How to be an adult person

I do have some issues with standing up for myself. It is not all that obvious, as I can be very opinionated and also do love a good conflict – but only at home. Away from home and family I flinch from personal conflicts.

When it gets personal, meaning someone is critisizing me, I am a complete whimp. People do tend to critisize me a lot, I do make a good punching bag. Because I just laugh if off. It is not easy to see that I am hurt, because I react like it is ok with me. And in a way it is. 

When I was a young girl my reaction to people hurting me was to cry. It was very difficult for me to learn to control that. Then I taught myself to outwardly ignore hurtful actions, to play the clown. It worked much better than crying, as no one likes a cry-baby, but a clown can be entertaining. There even was a kind of freedom with being a clown. A clown can sometimes tell the truth when others can’t.

Today I have two situations in my life that I really don’t like and where I think I should unlearn my way of dealing with personal critisism. I do tend to either accept the blame completely or to give excuses. I do take mistakes very seriously, and I had to learn the hard way that people rarely want to know why I did something wrong.

So I tried to learn how to take responsibility, but it kind of backfired. Because I myself don’t critisize others (or only in very minor, inpersonal matters, like a form not filled out correctly). To the contrary, I even do make excuses for others when they fail!

This is so bad that it was mentioned several times by my boss. I tried to stop this, but it did not work. I don’t do it on purpose and most times I don’t even realise when it happens. I guess I am doing it in some misguided hope that this will make others excuse my mistakes, too. But that never happens.

What does not help me deal with personal conflicts is my cursed ability to ALWAYS see the others point of view. How can I fight back when I am perfecly aware of the other persons reasons and feelings? To me it is impossible.

The best example for this is my riding teacher. I do deeply respect her for her ability and also she has been a very good friend to me. But she has a way to rake me down and critisize me in the most hurtful way.

When I made the decision to have my chronialy ill pony put down, she wondered aloud if I had not done it because of my financial situation. Or when I asked one of her other pupils if she wanted to move into my stable, she got angry because I was stealing her stable help. She made it sound like I was a traitor. Both accusations hurt me very deeply, and I could not fight back, because I could see how it might look like that to her.

On the other hand I really want to start dealing with her in an adult way. But knowing that I won’t be able to fight back if she attacks me again makes me retreat into myself, showing immature behaviour, acting childlike, asking for permission, moving hesitatingly – which annoys her no end and the circle starts again.

I really have no idea how to bring a major change into this pattern of mine. It is not limited to my riding teacher, I have a very similar relationship to my boss. She too is a very capable woman and I admire her. But she has a way of putting me down, of making me feel small and incapable, that makes me sick inside. I once tried to bring it up in our annual qualification meeting. And she told me to just fight back once in a while. But I can’t. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. Because the situation is never black and white, I DO see the other point of view, I KNOW there is some truth in the critisim – so how can I fight against it?

I was putting all my hope on learning about  Nonviolent Communication (NVC) – but sadly for the third year in a row there was not enough money in the family vault for us to go to NVC family camp like I wanted. Sniff. But I have not given up hope yet.

Everything happens at once

On January the 18th my husband and I spent a long and weary day making our budget for the year 2009. It was very difficult, because of my earning quite a bit less than the year before. But our quest was succesful, and while there was no money left for going on a vacation, we found a way to make the numbers meet. Uff.

But then things started to fall appart:

First we learnt that the school our son is going to (it is a school that was funded by us and other parents, based on the insights of great pedagogues like Maria Montessori and Rebeca Wild) is in financial trouble, that other parents are leaving the sinking ship, and that we are supposed to pay 40% more per month to bridge the troubled waters. Of course there is no way we can do that inside of the already rather tight budget we planned on only days before.

Then I was informed that the new owners of my horses stable would ask much more money for the stable rent than I had payed before, and my stable mate (the former owner of the stable, with whom I had the contract) reacted by finding another place for her ponies. She can leave any day she wants. I am so not ready for another stable odysee with my horse, and I am used now to have him close by (the stable is right across the road from where I live). But I can’t keep him alone, because he is a social animal, because of the stable work, and because of the money. So what to do?

Next I got a phone call from the place where my chronicaly ill shetland pony is taken care of – he has gotten worse and we will have to put him down tomorrow, the day of my sons 9th birthday.

Hello? What’s the matter? Why does all of this happen at the same time?

I know all this crises are minor in that they don’t threaten the health and lives of my close family. But they are still having a large impact on my life.

Should we leave our beloved school project behind and look for another school for our son? Or should we dig in and try to make it against all odds?

