Well, it’s up.  The sign.  It went up Friday afternoon, a rush job because I was desperate to get it in the ground before the full Aquarius moon, a blessing moon, ripened the sky, i wanted to catch that energy like a surfer catches the wave and I had to get it before it went to shore.  By Friday early evening we had three appointments to show the next day.  We weren’t going to show it until Sunday, at the first open house.

On Friday evening my man and I went outside with Saint Jospeh, the Worker, the Father of Jesus, the partner of Mother Mary, in our hands.  We looked up at the waxing moon, so huge with a glowing fog settling in around it and we gave some thanks.  We dug a hole right next to the For Sale sign, a foot deep into the hard desert earth, and placed St. Joe in there, head down.  I felt a little bad about this, sorta disrespectful, but all the old school Catholic ladies in my life said: upside down, it motivates him to sell it for you, he wants to get back out, rightside up. 

So as we placed him in there, facing East, towards the rising sun, we asked him to guide the perfect buyers to our house so we could take him out and place him in a place of honor at our new home and Bill upped the anty: i’ll tatto you on my right arm, opposite Fudo Myo (Divinity of Fire). Inside we lit a candle next to a Mary statue we have, and will do so every night until her man gets out of the ground.

Our open house on Sunday brought through more people than our agent has seen at any of her open houses’ in 6 months.  Each and every person raved about the house; the floors, the built-ins, the colors, the over-all feeling of the house.  A man left and brought back his wife.

When we got home after the open house was over,  I saged the whole place.  Walking through every nook and cranny and waved my wand of sweet white herb. A bunch of strangers walking through my space unnerved me a bit; but then I realized, I am letting go of this space.  Energetically, physically, I am letting go and the invitation is out. I am asking for this.

And so I sit here, early this morning, looking out my kitchen at the array of hummingbirds that stop at the tree outside my house.  The windows so clean they sparkle, something I have never seen before here.  Barely looks like my windows. The sills are stark white, not a bit of sticky oatmeal finger remnant.  The yard totally absent of dog shit or toys thrown across the grass.  This isn’t my house anymore.  If I wanted to keep my house this way, I’d be cleaning ALL day long, telling my kids not to touch things or play with things.  But we have made this house a home.  Mia took her first step here.  A baby was conceived and born here.  Another baby made here.  Parties have been thrown here.  Toddler masterpieces have been painted made here.  Record albums produced here.  Words have been written here.  Cakes and cookies baked, soups and sauces stirred.  Fights and screaming and crying and loving and hugging and dancing and stretching have been practiced here.  Friends have slept here.  Home.

And I cry.  I sit here and cry because this house has been so good, the walls so strong, the foundation so firm.  It has watched us become a family.  And I thank it.  I will miss it.  I feel it turning into someone elses space, and of course, that has been the plan the whole time, the whole three years.  Visions, as usual, come into realness.

Here is my house, a virtual tour!  I love the agents silly tags for my house.  Urban Modern?? How funny!  I have always felt it to be thrid word shack, and happy to have it as that!  Now it’s a grown-up house.  

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SULA, peaceful one.

Two years ago today, at precisely this time, with the same kind of over-cast sky, I climbed in the birthtub and let go of gravity and stayed that way for exactly 6 hours until you came forth and took your first breath of earthly air.

 Tonight after you are full of cake and family love, and you snore quietly on your pillow, I will give you a gift of words.  But for now, happy day, happy year, my love.  You have been such a precious gem of a gift.

love and bless.

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well either Bill slipped me a roofie and took advantage me and never told me (don’t know why because I am easy with a capitol E) or this is the immaculate conception.

for the first time ever, i had an ultrasound today.  i saw little one kicking and sucking away on little thumb inside of me.  ultra-sound man came right over to our house and we watched baby play in the womb from our TV screen.  it was cool as much as i hate to admitt it, ludite that i am when is comes to technology and healthy pregnancy. 

 anyway, baby measured at 14 weeks and 2 days!  not the almost 16-17 weeks that we once thought.  how that happened i will never know.  again, another cusp baby, just like the other 2. 

