misplaced mama

(disclaimer: this is totally and utterly unedited.  sorry.) 

 

I have gotten some of the nicest comments on my blog this week after I wrote that rant about the book I am reading.

 

I told you it was a really good piece.

 

It was a rant. But I can’t write anything else.  After I proclaim I am giving myself permission to be a writer and take the time, I have nothing to say.  I am as dried up as an old crone.

 

Well, just write something now. 

 

No.  Because If I write something now, it will just be to bitch about you and how I want to leave you.

 

So, go ahead.

 

No.  I don’t feel like it.  You aren’t that inspiring.

 

Want me to slap you for some inspiration?

 

No.

 

Want me to pinch your nipples?

 

No.

 

Dance around naked?

 

No.

 

Run down the street, dancing, naked, proclaiming my love for you?

 

No. (although that I would like to see.)

 

Dance around naked with a fruit cocktail?*

 

No. Gross.

 

And here, my friends.  This is what I am faced with.  Nothing to say and a husband who is annoying the shit outta me.

 

*to find out what a fruit cocktail is (in case you don’t know) rent Silence With Lambs.  The scene where that one crazy murderer dude (not Hannibal) is dancing, naked, in front of the mirror….and notice what he did with his private parts…that’s a fruit cocktail.  Yeah.  Gross.

 

An update on life.

 

 I would post photos but somewhere in the move I have lost the charger for my camera battery.  Nothing like having a fancy camera and can’t take pictures with it.  Especially on a day like today when the sun is pounding down light,  the air crisp but now cold, the water waves with light.  I become flooded with gratitude after 3 days of dreariness and then this gift of sunny brilliance.  When it is sunny here, it is beyond words of beauty. Perhaps the gift of here is that; to surrender with ease to the gray time and celebrate the lightness. I am so much more aware of myself with these daily shifts in weather.  I can’t believe I lived in a place where the weather change was so subtle it was work to notice it.  I lost my connection with nature a bit.  I feel it coming back.  I need the ups and downs.  Living under a spotlight of sun is a blessing, but there are times when I need to dark womb of reality to capture me allow me to gestate a bit. 

 

 Mia and her dad spent the day in outskirts of town picking up a cord of firewood.  Enough wood to last us the whole winter.  My dreams of cuddling with the new baby in front of the fire, sipping Pho broth and melting into bliss are coming true.  We have the fireplace.  The wood.  Now I can visualize where and how baby will be brought to me. 

 

We saw our new midwife today.  It was our second appointment.  I am breaking through the stress of not knowing her since the beginning of the pregnancy.  I can honestly say I really like her and trust her presence.  She is mellow and laid back.  Her hands our gentle and I could feel her conscious breath in and out while she pressed into my belly, carefully feeling for the baby.  Though in the back of my mind and heart, there is a part of me that wants her to show up right after the baby comes out.  Not that I don’t want her there, but then again, I may just want us there.  We’ll see how it all goes.  Until then, I feel safe with her and that is all I ask for.  What I admire in her is her balance and even personality. She rides a medium wave at all times, not getting jolted by the bigger ones. I think if I tree came crashing down and smashed through her window, she’d be the kind that wouldn’t even jump.  She’s just look over her shoulder and say, ‘wow, that’s some tree.” 

 

The baby had a heart murmur about 3 times during a three minute cycle with the Doppler.  I know this is normal and will easily go away but it brought up intense emotion for me.  I feel like baby was mirroring my heart right now; telling me it hurts and it needs to be opened.  That baby was saying, Mama, stretch your arms out wide, look up to the sun and roar like a lion.  Open your heart and let the fire burn through.

 

And so, even though Baby is going to be okay, Baby wants me to be okay. I can’t blame anyone for a closed heart, so I take this as my responsibility as my own. My husband cannot fix it.  My kids cannot fix it. A healer cannot fix it.  It is my heart, I made it.  I let it get closed somehow and so now it’s my journey to open it.  First I am trying to figure out why it feels so hard and closed.  Perhaps I have been in protection mode, trying not to feel so sad about leaving behind what I did love about the desert; those souls who linger there, those people who made me realize why I even stopped there for those three years.  Maybe my heart is closed because I don’t let my husband in, and I don’t see all the ways he tries.  Maybe it’s because I feel the stir of the Universe, this world and it’s pain; it’s full of suffering right now and there is no denying it.  I can’t live in ignorant bliss of war and poverty and children being made into slaves and killers.  I feel it right in my heart.  I am not separate from it.  Maybe it’s just closed from years and years of being me; tough, strong, intense.  Maybe I need to be vulnerable, finally.  Soft and mushy.  So I listen to baby’s heart go thump thump thump(…..)thump thump thump(…..)thump thump thump(…..) and so on.  That fourth beat,  missing.  Interesting that the heart resides in the fourth chakra and the fourth beat was missing.  I will listen to baby, work on opening that gushy redness of my center, open it up and let the love shine in.  And out. It is my new intention.  All else will follow.

 

Baby is also feet down.  All my kicks are way deep down in the pelvis.  Little feet kicking away.  But that’s all and good.  Head will be down soon enough.  Head down, chin to chest, spine facing mama’s belly.  Unless of course, Baby needs another way to get out here safely.  Of course, Baby, whatever way you need.

