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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ruminations on the Cycle of the Seasons and Life

And the View From the Beach

I was born in Kansas, about as far from the sea as one can get, but my earliest and best memories are of this Peninsula and the ocean. Old home movies show me as a toddler on the beach with bucket and shovel. Now similar equipment is stored under the stairs for my grandchildren. Our family has been coming here part and fulltime since my great-grandmother who rode the stage coach that ran along the beach at low tide from Ocean Park to Long Beach in the late 1890s. It may be sand, but our roots go deep here where we’ve laughed and wept and all the time that great ocean just keeps on rolling.

This season has been different from other years. I have routines wherever I am. I have a routine in Gig Harbor, a different one here. Here on nice evenings, after some quality porch time in the sun, my mother and I go down to the beach to watch the sun go down. Sometimes we get Amy to come with us, sometimes not. Always the dog gets excited at the prospect, but tonight it made me sad to think of my mother in the hospital and guilty at indulging in something she so loves. And yet the sea has always comforted me, this same beach I ran on as a child, learned to drive on as a teenager, and brought my children to when I’d nowhere else to go. In an uncharacteristic bit of cooperation Amy not only agreed to go with me, but was sitting on the porch when I returned from visiting my mother.

Although the Summer Solstice is Friday there is not a hint of her in the breeze which actually feels more like the backside of Summer in September. Where is she? It seems that our warm Winter gave way to a frigid Spring with no intention of making way for Summer. I bundled up like Nanook of the North and walked the beach with the dog, asking for healing for my mother so she can enjoy more sunsets on the beach—not so much for her, but for me.

Mother-daughter relationships are difficult. My mother had a tumultuous relationship with her own mother due to Grandma’s alcoholism. My grandmother’s disease outlasted her in the scars my mother bears which in turn molded her marriage and her relationship with me. At times the hurt little girl inside of her has been more like an extra—sometimes very ill behaved—child for me to deal with than a mother, but once I figured that out our relationship was transformed. I have learned to identify when she is in the place where she was when her mother lost control of her own life and I try to honor my mother’s right to hurt even at nearly 86. We’ve both mellowed with age. I’m sorry for all the years we spent butting heads, but am glad that about five years ago I got it. I got it before it was too late.

As sign hangs in my house here. It reads “I come to the sea to breathe.” So I went to the beach and found my breath.

8 comments:

JosephMcG said...

Beautiful post... I love the butting heads and finally getting it and then your experiencing your relationship with your mother being transformed...
Thank you for sharing about your grandmother... many of us have those secrets that we fear others knowing about... and when a wonderful writer like yourself shares one of those secrets, then people like myself (my stepfather was an alcoholic) realize that we are not alone...

Stephanie Frieze said...

My grandmother's alcoholism was this BIG secret that everyone in town knew. Like ostriches the family thought that if it wasn't talked about no one would notice. The disease doesn't die when it's victim does because it effects everyone's elses behavior for at least a couple more generations.

You are never too old to be the child of alcoholism and although intellectually I know it's a disease, sometimes when my mother or aunt have this molten anger come spewing out I cannot help but wish Grandma had never taken that first drink.

And Joseph, here in the Neighborhood we are not alone. Loved your piece, but couldn't find a way to comment so glad to have the chance to tell you now. It was a nice segway for mine. We must have been typing away at the same time!

JosephMcG said...

I thought the same about us working away at the same time, Stephanie... I am reading a book on Healing by Francis Macnutt, PhD
For a number of years I have been involved in various prayer experiences that focus on healing

(did you read or hear about the very sad death of a child whose family belong to a religious community whose focus is on praying of healing but will not seek any kind of medical support...
so sad, so human)

His writing just touches me... this morning, following yesterday's retreat-- the impact of that experience on me, I am realizing this morning is going to be much deeper than I can even begin to imagine at this moment---
I reflected, read a few pages in the book and I found that so much I have stumbled into understanding over the years about being open to love and loving in a healthy community ( a few friends, or many human beings... I definitely know nothing about numbers, particular techniques, words, rituals that always work...)
is essential to one becoming a healthy human being...
wow... the wonderful postings here by so many people are becoming one way I experience that loving...
Thank you for sharing your experiences and your secrets...
STAY STRONG

Kim Thompson said...

Stephanie:

You should really consider taking your "views from the porch/beach" and compiling them into a memoir and have it published, either personally or commercially. I am very serious. Your honesty, insights, and musings would be fantastic in this format.

Please consider.

Kim

Stephanie Frieze said...

My mother's aunt was a Christian Scientist--by choice, not by rearing. I have heard stories of children from such groups dying of conditions that could have been easily treated or at least attempted. My mother's comment has always been that God gives the medical profession the knowledge to heal and that He works through him. I believe that not all of them listen very well, but to withold treatment from a child incapable of reasoning the wisdom of dismissing treatment is child abuse.

I believe we spend our lives healing from our seperation from Spirit. One time my mother noticed a book I was reading on becoming more spiritual and commented, "I didn't know you could learn that." My reply was that I can see no other path to spirituality save learning. There may be those who come into the world with spirits so highly evolved that education is not necessary, but I must stumble along reminding myself to give love in the face of ignorance and fear and not give in to the quick temper I came into the world with.

Stephanie Frieze said...

Good morning, Kim, and thank you for your kind thoughts. I believe that the combination of beach, porch, and my mother's illness have made me even more contemplative than other years. I have come to realize what little time we have with one another as humanbeings and how precious it is. And Joseph helps to keep it real.

JosephMcG said...

Isn't growing up cooooool!

Lorraine Hart said...

It's said that you can hear all the names of God in the pounding surf. Beachwalks are one of my most fave-rave ways of "going to temple," grateful for the filling of every sense...and my spirit with the beauty we've been given.

Forgiveness doesn't stop the ebb and flow of our feelings and memories...rather, it sets us free to watch the movement, instead of being pulled into the tide.

Alcoholism is a tsunami in families, leaving so much broken debris in the path of our learning. I think there's a lot of us who have worked hard in our lifetimes to clear that debris...to walk some of the last steps with those we love, at the edge of gentle waves, in that freedom of forgiveness.