbol of maternity to bring me into the realm of motherhood.

I am not sure what other women might do to usher in this new era.  Perhaps buy maternity dresses, or decorate the nursery with gentle nature scenes.

There is a multitude of customs we hold for new mothers ranging from cakes

 

to games

to announcements

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But for me, it was the rocking chair which brought me into the sleepless land of motherhood.

You know when you are in the shower, and you daydream about your acceptance speech when you win the Oscar for Best Actress?  That was the same daydream I had about this rocking chair.  I thought I would spend the rest of my life rocking babies in this chair, and when they were grown and in college, they would come home…and see the cream and cherry wood chair that was imbedded in their childhood, and gasp.  “I remember when Mom held us in that chair,” they would say, with a little sentimental tear in the corner of their eye. “So many years were spent rocking with Mom,” they would remember so fondly.

 

Truthfully, that is what I had in mind for myself in the beginning.  Simply holding my baby, and rocking her to sleep.

There were,indeed, many years spent rocking babies in this chair.  I remember holding Glenn in the mornings, letting him wake up on my lap before breakfast.  I remember rocking Nova after she fell and scraped her knee.  I remember years of nursing in this rocking chair.

The magical land of motherhood can be so beautiful and serene…in the distant future, or in the distant past.  But in the present?

 “I have stitches in places they never mentioned in Health class.”

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This symbol of motherhood and magical maternity, during the very present “now,”  has also been sitting isolated next to my nightstand holding laundry for quite a few years.

So, in a most inevitable moment, while Ben and I were discussing our great move, came the time when words were spoken.  Words about “not taking the rocking chair” with us when we move.  Possibly “leaving it behind“…to which my reaction was:

 

WHAATTTT????!!!

 

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Now, granted, I understand why we wouldn’t take it.

For the past year, at least, it has not been rocking me and my babies.  I haven’t spent every morning holding Glenn as he slowly wakes up, as I did when he was little.  There have been no babies to nurse for the past few years.

Instead, I have been piling clean towels and jackets upon my symbol of maternity.   So, naturally it will be considered as something we don’t “need” to take with us.

 

Perhaps, though, this is something more profound than just letting the rocking chair go.

Maybe I am having to face the reality that I am really leaving a season of motherhood behind that I have grown quite accustomed to.  The season of baby clothes and diapers, tenderly holding my babies while they fall asleep.  By now, my youngest is 3 year old and far too big to carry for long periods of time.  I have no use for swaddling blankets or diaper genies.  Gone are the days of bibs and  cribs.

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I wonder if letting it go will help me usher in a new season of childhood.  Maybe letting the rocking chair go to another home will help me to let go of baby curls, bottles and blankets.

And yet…

I don’t know if any mother is truly ready to let their babies go, in the end.  When the young man signs up for the Marines and is flecked in uniforms and boots, I don’t think his mother sees him as a young Marine.  She sees him as her 8 year old little boy heading off into a big world without her.  When a young woman gets into her car to drive herself off with a couple boxes of belongings to begin her career in college, I imagine her mother wonders if she remembered to pack her pink tea set, just in case she needs it in the afternoons with her friends.  There is something quite gripping about motherhood that keeps me from letting some things move on easily.

Ushering motherhood into my life was something that changed everything about me, and I just don’t know how ready I am to let some of it go.

Still, maybe I will fight to keep this rocking chair, to usher in the seasons to come of rocking my grandchildren to sleep.

We’ll see.

High Quality Gif Master tamr

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have watched women in my life learn how to crochet.

It is a vintage art that I have simply not been able to master.  In the least bit.

There is still a bag upstairs with a few skeins of yarn and a couple mismatched knitting needles, but I have nothing to show for the countless hours I have spent knitting lines.  I have given away all my crochet hooks in defeat.

However.

I have discovered, this very morning, how to make High Quality Gifs.

And, my friends, the satisfaction and joy I feel is probably the same feeling that the women I know experienced when they began their first crochet project.

Here we go.

 

Packing Begins In The Deepest, Darkest Places

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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It must begin in my cavernous closet.

I spent a good 2 hours in there sorting through boxes and piles.

