misplaced mama :: Psycho Babble

fear of flying.

July 21, 2008

I’m home. In more ways than one. Being gone, away from my family for that long is something I just don’t love. But on the othside of things, I know that part of my path is to move, to be with people I love, to spread health and hold them on their journey. And if that means I have to be away from the kids, then so be it. It makes me a better person to open myself up to others, and in turn, that makes me a better mother.

Mothering my mother wasn’t easy. I tried to think back on how she nursed me as a child while I was sick. There was lot of just letting be, but there were times of tougher love. Like when my fever was so high and my throat so swollen and she insisted that I drink fluids. I’d resist, but she’d insist. Just a drop, a little drop, she’s say. And so I said, just a drop, just a little drop. just a bite, a tiny bite. just a walk, a short walk. It’s uncomfortable to reverse roles and at the same time it’s beautiful, full circle. Giving what I was given is the ultimate gift.

Stay tuned for more talk on berries and all the wonderous things to make with them, living simply and slowly and how this is the hardest thing I’ve had to do, and more adventures on the path to spin fire. Until then, here is a crazy-ass story about my trip.

I’m just not good at flying. Rewind. What I mean to say it I am not good at is being a passenger on a plane.

Although I have been soaring the friendly skies on commercial airlines since I was a baby, it was around the age of fifteen when I realized, I hated it. Taking off over the endless Pacific, from California back to New York by myself, I found myself writing in my journal: We could crash. Oh my god. We could crash right now. Well, what other way to die? Sucked into the hole of the big blue sea? I can almost hear the silence of plane hitting the water now As a matter of fact I am sure I’m going to die. This big piece of tin is sparong through the air. It’s not a bird. It shouldn’t be up here. There were so many things I wanted to do before I dropped into the blueness, the death, my death….

Morbid.

Unless I am using my own wings, I just don’t like it. I do it, it’s a necessary ‘evil’ in my life. But I much rather be on the ground or on a boat. I like feeling time pass as I travel. Not zipping by. I like to see things at a human speed, the trees, the road, the people. I like to enter new timezones with some warning, watching the transition from forest, to plains to desert, to sea. I don’t like the dreaminess of the clouds below me, not knowing what I am above. Bottom line: I want more control. I want to be able to stop off at an exit and hit a greasy dinner for a grilled cheese and a shake and a take a photo of a random sign and know that I am in This Town now. And flying tricks me into a new time, a time that my body rejects.

About a week before take off, the anxiety assaults every part of my life; wake time, dream time, in between time. Before I had kids, I just popped pills and did whiskey shots. It was the one time meditation never worked. Nope. Good old drugs were the only thing that settled me into that seat without clawing the strangers flesh next to me. Once I am drunk, I didn’t care I was 20,000 feet above the earth.

But I can’t very well get trashed with three kids in tow, one of them breastfeeding. So my soultion has been an OCD-esque ritual and visualization.

I get on the plane. Settle the kids. I close my eyes and face my palms up. I watch the plane in my mind’s eye and surround with light, a light that I see coming from the inner most core of the universe, not just any old white light, folks, but The Light. The Light that protects all things from all things, the light that never ceases, never dims, never dies. ANd once the plane is illuminated, bright as the stars, it;s time to call down the winged folk.

Arch-Angel Micheal is the head man at the nose of the plane. He winks at me as he holds on to the front, tells me he has a good grip. He’s muscular and gorgeous and utterly doable. I imagine him to look like the hot one on Lord of The Rings. The blond hot one, not Viggo. His wings are massive and stark white. Then the beautiful goddess angels come on down with their iridescent wings. The head to either side of the plane and hold on to it’s wings, two for each wing. These creatures are otherwordly, curved and ancient, crytal eyes and firey red hair. The look at me and smile; don’t worry M, we have it, we’ll hold her steady for you. And finally the gender neutral being, this creature, wild and huge, my protector with scaley skin and flaxen hair, long nails, and 20 arms, just a wild colorful thing, takes the back end. I’ll never let go, it tells me, precious cargo.

And then take off. And I must say my prayer. If anyone, child or flight attendant, or person who knows me who happens to be on the same flight sitting behind me (this happened once) even tries to talk to me, they get firmly told to just wait, unles they want to die, until I am done with my prayer. My prayer is my own version of a childhood favorite, The Hail Mary:

Hail Mary, full of grace

We are thee

Blessed are those among women

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb

Holy Mary Mother of All

Hold us now and forever

Oooooommmmmmm

Blasphemous I know. But the original version just isn’t for me me anymore with all that sin and death and god talk. I feel okay about switching it around. It’s my ritual, my flight, my fear. My prayer.

Last Wednesday I got on a plane in Bellingham and headed to Mesa, AZ with all three kids. I proceeded to the same thing once everyone was settled in the seat. I had Mia do the visuals with me, made it fun for her, never leading on to why I had angels come down and carry the plane. She just assumed that’s how planes must fly. I’ll leave it to her father to explain engines and such.

And we were off.

Things didn’t feel right.

So I thought maybe it was because I was ready to drop of my two big girls in Arizona with family and leave them, taking the baby to NY with me. I was going to miss them. I don’t like being away from my girls, not even for a whole day let alone a whole week. A week is a very long time. I left them one other time for a week, but they stayed home with their dad. Maybe things felt uneasy because I know I had just begun the journey back to my hometown to be with my mother, scared of how I was going to find her. Two months had past since the last time I had seen her and her body was now three quarters filled with Chemo and perhaps the results would shock me; the hairlessness, the skin and bones, the red checks, the fatigue.

I felt tense, more tense than usual.

A man stood, ruffling through the overhead compartment, A flight attendant stood by with a concerned look on her face. She was glancing at the attendant that sat behind me (we were the very last seat on the plane, in front of the bathroom and the flight attendants seat). The man got what he was searching for in his bag, a small cardboard box, and he sat back down.

Another man got up. He walked to the bathroom (behind me) and on the way he smiled at Z. I smiled back. As he shut the door another man walked up to the bathroom to wait. He stood for a moment. The seat belt light went one. A flight attendant approached him. I felt her stress. Sir, I need you to wait for the bathroom in your seat, the caption has turned on the fasten seat belts. We’ll let you know when the bathroom is unoccupied.

He went back to his seat. The man in the bathroom comes out and sits down in his row, 6-7 seats in front of mine. I can easily see the back of his head, wrapped in religious garb, not sure but I am assuming, a Sikh.

Over the loudspeaker, before anyone could get up to know occupy the vacant toilet: Attention passengers, our lavatories are closed. They are both malfunctioning. We apologize, but nobody is to use the bathroom until further notice.

Mama, I gotta poop. Maaaamaaaa, I gotta poooooop.
Sweetie. Not now. I am concerned. I am intuitive. I feel the stress on this plane. I look around. Everyone else seems fine, happy, dandy.
I am concerned. I am intuitive. I feel the stress on this plane. I look around. Everyone else seems fine, happy, dandy.

I sit and wait. I am hyper aware of what the attendants are doing. Back and forth they travel down the aisle. Hushed phone calls. Whispers. One of them whispers to the man directly next to me across the aisle, a long haired from grunge town. He nods his head. He carries a slight, painted on smile across his face. Minutes pass. She whispers again to him.

Finally. What the fuck is going on? Perhaps I didn’t say the F word, holding Z in my arms, I tend not to swear, but the word rang in my voice. I knew something was up. I knew something felt wrong.

