Five years ago, I found the pattern for this sweater in a magazine. It was a new construction, essentially knit all in one piece–I had never done anything like it. It is slightly felted and fuzzy. It looked so incredibly cozy.
It was a man’s size.
I wanted to knit it. I put it in the lineup. I would make it for my husband.
Before I got to it, Juan told me he was leaving me.
The thought of knitting a man’s sweater was more than I could bear. I put the pattern aside. I knit socks and slippers and things that would ground me. I knit long scarves to wrap around me and keep out the cold. I knit myself mittens so that someone, even if that someone was made of wool, would hold my hand.
After awhile, when the loss of Juan stopped stinging–that sweater pattern kept calling to me. I thought about it at the strangest times. I would sigh and say…’”Oh its too bad I have no one to knit that sweater for… Maybe one day.”
This spring, I was going through my yarn and I found 3 large hanks of Irish wool, the most beautiful color green. The hue was deep and complex. I had bought the yarn in a special place in the west of Ireland, at a place I felt almost magical. I knew immediately it was the yarn for my sweater.
I decided that I couldn’t wait until the owner of the sweater came into my life. I figured if I knit the sweater, the owner would become apparent when the sweater was done. I have never knit this way. I always start a project with the owner in mind–and I lovingly think of him or her as I knit. It keeps me focused and going. It gives me deep pleasure to think of them enjoying my creation.
It was a leap of faith, a metaphor really for where I was in my life. Use the beautiful yarn, start the sweater and see what happens. There is no need to have a plan lined up–start and see where it leads.
As I sat knitting this spring, on the porch of my dear friend Jen, she giggled with delight. She loved the idea that I was knitting sweaters for a future lover. “Oh Jen…” I sighed, “It doesn’t have to be a lover…Maybe its a teacher, a friend, a man on the street…Maybe the need to define someone who is worthy of such a complicated sweater is part of the problem. Maybe I will be free to give it away so much more easily having made it with love for no one in particular.
“I think the owner of that sweater will be the great love of your life,” she smiled. I loved that she believed that with all her might. When Jen believes things they sparkle somewhat as though dusted in fairy magic and you believe that maybe they might come true.
As I was about halfway through the body of the sweater it dawned on me that I might not have enough yarn. I almost despaired and ripped it out but kept going. I thought it would be my fishes and loaves project. I kept telling myself that if I just kept knitting I would have enough yarn–and if not, a solution would present itself. And just when I thought I would indeed run out–I found the smallish manufacturer on line. I have yet to connect with them by telephone in Ireland but they claim they will ship to the US. The dye lot may be off, but it will be close enough.
Having crossed that bridge with momentum and spunk, I suddenly hit a brick wall. One day, I just stopped. I have put the project aside for now. Sweltering mid-Atlantic July days don’t mix with heavy Irish wool. But also, if I am honest, I am not sure I am ready to finish. Its as though having leapt I am now kind of wondering, “What the heck is this about? Complicated sweaters made with great great love for no one in particular? REALLY? REALLY? What’s that about?’
And I’ve stumbled upon another metaphor–a metaphor that is all too familiar right now from where I stand. The moment that comes when you are in the thick of slogging away for a dream. When you far enough from the beginning but the end is so far away, so fuzzy, so completely unformed and unknowable that you suddenly wonder if you were crazy for having started. When its too hot and too hard and you are not sure what comes next so maybe you should just go to the pool and read a book.
Its been weeks, dare I say it months, that this sweater has sat in a bag on the corner of the bench in my living room. I know pretty soon, that it will just go into a deep dark closet, a good idea, a possibility that never was to be, a funny story. I have looked at it with a sigh lately, so sorry for the fate I know is coming–the closet of unrealized dreams.
But I won’t let it happen. While to be honest, I am not sure what to do next about this dream, I know I can move forward with this sweater. I will call the yarn manufacturer in Ireland and I will order what I need to finish and I will pick up the needles and the yarn I have left and I will keep going. Not because I am attached to any of the stories Jen, Odette and I have made up about this magical sweater, but because it needs to get done. It was started and it wants to be finished. It needs to be born.
For five years I have wanted to make this sweater.