Should I risk to rent the stable by myself and try to find other people to share it with – even though I know it would be hard to find people that I would be comfortable with? Or should I just give up and let my perfect horse dreams go – by either moving him to a stable far away where I can only visit him twice a week, or even by giving him away to someone who can take better care of him than I do?

And what changes in my life with my pony gone?

SuisseToy und Schulsystem

Samstag war ich mit meinem Sohn (8) an der SuisseToy. Wir lieben diese Messe und gehen da jedes Jahr hin, seit wir davon wissen. Ich war sehr stolz zu sehen, wie gut er mit dem ganzen Kommerz-Ueberschwang zurecht kommt. Und wie besonnen er mit seinem Geld umgegangen ist. Das kann er jetzt schon besser als ich. Er hat dieses Geld selbst zusammengespart und verdient (mit Spielzeug-Verkauf am letzten Dorf-Märit). Sehr enttäuscht war er, als wir erfuhren, dass Lego auch von dem Brand in der einen Halle betroffen gewesen und abgereist war. Weil er hatte eigtl. geplant, sein Geld bei Lego liegen zu lassen. So musste er sich dann mit Playmobil zufrieden geben. Aber zuerst haben wir uns natürlich möglichst viel von der Messe angeschaut, sämtliche Wettbewerbe mitgemacht, uns mit Kostproben bestechen lassen und neue Gesellschaftsspiele gelernt.

Leider hat die Messe auch ihre Schattenseiten. Viele Kinder waren von den vielen Eindrücken schlicht überfordert. Kombiniert mit dem ganzen Zuckerzeug führte das dann zu sehr unschönen Szenen: schlagende Mütter, wild drohende Väter… Ich glaube wenn man den Umgangston, den diese Eltern hier mit ihren eigenen Kindern zeigten auf Tonband aufgenommen und ihnen später vorgespielt hätte, die wären aus allen Wolken gefallen. Wirklich sehr grob und ja, gewalttägig. Wenn ich die Nerven mit meinem Sohn verliere, behaupte ich danach wenigstens nicht, es sei nur seine Schuld und eine angemessene Reaktion gewesen! Und das waren meist sehr kleine Kinder, denen man nun wirklich noch nicht sie Veranwortung übergeben kann für ihre Reaktion auf diese anspruchsvolle Situation.

Sonntag war Hausarbeit angesagt – aber zwischendurch fand ich doch noch die Zeit, das aktuelle Magazin zu lesen. Es hatte einige sehr gute Artikel drin (wenn sie nicht gerade über das Impfen schreiben, finde ich das meistens ein sehr gutes Heftli), z.B. über Frauen, die behinderte Kinder abgetrieben haben oder erwägen, dies zu tun. Für mich am wichtigsten war der Artikel über einen Lehrer, der am System gescheitert ist und jetzt was anderes macht: Warum ich nicht mehr Lehrer bin

In beiden von ihm beschriebenen Schulen, sowohl an der öffentlichen wie an der privaten Sek, fundierte (von mir aus gesehen) das “Problem” in der Leistungsorientierung. Während am einen Ort die Schulleitung die Kinder beliebig herumverschiebt, sind es am andern Ort die Eltern, die ausschliesslich in Noten denken – als ob davon das zukünftige Glück ihrer Kinder abhinge. Bin ich froh, gibt es die arco und können wir es uns im Moment leisten, unseren Sohn dahin zu schicken!!! Mein Kind soll nicht glauben, dass ihn eine Zahl definiert.

Verrückt eigtl. wie sehr sich gerade auch die Lehrerschaft dagegen wehrt, das System Schule von Grund auf umzukrempeln. Klar sind sie Reform-müde, aber das waren ja bloss immer nur Versuche, am alten System herumzudoktorn. Dabei basiert das alte System auf einem von mir aus gesehen veralteten Menschenbild und sollte völlig abgelöst werden. Kinder braucht man nicht zu irgendwas zu erZIEHEN – die WOLLEN ja lernen. Nur allzuoft hindert sie aber die Schule mehr daran als sonstwas. Aber dazu haben andere mehr und besser geschrieben, als ich es kann. Für Lehrer/innen empfehle ich als Einstieg “Das kompetente Kind” von Jesper Juul.