The attendant walks away. The man across from me ensures me all is okay, he is just has to keep an eye out for the bathroom, making sure nobody goes in it.

Oh. For a moment that sounded okay. Made sense. He’s back here next it with me. He can be a guard for the supposed over-flowing shit water.

More whispers. More walking. More hushed phone calls.

No, this is still not right. My whole body tenses. My heart is pounding. Mia is crying that her ears are “puffy”.

We seem to be about 2 or so hours into the flight. Only about a ½ hour to go.

I double check where the girls are, because where I am is not good. My palms are sweating. My throat is lumped. I have this bizarre smile on my face, plastered. In my heart, I know I am going to be okay, feel this deeply, but somewhere in between my heart and my head that feeling is shifted and I am quite sure this is it: we’re going down.

Mia is still complaining about her clogged ears, “puffy, mama! Yawning doesn’t work!” I pass her come. She seems pleased with this. Chew baba, chew the gum and your puffy ears will pop open.”

Sula is happily drawing her spirals on the pad of paper. Over and over again she draws little circular shapes, tiny, intricate. They remind me of the end of a fire dance, the small signatures that I spun just as the fire was going out. Somewhere between sand swirls and Sanskrit. I get lost in her spirals, wondering if these will last time I will see her draw. She looks up at me and smiles. And in her silly little voice reminds me, Mama I gotta go poo. I tell her the bathroom is still broken, but not to worry, soon.

I crank my body all the way around. I demand to know what going on.

The attendants look at each other. They look at me.

And then I hear a whole lot of words like: tipped off, suspicious activity, bomb scares, don’t worry, we stopped them, surprise landing, police, back door, arrests….

I look to the man across from me. Is everything going to be alright, I more beg than ask. Yeah, I hope so. I think it’s just a bad case of profiling. At least I hope it is. I hope. They asked me to watch a man a few rows up, to see what he was doing with his hands, so far he just has them folded on his lap. But he did have some kind of box earlier…

And all I could say was I will never fly again.

And so to make a long story a bit shorter. We did a crazy-ass landing, heading down, and then back up and then straight back down. in silence, no warning, no friendly voice on the speaker telling us we were descending into the hot-ass desert with temperatures hot enough to cook a small baby. The back doors flew open and Police came storming on the plane, five darker skin men were arrested. The rest of the plane spoke in whispers, looking around, not knowing what was happening. We’re sorry about this, but due to unusual circumstances, please stay seated on the aircraft until we inform you it is safe to leave. Five men in cuff walk by me, I try to look in their eyes. If you are all innocent men, I am so sorry, so sorry for this humiliation. If you’re not and you want to hurt me and my kids, I’ll fucking kill you.

Twenty minutes later and 5 condoms, tied and filled with a little liquid were removed from the garbage of the bathroom that was directly behind my seat. Can my daughter go to the bathroom now? Yes, yes. Go ahead. As we squeeze back around them, I see they are wearing the gloves, holding on to the condoms.

As we squeeze back around them, I see they are wearing the gloves, holding on to the condemns.

Condoms?

Not just condoms.

I get it. I think. I’m just never flying again.

Ma’am, please don’t be scared to fly. We are in the business of keeping you safe. It’s our job.

Oh yeah, I get it. I get it. My whole body shaking as I try to get the kids off the plane and walk down the steps onto the runway. The air here is thick with heat, that long ago yet fimilar sensation of stepping into an oven; my breath has to deepen to fill my lungs, my eyes have to squint from the rays. I take on a whole new meaning of sweat.

Wow! It’s hot here, Mama!!! I’m so hot!

In somewhat of a state of shock, we begin our stay in the desert for a few days. The whole time I call the airlines to get information on what happened, what was in the condoms, who the men were. But there was no info to be given. I took upon the Anxious, The Scared, The Stressed. I felt like I was suffering post-trauma stress. I actually thought about renting a car and just driving me and the girls back home, back to my little safety net of a home; bright and yellow and filled with flowers and rivers streaming…and berries, all those berries! The light winds of the valley, the twinkling of sun bouncing of the green leaves and mountainsides, the mountains that surround and protect me…I wanted to go back. How quickly my No Fear and my I Don’t Give A Shit get erased by my utter humanness, my fragility, my need to stay alive.

I had to mine for the amount of trust I needed to continue on, climbing on four more planes until I was to finally be back home. If it wasn’t the thought of my mother waiting for me in her chair back in NY, I’d never stepped onto that plan going East. And if it wasn’t for the love and desire I had to be back with the big girls, I’d never would have stepped foot on that plane going back West. And that final ride, the thought of my home, here, my man…I just took a breath and got on it. My rituals done with more reverence and faith.

And so here is what Allegiant Air finally has to tell me: We couldn’t connect any of the men on the flight to the items found in the trash. As for the items (the condoms) found, we are still researching and getting information on that.

And so my questions are: extreme paranoia and racial profiling? A true threat to our lives? A huge mistake? A lesson for me to trust Fate; when it’s my time to crash, I just might.

sex. (a rant i will regret posting no doubt)

May 4, 2008

When I was contacted by Current TV last month to be part of a project involving the dictation of sex diaries in a nifty little digital-cam I asked, why?

Why on earth would anyone be interested in the sex life of an 8 week post-partum mother of three? A post-partum depressed new mother of three? What sort of sick show is this?

Our viewers are just about on the cusp to commit, to marriage and perhaps parenthood. This can give them a taste of what it’s really like.
***
In glimpses here and there, for the last month, I’d share into a small digital camera. I’d go on walks through the woods when the big girls snoozed in the double stroller and the littlest one bound tightly around my front, drooling into my cleavage and I would talk into a camera while hiking up a hill. Sometimes in the car a thought would come to me and I’d pop open The Flip, knowing the hum of the road passing underneath would be heard on the recording making myself less than audible. At night I’d sneak into the bathroom and sit on the floor privately sharing my thoughts on sex. Regard less of where I was, the same thing usually came out of my mouth, before anything else: shit, I’m tired…And then I’d continue to talk but never really about my sex life because, I’ll be honest here, I don’t have one. Not really, not yet. Not in the typical penetration, body entwined with body, orgasmic kind of way. And that’s a taste of what it’s really like. I am exactly 3 months post-partum now and I can honestly say that sex isn’t the last thing on my mind, but it certainly isn’t the first, or the tenth, or the twentieth either. From 1 to 100, it’s got to be about 65 and perhaps that was obvious in my so-called Sex Diaries. At one point when communicating with the Creative Force in charge of this Current TV project, she mentioned that she was interested in quality over quantity.

For a moment there I wanted to scream: QUALITY? Like how utterly sexy it is to drink 1 cup of nasty tasting oils and a handful of pills and a million drops of tincture every morning, hoping and praying the despair and depression stay away for one more day? Sexy like having so many dirty dishes exploding out of the sink, nothing is left in the drawers and cupboards, leaving the only clean thing to cut apples is a newly sharpened filet knife? And how sexy it was to the get cut by a filet knife, blood dripping on apples, but being in such a hurry that I just licked the blood off and served it to them anyway? And the the sexy 5 small meals and 2 baths (none of which were for me), 3 loads of laundry, a trip to 2 different markets, one stop at a kids creative movement class, 24 ounces of milk production and feeding (in an array of on-the-go positions), exactly ½ hour to check emails, get a smidge of writing done, pay bills and meet with a mortgage broker (with all three kids) before finally getting to have some down time playing 2-4 year old style dress-up in play silks that smelled like someone had rubbed them with week old cottage cheese? How sexy is that? But for some real quality I better talk about the steamy hot sex I had in 17 different positions in 3 different rooms with 6 full orgasims and after we were done, we continued to have hours of afterplay that turned into foreplay and then we did it again and can you believe that none of the girls woke up to my high volume ecstatic moans or his primal grunts? Or did she want more of a realistic sense of quality; we fucked for 6.7 minutes and then passed out cold but hey, at least we fucked and maybe even a little milk squirted him in the eye…he likes that. Or even more along the lines of a full-time mother quality; I finally agreed to blow him after ½ hour of listening to his whining and begging for me to get him off and the whole time all i could think about was if my favorite pair of pants that fit where in the dryer or still in the wash.

