Chicks

           

                              

                                             

Chicks…
June 13, 2013

There are 13 of them in front of me at this current moment… It is 6pm on a glorious Los Angeles evening… The air is cool like an East Coast Fall day. School is out for the summer and I am sitting at my desk (aka the dining room table) observing the estrogen dancing on the deck through the glass doors.

Let me break it down for you:

THERE ARE 7 LITTLE GIRLS: 2 nine year olds, 2 five year olds, 1 six year old, 2 two year olds, 5 three week old baby chickens…and 1 feline pacing waiting for a chance to attack...(not me…our cat Roxy)...

Regardless of their species, they are all animals. I am a girl and I still do not understand them.

They have decided to have a dance party celebrating the end of school… the little girls are mimicking the moves of the baby chicks.

Their laughter is contagious…they are pure joy… and then someone screams and jolts me back to another reality… it is like the matrix…different realities all going at the same time. Today I am moving gracefully between them all… the tears don’t phase me… the screams don’t phase me. I remind myself that this is life, the pain… the joy…

Something silences them and they call for me…

“Mommy, Mommmy… come quick….the chicks are all ganging up on “Butterscotch” (our littlest chick).

I laugh to myself at the irony of these little girls, beside themselves at the pecking order and family dynamics going on between the chicks.

I have questioned myself many times since the chicks arrival… WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Sanity check… like I needed any more poop to clean up!

However, here in this moment, as I watch my girls learning so much from our five newest additions learning to get along… I am in love with these cute chicks! I listen to the girls talk amongst themselves and to the chicks, “you must not hurt your sister… you will feel better if you take care of her…” as she pushes another kid out of the way to get a better vantage point.

At what point do they learn that if your gonna do the talk you gotta do the walk?

The chicks are learning to fly and I see them flutterring away from the grasps of sticky hands and kids all up in their business.

“Be gentle with them…” someone yells.

“Listen to her...she is telling you she wants to get down… listen and you will here what she wants!” as the chicks are tweeting away frantically.

These five little chicks arrived in our home three weeks ago at a day old (I wanted to make sure no Roosters were included…)

A day old and already away from their Mom's…two were from one home, two from another and one from another. We have watched them navigate their first three weeks on their own and create a family unit.

My girls have assumed the role of Mother hen and I find it quite amusing as I watch them explaining the game of life and how to play it to these tiny little chicks (who are probably thinking, “HELP I’VE BEEN TAKEN BY AN ALIEN!”)

“Lets all take a walk and clear our heads…” I hear these words and shift realities… Who said that?

I look out on the deck and see the human girls all in a line. They are attempting to wrangle the chicks to follow their lead…

“It’s important to let each go their own way…” The nine year olds are attempting to share their years of experience with the little one’s…

“Watch… some will lead and some will follow…”

The humans stop the line dance and sit… the chicks all scurry about as the humans simply sit and observe…

Just as I am doing…

Observing, listening and learning so much…

Lunartics

Lunartics

Sunday, February 3, 2013

11:10 pm

February 3? Really? Already?

How did that happen?

I take a deep breath…

The thought of time fleeting tightens my innards.

Stay in the moment Kimberly… don’t future fuck yourself (excuse my French, I shall use FF from here on out).

I seek refuge in the quiet of my house. 

All are sleeping, but me… I am restless… consumed with to do list’s: nary a sugarplum dancing in my head. 

I walk outside with my computer under my arm and find comfort on a sofa with a view.  My right brain says “work”, but my left-brain is too distracted.

The San Fernando Valley sparkles in the distance with what looks like a half moon sitting high in the sky amidst the stars.

What a difference a week makes.

Last Sunday’s full moon and it’s residual effects reeked havoc all around me. The ‘lunartics’ were out in full force.

It seemed as though everyone I encountered was possessed. Not to mention: our home alarm kept going off, the toilet malfunctioned, my washer exploded, the phones didn’t work, the baby sitter was sick, my husband was away, sick kid, had to cancel meetings… I had to do it all…

And that’s not even getting into how the moons cycle directly affected me. Takes a ‘lunartic’ to know one!

I have to admit finding grace in the middle of the chaos was challenging (to say the least).

The moon holds a mystical place in our history and it effects each of us. Werewolves and lunacy and our minds heightened activity… oh my!

I found myself at a Krispy Kreme drive thru… The moon made me do it!