Kürzlich wurde ich in einer Mailing-Liste in der es eigtl. um Homeschooling ging auf einen Blogeintrag von einem Jungen aus Alaska verwiesen, dessen Familie etwas betreibt, was dort offenbar Unschooling heisst. D.h. die Kinder gehen nicht zur Schule, und werden auch nicht unterrichtet, sondern leben und lernen im eigenen Rythmus. Eigtl. ganz ähnlich, wie wir uns das in der arco vorstellen, bloss sprechen wir dann auch noch von der “gestalteten Umgebung” (siehe Rebeca und Maricio Wild). In gewisser Weise ist natürlich auch in dieser Familie eine gestaltete Umgebung vorhanden, indem die Mutter durch ihre Präsenz einen sehr warmen, liebevollen Rahmen bietet. Lustig sind dann auch die Widersprüche zu “uns” (damit meine ich das Schulumfeld unseres Sohnes): während wir mehr oder weniger Medien-kritisch sind und zumindest einige von uns den Medienkonsum der Kinder stark einschränken (unser Sohn darf wöchentlich eine halbe Stunde PC oder TV nutzen, mit Ausnahmen), ist in dieser Familie der PC eins der Hauptlernmittel der Kinder, und wird das abendliche gemeinsame Fernsehen zelebriert. Hier der Link zum Blog der Mutter.

Listening to John Denver

I’m listening to the Essential John Denver. As a girl I owned one audio tape of his and I adored it. I would dream up stories while listening to the melodies. His songs are perfect dream material. As I don’t listen to my tapes anymore, and did not own any CDs or LPs by him, I forgot how much joy his music used to bring me.

Last week I went for a shopping trip and found this CD set. All the songs I remember and many more are on it. Also there is a leaflet with a short bio included. This made me want to know more and I checked the entry on John Denver in Wikipedia.

It is amazing how perfectly his songs and his world view still fits me. To me he is a symbol of the good side of America. The country he writes about is the place I went to visit all those years ago (in 1992 and 1995), and which I was so lucky to find. Most of my friends have a very critical view of the US, and I completly agree with many of their arguments. But it is such a huge country, with big differences in landscapes and in people. And John Denver shows us the best and most beautiful part of it.

One of the songs I did not know is the song on Calypso, the ship Jean-Jacques Cousteau used on his trips around the seas of the world. My brother adored Cousteau, read all his books, watched the films and built this tiny model version of the Calypso.

Wow, music certainly can bring back the childhood memories! And also the feelings and dreams of old. This was the time when we still believed that we would change the world. I sure wish I could get back some of that pure and simple belief!

Thoughts of my mother

This morning while feeding the horses and cleaning out the stable, thoughts of my mother came over me. It’s not that I don’t think of her often. She is always part of me, and when I look at my son, I often wonder how they would get on – stuff like that. But I usually don’t think much about her dying. The memories still hurt and there is the guilt. Which makes me avoid thinking too much about it.

She died of cancer when I was 24. She wasn’t much above 50 at the time, still a young women. And my parents had plans… I made the mistake to move back home when she was very ill. It seemed a good idea at the time, but today I think I could have served my family better by staying at a certain distance.

The months of her dying were horrible. The house was a depressing place through it all. Instead of bringing the family closer together, the situation brought out the worst in us. Sometimes my brothers and I would try to lighten up the atmosphere a bit, it was so stiffling. But every laughter was a bruise to my mothers soul. It hurt her to think that we were not in there with her, fighting the cancer.

We did not talk about the possibilty of her death, as this was seen as admitting defeat. Maybe it would have helped though.

My family had expectations of me, that I could and would not meet. I did not stay at home and care for my mother. I continued going to work like before. And when she died, I left for the USA, a trip I’d planed for years and had posponed through her illness. I’m glad I left, even though it did not help with the guilt. I never talk about this with my father, as the only time I tried made it clear to me that he too felt that I failed (him, my mother, the familiy). I don’t want to go down that road.

For years(?) to come I had nightmares about my mother being alive again. Either I was afraid of her reaction to my fathers new relationship to an old friend of hers. Or I knew she was going to die again and I just did not want to go through all that again.

I don’t know if my brothers dealt better with our mothers death than I did. They were younger, still living at home with our dad. They were a bachelor household of three, and in some ways it was great, as they did get to know our father much better, now that our mother was not in between to keep up the perfect image. No more translations for him, he had to interact with others and explain himself directly to them.

Expectations towards my brothers were not as big as towards me, as I was seen as the surviving female of the family. But because the men were by themselves, they were much admired for there independence, and for a while there was a flood of neighborly support towards them.