And yet none of those sex scenes make up the quality meat in my life. Except the passed out cold part. And so that is what my month long of sex diaries was about: the truth. Personal truth is quality.

Recording almost every day for a month wasn’t easy, especially since most days I have to fight for time to take a piss in private. So what the camera will play back is the real me, my real life. And I just assume my realness has got to be quite disturbing for those who have a different vision of what living as a sexual being and a new mother is like; those who think sex lives won’t change and their libido won’t shift and their attraction to the person they used to throb for has turned into a distant pitter. I don’t know many mothers in my post partum position who are wearing garter belts to bed, holding a big old dildo in one hand and handcuffs in the other (If you are? Can I come over?) and having video quality sex let alone sex on a regular basis at all. And really, sex isn’t even close to what I want right now, it’s not what my body or soul or spirit asks for. And I am not suggesting that’s what anybody was dmeanding of me to diary about, but I highly doubt they ("the creatives" for the vlogging) got what they thought they wanted by inviting me to participate. My fantasies involve using big-people words again and sleeping eight hours straight and someone inventing a self-cleaning kiddy potty. The small bits of my life that I shared for this project were rooted in the moment, interrupted most of the time, sloppy all of the time, bags under the eyes and knotty hair, wearing the same clothes day after day, cervical cap untouched in original box: this is what my life is.

Now it wasn’t always like this, it’s not like I am some unkempt prude.

I won’t go into my sexual history, but for the first 27 months of my relationship with my man we just stayed in bed full-time, and it was the kind of love that was best-seller how-to-book hot. I had fallen into a pit of hot lava love. Something about his double Scorpio nature, his drummer and sculptor hands, his tattoos, his deep sea diving, his adoration for a girl with a bottom, his ability to flip a record over while inside me, and his obvious devotion to even the most manic parts of me; I. Could. Not. Get. Enough. And apparently neither could he. We did 3 times a night. We did it 2 more times in the morning. We’d call in sick to fuck during El Nino season. We’d tangle in passion on fallen trees and at the beach, in small resorts and under the stars in a yellow tent. We did it on friend’s floors and parent’s bathrooms. We used toys and foods and fabrics and wax. We did not have three small children. I don’t even think we had a dog yet.

And now that we do have kids? What could I possibly reveal on camera that could compare to the romping of our early twenties? Or the long tantric evenings just before the kids were conceived? The funniest thing is I never had to speak (on camera) of what life was like after kids. I’d start to talk about anything sex-in-theme on camera and would be interrupted within 1 minute by a crying baby, a screaming toddler standing in a puddle of pee, or a child frantically trying to pull too small tights over their too big jeans. The camera got turned on and off, cutting my streams of thought in half and then in half again, to attend to a child. Quality thoughts turned into many small and randomd snipets; it became quantity. The quality needs to be found inside the bits and pieces of my fragmented life.

But there has been an awakening that happened for me with motherhood. And it’s good and real, too and I would be doing a diservive to myself and all mothers who allowed themselves to ripen and ruby as they became initiated.

There is a strong and not so subtle sexuality that motherhood seems to harvest. Underneath the spit-up and yellow grainy poops, the elastic waistbands that now fill the wardrobe, and the collection of “comfy” shoes on the shelf, the glam-less eyelashes looking into the rearview mirror behind the seat of the minivan and in between making almond butter banana boats, there is a cord running from my head down through my root, pulsing with a new kind of Hot. It’s raw and different, not billboard model or lingerie catalogue or Betty Page pin-up or adult movie star. It’s more like the suppleness of velvet, the interior flesh of the womb has been molded and lived in and even though it’s empty now, it’s redness, it’ spiral, it’s secret has become me. I have had something, a taste of the apple, a chance at creation, a reason to moan life forth and the guts to stand there and do it; knowing well enough I am playing the game of Life and Death but caring so much that I decide to take my turn in the endless circle. My body pulses with a purpose as the home ground, the wet ground, the growing ground, the battleground stripped with wavy scars and cascading curves. It holds breasts heavy with milk and a yoni with a faint yet lingering scent of bloody and earthy birth. And while my body expanded with motherhood, slowly, at its own pace comes back to a version of me; my ribs reveal themselves under my thinning flesh, I have cheekbones again, I can sit on the floor and get back up on my own, I lean into a backbend and fold forward and grab onto my toes. I lie flat on my stomach. It may not be hot by today’s standards, but it’s primal and it’s intuitive and its a greatly provocative to allow it to be all that it has been; lover, shelter, warrior, mother. Its not Movie Star Mother On Tabloid Cover, but my type of motherhood turns me on. It’s dirty, exhausting and it’s real.

When I smear a bit of red gloss across my lips and thread metal earrings through my ears and drop thick amber oil on my wrists, and slide my lime green aviator sunglasses across my eyes, I feel it intensely. Sometimes when I sit down to nurse my baby and milk rushes down and relief comes over me I morph so powerfully wet and nourishing and attractive and needed I am almost over fulfilled. On good days when we walk through the store with my hair a little brushed and all three kids and myself are in such smooth flow and together we hold and examine fresh ripe produce and decide what to make for dinner and maybe even nibble on a bit of dark chocolate while in the check-out line, it lives in me and comes through me and the hormones are wildy tasty, roaringly loud. When I open up and enjoy parenting, even in the thick of screaming tantrums and unacceptable kicking, I become pure energy, vibration of mother-knowledge; I hold it as my own sensual prowess. When I collapse in bed at night, a few breaths away from a deep sleep and my cold feet are wrapped around his and my face is buried in his soft back, it’s there heating us both up through to the next day. When I think about how I pushed my third daughter out with screams and howls and my nails digging into the microfiber of my couch and my head thrown , my back arched, somewhere between Hell and Ecstasy, it’s there. This is my life; and it’s all really sexy to me. But it’s not SEX.

It was easy to judge myself: my life has become painfully boring and sexually dry, and it’s unhealthy. we used to make time for sex even for a super-quickie, here and there. 34 years old and in some sort of prime and I haven’t done it in a very, very (very) long time. Why don’t we create more time for sex? Is it just the exhaustion or does it go deeper and a place we’re too scared to explore? Why don’t we decide to retreat into the bedroom and get kinky? Instead we fall onto the couch with the laptop in front of us, excited to catch up on Lost episodes? When we do get a sitter, which is so rare, why don’t we go somewhere and have sex in the minivan on some lonely forest road instead of going to the brewery to have beers and talk about our future in our new house, new music we like, writing projects that are pending, the behavior of our four year old, politics, the weather? Oh. Yeah. We just had a baby.

