Saturday was the “end of summer” camp out at the pool. Max had been waiting for this moment all summer long. The thought of swimming in the pool until midnight tickled him, the thought of not having to leave his precious pool when the day was done. Though we woke up to a sky full of grey clouds, as we ran our errands the sky started to clear, the sun peaked out, then finally burst out in full hot humid August glory. A perfect night for sleeping poolside. We breathed a sigh of relief.
As the day turned to evening though, as I lounged at the pool, it suddenly felt cool. At first it was a welcome relief from the August heat but then it started to warn of a change in the weather. I looked at my neighbor lounging next to me. “It will blow over” I said. He nodded solemnly. We checked the doppler map on my iphone just to be sure. We saw the storm coming straight at us. “It will blow over” we said nervously, already feeling the crushing weight of the children’s disappointment looming. “Let’s stay”
As we started to cook dinner we felt it, the few drops of rain. “It must be from the trees” we speculated. The lifeguards kept the pool open. No thunder, no lightening, its fine. Too early to call it a night. “We could always go home” we rationalized. “But not now, let’s stay. Its bound to blow over.”
A few hours later we were huddled in the gazebo. A few families had left not wanting to set up their tents in the lashing rain. The rest of us shared food and drinks and told stories and laughed while the kids slid down the hill in the mud and rolled around like little pigs, jumping into the pool when the life guards deemed that the rain was not too heavy. “It will blow over” I laughed over my wine. “Maybe not until tomorrow but it will eventually. It always does.” When it slowed down enough to start the campfire we wiped off chairs and huddled around the warmth, breathing in the magic and saying, “Yes…we knew it would blow over.”
It was after midnight that a showered and exhausted Max was tucked into his sleeping bag, snuggled up against a night totally unexpected, but thrilling never the less. I whispered to him the only mama wisdom that seemed to matter at that moment.
“We should never be afraid of the storms. They carry us to places we never would have journeyed, if only we are brave enough to stay.”
The sweetest sound is her voice calling, “Now…Aunt Meg…NOW…swim…swim…swim”. Or is the sweetest sound his voice cheering me on as he catches the wave with me and rides it all the way in to the sandy shore where we lie laughing as the next one crashes over our heads and flips us over? Venturing out into the freezing cold water on the ocean side of the Cape, Emily and Max proved that you can teach this old dog new tricks.
An hour later I am staggering up the beach, looking like a drunk, high on salt water and sun. Warn out from fighting against the waves to get out where I can catch them again, I wonder how I ever played for hours on end in the surf as a kid…where did I get the stamina, the energy, the ability to stay warm? And I wonder if I ever played as hard as he does. You know, I don’t think I ever did.
There is nothing like learning something new from your child. Nothing like being a beginner and having to put your trust in the wee one you are signed up to protect. Sure, I body surfed as a kid and I suppose this is NOT that much different but it has been so long, and we never did have these boogie board when I dove in and out of the waves. The closest we got was a half deflated raft that rode out past the waves and laid on while it rocked our sun-drenched bodies.
And truth be told, I never was as brave as Max is in the water. Not even back then when I was on the verge of turning 8. I was afraid and had to push myself out into the surf. I was never a strong swimmer and I never trusted that the waves would not drag me back out with them to sea. I wonder if I really allowed myself to let go of the fear long enough to feel the thrill I feel now.
And with this realization, it hits me like a truck. My fears are not his fears. His journey is separate from mine. Somethings I will be able to teach him, but many things I will not. If I am lucky I can hold the space while he learns, witness his growth. And even now at the tender age of almost 8 he is teaching me, teaching me what he knows, what he has learned. Not just guiding me along as the universe teaches but he is actually teaching me. He knows stuff that I don’t. He knows stuff I never will know. Even now.
Last night, as we drove home from the grocery store, he decided to fill me in on the latest of his discoveries.
“Do you know, Mom, that I am brilliant. I may in fact be smarter than you. Yup. I probably am. Because you, Mama…you are a grownup. And grownups are kids who have lost their imagination. I still have mine so I think–I think that makes me smarter.”
He doesn’t know how right he is. He knows so much that I am only hoping to one day learn. I wonder if he too will one day need a child to teach him. To show him how to ride to waves and laugh when they crash. To teach him to be brave. Or to dance. Or to write poetry or scuba dive or fly into the air on a glider.
Sometimes, its not the depth of the water, or even the speed of the current that is scary. Its the fact that we can’t see to the bottom, don’t know what lurks beneath, what lies just under the surface waiting for us.
Seeing the ones we count on to be “all knowing” slip and fall is scary. So scary that it can create a panic that is overwhelming, long after our hero has risen up laughing.
When the water is moving fast it is easy to enjoy the ride, easy to whoop and cry out and scream and recover. The parts when we are just drifting can be hardest, most fearful, most excruciating.
It always helps if someone is willing to float along side us and hold our hand. We can breathe easier and look toward the sky knowing that we are not alone.
It also always helps to keep the people who have traveled this river before in our sights. They are just a little ways ahead and while we cannot be sure the current, the wind or anything will be the same when we get to where they are, knowing that they have been there and are OK is comforting.
