Pizza Dough - Take II

 If I can't dance... I don't want to be part of your revolution.

-Emma Goldman

There are so many things I would love to learn to do and strangely enough, the more difficult it is to accomplish even one new task in a day (due to very interested and 'helpful' toddlers), the more new things I want to learn. The scene when I am trying out these new endeavors is always hilarious mixed with a bit of impatience and a lot of chaos. Like when I decided I must have a cover for my sewing machine and must make it right before dinner. The energy is always bordering on spastic at that point (not just for the kids) but my better judgment was not functioning enough to consider that the timing might be less than perfect. So, being still very much a novice at sewing, I pulled out a few patterns, tried to make at least some sense out of the measurements and dove in. I laid my fabric out on the floor of our rather small home and started measuring. Now I am not one who enjoys working with numbers, but sewing is not a craft that likes estimates. Since I needed even more concentration, I had to borrow from my patience. Let's just say when I had the measuring tape and ruler just right and then Eamon thought it would be fun to ride his little bicycle across my ready to mark fabric, I was not able to find the same humor in it that he did. Of course that inspired big sis to see if she could use the fabric (that must have no purpose on the floor other than to be played with) as a sled for her little brother. Argh! "Smile Meg, it's cute" I unconvincingly tried to tell myself. I made it through that, somehow measured and cut the fabric, then as I was running it through the machine, Nuala wanted to help and in her creative little mind thought that if she pulled the fabric out (ie: away from and out of the machine) that she would be doing mommmy a great service. So, now I have a jammed machine, perhaps a broken needle, hungry kids, a completely trashed living room (ok, entire house) and no sewing machine cover. Well, I guess the beautiful uncovered machine my dear husband got me LAST Christmas will collect even more dust for a few more days. Or I could just throw a blanket on it. Yes, that's what I'll do. And make dinner.

Well, the machine did get it's cover. Not perfect (or even hemmed at the bottom yet) but still it's done and I like it.

Despite all this, my interest in learning and trying new things has not waned. What I am finding though, is that my patience is (slooowly) increasing. Usually I get a little stressed when trying something new (who wants to put time and energy and materials or ingredients into something that turns out sucky?) I focus a little too much on having an end result that looks like I have been doing this all my life (like at my second guitar lesson when I asked my teacher if I was ready to learn to play some Dave Matthews songs. He smiled kindly and just said, 'let's work on learning a chord or two first.")

Lately, I am working on getting to that pro level in 10-20 YEARS instead of minutes. Why let stress get in the way of trying a new craft? And now that life is even more full than ever before, and getting to be an expert at something is going to take many, many attempts due to many, many foiled plans ("mommy, come quick, Eamon just pooped all over the floor and now he's trying to step in it!") I guess I just realized that there is no better time to start. Crazy, I know. And it's very important to view failed results as successful attempts. I don't want my kids think that trying new things means mommy goes crazy and yells at us! I want them to see life as one big long learning process. And a fun one!

So, I made some pizza dough yesterday. I thought it sucked. The yeast was old. The dough barely rose. It was stiff. BUT, my kids loved it, and my husband did too. He even made yummy fried dough with powdered sugar with the leftover dough this morning. I am at it again today. Much more relaxed and even enjoying the process. I even managed to do it while both kids 'helped' on our one-tiny-counter kitchen.

 

Today, the dough looks better and I am more confident. Maybe it won't be perfect, but it will be made with love and acceptance. THAT is the goal. Unless I am able to try new things in the spirit of love and acceptance, then I really should wait. Who needs mommy all stressed and grumpy? Surely not mommy! And if this dough isn't just right, there's always tomorrow. Though by then I will probably be in over my head in some new and brilliant plan!

Do-over

"In separateness lies the world's great misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength"

-Budda

Yesterday was one of those days. Anger was stronger than joy. Impatience more insistent than acceptance. Frustration more apparent than calm and presence. It's funny how in those times, for me at least, it seems like those emotions have an impossibly tight grip on me. And even more, I find myself rebelling against what I most need - to take a deep breath and begin again. I was stuck in what my mother used to lovingly call 'pity-parties!' 