The baby part makes it easy to release the judgments with a few stumbles and tries; we can’t beat ourselves up for having our arms full of life. I spent many years where sexual exploration was at the forefront of my relationships. Being someones partner now involves so many other passions besides how many times I cum. It involves raising children. It involves integrating into a new community. It involves just trying to stay good friends and harmonious roommates with each other. And it involves sexy moments; glances when one of us steps out of the shower, slick with water and slathered in oil, or butt smacks when he wears the silly hot pink American Apparel underwear Mia picked out for him on his birthday. It’s him looking at my cleavage while we sit at dinner and my new big milk boobs are spilling out my too tight shirt from all day nursing or watching him teach Mia and Sula the progression of ska to modern dancehall through record flipping and dancing and singing. It’s when we chop carrots together to make a soup . It involves loving my body for the work it’s done, the temple it has been for me and my children; the way it has opened up regardless of how scared I am to be truly seen. Sometimes it’s the too tight pants I wear and how the seam rubs into my clitoris, or maybe the silkiness of the shirt brushing up against my own nipples, or seeing a person whose energy makes me turn my head and suck in my breath. It’s finally buying a home on ½ acre; fertile land surrounded by rivers and mountains gives him a hard-on and certainly makes me dripping wet. Our climax is sitting late night on the couch with Z in our laps and cooing with her, nuzzling our noses in her double chin and smelling between her stinky toes. Feeling so in love with our children and landing such a lucky life, more charmed as it ages; not perfect by any means, but it is what it is and accepting that, with humor and tenderness, it’s what makes our crotches tingle. Our quality is being with our kids in each moment; experiencing the other and ourselves authentically in any way we can. It’s erotic and naked and revealing; no penetration required.

***

And I am not saying that soon I won’t be one of the many people who are considered sexually active by today’s standard. These times will pass quickly and the exhaustion will fade and our time will be freed and some hot sticky night, no doubt we will begin humping again. But for now we aren’t because we are doing other things, making other things, loving in other ways. That is how it really is. I’m sure Current TV isn’t super excited for paying me to say that kind of stuff every day for a month, but I gave them the truth.

my wow.

April 11, 2008

I’ve heard so many many woman sigh and say wow that was bad. Looking back, it was worse than I thought it was. And it lasted a year. 2 years. It still hits me like a mac truck and I gave birth almost three years ago.

I’m too careful of a person to sigh my sigh now, and shake my head back and forth and say my wow in the past tense. The heavy sheet of all things not pretty seems to be gone, but whose to say what’s around that corner. I’ll give half a sigh and readily admitt it has been hard and I never expected to feel like such shit.

Why do we rarely talk about it? Prepare ourselves and our families for it? We spend oodles of time reading about pregnancy and birth before the fact, but what initiates us to handle the state of potential depression? Or is the depression the final initiator, the last test before we get our Mother of The Moment trophy?

I can hide it well. Which makes me doubt I am even worthy of the title; Post Partum Depressed. I wipe my face clean and hide the amount of effort it takes me to pick up each foot and put it in front of the other. I spend time with my family and pretend I am hadnling it all, exhausted, but centered and strong. Who wants to hear, as I hold my perfect daughter in my arms, that I feel bleak? Weak? Nothing? Fear? With moods that swing as fast as my daughter does at the playground? I am a beautiful new mother of my third daughter and I hold it all together and like my sister said when I called trying to subtly hint that I may be living in my own personal collapsable world

You’re not the only who has three kids. Think of it that way. You’re not alone.

And yeah, that’s not really what I meant. Three kids or 20, I am very alone. This is the epitome of alone.

And I suppose if while we discussed the pregnancy and all the protein we have been eating and the sex of the baby or whether or not a waterbirth would be in the plan, someone could have thrown in there: Prepare, you might feel like you’ll wanna curl up and die sometime after the birth. Have support in place. Have herbs all ready. Hire help. Call and make a tenative appointment for marriage counseling and probably throw one in there for child psychology, because with all the yelling and moping and emotional messiness, everyone around you will need professional help, too. Maybe I could have spared me girls my ugliest moments. Maybe my husband would not be so bruised. Maybe I would think all this is normal and not feel defeated.

But I never thought. Not me. Not with the homebirth and the yoga and the herbs and meditation. Not me, I paid my depression dues back when I was 21. Now I’m a Birth Warrior, A Mama in Charge. I laugh in my face, as if I am protected from this pain, this realness, this life. Reason: unknown. Source; the mind, the heart, the seed. Remedy; acceptance (and rest, food, drink, time alone).

It’s been a long time, Mama. A long time since I knew you in Arizona.

I didn’t ask her what she meant but in my heart I knew. It’s been a long time since I’ve been my old self. This one, the one who mothered like that. Not the one I have been these days. These days I’ve been the sharky thought.

But like I said, it lifts. It’s lifting. I am not ready to call it done, because I know it can creep up like the night upon dusk and in a split moment I am gone. But as I step up and out, feel life at some surface, I am beginning to think this depression I came face to face with may be the greatest teacher I’ve ever had. Ever. And isn’t that kind of beautiful?

one day at a time.

March 20, 2008

Finding rhythm each day has proven to be a challange with three. I repel schedule and routine, but rhythm is something that keeps all of us interested, aware and present. There was only a handful of places or things the two girls and I would attempt to do outside the house in AZ; picnics at parks when the weather was cool enough. When is was scortching hot, lazy mornings at the coffee joint that bled into cozy afternoons spent next door reading endless books at the library (which probably, besides people, is the most missed ‘thing’ about AZ. Scottsdale Library is truly phenomenal). Besides being in a new place, and having a new kid, and living in a delicate and sometimes pretty dark state of mind post-partum, I have been rhythmless. I haven’t been able to figure out anthing yet. I need time to heal, process, and ease into this new life, but it’s been wearing on me, getting old, this not knowing what to do or how to get dressed. I’m getting sick of being bound by this state of indifference to sadness, frustration to anger. It’s time to crack open the paralyzing armor, or at least poke out from underneath the covers.

Today’s was good. Mia to school. The rest of us walk 3 miles to a park. Play. Walk back. Pick Mia up. Fast trip home (insist girls all wait in the car), grab no-prep to-go lunch. Head to the beach for a picnic of apples, strawberries, cheese and raw cashews. Walk to the bookstore. Cookies and tea and browse through books. Home. Play. Pull out stuff for dinner. Wait for B to get home to make dinner. Make life easy and wear Z the whole entire time, except for daiper changes. Breath. Laugh. PLay music. Watch the moon get bigger. Bath. Sing The Beatles Blackbird 5 times. Bed. Today was good. No dizzy spells or anxiety. No stuffing my face in a couch cushion and cry/screaming. No sobbing phone calls to husband or friends or sisters. No wishing my life away. No yelling. Living and trying to function so close to a birth is fragile. In our tribeless (literal) state of a culture, I honor my hard times, my depression and overwhelming moments. And I celebrate when I can slide back into my comfortable skin, the mask I know intimately and I really enjoy wearing. Happy and Mellow. Balanced and carefree. Flexible and gentle. Strong and energized, maybe even a little hyper. Silly. Dancy. Singy. I got there today. It felt fantastic and it was just normal. Me. Today I felt what it’s like to dive in and enjoy being a mother again, because the past month has been a stuggle to see the light, no matter what there have been days where I felt like a stranger in my own body, my own life. One day at a time.