Its time is now.
It often doesn’t take much of any one thing. Its more like a perfect storm of a series of small moments: a dust up with a friend that leaves me feeling wounded, a summer cold or a restless night, a parenting challenge. These wee heart aches can create a sort of cocktail that can leave me feeling weary and it can kick up the deep dark loneliness of single parenting.
For the record, I want to be clear that on most days I wouldn’t trade the loneliness of single parenting for the loneliness of a stale and miserable marriage. I know too many unhappily married parents who are so much more alone than I–who cannot avoid it, who feel trapped. I know that my designation as a single mom forces me to weave connections my married to loneliness sisters may not feel permission to create.
But its on these days, the days when I am not feeling well, when I need someone to cherish me. When I feel so alone, afraid or unsure that I just wish for someone to wrap their arms around me, soothe my tired mama’s body, brainstorm what on earth to do with that amazing, beautiful, perfectly normal but challenging child. Its on these days that I don’t feel whole all by myself.
When those days hit, I can find myself, weeping like a little girl. It happens almost spontaneously. Like a child who has experienced too much birthday party, too much first day of school, too much bright lights, big city, loud noise I can find myself involuntarily withering because it feels like its just. too. much.
I have long ago found that if I let the weariness and loneliness wash over me–if I don’t try and dam it or fight it but just let it roll it will settle back again and I will feel grounded again. And if I let all that happen and I listen to my grief I might even just learn something.
So today, when I felt it well up I took its appearance as a kind of sign that maybe its time for a walk–to wander out for 40 minutes and drink some tea and sit on a park bench near my labyrinth and be.
Sitting on this bench, I wondered “What will it take until I can feel whole–when I don’t need another pair of arms to soothe me, when I can feel the ground beneath my feet and know that it is enough. What will it take to know the solidity of my own soul not on most days but even on days like this. When I can feel secure and whole even when the bottom seems to drop out and I am left as the last grown up in the room? ”
Breathing in deeply the green summer air, my face moist with humidity and silent tears it came to me.
Forty days. In the desert. Forty days. On a mountaintop. Forty days. In the sacred company of your sisters. Forty days of a rest.
It was as if the wisdom of all those ancient ancestors came whispered in one breath. Take a break and simply go to the space where you can be. Take 40 days if you need to.
A ha! Thats why the mystics of the past left to flee to the desert. Not as some sort of punishment or banishment. Not as some sort of self imposed suffering. No–it was 40 days of luxuriating in the stillness and quiet that is found in the presence of the God-spark within. They went to listen to the quiet of their own hearts. To escape the messiness of community and the hurt that we can experience as part of human day to day life.
Forty days of Lent is not some sort of punishing self ritual–but a rest in simplicity to prepare for the great transformation of springs rebirth. Its not a ritual of denial, but a ritual of return to simplicity–to the few good things which sustain us. A release of the extraneous.
In Mexico new mothers are cared for like new babes themselves for 40 days after their birth. Those forty days after the birth of a babe provide a woman a sacred space to transition into motherhood.
Those 40 day rituals…I had always thought of it as an isolation, a hiding, a contraction…
But what if it is 40 days of protection, of sheltering? What if it not a practice of cutting oneself off not from life’s richness but rather from the hurtful distracting bits of life? What if the isolation is not an exile but a retreat so that the soul work can be done, so the blossoming can begin, so the opening can happen in a space of complete safety? What if that is what Lent is really about–retreating into the simplest, quietest, most essential place to prepare to bloom in the spring time? Its not 40 days of hiding, but 40 days of practicing opening up in the safest of space.
Maybe, sometimes that is all we need to keep growing…40 days in a safe space.
Maybe that is all we need to find the earth beneath our feet.
Maybe that is all we need to find the security we crave.
Maybe it is as simple as 40 days.
Perhaps its is the wilds of a desert. Maybe it is the top of a mountain. Or maybe it is the stillness of a daily meditation practice that had long been forgotten, the luxury of healthy food prepared with love, and the careful choice of company.