My 5 year olds words went from “I want a new mommy” to “You are the best mommy in the whole galaxy” in less than 5 minutes… moon speak!

It’s the heightened ‘moontivity’ in my mind that gives necessity to repeating the words  “STOP FF’ing yourself”. My mind combined with the situations that kept presenting themselves, reinforced the need to stay in the moment. It’s how our glorious universe works.

I found myself sitting on a weeks worth of laundry with a sick little girl burrowing beside me; we were laughing and laughing. Not a care in the world, simply because I was in the moment. Me and my girl and nothing else mattered… no cancelled meetings… no broken appliances… no shortage of time. 

Just the two of us, in the moment is all we needed. It’s usually all we do require to get back on track and allow life to become simpler… easier. 

My girlfriend who was visiting said she would have been crying to the laundry pile. And after the ‘lunartic’ plumber declared, “he had never seen a toilet do that…” She exclaimed she needed a drink. I had to laugh… I can’t control the lunartics, but I can control how I react to them. 

FYI… the Next full moon is on February 25^th.

My quiet is interrupted by a pack of noisy coyotes… Bottom line is, full moon or no moon, we are all ‘lunartics’! 

Grounded...

Grounded…

January 5, 2013

2:53pm

Lihue, Hawaii

“Ladies & Gentlemen, this is Arthur your pilot, up here in the cock pit. We have just received word from the tower that due to a tropical storm and severe winds we will be “GROUNDED” for another hour…”

“Grounded” the word rings in my head.

I look over at my 3 daughters, who are bewildered as to what has stopped the in-flight entertainment from working due to the pilots PA interruption.

My husband is oblivious, buried in his mini and high tech gadgetry, allowing no outside interruptions from kids, wife or pilot.

I look out the window, the pouring rain distorts my view of the beautiful, Hawaiian men braving the storm as they muscle and maneuver the baggage in the late afternoon torrent.

Hearing that word “Grounded” combined with the rain takes me back to 1982…

I am 16 years old…

I am standing in my parent’s kitchen…

It is 3am and I have just arrived home 3 hours late (my curfew was midnight).

It is storming outside… 

I can picture my father’s jaw tight and tense. I don’t know which was worse the wrath of the storm or my dad. I see his anger, his fist raises… he would never hit me but he is so mad, “YOU ARE GROUNDED FOR LIFE!” Then he stormed away at my mother’s persistence.

The Pilot’s voice brings me back to the present moment. 

“… we are still grounded…we will give you an update in 15 minutes…”

“Grounded” this word has never been so vivid to me.

In retrospect and now that I am a parent, I realize my father’s anger was fear and I dread the moment I am put in that same position… because it will happen.

At 16, hearing those words, “YOU ARE GROUNDED FOR LIFE” sounded like a prison sentence… It was horrible… the worst thing that could ever happen to me.

Now at 46, I realize, how great it would be to be grounded for life.

It is what my morning meditation does to prepare me for my day… getting grounded.

It is what I have taught my girls to do when they are feeling scared or sad.

I have even given them rocks to visualize being grounded to the earth, when times are tough.

A word I have taught them… To help them…

They are too young to be GROUNDED (as a form of punishment); perhaps it is why I am only now remembering and thinking of the negative connotations.

I get it… I was grounded a lot growing up, but it was never explained to me as I see it now. 

When one has misbehaved, is acting up or broken a house rule, one is told, “You are grounded” as a form of punishment.  Really one should be told, “YOU NEED TO GET GROUNDED” get back into your body, you are having an outer body experience.

According to Webster’s the definition of grounded is mentally and emotionally stable.

According to Heather my flight attendant, the word originated from aviation… as we are now… restricted against flying, grounded.

My question is when did it become punishment, when really it should be described as helping one to get to a better place. I prefer to think of "Grounded" in the electrical sense. It comes from a physical connection to the earth.

It is 5 days into the New Year and I have heard so many resolutions from family and friends and so many include…  Being present… Staying in the moment…Being Grounded… 

The pilot once again interrupts my train of thought, 

“ Good news… We have been cleared for take off. Flight attendants please take your seats…”

I laugh at the contradiction, glad the flight is finally departing, but personally I prefer to be grounded… not taking off.

I should Thank my Dad, “for grounding me for life” what a gift.

I can’t believe it took me 30 years to figure it out.