Mia cut her hair again. When one is preoccupied with a newborn one will sometimes give a suspecious four year old kid craft scissors and paper and glue for fun and entertainment and then not really pay attention to what they are doing and go do a load of laundry (okay given her history -or histories- perhaps there is no real excuse for not watching her like a hawk).

Her short side:

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Her long side:

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People ar very impressed with her sense of style. I request they don’t encourage it. Really. I like the cut, too, sorta mod meets Johnny Scissorhands. But please. Don’t encourage it.

Punk Rock Warrior and Berry Eater:

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raw. beauty.exhaustion.

March 14, 2008

This month.

I can’t write. I can barely form words. I smell like a mix of B.O., espresso, and hot buttered popcorn (breastmilk poo). It takes me 2 hours to leave the house. I lock myself out. I forget diapers for one of the two in them. My shirt is on not only backwards but inside out as well. My kids teeth have not been brushed in 24 hours. Mine in 48. I have exactly 3 pairs of pants that fit. My hands look like my mothers, veiny and wrinkly. Let’s not talk about my eyes. When I don’t take my placenta pills things start to spiral out of control, just like when I forget my oils, my vitamins, food and water. When I do remember to eat and drink and encapsulate pills for a fews days, my life is good. Beauitful. Raw beauty. Stripped down to the center of all existance I have to tap at the neverending flow: Love. Because in the end, the driving force behind all this; the procreation, the manifestation, the isolation, the exhaustion, the challanging path of mother/child communication, is love. It’s all for the love.

Days are still fragile. We all transition and allow moments of melt-down, hysteria, silliness, saddness and heaps of hour long group snuggles on the floor. Chocolate chips and small cups of whip cream and sprinkles help, too. One moment at a time, I breath.

My newest daughter’s name is Zaida Dove, as we annouced over a month ago. Since then it’s changed about 3 times. Echo Dove. Zaida Echo. Zadie Echo Dove. And finally, again, Zaida Dove and Zadie for fun. I have never had a baby whose name was so mysterious.

Four and 1/2 might be the most fucked up age besides 21.

Zaida is sensitive to Soy and Dairy and I can’t eat either.

My house has never been such a mess. There are smashed blueberries from last week still on the kitchen floor. The baby’s room has turned into the Closet Room. Looking for clean clothes? Go in there and dig through the pile on the floor. We haven’t had TP in 2 days. Sula is out of diapers, not because she is ready, but because I keep forgetting to buy them for her.

I AM NOT a bad mom because I stopped using cloth diapers on the baby last week. I am not. I refuse to feel the guilt. The laundry was fucking drowning me. Period. I’ll go back. I always do.

I have found a wrap way better than the Moby and I never thought I’d say that. Don’t know the brand. It was a gift. Go here (www.lyonmom.blogsome.com) and ask her because she’s responsible for my new obsession. I want one in every color.

One top of it all, we’re trying to search the surrounding 30 mile radius to buy a house on some land. I drive around in the mountains alot looking and listening to Kanye West while Sula screams for Joan Jett. It’s an ongoing argument. Her and I both get stuck on one sound and we just don’t budge. Luckily I have control of the IPOD. Nothing against Joan Jett. I mean, I’d be the mother of her kids if she’d only ask me. But I’d also do the same for Kanye, and he’s so damn literary. Hot.

It’s official. I’m a mom. I drive a caravan. My beloved Subaru is no longer mine. I know own a seven seater/14 cup holder silver bullet of can. That thing can go fast. Kinda impressed after I got over the fact I drive a minivan.

Washington State is insanely beautiful and I feel so blessed to be here. It is my home away from Om. And if I can figure it out, I plan on changing the subtitle to this blog from Constantly Searching For That Perfect Space to Creating Space or something like that. When I was out walking along the water yesterday I thought of the perfect line to change it to and now it’s gone, a glimpse of a thought.

I am trying to create another blog which I hope can help lift me up and bring me wellness, a blog that chronicals my postnatal yoga (instead of focusing on the PPD, I am hoping to focus on what really works in lifting me out of tightness and into Space. It will include video, daily yoga lessons and lots of fun chanting along with my writing. The only problem is I have no time to make another blog. Or really practice yoga. So if anyone wants to make the blog and watch my kids while I practice…that would be sweet. Oh and someone to film me too. And maybe lend me a digi cam. Great. Thanks.

I am truly falling asleep at the keys right now. All in all this past month has been heavy, raw, overwhelming, and so perfect. Just perfect. When all else gets to me, I just tap into that love, or try to. Picking up the baby and breathing her in, accepting the force that she so freely offers and hoping to give to her as well is where I find the strength to keep it going on.

no time or energy to spell check.

Some photos of the past couple weeks….

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sisters…

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presence

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dont ya cut off mi dreadlocks…

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self portrait because i thought it was a good day…

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huggin.

January 25, 2008

I read this post the other day, remembering a few other people who have done the same thing and each story I hear about it makes me both wonderfully warm and sad. Sad because this is a question, that we need to be challenged to hug one another. Would we hug someone just for a hug’s sake? For love’s sake, even if that person was a stranger? With a sign? Or not.

Damn right I would, was my immediate response. Hell yeah, I’m Sicilian. We’d hug the UPS man if he didn’t run so quickly back to his truck after leaving the box at my door. I hug the lady who works at the local grocery store who manages the kid toy section almost every time I see her, because she lets me, I sense her openness and she is just amazing and I adore her. And at the other market, the Co-Op, I hugged the man who sweetly swept and mopped the massive canning jar that was almost full of molasses (it was taking forever to fill; slower than molasses in January? They weren’t kidding. The jar was covered in the goo, as were my hands). Somehow it slipped, I tried to catch it with my prodtruding belly, but alas, it dropped. Crashed and splattered. I just stood there and watched him clean it, the whole time apologizing for my sheer klutziness, blaming it on the pregnancy. He smiled the whole time and assured me it was nothing. When he was done, I smooshed into him with my huge belly, arms around his arms. Thank you, I said to him. Thank you for not making me feel bad. I break everything these days.

There is nothing I love better than to embrace my friends, heart to heart, passing back and forth that much needed vital force of energy called Love. And I have no problem embracing the stranger, too, especially if they have done something nice for me.

And today, my self-confidence in hugging anyone would be tested.

I walked into my local coffee place. Grabbed a muffin and a chai. As I was walking to a table, there was a middle aged-woman smiling at me, beaming from ear to ear. She was sitting at a counter on a stool. As I got closer her face lit up even more and it was easy to see she had severe Down’s Syndrome. She was drooling and her smell was intense. Her eyes were imprinting my soul. She stared me up and down. I love you. She said to me stopping me in my tracks. I planned to keep walking by her towards a table in the back. Can I hug you? My first reaction, to my surprise was not of openness, but a body and sensory shut down for the quickest moment. I retreated into my turtle shell, protection mode for body and spirit. What do I do? Hug? Walk? I breath. And immediately my body released. I put my cup and plate down on the counter. I needed no protection. I wrapped my arms around her scratchy wool sweater that quite honestly reeked of urine and gave her a big hug. Her arms were strong and her energy so vibrant I could feel it pulse right through to my heart. She patted my belly. She looked me in the eyes. I love you. I love you, She said to me again with a big, wide child-like smile. The woman she was sitting with, who was most likely her care-provider glanced at me and gave me a wink and then went back to reading her paper.