I am wondering what my 40 days could be if I could carefully choose? What harmful things would I cut myself off from–not as punishment or ritualized suffering but to enable a return to myself? What habits would I abandon? What inner dialogues, worries? What people might I leave–just for a short time–because the flow of my love to them (or their love to me) has been uneven? What burdens could I let go of to give me space to bloom?
I don’t know just yet, though I am beginning to imagine. More than imagine because I am going to find out.
I am off on an adventure.
The bonfire from our August summer vacation
Max has been sick much of the weekend. He has a crazy summer cold. He is sick one moment, fine the next. I think I may be getting it.
Saturday was big and juicy–a ripe summer solstice full of rain and thunderstorms and sunlight. It was the new moon and when the day, full to bursting finally gave way to the dark it was truly dark. I made wishes and burnt them in flames to send them up to heaven or the universe or perhaps some place across the veil–wishes for the health of my loved ones, for my journey, for babies to be born, for other babes to come home and for even more babes to stay right where they are most loved.
Sunday morning I found myself at the rink. There were only a few of us there–a figure skater working on her routine and a couple of die hard hockey families. While Max got his sea legs back and skated himself back into wellness, chasing his friends, I dwelled in my beginner space again, and slowly worked on my “C-Cut”–the hockey style way of skating backwards. The 80s pop that was blasting over the loudspeakers fell away and for me the rink felt silent–just the cut of my skates on the ice, the whoosh of my boy whirling past. My mind was still as I worked on something so new, as I tried to keep my balance in this new way. I could not think of anything else while I was paying such close attention to where my weight was.
It still surprises me how much I am settling into things that are unsettling, choosing the unfamiliar, the new. Some might think I am rushing away from my life, searching for distraction but I know that no–its an opening, to the practice of being a beginner, to sink into the richness of life with all its possibilities. I wobble in these new unfamiliar hockey skates but I notice how different it is, how much easier I can turn, and it is fascinating to me and it makes me curious. I to wobble in a newish way of being, I see how strange I feel to let go of some old patterns, assumptions and ways. It scares me a little and it makes me curious.
Today at yoga we had a substitute teacher. She was a good teacher but she is not my beloved one. I realized how attached I had become to Karen’s style, rhythm voice. I heard myself say…”Ah…but Karen has us hold that pose for 5 breaths-not three” and I giggled and realized how todays yoga practice for me was simply being there with someone new. To adjust to a new place, to arrive somewhere else than where I had hoped and to see the beauty in it.
But making room for all this new means clearing out the old. I am diligent and its seems that my practice is to let go, let go, let go some more.
I am quiet tonight. I am here at my desk at work and I long to stay, clear papers, clean out email, let go of all the things that don’t need me. This letting go is a new exercise for me–even though I have been practicing for years. It is an onion and the more I do I continue to wobble, beginner like, letting go of what is not needed to make space for fresh dreams, new paths, fascinating journeys. I am scared to let go of too much. There is so much of my life that I love and I am terrified, even as I say yes, that the price I will pay for my dreams will be too high.
I say yes anyway and comfort myself with the fact that there is still a lot of stuff to get rid of that doesn’t serve me before I get to the rest of it, before I am left asking myself what dear and beloved bits I need to sacrifice. Right now I am sacrificing my latte’s, paper clutter and toys and clothes we don’t need. I am letting go of habits like buying things we want just for kicks. I am slowly letting go of my all to quick reactions–the ones that assume that someone meant to hurt me when they spoke–the ones that personalize. I am practicing letting go of my self judgements and my inner gremlin’s admonishments. That is practice enough.
One day I may be asked to sacrifice my financial security, my comfort, my community. I can talk a good game about non-attachment but Oh, if I am honest it terrifies me–when I wonder what my dreams will cost. Its a silly exercise really as there is no way to know. So I focus on the paper, the negative self-talk, the reactivity. I know that really there is no magical economy–no God or Goddess with a ledger book keeping score of what I have given up before I get my prize. There is no formula of suffering that must be met before dreams can be realized. I know it but I am still practicing owning it.
I know that simply the practice is the point. And it will carry me where I need to be. That I believe because there is no other way to go.
Losses will come. Anyway. And grief and letting go will be part of the game. Anyway. And I will keep breathing anyway.