2-lines on a stick. The only indication that life was indeed cooking within. I am not one to feel the life inside me immediately. No physical signs except an instant hip expansion, until at least week 9. No profound emotional feeling until at least week 12. Call me disconnected, but as powerful as I know this miracle to be, I do not feel, or even connect on a visceral level, with the soul within. Not for quite some time. Until I do it’s no less magical in its mystical divine explosion of flesh that begins to mold and form in my womb. I am in awe by it, but a connection to an actual person, soul, being? No. I have felt guilty about that in the past, that I am just floating there in this space where I know I am now a mama to another person and my rational mind, my conscious mind has no clue who this person is, no ties to this person in a thinking way. I have felt like a really bad mom. I’m pregnant, yes, but at this point it’s a scientific happening within and I wait and wait until it becomes the most important thing in my life. It happens of course, in time, but I guess I must just trust that while that transition occurs my mother-mind and heart is preparing myself for the love that I am about to feel; boundless and limitless. It’s like I need those few months to grow as a person; bigger, stronger, softer, before I get the honor of binding and meshing with the person who now lives in my body and spirit temple. Perhaps this is my testimony for being pro-choice; my spiritual understanding (in short) does not believe a soul enters the body until the soul is sure it is truly invited, until my own body is truly capable of housing it and until its body us sure it is ready to be housed. I believe the soul exists already, always has and always will as we are endless and non-linear. But in my mind, it does not dwell in the flesh for some time.  This is my opinion.  Not right. Not wrong. Just mine.

But that is neither here nor there. I guess what I am trying to say is that I think baby’s soul has entered me. I can feel this person and this person is…well…glorious. Blindingly bright and alive. Powerfully:Wow. I am floored by holding this person within me. I am not quite sure I am big enough to hold this soul, this perfect, content and so lovely of a soul. I received an email from out midwife here who is kind enough to give me prenatal attention until we wander out of state. While she had been camping in amazing wilderness, my baby paid her a visit, wanting to communicate and connect with her. She wrote to me, “Your baby is…well, I think the best way to describe it would be gorgeous. Totally Gorgeous.” That’s just about how I feel.

I had a very lucid dream a couple weeks ago about a flock of doves flying out of my belly and then flew through this green and beautiful mountain valley. It was serene, surreal, peaceful and very sensual. This baby is now my little Dove. Dovie. Lovely Dove. I looked up the symbolic meaning of the The Dove and of course it is a pre-Christian symbol for the yoni, the entrance into the divine feminine.

It seems if I shifted from utter fear to utter excitement. I am now in super-power-radical-mama mode. I CAN DO THI! I am bad-ass. I am tough and gentle and I am going to load all my kids, all three of them and my two hairier than hell dogs in my big-ass bio-diesel truck, or my wicked veggie run Westy (because no way in hell will i mini-van it as lovely as they are and all…) and we are going to do great things like hike hills and pick berries and explore new terrain and all around be the kind of mom I always saw myself being. I will not be tied to indoor activity anymore, feeling so trapped in suburban heat-stroke and mommy isolation boredom. I will become Empowered Empress of Too Many Off-Spring in my rain-gear, polka dot knee-high rubbers and all and we will take on the great wet outdoors. We celebrate the rain! School will become the shore and the forest. Fun will become a walk on the boardwalk drinking cocoa and splashing puddles. I can see it so near that I can taste it. I can. It tastes like cream of broccoli soup. IOr maybe salty miso with little cubes of tofu floating in it. I want this for this baby. For this family. I need this. Shifts happen for us. I guess you can say that I am obsessed with moving to make this whole thing complete and real. Maybe not too healthy. So fucking what. It’s my life. I obsess.  

This baby is, of course, so different than the other 2. Her energy (did I just say her?) is connected, communicative. She asks to be talked to. The girls out their ears to my belly to listen.

I hear the baby bubbling! Mia

Baby is good. Baby good. Sula

As we put our head on the pillow to sleep,  I love you mama and I love the baby in your belly, too. Ahhh, I love you too, Mia.  Baby loves you, too.

I took some advice from my friend Chris. Her kids put gem stones on her growing belly. I decided that was a good way for the girls to connect with this little one, and so they can feel their own power in this pregnancy. So each night we settle down and they pick amethyst and tiger’s eye, obsidian and citrine, quarts and some rocks my sister got on her trip to Medjagore. They lay them in a line on my belly. They whisper words of love. Then they fight over who gets to move what stone where. Then they fight over who gets to take what stone off me. Then they fight over who gets to play ‘pretend’ with each stone. Usual, beautiful, wonderful stuff. And then I remind them to send more love. And they do. And then they run off. And I get to lie down there, alone, stones cooling my belly off. Baby not yet making movements known to me, but I wait, patiently to feel the quickening of its life.