We love you too, I said, We love you, too. She went back to eating her cookie. I picked up my things and walked to a vacant table. I sunk into my seat. Saying the “we” before the “love you too” was so instinctual. It was like I knew she saw me as me and the baby. That would make a “we”.

I immediately thought of J’s link to the hugger. After initial hesitation, I had to check myself and my self-proclaimed status as being open to affection from the greater world I am part of. Sure, I’m a hugger, when I find you to be safe and relatively familiar and when I decide it’s you I want to hug. But for the random stranger, who looks different, smells different, sounds different; who approaches me with open arms, I had to think twice before extending my physical love. Of course, I fell into the act within moments of the request, but it wasn’t my gut reaction to embrace. Once I did, I knew it was more than right; this pure and sweet woman who sensed my readiness to have a baby, probably knew I needed some love.

And then I realized, it certainly wasn’t me who needed to extend my love to her. It was her who gifted me with her unconscious desire to open up to the powerful force of love and touch. It seemed primal and immediate to her. She didn’t think about it, she felt it and she acted upon it without a thought. With me, I had to stop, think, and then surrender that part of me, the part that should just know to love.

Back to understanding that I have a lot of work to do. That I know nothing. I believe nothing. Absolutely nothing. But that’s okay. It just means I constantly learn.

reality sandwich.

January 24, 2008

Nope. No babe yet. But I’d like to take the time to welcome Talia Grace into the world. Her bas-ass beautiful mama birthed her into the world two days ago. C and I have have been pregnant together from close to day one. I take such joy in seeing a photo of her and her newborn girl, surrounded by bright blessings and all things magic. My turn soon, just not yet….

While waiting to birth some life into being, I thought I’d take the opportunity to link you to a website I’ve started writing for. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, but keep forgetting to tell ya’ll about. While driving in the ghettomobile up the coast and sleeping by the sea, I read the book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. It’s the journey of a man seeking shamanism in all forms, from Rudolf Steiner to the sacred tea from the Auyausca leaf, from Mayan timekeepers to crop circles. While the book questions new age theory, it explores our shifting consciousness as a collective, weaving the individual and the universal consciousness into one story. I loved Pinchbeck’s mixture of voices, from questioning critical thinker to soul-driven, third-eye opened seeker. He never once tried to give answers, yet as he seeks shamanic guidance on his own exploratory journey, he became a bit of muse to me, while I conjured up a whole new level of my own personal questions. Not once did I feel l was being sold a dogma, I was just invited on one person’s wild ride. The core of the book is about opening up to the idea of a shifting consciousness on fast speed, leaving power-centered and material rooted world behind and melting into spiritual awareness and inevitable evolution. I read some more Pinchbeck (articles and such) and the more I read, the more I became intrigued. Then I found out he created an on-line magazine, Reality Sandwich. And then somehow I weaseled some words into his domain (stalked them). It’s truly filled with interesting contributors including DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid (he’s one of my heroes, post-modern theorist, DJ and dub provider? If I wasn’t in love, I’d be in love.) Reality Sandwich’s theme is Evolving Consciousness, Bite by Bite.

I think my first and short news piece is up, but i’m not sure though. It’s called "Grow High" and it’s about the need for vertical sustainable farming in large urban centers (food farming. don’t let the title fool ya.)

Regardless, the site is good if you are into weaving stuff like consciousness shifting culture, shamanism, psyche and art. Check it out.

***

Now back to sitting on my cozy nest, keeping this little egg warm. Some cramping. Some serious spaced out moments where my husband may actually think I suffer from dementia. As my spiritual midwife would have observed if she walked into my living room: Your baby has landed. Oh, baby, I feel you. And you feel so good, I fly a bit high from moment to moment.

Yes, baby has landed. Now we just wait for sacred doorways to open, when baby says, Okay, enough of this super funky, juicy, internal plane of bliss and spirit, light matter and perfect flow, I now choose The Flesh. I’m supported and loved, and this world calls me to it’s other side. I’m coming home, Mama. Open up…and breath.

the father.

January 19, 2008

Here I am always posting photos of me and my belly.

But there is someone else who made this happy hump happen. He’s more than an incredible father. And as a birth partner, he is like my the wind to my storm, moving with me, through me and on to the other side. As he surrounds me with love and offers me the space to transform, I hold him. My love.

I can be pretty bitchy at the end of pregnancy. He doesn’t mind. He gaurds our space and nests with me. He doesn’t let a single piece laundry is sitting around. He finds my keys, charges my cell phone and downloads more stories for the kids on the ipod. He cooks dinner. Makes gallons of chicken soup and freezes it. Loads the dishwasher. And rubs oil on my feet at night. He vacuums. He runs out at midnight for lemon milkshakes. He makes me bowls of granola at 3am. He gets up with the kids and lets me sleep until I need to. This is not our normal day to day routine. He usually is up, working, I am taking care of the house fairy stuff and he brings us home security. But now, these days, we are able to play different roles. For another couple weeks I get my man at home so I can be the muggy, fuzzy, moody space cadet I need to be. He takes care of the rest.

I don’t thank him often enough. I don’t always see him as he is, accepting that the person he shares with us is exactly right person he needs to be. And a lot of the time, I see this process as mine; the baby and me. But he is being initiated, too. He is slowly preparing to be doula, partner, and father of three children. He is working on expanding his heart and his patience and in many ways his pocket book…as a father he finds role in gatherer. He is keeper of harmony and order and ease around my space so i can work through this birth without stress. We often cast aside the man, especially those of us who so believe in women centered birth; sometimes, if aren’t careful, the father can become a bystander, just observer. But they are more than that. There is merging of masculine and feminine that needs to take place the entire way, not just during the sex. There can be a push and pull between mother and father and if we don’t open hearts and eyes, we sometimes allow the sacred blend to slip through the cracks, and imbalance can be uncomfortable. I have been blessed. Either that or I am very good at training someone–10 years after we met, I can see he is no longer the searching boy. I think we pay close attention to our dynamic. We allow conflict, we allow silence, we allow slowly the heart to heal. We find synergy through these moments; we become the elements we need to walk together. And because of this, because he is open to it all, we become balance of sorts. Like sitting on either end of the teeter-totter, we work it until we hang out mid-air, waiting, communicating, our legs dangling, not forcing the other up or down. Birthing together will be easy. As he said the other day, As easy as whipped cream sliddin’ off a piece of warm pumpkin pie…

He is who he is with a smile and style. He rocks the turntables, rounds the wood, carves the stone, beats the drum and can ride a bowl on a skateboard like the kids half his age. He trusts our combined intuition, takes chances, explores and holds my adventurous nomadic side next to his nesting side. He grounds us all. He keeps us safe. He makes us laugh. He is silly.

I love him. I can’t wait to see his love explode for one more. I can’t wait to feel our arms wrap and bring this baby to our family. I can’t wait until he tends to the fire, all night long, as we soak in the love of our new family. I give thanks.

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Photo by Jason Byal aka Moebyal /Jan. 2008.

sleep.

January 9, 2008

I need sleep.

I need sleep in order to be a decent and sane person.

I don’t know how I used to do it. For years I’d go out three to four times a week until the wee hours. Looking at the bottom of the whiskey glass and always ordering one more while chain smoking like a gangster. I’d end up with three to four hours of sleep and still get up, go to class and eventually spend ten hour days cultivating an almost career. Certainly I remember moments where I was groggy and cranky, but in general, most days went well. I’d drink a coffee or two, do stretches, breath deeply and I could easily get through the day with productivity and a damn big smile. I never once thought to really stop and catch up on sleep. My body just adjusted to the lack of it.