Every mid-June as the days swell, our little town here is blessed with the SilverDocs Film Festival. Sponsored by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, it is an eight day exploration and celebration of documentary films.
Last night I had the good fortune of scoring a ticket to a talk given by the legendary Albert Maysles at a symposium that honored him.
Mr Maysles films are beautiful. Last year at this time, when I was feeling so dark and dreary, I went to a midnight showing of Gimme Shelter and began to feel lifted, transformed. Grey Gardensanother one of his films is a tender portrait which clutches my heart.
As I sat in the darkened theater, Mr Maysles was charming and sat chatting with the humility of a great uncle in the kitchen. And he uttered words that resonated at a frequency that tapped right into all that I have been learning this year, a perfect finish to a wild roller coaster ride that started 12 months ago.
“Everyone just wants to be seen” I heard him say. His words washed over me. I am paraphrasing here for I am not sure I have them quite right but the gist of what he said was this: We all need to be seen and loved for who we are. That the whole point is the loving. That in and through this great, compassionate, loving gaze we can finally come to know and understand one another. We long to be seen, exactly as we are–and to be loved that way. Broken and wounded, when seen through the eyes of love we can be whole and perfect. That the greatest shame of our society is that we learn to live with our hearts hidden and locked, not daring reveal our inner thoughts and feelings, when in fact to reveal our secrets and be loved–that is the point.
In snippets spilled out casually in humble answers to an interviewers questions, Mr Maysles summarized the whole of what this last year has been about for me–what I have learned through the crazy twists and turns, through the ups and the downs. Yes…I silently prayed in thanksgiving for his words…Yes, me too…this is what I have come to believe.
We all desperately need to be seen, exactly as we are, through the lens of great love and compassion. We crave it–it is indeed what heals. This belief which has become unearthed in my own heart, this belief is what is compelling me forward these days. It is that which is calling me on this next leg of my journey.
Tomorrow is the summer solstice. The light will be at its greatest and I have to admit, it is as though so much of what we have dreamed of seems to be slowly coming true. Without telling stories before their time, I can only say that for very special people in my little tribe marvelous and magical things seem to be coming to fruition after a long dark winter when the dream of them seemed simply impossible. I too am feeling shifts in my own journey, as though I am coming into a clearing which is bright and where suddenly I can see the path. Midsummer at its most magical.
I wish you a tomorrow swollen with abundance and with the joy of being seen–exactly as you are–with great reverence and love.
All my life, well, at least as long as I remember I have been under the impression (or should I say misconception) that if something was worth doing, it was hard. It required labor and work and a whole lot of earnestness and heavy thought.
And so it was when I talked to Kaiya about how I would heal this soul wound, the one that is keeping me from asking for what I need, the one that tells me that I should simply not want more than what I have been given, I had a plan that involved a lot of work.
I laid out my strategy for her. I involved a lot of thinking, and journaling, and making art. It would involve being still and being insightful and being open, and I was up to the task, because mind you, I am no slacker. I can roll up my sleeves with the best of them and do my work.
Sweet, Kaiya, she listens so patiently and then smiles. “What if its not so hard?” she asks me. “What if its easy?” I look at her like she has three heads.
EASY?
REALLY?
“Yes,” she said. “What if its only hard, because you are making it hard? What if part of the healing is recognizing that life CAN be easy. That joy doesn’t have to hard. That love, and abundance and wonder is all coming to you, just because. What if?”
I was silent. I kept looking at her. I heard her…but had I really heard her? What was she saying? Easy? Had I heard right?
“Yes,” she smiled “easy. What would it feel like to you if healing from this was…easy. What would that look like.”
I was stunned. I had not once considered this.
What would it be like to simply declare, “That is how I used to do things. That is how I am used to see the world. Now I am going to do it differently.” And then practice. Make lots of false starts and a couple of mistakes but playfully laugh them all off, and keep going. Easy going. Simply. Voila.
Recently while I was contemplating all this I read about how the only thing you need to do to run a marathon is start and keep going. And practice.
It has made me wonder, how many obstacles we create out of thin air, simply by declaring the path hard. Doing hard things requires energy (which we often don’t have) and pain (which we don’t want) and a certain amount of conditions that need to be pre-met. Does it mean we never start?
