misplaced mama

I am not everything I write, or everything I feel, I just am. In moments of the recklessness, the chaos, the unkempt, the profane, in those moments when i speak to myself with a fist in the air and snarl on, I settle down in the Sacred. I become True Self.  It has found me. There are no lessons or teachings or paths to go down except to listen.  I listen.  And sometimes I write.  Sometimes I think about what to write and other times I just write.  And sometimes I just rejoice and give thanks and most of the time I do it all at once, because life is crazy like that.  As I don’t file my paperwork, I don’t file my emotions.  They are in one big bottomless box.  Dig in and pull out.   I am lost and found in many different moments of motherhood.  Each one I hold with reverence and equality.  I am in no rush vanish the darkness.  It is my teacher, and although there is space when I will move on from it, for now it lingers.  And I take the pressure of myself to Feel Better or the opposite of Depressed.  I can’t hold either of these two differently. 

I think of the winter here and how really dark it is.  It’s wet and emotional, muddy and messy.  It’s the underbelly, the shadows, the wind, the water.  The sun does not show it’s form until late; 8:30am.  And it goes away by 4pm.  That is the truth of the winter, it’s just dark.  But if only I had the words to describe the vibrancy of the green and the purples and the oranges and whites and the pinks and the yellows and the blues that hip-hop around me right now; a jubilee of fruity-pebble summer time electricity to roll in for hours.  This vibrancy would never be possible, this amazing shit right out my bedroom window, the true definition of Green.  Without those months of dark gray drizzle and sitting inside the center and waiting out the storms, it could never be like this.  The winter is no different than the summer; different expression of the same ego-less Force.

 ***

How did I end up here?  The Pinnacle.  The Peak.  Acme. The place where I look out my door and see Koma Kulshan (aka mt. baker) and hear the dance of rivers and creeks and waterfalls and the song of coyotes?  This place where tonight a spotted owl landed right on a tree branch in my yard and we looked eye to eye for what seemed like forever.  Magic and astral planes, witchery and wisdom, nocturnal secrets of the milky way and the bottom of the forest floors. How did we land in this speck of a town where people of all sorts live together; mix and match all types and you get a rural melting pot, a celebration of diversity yet with a common thread: we all love it here.  And not one person have I met that I have not liked.  This is something new for me.

There is park on the next ‘block’ over behind the elementary school, which is really a step away from being a cozy one-room schoolhouse.  We went there the other day, to play at the park and to get the info I needed from the school regarding being a part-time homeschooler (the actually subsidize you for taking your children’s education into your own hands).  And I have to say, I could even send the girls there, as a matter of fact, it’s the wamest and sweetes public school I have ever been in.  And they appauld you, support you, encourage you for homeschooling, inviting you to partake in their resources when you want/need.   What seems like a fight in other places, seems to natural and easy here.  Country folk tend to be a bit radical.  Perfect.

At the park we ate blueberries fresh picked and carrots from our friends at Uprising Organics.  We ran in the open field and climbed on the park gear which is somewhere between safe and not-safe and I like that fact a lot.   We heard a racket coming from the thick green forest that encircles the back of the school.  Some boys came barreling through lugging a skate ramp and rail, a bomb box, and extension cords.  They were 9 or 10 years old and showed off their tricks for us as an unidentified punk band blared through their speakers. 

 We played hopscotch under the shelter of the outdoor yet waterproof basketball court.  And we stumbled up on this message in chalk.

” /> 

 Indeed, to the kid who is proud of their simple town; we agree.  Acme rocks.  Peace and love.  I have heard the stories of the small tribe here and I hold them to my heart, fiercely protecting this new home.  You won’t read much of it here.  You just have to come and visit to know how special it is.

***

The blackberries in the front and the apples trees in the back are bursting with sweet and sour life.  We pick them like it’s our career, carry baskets of berries in to be washed and bags of apples to the butcher block to be chopped.  Blackberry-apple muffins are a staple this week.  Apple crisp and blackberry syrup soothe our sweet teeth.   We walk to the Post Office and the girls take turns getting to unlock our box and retrieving the mail.  On the way back we stop in the cafe for a berry shake.  We go home and collapse under the cedar tree in lactose overload, aching but happy bellies.

A couple days ago we started out on mysterious adventure heading north and ended up at a horse farm and signed up for lessons and a hand holding as we walk our way to the soon to come day that we own our own horses.  Mia turns 5 soon and besides a tool box and a sewing machine, she would like a horse. First things first, and so we begin to learn about these big hearted creatures.  She seemed satisfied with that and we start riding together next month. Then we ended up in an converted airstream trailer turned hair salon at the base of the Tall White Mountain.  J, our stylist, gutted the place and had a handy person install gorgeous muted stamped silver ceiling tiles, black and white checkboard floors, an antique barber chair and freestanding stove that once belonged on a boat.  We all have new haircuts and got them in the coolest place I have ever gotten my haircut.  Mia has a mullet to even out her self-inflicted chop months back and Sula got her first little trim (besides what Mia had done to her with the kiddy scissors). Bright red now peeps out from underneath my  mane and strands of rope-like dreads form in the back.

***

Mia and Sula both start school this week.  Mia will spend two days a week at a homeschooling cooperative (Three Rivers School) that is nestled a top a hill, what was once an old chicken farm is now an earth-based, environmentally and socially conscious centered school  It’s my dream come true, where alternative education comes with no dogma or agenda; just a space to learn and feel supported while we all raise and teach these kids in the most creative and liberating and compassionate ways. It’s only about 10 minutes away so it’s perfect. Sula will be saturated in dogma at a local Waldorf preschool for 2 days a week, but it’s sweet and peach and warm and smells lovely and will be a perfect for her soft and whimsical little soul.  She often dances on other planes while the rest of us chug along in the reality.  She needs a place of her own, without Mia, for only her.  She can make her own friends and bake bread and swirl paper with water colors.  It’s safe and peaceful and that’s all i ask for that sweet girl until she is old enough to go to Three River School.

I can see, just around the bend,  I will have some Time.  Some spaces in my days will be missing one or two of the girls and I can manuever throughout with just one arm full.  This will be big.  Autumn arriving and to have a schedule and some time alone.  Three kids has been a lot for me.  I am humble in this journey,  I am the first to admitt I have close to drowned on many occassions by the love and guts of parenting.  One kid I thought was huge for the heart, and it is.  With two kids I thought I would just burst with love and awe and insanity.  But three?  Three girls?  Holy shit.  To all the mamas with three girls, wow.  Wow.  I walk with you as my teachers.  I always knew it would be hard.  I always knew I’d have to work to get us out and into the car and to a place to hike or play or learn or shop.  I always knew I’d be the mom that forgot things like snacks or water or flippin wipes for god sakes, and I am.  I am so the mom whose car has nothing but useless toys scattered on the floor and not a drip of water to drink. I feel lucky when we all get somewhere alive.  Fuck the diaper bag I left on the front porch. But I am slowly figuring it out, seven months later, I am finally feeling the weight of all these people lift and becoming this one, this person here I joked about back then. It has not been easy.  Sometimes it hasn’t even been fun.  But for the most part, I see how it has been full of leaping into love.  Especially days like today, where we spent it here. 

The chains are loosening.  I am re-remembering who I can be, the strength and the capacity I have to endure the mundane, the tantrums, the lonlieness, the messiness, the beauty, the wild times.  I have it.  I am it.  I fill myself with purple: authority.  I wear a pair of of early 80’s cowgirl boots and I yell and I hug and curl up on the grass and tell stories.  From behind the curtain I peak out and I see.  I see.  I see.

 " />