My food cravings have been unreal. Since I don’t puke much anymore, food has become somewhat of a friend. I live to eat, so not being able to enjoy food for two months was torture. It was like all the joy in my life…gone. Food is joy to me, all kinds; it is my ritual, my entertainment, my method of connecting with people. We sit down and enjoy eating. So to not be able to, or to throw up everything swallowed, that was PURE HELL. But that has lifted. I am still not really into much, but we are getting a groove on once again with eating.

Baby is without a doubt, 99% vegan. Any animal product will come up with the hour. Dairy, meat, eggs. Bad. Except for copious amounts of Bob’s Big Boy Blue Cheese Dressing

MB, you going to eat a carrot with the dressing? He hands me the large stainless steel soup ladle. Why don’t you just use this to eat it? Hey, wifey, I filled the bath with Bob’s Big Boy…jump in!

Just couldn’t seem to get enough of the stuff. Really. Have you tried it? Beware, thought. The gas it brings about is just about lethal.

And now my dairy product of choice is cottage cheese. Haven’t had the curds for years and now every morning I must eat them. With blueberries. Raspberries. Walnuts. On average I eat about 3 ruby red grapefruits a day and squeeze a totally of 6 lemons in glasses of water. Japanese soba noodles saturated in tamari or Braggs, mixed with sunflower seed butter and completely covered in toasted sesame seeds is what I cannot, cannot live without. Pesto. Pesto on pasta. Pesto on crackers. Pesto on a tortilla. Pesto on a spoon. Smoothies. Banana. Berries. Protein powder. Molasses. Some sort of kids greens powdered flavored like chocolate, goat yogurt (my other non-vegan delight), soy milk. Red skinned potatoes covered in salt and Earth Balance. Dark chocolate covered anything. Especially Betty Lou’s North Shore Bars. Ohmygod. These things are so freaking finger-lickin’ tasty. Black licorice by the pound. Coconut popsicles by the hour. My green stone necklace that was gift from Courtney. I feel naked without it. Kiehls grapefruit scented body wash and lotion gifted to me by the angelic Bella. American Apparel scarves to wrap around my belly. My mother’s love and support. My children snuggled in tight next to me at night. My husbands large hands across my stomach as we pass out exhausted on the floor after a very long, hot day getting this house ready (still) for the beautiful and amazing people who are coming very soon to buy it from us at a price oh so close to what we ask. Blessed Be.

yeah, well, apparently mia is not only interested in cutting her own hair.

as i clean out a cupboard full of herbal tinctures, supplements and homeopathic tablets; making little piles of which to keep, what to pack and what to just toss, my sweetest Leigh, on an outing, probably her longest drive since birthing divine Indie, keeps me in such good company.  Humoring me about cleaning and packing.  Spreading her light across my caos.   Being there. We giggle about something while she holds Indie tight in her the Moby, doing the baby sway. And then we just stop.

We hear a scream, blood curdling, possible blood spilling scream from Kaia. The scream flows into some heavy crying.  Leigh runs.  I panick.  

Everythings okay.  

Silence.

Mia cut Kaia’s hair.

Shit. Mia.  SHIT.

Kaia, luckily her beauty is deeper than the middle of the ocean.  Her two perfect pig tails, at least 3 inches long, where gone.  Her bangs snipped to the root. Mia did a number on her. Kaia was rather upset, seeing this was the first time anyone had ever taken sharp objects to her virgin 2 year old hair.  Poor, poor girl.  We owe her big. We also found strands of Sula color mixed in with Kaia’s pile on the floor…luckily Sula is curly and the chops aren’t as obvious.

All scissors are now just a memory*

I find out later that Kaia’s dear dad once told Leigh: please, whatever you do, please don’t ever cut Kaia’s hair.

In zen teachings, letting go of the hair is like letting go attachment to vanity.  Well, Mia and Kaia are a pair of divas…no doubt.

