The healing shuffle

The un-spring continues to plague the mountain scape outside my windows. Most mornings there is a new blanket of white that melts into brown goo by mid-morning and plasters to my car and soul. Devon is the only one of us who seems to revel in the unexpected joy of endless mud puddles and the multitudes of possibilities they offer to a young fellow who enjoys submersing himself in them and then sitting on my lap and snuggling as close as possible. Gotta love him, at least I think I do. But at least he has unconditional love and joy to offer.
Loren, on the other hand, for him I am considering some sort of banishment. I would send him to a military school but I know it would break him. The thing about Loren is that if he were an animal he would definitely be one of the those giant sea otters, the ones who cavort and play all day in the water. They are messy, constantly in motion and forever happy in their unbridled joy. The sea otter has a golden heart but not a serious bone in his body. There is nothing but fun in the sea otter’s life and absolutely no thought about tomorrow, or anything beyond right now. That is Loren. Love him to pieces but it is tiring and frustrating for a weary mom. In the past month I have tried to give him some room to sport his 14 year-old man muscles that are just aching for a bit of freedom. Unfortunately, he has failed and I am beyond disappointed in his current direction. I feel as though he has betrayed me in ways that only his father had previously done. I keep reminding myself he is my favorite first born child and has the same sweet heart he has always had, but damn if I don’t want to push him away and hide from him for awhile. I also keep reminding myself to let go of his father’s sins and look at it all in a fresh light. Easier said than done.
I suppose the most fortunate thing emerging from the current brown-ness of everything is that Cass and I actually seem to have reached a palpable peace, not an easy task for us. She is blooming where the plants have not yet done so. Today she starts her soccer season and the joy I experienced in buying her new cleats, black with a sassy pink Nike swoosh, was unexpected. There is something so immensely pleasing to watching her on the field, her scrawny stick figure tearing down the field, her flaming red hair flaring in the wind as her not-so-inner predator comes out and she unashamedly kicks ass on anybody or anything in her path. It is actually the manner in which she tackles every day, but to watch it on the field means she is defeating people other than me. And that? That is a relief.
All this week I have been contemplating the thought of buying myself a pick-me-up bouquet of flowers for a bit of cheer. But I hesitated because I knew that long after the colors faded I would still be here; here where Loren is falling through the cracks, Devon refuses to eat anything other the vanilla yogurt and Cassidy is demanding the world. Where I haven’t the foggiest idea where I am going and often yearn for more silence than the universe has to give. So instead of mourning the death of my flowers I bought myself an iPod Shuffle. It is a sassy aqua number. I really wanted the iPod Touch but since Cass has a birthday party in a few weeks and I also have to pay for her trip to a State competition and Loren needs new shoes and Devon needs a new bed and…well, I opted for the wee shuffle. I think she and I will be good friends. And although the shuffle doesn’t offer silence it is a reprieve from the noise of the mud splashing on the tile floor as Devon sloshes it through the house.