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| Left to right: Stinging Nettles, Horsetail, Skunk Cabbage |
Stinging Nettles aren't what come to mind when I think of a plant that might heal/soothe a sick and aching tummy - yet they seem to do just that for E.P. We headed into the wilds at the first sign of afternoon sun this week and harvested our first round (of many!) of our favorite northwestern wild green. As we cautiously snipped the heads off spring's first edible offerings E.P.'s mind, steeped in sunshine and spring, was pondering death. My own thoughts were on new life and rebirth so I took pause when he broke with his singing and snipping to ask, "Mom, how would you choose to die if you had to...having your head cut off with a sword or being shot?" With a blade in my own hand and already a pound deep into my own process of plant decapitation I answered, "The sharp, unexpected blade." There was much silence that followed for both of us and nature filled it in with raven chatter and the creek's song. The skunk cabbage smelled even more toxic to me in this quietude and my own stomach felt uneasy and tense.
E.P. is a master of communicating his feelings and needs by showing rather than telling. If E.P. has a sick stomach it is contagious not because of a virus but because of the behavior he enacts to exorcize his suffering. His pacing and seemingly aimless bouncing speaks volumes to anyone in his vicinity about just how difficult some of his ADHD symptoms are to tolerate. His excruciating restlessness (acted out through pacing) gets sneakers onto my own feet before it has even registered to him that his workbook might need to be supported by a tree stump rather than a desk that day. When I'm with E.P. I "check in" with my own body even more than I check in with his words and it reminds me of my work before taking on E.P.'s education. As a yoga therapist working with women in recovery I learned a lesson that has proven invaluable to raising, educating, and loving E.P. I was in a staff meeting one day in which a fellow therapist was receiving supervision - the emotional housekeeping of sorting out our own biases and triggers so that we can continue to show up whole and clear for our clients. The therapist was describing just how difficult it was to stay committed to working with her client. She enumerated a list of words that described how the client made her feel. They were potent feelings, the kind of feelings that we all try to steer clear of in life, and we all felt for the therapist and what she was navigating. Our supervisor listened to the entire list, sat quietly for a moment, and then offered; "She is making you feel how it feels to be her. Right now this is her only way to communicate. Remind yourself that how you feel when you are with her is how she feels about herself." The room full of seasoned therapists was silent. It was heartbreaking. We all got it. It was a moment that changed my life.
Luckily.
Because, as it turns out, this amazing emotional survival skill seems to be built into children who struggle with ADHD. They seem to have an awesome ability to make you feel their symptoms and challenges intensely as a way of getting their needs met. I am finding it is up to us, their educators, caregivers, the people that love them unconditionally, to "stay in it" with them long enough to ferry them to the other side of getting those needs met. And, right now, E.P. And I are standing boot deep in the bog of communicating through behaviors about his stomach and his struggles with anxiety. It smells like sour skunk cabbage in full bloom. I stand with him in the stink. We appear to be captured by a perimeter of stinging nettles. And I practice the wisdom of not trying to escape. Together we do the unspoken work of trying not to avoid but rather to be present with it all; the much treasured sunshine, the sick stomach, the thoughts of fear and death that are arising alongside the new buds on the alders. As I surrender to it all happening at once I realize that for many years now I've diluted spring to a water color washed celebration of life returning. I've focused only on the beauty of spring and how it brings me comfort and pleasure . E.P.'s embrace of spring is surging with thoughts of death and how to process ideas like "how does something come from nothing?"or "how does something go on forever, or end forever with nothingness following.." Questions and thoughts that finally toss him to the forest floor in exasperation and a moment of feeling completely untethered, 'Mom right now I have that feeling I hate when I think of space expanding forever.."
This kind of embrace of spring reminds me of my childhood and my own much more complex and complete experience of nature's rebirth.
Because I stay in the wilds and in the conversation with E.P. his anxiety about death finds it's own conclusion (for now.) After my answer about the sharp unexpected blade he sings more - this time it is an intense almost yelling singing - "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC I think. I am grateful that the trees have their soft mosses in abundance this time of year to buffer his acoustics. As he tires he stops snipping and singing and declares to me, "Mom, I think I was an old man, and I died, and I became me..." And that belief and understanding seems like what he needs - for now. For he dashes home and there isn't a mention of his stomach. I balance keeping up and getting a little space for myself to marvel in what the forest and it's seasons teach him. And to laugh to myself, "To think that I thought for even a moment that a classroom could ever have contained him."
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| The season's first Salmonberry blossoms |