I used to tell myself that at 24 at least I was no longer dependent on having a mother. I had lived by myself for a while before I moved back home, I was my own person and well capable of taking care of myself. As we had lots of fights when being together, it did not feel like I was losing my best friend. But of course a mother just leaves an enormous hole in anybodies live. The person who carried you and nurtured you has immense impact on your live, and when she leaves, there is no way to compensate for that.

I really started missing my mother when my son came along. Not so much because of my lack of a social network for babysitting and stuff, but just because of my knowledge how much she would have enjoyed and adored him.

My father does his best to be a grandfather to him, and he does well, but he is just not the grandfatherly type. This is completely ok for me, I don’t want him to pretend and try to be something he just does not have in him. My son needs many different male role models, and my father certainly is a fascinating one.

My mother would certainly have driven me crazy from time to time with her grandmotherly influence taking and not understanding of the way we do things. But she could have brought an aspect to my sons live that he is now missing out on a bit: the complete adoration, the constant flow of affection that a grandmother can give.

Winter one more time

A white easter isn’t exactly what I was dreaming of. After we did not have any real snow for the whole winter, it’s kind of strange to have it now. Friday it was snowing the whole night and day, but not a very nice snow: all sticky and wet. This morning the weather was very cold, but sunny, so that I could at least appreaciate the visual beauty of the white landscape. And my son is happy, because of all the snow activities he was missing out this year, and because of the tracks of the easter bunny he is sure to find tomorrow in the forest.

If I could I’d just stay in bed till spring arrives. But the horses and my family wont accept that. But I do spend more time in front of the pc and with a good book. I am currently reading a novel by Melissa Hill, which seams quite nice, but not very carefully edited. I know I should not look at the mistakes in a text (and I hope you don’t do it with  my blogs!), but it’s just the way I am: I can’t stop myself. One of the heroines has a small son, and I started thinking about how difficult it seems to be to make children real in novels. Hill doesn’t do a bad job, the boy is believable, but I don’t get to know him (don’t have finished the book, though). I recently read a book called “the only boy for me” by Gil McNeil. It was a nice book, but not one of my favorites. Which is not the fault of the author, but mine: the book is too realistic. I like my heroes and heroines to be a little bit bigger than life, and their stories, too.

Do you know who does children very well? Jayne Ann Krentz! Which is kind of strange, as children are not all that important to her stories. They just serve to show some characteristics of the hero or heroine to better advantage.

My favorite children in romance novels are by Patricia Veryan. She is the best not only with young characters, but also with animals. I don’t really know how she does it, but her children and pets (horses, dogs, cats, pigs, you name it) are always great. Many writers have tried the same and failed dismally.

Terry Pratchett has a funny way describing children. Very un-romantic, kind of as if he does not like them. But maybe he does, in a much realer way than many adults do. In one book the governess (and Death’s granddaughter) tells the children she cares for to stop acting cute. And they do.

Luckily, the past is past

Yesterday my husband played in some reunion concert of the orchestra he played in as a boy (he was a drummer, along with my younger brother). My son and I went to watch. The music parts were pretty slow and boring, but the drummers were great.

The reunion concert took place in the village my husband and I both grew up. We both moved there as children (me at 9, he a bit older) and were met with disapproval. At the time if you did not speak the right dialect you were already a foreigner.

Well, I am really glad I no longer live there, as I have a lot of not so happy memories. I met some wonderful people there, which is great, but this wont make me go back. It’s always a little strange to visit the place. It is a beautiful village, with a castle and a lake – a tourists dream. But while it is ok to be confronted with ones past from time to time, I don’t want to linger.

Before we left we had a drink with some of me brothers friends. And that is when I said something along the line of “luckily, the past is past” and got some pretty strong reactions from the others. Isn’t that a positive sentiment? I really prefer my present to my past. To be young again? No, thank you very much. But obviously not everyone feels the same.

The book I am currently reading goes very well with my “the past is in the past” moto: No! I don’t want to join a bookclub : a diary of growing old disgracefully. The 60 year old heroine has such a refreshing take on life (and death). I love that book, and am already worried what I’ll do when I’m finished. No more updates on Marie Sharps life? How can I bear it? Funnily she reminds me a lot of another fictional diary writer: no, not Bridget Jones, but Mia Thermopolis, of the Princess Diaries fame. Even though one of them is 60 and the other 16, in some aspects they are amazingly similar. In a good way, too.