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*disclaimer: we do not keep sharp scissors laying around.  mia found bill’s beard trimming scissors in his bathroom last night, a door which is usually locked/latched, but with all the work we have been doing in the house, he left the door open and she wandered in there.  As for today with the scissors she found to HACK Kaia’s hair…Bill was opening up packages of fixtures for the other bathroom with them and apparently left them out on the counter.  The girls wandered down the hall to the bathroom for the 2 minutes we stopped watching them like hawks (:-) and spotted them up there immediately.  So basically, both hair-hack jobs end up being Bill’s fault.  Blame him. 

I was in the kitchen making veggie and bean soup.  Bill was standing on the other side of the island, facing out hallway.  I hear here from the hallway,

I  cut my hair!  I used the sharp scissors!  I cut my hair!"

I look at Bill because he can see her from where he is.  I can’t.  His mouth is dropped wide open, half smile.  Shock.  Amusement.

I rush out around the island and see my daughter, her flimsy, floppy, soft as corn-silk, getting long, blondy hair is totally chopped off.  Chop suey.  Hacked.

She is smiling so big and bright.  So proud of herself.  

Well, Mia, you cut your hair.

Yup!!!!!! She  tosses her head and flicks her short hair with her hand.  So sassy and sweet, feelin’ good about her new look.

I smile big and tell her it looks great.  But that sharp scissors are not for her to play with.

I know.  But I didn’t cut myself, mama.  See? 

She goes running off.  Skipping off.  I, too feel free and wild after a good haircut.  It’s apparent this has given her a renewed lease on her little life. But now I got figure out what to do with this child’s head.  Too short for a pixie, perhaps perfect for a shaped mullet. A mohawk? Tiny little corn-rolls? And the tail, the tail has gotta go.  But not first without a day of braiding it and listening to Eric B and Rakin and breakdancing in some pretend parachute pants. 

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The road was winding down out of the pine thick green forest, into the lighter juniper brush and finally hitting the land covered with our Desert Guardian, The Saguaros. The sky was so blue, electric-bright and the sun seemed to be relentless. The temperature said 115 and for the third time in 2 months, my air conditioning in my beloved Outback just went out. I began to have a panic attack. A real one. My heart jumped to my throat. Its pounding raced like there was a finish line for it somewhere. My palms sweat like a faucet. My breathing was shallow. All I could do was make a strange humming noise and flutter my hands by my face. My husband glanced at me while he drove, and I think that at that moment he realized how insane I was. I started to whimper.

“I know, wifey, it’s hot. We’ll be home soon.”

No. Not hot. Not that at all.

WHAT IF THE HOUSE DOESN’T SELL? I think I screamed it.

Here my deepest, darkest, scariest fear lives and it lives with me every moment. The possibility that it just. wouldn’t. sell. In time. In time for what? I guess in time for me to get up to Washington before this baby came swirling out of me. In time to find someone, like a midwife, to guide us with this birth. In time to find a place to live other than a pop-up. In time to take a leisurely vacation up the coast with my little family. In some kind of time.

“I’ve been scared of that, too, wifey,” says He. “But while you all slept last night and I sat outside the tent and watched the stars shoot and got to hear nothing, absolutely nothing for the first time in a long time, I realized I had to detach myself from it all, especially any time frame. The house will sell. But we need let go of the desperation that it must sell now. I hope it will, I think it will, but if it doesn’t, we’ll deal with it. I think in the detachment we’ll find some freedom. It’ll help us de-stress a bit.”

Okay Mr. Zen-y-pants. Fine. Don’t you just know it all? But I want to get the FUCK outta here NOW. NOW!! I cannot have another child here. FUUUUCK.

“I can’t have this kid here.”

“I know you don’t want to, but if we have to, we have to. But I am sure we won’t have to.”

“No, if we have to I will have this baby along side the Scenic Highway they call The 1.” I quickly remember a mystic I went to see back in 2000. Her name was Maya and her cards told me that I would have a baby on the road someday. (This thought quickly brings me to the fact that we probably should invest a bit bigger vehicle.)

He starts to talk again about how all our stress is because we are putting this strict timeline on ourselves. That we just need to let it all be and let this action, this shift happen on its own because we have done the work for it.  I plug my ears and hum some more. He sighs.