Or when we do start do we avoid the simple path and take a long, windy, complicated one when it isn’t necessary. How many mountains do we climb when there is a short-cut right through the pass?
I can’t tell you how many ideas I have given up on because I was exhausted and overwhelmed thinking about the process.
I am not sure what changes in life this new found wisdom will bring? Will the dreams I am dreaming unfold with grace now if I adopt this new ease. It is so tempting to fall into a trap of expectation, to swing on the pendulum so completely in the other direction but I don’t want to let myself use that as an excuse to talk myself out of faith and trust and starting.
And going.
And practicing.
On Wednesday Odette came over for dinner. Since she moved out we have established Wednesday evenings as “family dinner nights.”
We sat around the table and talked until way too late. It was raining Wednesday night–its been raining all week–as it has been practically all spring. When we finally wrapped up our food and put away the wine and the dishes, I announced we would take Odette home. We all put on our raincoats, and boots and opened the door.
To say it was a storm was an understatement. The sky was black and the rain was falling so hard that our normally bright street lights were covered. Wind lashed the branches back and forth. Thunder filled the space as though we were hiding under a garbage can and someone was banging on top. Then lightening lit up the sky. Max screamed and we all jumped back. “I guess I’ll just stay the night,” Odette said.
As we shook out our umbrellas I noticed that the ceiling was leaking. I grabbed a bucket and trudged up to the attic to see if I could find the place in the roof that would need some love when the storm had passed. As I was up above, I heard Max and Odette talking.
He was terrified of the lightening. As it filled our big picture window over and over he cowered.
“You know Max,” Odette said. “When I was a little girl in Rwanda, we would go out every day and take care of the cows. And sometimes a storm like this would sneak up on us. The sky would suddenly grow so black and even if it was day time we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. But we would have to get back home. It was really scary, all that dark. The lightening was frightening too–those plains were pretty flat and we were afraid we would get hit. But we would pray for the lightening to come anyway, because it would show us where we were and would lead the way home..”
Sometimes the thing that scares you the most will lead the way home.
Say yes to adventure, even when you are not quite sure how to start. Say yes to the journey because maybe, just maybe declaring the start of the trip will somehow make the path appear. Say yes, because until YES is bellowed loud, it seems like it all could get canceled anyway. Say YES because YES reveals how we tell ourselves no all the time.
No sooner than I came out with my healer’s dream, I found myself a little stuck.
Now what? I wondered.
And suddenly, in the treatment room, during my own acupuncture session, the what appeared. My healer’s journey starts with myself and with a wound so big and huge that it threatens to swallow me and my sweet little dream up in it.
Its the wound that I keep so neat and tidy, underneath a flesh colored bandaid. I have hidden it from so many, especially those closest to me. I have covered it over so neatly and prettily that I was able to ignore it, pretend its not there. I fool everyone around me too.
Saying yes and deciding it was time to start making things happen is what ripped it I wide open.
Its the hurt that comes from my belief that I won’t get my needs met. It is the ache that results from the belief that I will always need to settle for something almost nice enough, and be content with it. It is the soreness in my heart where I tell myself that I should take my portion of happiness however small and say, “Thank you very much”, That I should not ask for too much (that I won’t get it anyway) and that good girls aren’t greedy.
For so long, I have been afraid to ask for too much. Afraid because I thought that I wouldn’t get it anyway and the disappointment would be crushing. Afraid because I thought that I would be scorned, laughed at, ridiculed for daring to believe anyone would give me what I need. “Can you believe she thought she was so (deserving, smart, lovable, worthy?” I hear them chuckle. I am afraid that if I dared ask for my dreams to come true, the abundance in my life, the goodness and richness and beauty would all evaporate. So I sat in gratitude for what came my way and told myself not to dare think about asking for one stitch more.
Over the years, I have disguised this wound from so many, and even from myself. The wanting and the believing that the wanting will never be satisfied left me feeling like I had a giant hole in my gut.
I have mis-used the language of Buddhism to console my little wounded heart and to keep it in check. I would think about desire and suffering and attachment and translate their lessons as “Don’t bother to dream too big girl” I tell myself. “Those dreams are not for you. Give up your wants and desires. Simply say thank you for what you have.”