 

Mia had orientation at her new preschool today, The Loving Space.  It’s an old craftsman, restored in vibrant colors, a magical garden, kick-ass rope-bridges and climbing gear, a sand yard, lots of animals…and most of all love.   It’s a mixed soup combining Montessori, Steiner, Bev Bos, and Emilio Reggerio, but mostly they are rooted in the way of Love.  I like that.  They are also big on exploration.  It’s a place where kids can explore, get dirty and messy and be loud and get comfortable with themselves.  They have a loose schedule, but allow the child to do what the child needs to do at that given moment/day.  It always a child to feel power in their own feelings and choices.  My body really good there, much better than at the Waldorf in Phoenix or the Co-op school in Scottsdale.  Both lovely places, but each leaving me a bit unsettled every day that I dropped Mia off. At Loving Space, the smell of fresh bread is always in the air, paint is splattered everywhere, and a guinea pig waddles around the cozy carpeted reading and ‘quiet’ room.  This month the theme is community; so there are little stations set up around that foster that feeling.  Mia needs a place where she can experience herself without us.  This is hard for me to say, a homeshooler at heart.  But my mama intuition tells me to let my beautiful little bird go…time for her to fly.  Just 2 days a week, 4 hours a day.  For now.

 

 And Sula.  Little gift.  While dada and Mia were wood gathering, Sula and I were at the park, counting squirrels and sliding down slides.  We were playing chase, falling down in piles of leaves, laughing and tickling.  We walking and talking and looking out at the bay and trying to spot sea lions.  We were sitting in the Co-op drinking frothy steamers and eating pumpkin muffins and listening to a jazz duo play drums and keyboards.  I really look forward to the time I will have with Sula while Mia is in school and before baby comes.  Sula is truly is my gem, my mystery of the underworld; so peaceful and easy, so lovely and yet also so strong, dark and magical.  She holds her own and owns her light.  I learn from her all the time.  I look at her and wish I was like her; her deep set eyes and wide smile.  Her ability to just go “humph” and swing her arms down by her side when things ‘don’t go her way’.  She gets this life more than me, she tackles it and dances with it.  Her and I need each other and our solo time together is so rare. I asked her today, when the baby comes, who will I love? She replied as I hoped, Sula! Mia! And BABY! Yes.  So much love to go around.

 

And now I overcome with the urge to write a poem.  For my new one, turning all around me inside.  I think maybe baby just went sidewise.  That’s okay.  This one is for you baby (forgive me because I am certainly not a poet and don’t think I ever will be, but still, it’s for you.)

 

Baby

You make me

New and Big and fat

Ever expansive.

I grow and grow

Room for your

Colossal size

Beauty and dignity

Humor and magic

Valley wide spirit

Rock solid love

 

There’s no squeezing you

My insignifigantly

Small self

Had to widen

Every last part

To be filled

With such

Sensational

Grandness

Mountain Majesty

Spectacular as a star

No tiny spark of sun ray

But a sea

Of flaming sunshine.

 

 

You are strength

I have never known

And my fear

Of endless clothe diapers

Sinking in quicksand

Sleeplessness

Sore nipples

Ugly bras

Selflessness

Identity and body theft

Mothering too much

Too long

Is gone.

 

You have nothing to prove

You are already

Everything

all that is

And ever will be

I am all that is

Ever will be

And we will provide

Sleep

Support

Community

Guidance

Style

Time and space

An extraterrestrial

Cleaning service

The house will shine and

We will not be smothered

In duties and chores

And stress

But in pure

Easy

Easy

Easy

Love.

 

This

stubborn mama has

Crack wide open

Like an egg

Out pours

Golden light

Spilling and dripping

Illuminations

You have climbed inside

Navigated this light

From one place to the next

You have guided us

And we didn’t even know it

At the time

We listened

To you

And your subtle knockings

Whisperings

Of wisdoms

Of  wants.

 

 

Please excuse me

For looking at

photos of my ass

Snapped

Three months before

you were made.

Staring

In longing

and wonder

Will I ever again? Ever?

And forgive me

For only spending

A dollar on that pregnancy test

In May.

We were being cheap

In denial.

You deserved more

Than a dollar store test.

 

That same day

I am sorry for crying

A lifeless heap

On the bedroom floor

For hours 

While your dad

laid tiled

Pretending I did not

 Just say

Two lines.

We are sorry

And now we laugh

At our stupidity

Utter ignorance

Your divine presence

Is obvious

Looking through

The fog

We get it

We asked for you

Longed for you

Manifested the universes

Greatest blessing

You lifted us

Shared

Wise Wide

White wings

You whispered

Defy gravity, take flight.

And we did.

It was you

You

You

You

 

Don’t know your life plan

Or what the stars

Have in mind or in line

For you

But I will live it

Watching

Witnessing

Waiting to see

Where you will fly

Like a dove

Bringer of peace

In cosmic disorder

Of tribal rhythms

Union of all

Feminine and masculine

In one dance

In a new time

Breathing a new kind of air.

 

I do believe your charm and

Your glisten

Silly little grin

Will be all

Anyone ever needs

To grow and know

To desire

To follow this riddle

This mysterious

Ride in life.

You are a teacher.

No doubt.

 

But I will rewind

And come back

To this moment

This time

And I feel you right now

Poke and jab

And flip and flutter

And hiccup

And then sit perfectly still

Inside.

 

And I am captivated

By you

By your willingness

To be part of

Us.

 

I love you.

mama