This I don’t want to hear. This means I have to let go of myself, my desires, my needs. My expectations of my future. This means I have to just take what comes to me, prepared to allow its own happening, like a river, around the rocks, knowing I am going somewhere, emptying myself out in more water, but the path is not written, or rigid. It just is and I flow with it.  Shit. All this work; ripping up floors and tearing up warped butcher block, and installing stone and making wholes in the ceiling for fancy lights and painting walls and living with nothing except empty space; this vision board I carefully crafted with times and dates and numbers and photos of rocky coastline and kids playing with chickens; the talks with the realtor in Washington; the dreams of being all cozy and pregnant in warm wool wraps, for the first time not carrying to term in triple degree temperatures, instead birthing with a light snow falling, a fireplace lit, a foggy, marine layer, a winter morning when my child comes to me. Wool socks on. Frost on a window. Broth on the stove.

All this, all this wanting, longing, and still i must become detached.

The wise let go of the self and being free of attachment they depend not on knowledge. Nor do they dispute opinions or fix upon any view. For those who have no wishes for either extreme of becoming, here or in another existence, there is no conflict….
From Sutta-Nipata, teachings of the Buddha.

silly self-portrait. 13 weeks.

May 20 2007

We blame it on Sula.

 She has made it habit this month to come to my belly rub it, lay her soft mushy cheek against it and it say, “Sula wanna a baby, mama.  Where Sula baby?”

 And when I was a week late for my period I thought, how could one get pregnant when one does not even remember having sex.

 Oh yes.  That night.  New Moon beginning to wax.  Moon Blood almost gone, but still there.  Reconnecting after passionate fight about whether I turned the interior light on in the car and forgot to turn it off.  I didn’t.

 I refused to buy more than a dollar store test because I was not going to waste more than a dollar on what I knew could. not. be. possible.  A baby could not be.  A baby of mine needs to be made on the full moon, when my jasmine was ripe, my bunny hopped, my egg floated. When my waves crashed.  Not the NEW moon; this is when I withdrew, then released the hope of life…flowing out of me, in a red river,  not staying in me.

Three.  You’ll be number three.  I am a horrible, horrible, dreadful mother of two and so now I wonder if you will make me a fabulously wonderful and delightful mother of three. What are the chances of that happening?

Three.  Is the Universe fucking kidding me?  I can’t imagine why anyone would have three kids.  At least I can’t imagine why I would.

May 27 2007

 Our babies seem to always come into me on the cusp of great changes. Perhaps so we can see the true meaning of each moment so we don’t hyper-focus on our tasks at hand.  Maybe come to slow us down, telling us that no matter how fast or obsessively we work to achieve our goals, we will have what we need when we need it.  Until then, stop, feel life, let it grow.  Enjoy.

Told Mia we will be having a baby.  Her reaction was not good.  She does not want one.  She does not like them.  According to her I am NOT allowed to have one.  She does not one even a little bit, she says.  Well, you don’t have to want a baby, honey.  That’’s all I say.  Then I quietly shed a tear or two.  It’s going to be hard enough, but with Mia in opposition, it’s going to be hell.

June 20 2007

I am marinating myself in the juice of becoming a full-time mom for the rest of my life.  I cried today on the couch. All day.  This was not supposed to be like this.  By this time in my life, my belly had stopped baking people and I had a part-time helper who made wonderful vegan treats for my kids while I locked my office door for 4 hours a day to make deadlines for super-fabulous publications that actually paid me and subsidized family trips around the world.  I was supposed to get pregnant again in a couple years…or maybe not.  Maybe we would adopt instead.  Being serious about this Earth, this over-populated Earth and living in a country which consumes more than the whole freaking world, we have always felt strong in our commitment to being environmentalists.  And that means not reproducing more than oneself.  Period.  People will argue with me on this and say but its who you reproduce and how they are raised.  I agree with that if you raise you kids to be completely, 100% sustainable…that means totally living off the land.  And as much as I’d like to do that, I won’t be totally doing it.  I think it’s irresponsible of us to go and make another baby when there are too many damn people on this planet in the first place….our biggest problem on Earth is US. So now there is this force in our life, something more than me and my thinking brain that throws that philosophy out the door for us.  A person, a soul wants to be born to us.  We tried to prevent it from happening (sorta, kinda, as much as we could) and it did not work.  Baby wants us and we want baby. As much as I feel torn on this, we want Baby.  This baby is truly beautiful. More than I can even speak of.