In an effort to swallow disappointment I stopped asking for what my heart wants and needs, and I called it “contentment”. In order to prevent myself from being attached I gave it all up and told myself I didn’t deserve it.
Teasing out the difference between this burying of my dreams and seeking true contentment seems to be my work right now. To be honest it seems like messy stuff and I feel as though I am stumbling along gracelessly.
Yet, I believe it is possible to live in the moment, awake and present to whatever that comes my way, to find joy and happiness in the messiness of now without promises of certainty. But I also believe that living this way does not mean that I need to turn a deaf ear to the whispers of my heart, the ones that beckon me on journeys, and call me toward my dreams. I can play in their possibilities without attaching to them. I can chase the butterflies, without attachment to catching them. I can ask for what I need to start this journey. I can ask and I can believe that it will show up without being attached to what that looks like.
I know I am brave enough. (she says with a gulp)
I think it starts with YES.
The first time I was aware of it was almost 20 years ago. I was standing in a friends living room in Georgetown, a hoity toity DC neighborhood. I was visiting from Houston and talking to a woman I knew in college at some friend’s engagement party. While I told her about my experiences as a teacher she told me about becoming a nurse. And in the pit of my stomach I knew. “Yeah…THAT’s what I should have done. That should have been me.” I was flooded suddenly with awareness and knowing–a sense that came from almost nowhere that told me I should have become a healer and with a slight sinking feeling rarely experienced by the young, I felt I may have missed my calling.
As the years went on, this uncomfortable feeling returned in the most unlikely of times and places. Long before I would even consider having a child, I became obsessed with midwifery. While I excelled at my chosen career, while my work felt meaningful and important, while I felt I was making a mark somewhere good and important, I never felt 100% at home. I began to dream of healing of the most ancient kind–the wise women healing of our ancestors.
I read everything there was to read on the subject of birthing babies. I pinned down any midwife who would talk to me for hours while I asked thousands of questions. I searched through catalogs and plotted training and career paths and dreamed in unrealistic and silly ways about how I would one day join the league of those who hold space so something beautiful could be born. I called it my fantasy career–and spoke about it longingly as the thing I would do when I retired or when I was old and grey. I spoke of it as the thing I might try if I could do it all over again.
But it never let me go, the crazy notion that I am meant for something else. It popped up its head in countless ways. Even when I wasn’t taking this life seriously, it was dreaming me.
About 2 years ago I realized that it was less about birthing babies and more about birthing hope. It was about being with people through their dark days of pain and touching them with compassion and giving them permission to heal. As I emerged from the fog of my own divorce and a battle with migraines and what some had called chronic fatigue, I knew it was about witnessing birth of a different kind.
Over the course of years, of healing from my own hurts–both physical, emotional and spiritual, I have explored various modalities. Western medicine is truly miraculous but I am drawn to the old ancient healing traditions, like acupuncture. These have touched my life in ways that feel down right miraculous. I started out going for my migraines. While we have made progress with my beastly headaches, the reality is that something else has shifted in me within that treatment room. I have felt fear drop away. I have let anxiety drift. I have woken up to lessons in my life. I have been able to settle more into the present. I have felt my body and spirit shift together to a place of more wholeness.
As I have witnessed friends and loved ones suffer from pain of all sorts, my hands have itched for needles.
The uneasy disquieting feeling has turned into an alarm. It has become a child tugging on my sleeve relentlessly. I want to be there to help hold the space so others too can let go of their pain, heal their souls and bodies. I want to help women and men alike birth, not babies but their better healthier selves. I want to hold space so something healing can be born.
I know, with all my being, that this healing work, is what I am meant to do. Yes. There. I have said it out loud. Its scary to declare it to the world this way. Especially since it seems so impossible, improbable, impractical.
For the last 10 months or so I have started to adjust my thinking to hold the possibility that maybe I could really do this in some way shape or form. For the most part I sat quietly with these dreams, speaking them outloud only occasionally, only tentatively. I tenderly rocked the vision of me as healer like a sickly newborn babe. I wasn’t sure she would thrive, but I held her close to my heart and nursed her anyway. She has now grown to the point that I know she will be healthy vibrant…and dare I speak it…real.