I laughed. I cried. I brought a bottle of Blue Moon in there with me.

It is bizarre what I have kept.

IMG_1683A tank top my mother wore in the 80s.

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I found the journal I had to keep in 2001 when I was discovering my epilepsy.

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There is a little red push pin on the wall that made me cry.

I used to have my sewing desk in here, and it was on that pin that I used to hang my measuring tape.

Okay, moving on.

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These are flowering teas I was saving for when we needed quick gifts and didn’t have time to go to the store.

They, apparently, expired in 2010.

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I also found the jewelry box of my grandmother’s broaches, as well as her nursing pin from the Saskatoon Hospital of Saskatchuan.

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Half of this pile is going.

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How do you pack wings….

Okay, taking a break.

Relationships – Thinking Outside The Box

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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This is the box filled with collapsed boxes with which I shall begin to pack my house.

At first glance, it it simply a box.A box that is standing in the entryway of my home.There is nothing intimidating or dangerous about this box.  Even at its worst mischievousness , if it fell on me I would not even be maimed by its bulk.  I would merely say, “Goodness, it has fallen over.”

Yet, this box of boxes transforms itself in my mind into something more sinister.  Something with evil intent, to wear me down and insist that my efforts of organizing our home into little boxes is as futile as the very words King Solomon spoke, thousands of years before this cardboard menhir was carried into my house.  Instead of seeing a bland beige box, I see a menacing monolith of grandiose proportions just waiting to pounce on my efforts of vanity.

unnamed 4.27.45 PMChampionship boxing.

The whole purpose of these boxes is not necessarily what we will be putting into the boxes.  The purpose is actually what we won’t be putting into the boxes.  And I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of clutter I am not going to feel like moving with us.

I have a closet in the master bedroom, alone, that is larger than most dorm rooms in America.  I had put things in there for storage when we first moved into this house, and it has become the cave of isolation and doom for 7 years.  I honestly don’t even know what are in the shoe boxes on top of the shelf, holding up other mystery shoe boxes.  It is going to be a coin toss as to whether or not I even open them before I throw them out, at this point.

The hallway closet upstairs is filled with sheets that fit a queen size bed, which we no longer have.  We are also up to our ears in crib blankets and sheets, which we have also grown out of.  And I can assure you: there will be no broken toys of any sort that will take this journey with us.

 

What I cannot bring with us, and what I will sorely miss with all my heart, are my grapes.

I have 4 grapevines in my front yard which give me buckets and buckets of seedless table grapes every harvest.  They were an amazing investment, and I treasure them enormously.  My kids can pick grapes on the way out of the house and grab bunches on the way back into the house when we return.

Any plant that actually grows in my garden is amazing…and these grapevines are a fulfilling plant for my gardening soul to have flourishing in my home.  It is beautiful, sturdy, a faithful grower and it gives us fruit that I love.

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IMG_5684My beautiful grapevines.

I spent a good amount of time this morning completing the final prune on the grapevines before growing season begins.  They are all little stumps of sticks by now, but I could see the very living green under the flaking bark when I snipped branches off.  Which, naturally, reminds me of this:

 

John 15:2

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.“

 

That is the whole point of pruning, is not to stall its growth or kill the plant, but to be able to bear more fruit.

There was a 2 question questionaire I read (very quickly) that could predict how healthy a marriage was.  The couples were asked to rate their answers on a scale of, ‘much worse,’ to, ‘much better.’  It was easy for me to answer.  This was a no-brainer for me.

The first is: “How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you would be if you weren’t in the marriage?”

And the second: “How do you think your spouse answered that question?”

I am very happy in my marriage.  If I was not in this marriage, I would be so…so much worse.  Worse isn’t even a valid variable, I don’t believe.  I would be a completely different person, obviously; but I would not know what it felt like to be truly loved by my husband, which I do now.  This would lead to a bitter and fungal soul, I guarantee you.  I depend on my husband’s love to help me…be great, and not be horrible.  If I wasn’t in this marriage, I would not be happy.  I would be miserable, and I am sure the people around me would be miserable as well.