It's in those times when I most need to have a 'do-over.' Even if we have to do it five times a day! Just stop everything, and start again. Let go of the things that build up over the course of the day. The little things that toddlers are such persistent experts at, like whining for something over and over and over or deciding that it would be fun to do the opposite of everything asked, or testing the gravity of everything on their high chair tray. You know. Those things add up.

So last night, after a a day in which I was not the kind of mama I would like to be, I just said, "let's have a do-over." So I got out the trampoline and we all went from grimacing to grinning, separate to together. Though anger can be quite contagious, compassion is much stronger and more healing and so much more liberating. It is amazing how forgiving little people can be. Instantly, they are willing to forgive and love and let their joy pour out. What a gift!

"It all goes by so fast."

As a mom with young children, this is something I've probably heard everyday since I have been pregnant with my first. Mostly from other moms with teens or grandmas. Often men would say it too. I would smile and nod knowingly when someone would say, "Enjoy it now. You'll blink your eyes and they'll be in college."

But in the midst of the everyday moments that seem so mundane, those sentiments often feel foreign. With small children, I am so immersed in the right now that kids in college (or even having kids weaned from breastfeeding) seems light years away. I know it all happens, when the needs are so high and my hands are so few, I can lose perspective.

What I don't want to do is wish away these times. If what countless people have said with such fond recognition in their eyes is true, then what am I doing to treasure these times? I am hoping this blog is a beginning. A way to keep my eyes focused on the beauty, the sacredness, the 'right now' of our days. There are moments when it does hit me that this is such a quick blip on the screen, and in those times I can see that I (we) are only entrusted with these little lives for a very short time. I want it to be a conscious time. A time when I can see them for much more than their present behavior. They need me to see past the trying toddler times and see who they are now and who they are becoming.

Obviously rest helps. Balance too. Times away so that we can be refreshed when we come back together. But even when those things are hard to come by (and they can be with little ones at home) I'd like to find a way to stand back and see the bigger picture.

I hope to use quotes from people I greatly admire in some or most of my posts as a launching pad to help me see the bigger picture. And to tie the bigger picture of societal peacemaking into the day to day of peacemaking in our family.

Putting it all together

The bookshelves in our home our filled with books by amazing activists and visionaries. They have been read many times over but in the last few years have mostly just sat there collecting dust, seemingly unrelated to my present moment as a mother of small children. Because my days are filled with much more mundane tasks, I have begun to ask myself the questions: "Am I no longer that same activist seeking peace and justice? Am I 'just a mom' (such a terrible phrase!) immersed in parenting duties? Is all this just a long push of the pause button until I can resume my place at rallies, meetings, lobbying events? Or is all of this a crucial part of it?" The simple focus of that lens could change everything. For the better.

Time to let go of guilt for not being able to tune in each day to 'Democracy Now,' or not being able to respond to all the emails pouring in from amazing organizations wanting me to write letters, call congress or visit my local politicians, or not being able to attend committee meetings.

Right now, I am home. Home with small children. (As they grow, we will all be writing letters and attending peace marches and doing service work on a more regular basis. And certainly we are still going to do some of that now, just not as much as I thought we would be doing). But right now, I am spending my days getting to know and guiding the little people in my life. I am making peace each day - with myself, my children, my husband, my life at this moment.

All those books and classes and life lessons and jobs and relationships and campaigns and experiences are not lost. And not 'on hold'. The past and present are all part of what I would like to call my 'compost.' Right now, I am compost! Transforming into something new with no clear idea of where it is taking me or what will grow in the garden. So this blog is the 'work' of tending to compost. You can just let it sit there, but it really prefers to be shaken up, given the right mix of browns and greens, some warmth and moisture but not too much. To become black gold, it needs the right combination of doing its own thing...with a little help.

A few times a week, I will come here to tend the compost. I hope to begin to connect the dots. If peace really does begin at home, this is one woman's journey of discovering and sharing how that happens.