Those days are a distant speck of memory. My new teachers and bosses are obviously more demanding, far more critical, with totally unreasonable deadlines. They redefine the phrase I needed that yesterday.

These days with a moment less than eight hours of sleep a night I collapse in a broken heap like building in an earthquake. My emotional state becomes shaken and fragile at best. I become a contestant for worst mother of the day. The reason I am exhausted is because somehow my children have kept me awake more than I can handle. They walk around in a sleep-deprived tyranny. There is a constant flow of tears, insatiable hunger for the deepest R.E.M yet nobody will surrender to napping, except for me and then I risk possible ingestion of poisons, knife play or unsupervised outdoor adventures. Bottom line, days without sufficient sleep: Suck.

Assuming surrender, I just accepted the girls to come into our room in the middle the night. In attempts to preserve these last moments of just the three of us, before the New Arrival, I have let go and gave them, and myself, the snuggle of them in bed, spooned in every possible way, our bodies all intertwined and warmed from familiar flesh.

Bet let’s get honest here.

The luxuriously large bed, the California King, that provided a country-sized space for a family of three, has become less than large enough. My body does not get smaller; it takes room for two. The girls are not shrinking either, like weeds, their bodies widen and grow. B remains on a sliver of bed at all times, coverless. I am wedged between both girls, little feet pushing into my stomach or hips, arms across my face, bottoms pressing against my lower back.

One typical scenario:

Sula enters around 3am. She spends the first ½ hour of her arrival wiggling her way so close to me she could very well crawl back inside. She insists I face her. She spends the next 1/ hour stroking my face and asking me to make her dinner. She’ll then proceed to list all the foods she would like to eat: Banana and almond butter; juicy eggs; mashed potatoes and peas, apples and frozen waffles. When I explain that it’s not dinner time she spends the next fifteen minutes crying and then wailing and yelling. Soon enters Mia, shaken from sleep by the howls of her little sister. She crawls into the other side of me. We calm Sula down. My hip begins to ache and I must change sides to elevate the pressure from one side to the other. I flip over and all hell breaks loose. Sula wants me to face her. Mia wants me to face away from her. Stop breathing on me, Mama, your breath is hot and stinky! Turn around! And Sula, face me mama, face me mama, face me!!!!!! I wanna see your face!!!!!

Two hours and if we are lucky we have all fallen back to sleep.

The other scenario is this one:

They enter our room together, crying. B immediately takes them back into their room. He passes out next to them as they cry for an hour wanting to come into bed with me. He ends up cramped in their double bed. I end up awake for two hours anyway because the initial crying episode has eventually le me to insomnia. I can’t fall back to sleep.

Neither work.

Sweet surrender. Back to the basics. The goal is sleep. I need it. B needs it. Mia and Sula need it.

What would make them feel secure, encourage them to stay asleep and if they woke up, did not need to enter our bed to finish the night?

So we pick up their bed. Lugged it into our room. Arranged it so both beds are next to each other. One large bed. 2X10 feet of floor space is left. That is not a lot. Two nights now and both have woken up. Sula went right back to sleep. Mia, with about 10 minutes of gentle persuading and explaining she had to stay in her bed, (which is pushed right up to our own) did as well. I would never have thought this could be the answer. But the answer needed to point right to sleep. And lack of it now only ensures exhaustion during labor, my biggest fear. To birth, one needs stored fuel and rest.

They girls need to be near us still, it’s obvious; during this transition of moving and then the pending arrival of new family member, they are asking for more. If creating a family bedroom works then there is my solution. I just hope by the time the baby comes, they are cozy and knocked out cold all night; their Ocean Sounds Deep Sleep CD on repeat giving them that white noise that hinders one from opening their eyes. Perhaps both of their deeper knowing, their visions of a new baby in our room, has forced them to ask for reassurance that they are still safe and protected by us; that there needs are still met. I can only offer ways to meet those needs, and the ways that I find must fulfill all of our needs, the whole family.

My goal in parenting is what will be gentlest on us all? What will cause the least amount of struggle? In yoga it is impossible to force your body into flexibility. You can try but it never works. For instance, if your chest doesn’t reach your thighs in a forward fold, you can push your chest there in numerous ways, none of which are gentle or easy on the muscles. None of which involve breathing your way into it. Or you can allow yourself some props; bend your knees, use a block for support, or go against the wall. Or you can just wait. Let your body hang and just cultivating deeper breathing until one day, maybe, your chest will reach, your legs are straight and you are folded in half. Forcing may bring your chest to your knees in one try, giving you a fast and immediate feeling of accomplishment, but guaranteed it will be temporary. Your body will snap right back to the place it remembers, its own wise edge.

I guess that’s the practice I am trying to remember during this process. I can force them to be asleep in their own beds, doors locked. I play part in the struggle, pushing them to be in a place they are not ready to venture as I get pushed to angry or disappointment. Or I can bring out the props. Move the bed into our room. Play those ocean waves. Breathe one night at a time. Focusing on natural flexibility and organic transitions. And sleep.

last days.

December 28, 2007

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What I have been thinking about most is that I am going to be the mother of three people. And my visions vacillate.

In one, I am a super-mama; Sula on my back in the ergo, baby wrapped tightly in front with my Moby, Mia holding my hand as we hike the trails that spread like veins all over the hills behind my house. I am back to my pre-baby weight in a flash, dining on vegan soups and homemade breads and fresh pheasant my husband brings home from the hunt. We have a seamless routine; mornings are such fun, ritualistic, and consistent. We wake with a smile, we read, we sing and dance, we eat, we dress, we brush, we errand and go to school. Afternoons are sleepy, nappy and crafty; laundry and dishes and organizing. Maybe even a sitter comes over and allows me to nap or write for my fabulous freelancing work or get a haircut and color. Evenings are warm and smooth; imagination play, cooking, rolling on the floor with kids, eating, calming down, singing, bathing, massaging and ahhhh, what a day…fast to sleep. And then my man and I have time and energy to make incredible love until we both burst with ecstacy.

Ha.

And then the other, I am on the couch, in five day old clothes. Three kids are screaming, two need a diaper change and the other is bleeding from an unidentifiable wound. I am crying or yelling or yelling and crying. I am ugly and old. My stomach flab hangs to my knees and I can smell the sticky sweat that clings to my fleshy creases. I can’t get anywhere or do anything because I can’t figure out how to get them all fed and dressed and buckled in a car. I pop open the Pinot Noir by noon and finish it by 2pm. I have taken up smoking American Spirits by the pack, sneaking into the laundry room to suck down the nicotine. My man comes home to find me half-passed out, drooling red-wine saliva from my mouth onto the couch cushion. Mia and Sula are playing with knifes and the baby is covered in spit up.

Both of these, of course rock the opposite ends of my pendulum, and I know that it will be somewhere in between, but I just can’t see it. I can’t see how it will all pan out. I can’t figure out how I am supposed to feel about not knowing. And this makes me grumpy. And scared. I want to know now what it’s going to be like so I can prepare. Preparation seems to be the magic word at this stage in the pregnancy. Who knows what I feel so urgent to prepare for, besides a baby coming out, what else is there to do that can’t really wait? Yet that pending sensation that so much has to be done or else I will just totally fail at the birth and beyond can take over my whole body. I become paralyzed with fear. The What If’s and I’ll Nevers and The No Way In Hells take me prisoner. I’ll admit, I will have long hours of the days where I struggle with severe fear and depression because I am just not sure how I can ever do this, how I can be a decent parent to what seems like so many. And this fear takes me elsewhere, certainly not living in the now, with my kids. I yell, I complain, I mope. I don’t remember signing up for this when I forgo birth control. I thought things would be neater, more organized, happy and cute, all finger-painting and organic gardens. But instead, I am scared. Shitless. And on top of it all I am in a new place surrounded by vast space I haven’t explored yet, because I am so very pregnant. And that is all my body will allow me to be.