A cat is a cat is a cat

Funny how I am perfectly capable to always see my cat as a cat and nothing more, but it’s different with my horse. I admire my cat for his beauty and poise, I adore him for his playfulness and funny little quirks. I know we have a bond, even a deep one, but I never ever confuse it with human love. Our bond is based on needs, and I am happy that I am able to provide for his. He gives me back tenfold. But do I get upset when he cruelly kills a bird or suddenly attacks my hand when just before he enjoyed my caresses? No, because I know and understand: he is a cat, and what he does is just plain “catishness”. It is the right thing for him to do, and it is my job to maybe safe the bird (if possible) and take care of my hand and hurts.

With my horse I often get confused. I know he is a horse, and nothing more, but sometimes my old childhood fantasies still have hold of me and I think of him as more. I want him to take care of me, or to be understanding, or – blinded by his incredible beauty – see him as some mythical being with supernatural powers, instead of a horse who does horsey things as he is meant to do. But as he is now stabled so close by, I have some hope to get over the “spiritual-fantasy-thing” some day soon.

A very lucky person

Sometimes, when I do something for or with my horse, I get little flashbacks to my youth.  

When I was a child I adored horses: I read horse books, I invented horse stories, I played horse games with my horse mad friend, I painted horses, I plastered the walls of my room with horses etc. But in real life I had very little contact to flesh and blood horses.

I tried, but mostly I got some bad experiences out of it. When my uncle bought a couple of horses for his daughters I tried to get involved. But I fell of, or did not get along, and just generally had no idea how to treat a horse.

The only time when I was not afraid of (real) horses was when I was about 3 or 4 years old. A close friend of my fathers had imported some ponies from Island, and I adored them. There exists a picture of me sitting on one of the ponies, my feet not even reaching beyond the saddle. I look completely and utterly happy on that horse. I am pretty sure that the whole horse madness started there: in the saddle of a Islandic pony, not even a very safe one, where I felt this perfect rightnes, the one I have been looking for ever since.

I have a very dim memory of riding in front of my fathers friend and falling of. I rolled down a bank, laughing all the time, while he was looking for me and quite worried (he later lost a daughter in a riding accident). A short time later, maybe when I was 5 or 6, I changed and became the fearful person I am today.

But that couldn’t stop me from trying to get into contact with horses. There were the arabs that an architect kept in a field behind the appartment building we were living in, or the ponies to be ridden at the local fair. When I was 16 it took all my courage to ask a lady in our village to give me riding lessons. She was a horrible teacher, the horse was a much better one. Sadly I did not really profit from it, as I was petrified with fear most of the time. I often cried in the lessons. 

A lot of my time was spent cleaning horses. The horse I rode did not have a very nice personality: as soon as the teachers head was turned, it would use my fear against me and no longer let me near. I went there for years, and am very sorry for it, as I am still trying to unlearn the stupid things I was taught there, by the teacher and by my fear.

A turning point was when I went for a riding holiday in France. We went for a two or three hour ride every day, in beautiful landscape. It took a lot of courage for me to ride, and I was always glad when it was over. But the rest of the days were pure bliss. I am usually a late sleeper, but in that week I was always the first person up, visiting the horses, smelling the horses, listening to the horses, just being around the horses. I was happy there. And I came back again and again. Those holidays were a kind of therapy for me.

But what I wanted to get at in the beginning are those flashbacks when I realise that today I am a person who owns a horse (even two, if you count the absent pony in). I am one of those lucky people I was so much in awe of, those I desperately wanted to be but didn’t dare believe that I would ever turn into. When I was a young women I even decided I did not WANT to own a horse, this being so stressful and expensive and so on (and right I was).

When I get those flashbacks I can’t believe how incredibly lucky I am: I have dreamed all my life of horses, of arabs – and today there is my very own dream horse just on the other side of the street where I live. I am allowed to care for him, to ride him, to pet him. He knows me and greets me when I come. He is absolutly stunning to look at, with the most beautiful, shiny, dark, soulful eyes you could imagine, a magical star on his brow and a funny little spot on his chin.

And do you know what? He is not the only one of my impossible dreams that came true: I agonised over the first and only boy I ever really loved for years and years, while he had no idea about this and changed girlfriends several times. And who is married to him now, eh? I am!

And when I was a teenager and dreamed of getting pregnant and running away to foreign lands to rise my love child all by myself, I saw very vivid pictures of the child, a boy with a special name. And it is exactly the same boy with the same name that I put to bed tonight.

I am indeed a very very lucky person. Someone who has not only dreamed, but also seen those dreams fullfilled, in the nicest possible way.

Riding into happiness

I love spring. Today was such a warm, sunny, all around lovely day that I forgot all about my fears and enjoyed every minute of my ride on Nikita. He behaved very well, even when I had to dismount and mount again on the way. If only it was that way everytime!