June 22 2007

Been puking and having the runs all week.  Can’t eat more than a cracker at a time.  Still my ass gets pregnant and my stomach is bloated.  Last week my size 8 pants fit a bit loose.  This week I cannot get them above my knees.  I can’t believe I am able to hide this from certain family members who live nearby; my hand always drifting to my belly, the delirious haze in my eyes, the ability to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation over a pasta dinner I cannot even begin touch. I am shocked nobody has figured it out.

 I need to do more yoga.

 I need a fat spliff and a cold class of white wine. Three cold glasses of wine.  And morphine would be good, too.

June 23 2007

Now the sickness has traveling into my head, throat and nose.  I sleep sitting up so my sinuses will drain into my stomach.  My shit still runs.  ‘At least you’re shitting,’ Brooke says.  I agree.  But this is extreme. Extreme bathroom.  I cannot go in the car for longer than 5 minutes or else I am in major, major trouble.  When it hits, I gotta get to the toilet in 15 seconds or less.  What kind of life it this? 

 June 27 2007

I heard the heartbeat.  Fast, strong, little heart. There is a baby inside me.  A baby!  It didn’t like the Doppler, didn’t like us observing it beyond the heart or mind-eye and sit wam far inside me, away from the sonar-waves and deep into my womb, so we lost the beat.  But we heard it for a split. I am in love.  Again. Oh, the love…..

June 28, 2007

After a hard week we head north tonight to sleep under the stars.  I am bringing my guitar and singing my babies…all three of them…to sleep.

June 30 ²⁰⁰⁷

Mia still hates babies.  Sula on the other hand loves them and says it was her that put the baby in my belly.  I’m surprised.  She comes up and kissed my belly and loves it.  Mia screams profanities and threatens violence.

So much for singing to my babies camping.  I stayed in the tent and dry heaved all 3 nights once the clock hit 6pm.  All and all it was a beautiful weekend…getting out of this horrible hot place and sleeping under shooting, crumbling, dancing stars and listening to the coyotes party all night long.  It was a breath of freshness, needed RnR.  Mia was so blissful, chasing butterflies, collecting little bits of nature, running up and down mountains trails, singing and laughing.  “I like this camping, Mama.  I don’t want to go home!  Let’s camp all the time!!”  She loves cuddling up close in the tent to stay warm and getting up all cold and dewy before the sun snuck over the mountain and drinking hot tea with me.  Sula was timid, taking some time to warm up to the outdoors.  “Mama, I scared.”  “Of what Sula?”  “The aminals. Aminals live here.” And she points to the thick pine forest.  “They do, Sula, they do.  But they are scared of us.  Don’t worry.”  Still she was cautious, although she began making a game of climbing on every tree fallen from fire or lightening and balancing and jumping.  By the last day she was ready to stay, too.

This makes me so excited to be pregnant in WA. State.  To be in a green wonderland, by the sea, next to the heavy-duty snow covered mountains.  To pregnant they way I have always wanted to be…trail walking, beach yoga, pine forest meditation on a daily basis.  So far I have been city- pregnant and suburb- pregnant…and I have craved nature, to be swallowed up whole by it.  This time, if the stars are with me on this, I will spend the last 4 months of this pregnancy in a place that is wholly pristine.  I long for it.  I need it.

July 4 ²⁰⁰⁷

After reading the kinds homebirth book Welcome With Love for the 50^th time this week, Mia finally said, “Mama, I do want a baby! I do!  Can I use sharp scissors to cut the cord and will daddy make us soup and toast when the baby is born? And can I touch the placenta? ”  Yes, yes, yes!  I had tears in my eyes that I hid.  I tried to remain mellow but I wanted to shout with excitement.  Something clicked and made the whole thing more real, deeper for me.  My firstborn figured out her feelings.  I let her ‘hate the baby’ and threaten to ‘put it back in or squish it’.  I allowed her, without trying to change her mind, to not want another sibling and dislike the idea of having another baby around.  She took time to think about it, about what it could be like.  How it would affect her place in this family.  She kept asking all month, "I was the first one to come out of you, right?" 