Standing between me and training as a healer is a mountain range of challenges. The one that looms largest, looking unscalable and impassable is the mountain that represents at least a couple of hundred of thousands of dollars to pay for tuition and to support Max and I while I study. I have no idea how or where these resources will come from as I struggle to make ends meet every month without books and school. Even if I could find the cash for tuition, I have no idea how I will add studying to an already overcrowded life of fulltime work and single parenting. I know major changes will have to occur in my life to make space for this dream but I can’t quite figure them out. I see the path but truth be told, I have no idea how the hell I am going to get on it.
At another time in my life, this lack of clarity may have caused me to give up in despair, resigning myself to my almost good enough life with my good enough career and the choices I have made to this point. I would have held my knees close to my chest and told myself that it is enough and I should be happy with my beautiful child, my lovely community, my meaningful work. But this is now and I am no longer content with resignation. I am feeling fierce and warrior like, even though I am not exactly sure what that really means.
I know I am a healer and that it is only a matter of time before I can acquire the tools of my trade. I am declaring the start of my journey, even though I can’t quite see the path ahead. And somehow, declaring it here feels important for reasons I don’t really understand. But I am trusting this instinct and my need to tell you this story.
How is it going to all turn out? I have no idea. This story is an epic mystery. Will it happen on top of my current career, along side it, in place of it? How will I stitch the resources together? Where will I end up doing this work? What is the Universe going to require of me? What pound of flesh will I be forced to pay? What blessings will find me on the way? What marvelous and scary destinations await me?
I can’t wait to find out.
If you too are curious how this all turns out drop me a note in the comments here or by email at meg at megcasey dot com. As I set off on this journey however slow or rapid it may be, I am seeking a community of fellow travelers who will help me navigate this path and who will hold me accountable to this life that is dreaming me.
Max and I sitting on the steps of the coffee house where Odette works. We had gotten there three minutes too late and we thought we missed eating her delicious grilled cheese that he had wanted after a hard and exhausting day.
If anyone had every really been able to help me understand how hard motherhood would be I never would have taken the leap. Now don’t get me wrong, there is not a day that I regret that I leapt but I know my wimpy ol’ self absorbed young 30-something self never would have signed up if I really believed and knew in my gut how this job would turn me inside out and back again, fill me with joy and sorrow and desperate panicky fear all at once, bring up all my old primal insecurities, force me to do the brutal work of healing old soul wounds. Truth is, I might have been frightened away if I simply knew how much time I would spend making lunches that don’t get eaten, picking up toys that will just get dumped again, and driving endless and countess miles from activity to activity to drs appointments to playdates. Really. I am so glad I never really got it.
For nothing makes me happier than being Max’s mom. I feel as though I some how got snuck backstage to witness the greatest show on earth. Max has taken me on adventure after adventure across landscapes of the heart as well as real lives ones. With his beautiful smile, he cut away all the bullshit and revealed how purely I can love. He has given me new eyes and together we discover and uncover so much joy and silliness and wonder in the world. I don’t know if he will ever appreciate the tremendous gift he has given me simply by being here. Today on Mother’s Day, I didn’t want anyone to praise me for all I do for him. I wanted to hug him and play street hockey with him, and hold hands eating icecream and revel in all the joys that motherhood has brought me–I wanted to buzz the way I do when I see him leap over walls, his long hair flying out behind him and I yell,”Go Max GO!!!”.
If I am honest though, one of the hardest things about being Max’s mom is meeting his gremlins, the little voices in his head who tell him he is not good enough, or that it is all his fault. The worst of the bunch is the one who tells him that when bad things happen, it must be because he is an idiot and so therefor he must punish himself by refusing the icecream, sitting alone by himself instead of playing, hiding away and torturing his little heart. When did these monsters show up? When do our kids stop believing in themselves even just for a few minutes?
But what kills me as I see his little heart hurt is that I know these insecurities so very well. Apparently, I did more than pass on my freckles and chattiness, but as he grows I am witness him wrestle with the very same demons that I thought I had banished, or at very least tamed, years ago.