But I remind myself. The flip-side of fear and darkness is self-discovery. I try not to beat myself up in these dark moments before the birthing light. I try to explore that path of discovery. What can I learn? How can the sensations of my shoulders to my ears and my heart tense and tight lead me to realization?

And it starts with a smile. And an intentional thought about the shifting family dynamic. And get all excited. Because I love all three of them so much, and I see them all in a row, smiling or crying or sleeping across our big bed and my heart melts like ice under sun. Who cares how it pans out? I can only hope for the best, right? I can’t figure it all out now. Perhaps I never will. I can only allow it to happen. Some days I won’t get off the couch. Some days I will. Some days I will drink wine because who says I can’t? Some days I will “go ape” (as B and Mia call it when I get a bit loud around the house) from lack of sleep and lack of personal space. But other times I’ll just breathe it all in and out I will be the willow in the wind and bend to the challenge. Some days I will be pained with the weight of three humans on me, and others I will feel light, a whooping crane in flight, owning the sky.

And then again, hasn’t it always been this way, my life that is? The future has always been a mystery, the unknown frightening and exciting. For years I have read and been told and have told myself to just stay in the present, which is still a twisty and turny mountain road. Sometimes I get stuck and I sit and have no choice but to smell the same sage bush all day (and if I stay present in my stagnancy, the smell of the bush will stay with me forever). Sometimes the view from the present is wildly vast and birds-eye because I have traveled effortless despite the steep and dusty switchback. Some days it barely feels like I am working on the journey, the slope downward just carries me along.

And there seem to be many, many days where I fall so flat on my face, I trip on stones and tree roots and even though I am moving, I am miserable. Even in the present, but mostly this happens when my eyes are behind me or far ahead of me, not noticing the simple movement of one foot at a time. The abrasions I get are impossible to cover-up and sometimes they take a long time to heal. But they do. Eventually.

***

I have given up the bedtime struggle. They climb in bed with us at some point every night, never earlier than 4am, but never later than 6am. I have been on a mission to stop this. I have really tried to force them/convince them to go back into their own bed, and when that becomes too loud and crazy, both of them crying for my body to snuggle against (Sula more than Mia), we do everything to figure how to keep them away from me, and get them both to settle on the opposite side of B. Somehow I thought this was necessary and that is was the time was now to create my own little space on the bed, with room to wrap my arm around the empty spot a little baby will soon sleep. My mind kept repeating the same thing: a baby will be next to me, there will be no room for them to envelope me in like this. They can’t be here anymore. I have to stop this. And this was sad, but my mind reminded me it was the evolution of the family. And in consciously stopping this semi-co-sleeping, we endured middle of the night tears and tantrums, heart-ache and loss of sleep. And in the morning we all woke exhausted. This has been happening for months.

And finally, my mind snapped and my heart space won over. I had to release the control and say fuck it. It became obvious trying to change what was happening wasn’t good for any of us. I was trying to change our story when the page hadn’t turned yet. Baby isn’t here yet. So now I let them come in and cuddle me. Sometimes I ask one of them if they would lie on the other side of B and sometimes I let them both on either side of me. Sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes not. But I tell them honestly, Mama’s gonna enjoy sleeping so close to you now, because when the baby comes, she is going to need more room. The baby is going to be lying right next to her. But until then, snuggle on in. In a few more moons you will have stay in your own bed, or we can set up a bed on the floor here. And dada is always here to cuddle you when you need it. And I think they get it. I think they are trying to get their last taste in before everything really changes. I have decided that’s what I would like to do, too. I remind myself to savor the last moments of it just being me and my two girls and really, I want to be in that place. And so who says this is the time to wean them from me? Who says with patience and honesty it just won’t happen, somehow, organically? In its own time. They have grown so fast, so big. Why do I always fall back on the rush? Everything else happens on it’s own. Why not this?

***

We all talk a lot of hoopla over the word Surrender. We use it to suggest (or direct and advise) in pregnancy and birth, in mothering and in life in general. But what does it mean? To just “let go”? This is another widely used phrase (one of my man’s favorites) that when I think of it I think of myself free-falling and out of control, although in a Zen style it means to ‘not cling’. To give in? No. To me that means to release your needs and attach to another set. I have been struggling with the age old/new age rhetoric that we throw around. Surrender. I guess my definition, or the closest thing I can come up with is to accept with an open heart, to feel emotion and live situations, experiencing it wholly yet without clinging. That means that even in the change, or the action, to surrender to the motions, the sensations, not judging, not being right or wrong, just living it, not detached, but unattached. I have to live these feelings I am having; teetering on the edge of having two girls and another person coming into our world. I have to live the feeling of not knowing if it will be easy or hard, exhausting or energizing. Everyday I have to live it. It’s my choice of how I perceive it.

Did any of that sound convincing? I talk a good talk. I am not saying I am fraudulent, pretending I am someone I am not. But my writing heart sometimes takes me to places of therapy, sometimes I believe what I write and I love it. Sometimes, like right now, I gotta come clean.

This dark tunnel, this lead blanket of blackness that holds me in this place is real. I am tired, emotionally. I walk with my headspace in a blur. I think of death, but more I think of life and how hard it can be. I think of the tangible pain my yoni might feel as it opens for a baby to stretch through (I say might because there is a great part of me that sincerely believes that I can mutate that energy into something wonderful and sensual and pleasurable). There is great doubt I will be able to survive this mothering experience, this moving experience, this marriage experience. I am in a hole. No hands can pull me up.

My man opens his lap for me to bury my face in and sob. He lets me feel this. And that feels better. He brings home a pint of ice cream. That feels good, too. When I tell him that it has been a decade since I have felt this low, he reminds me the last few weeks of pregnancy with Mia and Sula I said the exact same thing, which is: I feel like I need to be committed.

The reality of all this is, regardless of my spiritual practices, is that in essence my walk to labor and through to the other side to mother is more than hard. It’s fucking intense. It hurts. I feel like every last part of me is being cracked open and exposed to raw and bloody truth. And I am one of the lucky ones. I am loved, not alone, and birthing in a safe environment. And yet, it still feels like the biggest risk I can ever take. This journey should be honored, revered. Mothers and mothers to be everywhere should know that they are not alone, that we all initiate each other on this path. I extend this experience out to everybody who also feels it; you are not alone. It is real. And it is okay. Feel it. We are meant to feel this intensity. It prepars us for something grand and mystical.

And Baby stirs inside. Its body shifts and I imagine it trying to find it’s perfect position, knowing the time to travel down is soon An elbow jabs me and it feels really good against my skin. A bottom presses against my stomach and I imagine a big old stretch happening in my womb. There are hiccups. There is a pleasure with this baby’s movements. They arouse me in the most innocent way, makes me want to get up and dance, to spiral my hips and lift my knees or to lie on the wet dirt and feel it against my skin. And so above it all…there is a mountain of hope.

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