 

(for the record, we were going through some relationship book once, and we got to the term “enabling,” at which point we got out the dictionary and tried to figure out of we were enabling each other with our love.  …nope)

And how I think my spouse would answer that question: quite the same.

 

But this got me to thinking about my grapes again.

I will miss my grapes.  We have a good relationship together.  I take care of them, and they give me beautiful vines and grapes.  We take care of each other, and we have had a good run.

I will not miss other things here.  We do not have a good relationship together.

So, how happy will I be if I wasn’t in a relationship with some of these other things?  Very happy.  It will be nice to let them go.

How will they answer the same question?

I honestly am not sure.  And it is possibly unfortunate to say that I also am not too worried to find out the answer, either way.

Some relationships need to be pruned so that you will grow a healthy vine that gives you fruit.  And although pruning can be scary…the idea of never changing and watering dead vines for the rest of your life is much scarier.  So, with a mighty snip… you let them go.

link credit

My Brain Is Toast: Have Some Thelonious Monk

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Jazz is my anchor to sanity this month.

This morning, while the kids were doing school, coloring, playing video games (and Ben was home), I realized it was the perfect storm:  the waters were still as a quiet morning and it would be the best time to hit Costco before noon.  Everyone was occupied with their own projects for another 2 hours, and plus we wouldn’t have to waste an evening grocery shopping.  I hate wasting a whole evening just going to the store.  I don’t always have the opportunity to leave the house during the day, so I was quick to take this open occasion.  This was a good plan.

 

Now, I will tell you this very clearly: I hate shopping.

 

I hate shopping for clothes, I hate shopping for food, I hate going to stores.

All of my Christmas shopping is done online, and it has been this way for years.  You could not pay me enough to deal with stores during the holidays.

It might be the social anxiety…which I am quite comfortable with and have no intention of curing.  It could be that I am lazy.  It could be germs. (it’s not germs)

It’s probably the social anxiety.

I just don’t like stores.

What I see is not a building that sells food.  What I see is a gigantic box with one, maybe two, little exits.  A gigantic box with forced air and unnatural white lights that flood the color of death onto your skin.  The interior of this gigantic box is constructed into a rat race maze, where you have right angles leading you to the edges of the box, hiding items of which you seek in corners and behind cardboard cut-outs in the shape of delighted spice containers or animated cracker boxes.  Cheese can be found in straight-left-left-straight.  Olives are straight-left-right-left-straight-left.  Except they rearranged the store again, so you go back-right-straight-right-left-straight to the beginning tile in order to find the canned vegetable section all over again.

I love people. In theory, I am afraid.  The overwhelming wave of anxiety of the being around “people” is mentally paralyzing, which I HATE.  Yet, that is the reality of the gigantic box, and clearly part of the territory of entering the gigantic box.

 

There are methods, though, that can be taken in which people like us can survive entering gigantic boxes.

Headphones.

I spent the whole Costco shopping experience with headphones shoved into my ears, and I listened to Miles Davis until I got to my very safe, and very private car.

 

This is the last month I will be living in California.  This week I will begin packing our belongings into boxes.  And we will leave this state of being.  All the while continuing to do school, grocery shopping, showers and meals; as if nothing dramatic is looming on the horizon.

 

In between the moments of panic, I am filling my soul with jazz.

Jazz will be my auditory anchor for the month.

 

 

Thelonius is such an awesome name.  

If we get pregnant again (we have never ruled it out…just put in some obstacles to make it more difficult), I am totally naming our next child Thelonius Rockwood.  How epic would that be? Theloniously epic.

I would also like to thank Heretic Brewing  for supporting this blog post, albeit unintentionally, by allowing bloggers such as myself to find their wonderful Evil Twin in local stores.

Monday: The First Blog of February. Blankness. It Surrounds Me.

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I know what is going to happen.

I have been reading and taking notes and going over blogs of blogs, and learning tips on blogging….

 

..and I still have nothing.  But, yea, I know what cometh in the evening:

My brainstorm 15 minutes before I have to put dinner on at 7 tonight.

It always happens.

 

“I’m almost done!  I’ll be right there!  I am nearly finished!  Just 5 more minutes!”

 

No writing for you today, sweetpea.