Oh they push my buttons those gremlins. And while I keep mine safely at bay these days, I can’t help but be flooded with empathic fear and hurt and sadness when I see him suffering so. Nothing I say really seems to change his mind when he is convinced he is to blame for the day falling apart and as I watch him fall apart with it, I feel helpless, helpless helpless. I know that those gremlins in his head are his to tame and while I can give him some tools, ultimately this is HIS work, not mine. I can support him, but alas I cannot fix it.
Now I finally understand what my mother told me when I held him as a newborn and she said that motherhood feels as though your heart is off walking around outside your body.
Today as I held him on my lap as he sobbed through the breakdown of the day, I decided to stop telling him he was wrong and I simply just said, “You are so precious to me. It stinks that the world is so disappointing sometimes. I don’t know what to do about it. But we can sit here together and be sad for a bit if you want. And then we can eat grilled cheese and do grocery shopping. And by the way, this was the best mother’s day of my life because I got to celebrate that no matter what happens, I have you.”
Happy Mother’s Day Max. I am so glad I didn’t know then what I know now. I can’t wait to see where we go next!
This is the time of year that finds me in the garden. Every morning, I am distracted from my march out the door by an inspection of flower beds. What has come up? What new thing is showing itself? What new beginning has announced itself? Max always has to yell from the car, “Mom…Mommmmm……Come….on…We are going to be late.” I am dreamy as I stumble to the car, unable to take my eyes off the soil. It is fascinating to me–this explosion of new life.
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Yet, when it is time to work in my garden, I find that the majority of the work is about clearing. Removing. Pulling up weeds, tilling the soil, turning over the ground. Clearing the space so that something new and beautiful can grow. I spend so little time actually planting. No, most of my work is about picking up dead leaves. Picking up the sticks brought down by the rain. Pruning the azaleas and the roses. Cutting back. Cleaning out. Sweeping up. Creating space so something new can be born. Isn’t this really the work of a gardener?
There is a spot in my garden where I usually plant annuals. Impatients or pansies–something that will immediately add color. This year, for a variety of reasons I don’t understand, I decided not to do this. I bought a couple packs of seeds, checking only that the light would be OK. Without paying much attention, Max and I dumped them onto the freshly tilled soil. We raked over a bit more soil and waited as it rained.
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This week our beloved housemate is leaving us. Its hard to believe it is so, but it is. It is an occasion of excitement for it marks a wonderful new beginning for her. Our home was a safe place of refuge when she needed it most. Our house was a transition. But now she has all that she needs to make it on her own–legal status, a job, resources, a community. The apartment half a mile down the street, up high on the top of the building, with the tiny kitchen and big windows, it is the right place for her to be now. It is the first home she will call her own. And this is a miracle. Something new is being born for her.
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And I know that something new will be born for us too. My dear friend Kaiya tells me that the Universe abhors a vacuum. When space is opened up, something new will grow. And I am holding onto this truth fiercely. It is a great comfort.
As we transition from housemates to friends, there is an ache in this empty place in our heart’s house where she used to be with her lilting African voice and the smells of her yummy cooking, in the place where she used to look at me with eyes that really saw. And yet, I know that out of this emptiness something new will grow. Letting go makes me sad and if I am completely honest, the mystery of what will grow up in this place makes me a little uncomfortable. But it is a discomfort I will sit with. But I have long ago given up guessing. Whatever is next will surprise me, that is for sure.
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For weeks now I have been churning on these thoughts, in the garden, with the moving boxes. I am feeling it in other places of my life too. Colleagues are moving on, our organization is transitioning, friendships that are dear to me are tranforming. I know that in my heart too something is giving way, releasing, letting go. I am letting so much go so something new and marvelous can be born. It is sad and scary and also full of wonder…
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I am drawing on the lessons of my garden. If I clear the space, something beautiful can be born. There is a cycle to this life we live, a cycle of letting go of what blossomed and filled us last, clearing the space and waiting with an empty patch of soil.
I feel I am stepping into an empty field, freshly tilled. I am saying yes to whatever will grow here in this open space in my heart, in my life. Yes without knowing where it will take me. Yes without a plan. Yes without knowing what the next step will be.