The whole time she resisted the idea of another kid, I just told her she could have those feelings, they were strong ones, but I wasn’t surprised because she was a strong girl. I wanted her to want a baby so badly, to take upon nurturer and guide and teacher…but I couldn’t force her to want what I wanted.  I had to detach myself from the idea that she was going to change her tune.  Mia is Mia and I honor her.  I mean, I had to accept that she does not like babies.  I had to accept her claims that she wanted to hit them (after explaining that hitting was not acceptable, of course) And then tonight, the sincerity in her voice when she hugged me and said she did want a baby!  Oh the joy and the peace.  She sounded relieved to just say it.  I am so glad I never tried to talk her into wanting one.  Now I know she came to this on her own.  I felt like Baby sighed relief, too.  I did tell Mia that Baby came to us because Baby knew that she was going to be the big sister, and Baby wanted to be with Mia.  She smiled.  Cuddled close.  We read another book.

 
Baby, I wonder what you will look like?  The day before I took that test, the one that read 2 lines, our friend Jeanette told me she had a dream that I birthed a baby in a green backyard, and that when the baby came out, she had a little face that looked just like Mia.  Perfect.  Round.  Beautiful.  Will you look like your big sister?  Will you get daddy’s sea blue eyes?  Olive skin?  Or porcelin?  Will you be a mellow morning at sea like your Sula or quick and shifting like the windy Mia?  Or will you be all on your own; a star, a twirling galaxy of supernova color.  Who ever you choose to be in this life, I am your mama, and I love you.

Who knows how many times I have written about this, 2 or 10, but Space.  Space.  It’s a concept.feeling.attitude.non-form.light.sound. Word. I have played with in my mind’s life and hear and body for a while now.

While driving through a vast plain in Texas, I decided I would name the yoga and art center I was about to form, Space. doing shots of espresso I had made back in Florida and stashed in a thermos and trying to stay wide awake on my nazi-style road trip of moving from NY back to California in 4 days, Space just came to me.  Just Space.  I’m not sure why I picked it.  Perhaps it was the space in front of me, endless Texas, like I could get lost there forever, defying time.  Maybe I remembered something I heard from a teacher long before about breathing surrender into my muscles so that they become space; losing all form and material memory.  Perhaps it was because at the time (and still) I was obsessed with a space to gather, a place for community to explore, create, bind and find.  To heal and become connected, like a tribe.  Or maybe it was because at that exact moment I was driving my body was creating the ultimate spatial endeavor; transforming me into womb space, a space for life to burst, spark, and bloom into being.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was just barely pregnant with my first child.

As the years have passed, Space has become an even greater question/answer/nothingingness to me.  It has allowed me to grasp the concept that transformation of any kind is entirely possible.  And I mean any kind.  Physical, emotionally, spiritually and all of the above at the same time. To breath. To do and undo.  I equate space with energy.  And because we are all made of energy; the sameness in mixture, matter, potion of life force light, we are all personal and one big giant space.  But are we taking up space? Creating space? Being space?  Moving through it?  Is it fizzling? Vibrating? Is it expanding or retracting?  Is it big enough to hold the whole world?  Or is it compact and closed up; not letting space inside itself?

Today I tried to imagine myself without my body; no bones, no organs, no name, no face, no history.  I became space, an energetic field of space, soul space, my space, universal space.  But today, what does my space look like?  What does it give or take from others?  Today I think my space sorta sucked, it was darker, drearier, fuzzy, unsure of itself. It wanted to me left alone to turn from dark black to gray and look for its color, which speckles where hidden and wanting to emerge.  Then a little later, as I hiked through the White Mountains of Arizona, it began to move quietly, looking for anything to blend with; tree, bird, sky and at the same time trying to burn through anything that took too much space and kept me from moving to my Truth; desire, expectation, need  It tried to stay detached from positive and negative space, and just be space, but that wasn’t easy or possible it seemed, but it never stopped trying, or being, it was always space, never failing. And around my space was piercing nothing, a shield of absent space, of light…or maybe even a shield I am still using to protect space.  Don’t know.

I don’t want to be a space that takes to much room, but I want to be a space that offers as much as I can.  I want to let down my walls of material so i can feel this space life more. It’s floaty rightness, it’s light speckled ness, it utterly orbital magic.  I want to look up at the sky at night and really feel as above so below, as without, so within.

Just thinking that I am space and you are space, both made of the same stuff, it helps me in this constant process of change and movement.