The hardest thing to do is NOT to give up, and to stay, floating, letting the river take us where it may. We can be faced with an overwhelming intense desire to stand up, throw our tube over our shoulder and walk to shore but actually, the walk to the shore is treacherous and slimy, the shore is full of brambles and branches and prickly things. Even though its scary, its far easier to float. The resistance is always harder.
At the end, there is tremendous reward for staying in our “discomfort zone” and not fleeing to the safer, smaller space. Not only do we arrive at the way-station, fine but often having grown an inch taller, more confident and full of joy. We can say that we have lived and that is always better than wishing we did.
For Max, the bravest boy I ever knew, who teaches me over and over again. I am so proud of you big boy for feeling the fear and riding the river any way. I can’t wait to go down it with you again.
-
“Everything cuts against the tide, when you’re by my side” -Jeff Tweedy
Tonight, after dinner, I bundled up Max and his best buddy Jake and we headed to the ice rink. It was the last game of the summer season of the Mullet League, one of the many “old guy” hockey leagues that play late in the evenings. We were there to see a couple of friends, guys who love the game so much so that they ignore the aches and pains of middle age and keep playing.
We were the only three people in the stands. Max and Jake waved their handmade signs and cheered whenever Dan or Pierre came on the ice. Max ran the length of the rink with his sign over his head whenever Dan touched the puck and carried it toward the goal. And when Pierre scored a goal, we looked at each other with glee and said, “Did you see that? I saw that! We were here to see him score!”
One of my greatest joys is being a witness.
Being the one who goes, to who stands beside, who watches with wonder and cries because it is so beautiful. Who cheers or bows her head or simply looks on and says, “yes… I see you are strong, gorgeous, smart, amazing, daring, brave”. I am at my happiest when I am standing beside someone I care about and simply being there while they do something brilliant, terrifying or heartbreakingly difficult. And I can wave and say I am here. I saw you do it. It is true and real.
I am teaching Max that 90% of being a part of a community is simply that, bearing witness to each other’s lives. Listening to each others stories with wonder and awe and compassion. Being there for each other as we bloom and wilt and breakdown only to breakthrough over and over again. Its not about doing the right thing, or saying the right thing but simply about being there–steadfast.
Being there seems to be my skill. In fact, I am beginning to believe its my purpose. To hold space, to witness. To see people, as they are–amazingly strong, utterly resilient, brave and bold and sometimes broken but unbelievably gorgeous in their being. To stand there and say, “I see you. I see your dreams, your fears. I see you, not the pretend plastic coating that you put on but you, with your messiness and your struggles and I love you. Its all going to be ok.”
Isn’t that why we all come here, this community of writers who come to bear witness to each other’s writing, lives, stories poured out on the page? We come to hold the space so something beautiful and healing and new and centering can be born. We take leaps, we soar, we sometimes fail, but above all we bear witness.
For you, who come here, or sit in my living room. For those of you who have commented, or who have held me while I cried, who played me music so I could dance or simple said, “I am here”. You are my witness to this messy and full life, spilling over with happiness and grief and fear. This is for you.
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.
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!
The other day I was standing in my friend Maureen’s kitchen. I can’t remember exactly how it came up but I remember distinctly saying this, “You know, these days I find myself mostly doing things that I am not very good at.”
Gone are the days when I filled my spare time with things I had done for years, things I felt naturally talented at, things that made me feel accomplished. Dance, knitting, baking, my work. All these activities left me feeling like an expert, good about myself. Smart. Strong.
Instead I find that I am spending my time exploring things that are new. Things that make me feel wobbly. Things that make me feel a little scared. Things that are hard and that I can’t seem to master no matter how long I work at it, but things I need to do, or things I love to do, or things I simply just want to do.
I may be attempting to make some headway on the disaster that is my house, trying to demystify being organized with a tornado for a son who inherits his habits from me. I could be slogging away at guitar, working my way through muffled notes and sloppy rhythm, trying to loosen up my stiff right hand, while strengthening my weak left one. I find myself wobbling around a skating rink, going round and round, trying to avoid an embarrassing spill. Or singing really rough harmonies that sound slightly flat. I may be trying to bake without wheat flour, or garden in the shade. Or I may be sitting on my cushion desperately trying to quiet my mind or on my mat working my way into a pose.
These days I feel so unpracticed at everything I do, I am such a beginner. And make no mistake, its a role I embrace. For so long I was so scared to try anything that I didn’t think I would be good at. I let a lot of opportunities to try new things pass me by for fear of looking dumb. I thought I wouldn’t be able to enjoy something if I didn’t master it and if I thought there was little chance of mastery…well…I just let it go. But now, I am beginning to love doing things just to try them out without any pressure to succeed. Just to experience them. Its hard and it requires a whole new story of myself to protect my little eager heart, but I am bit by bit embracing it and feeling my life deepen.
I never would have embraced this “beginner’s lifestyle” if motherhood hadn’t forced me.
I plunged into the sea of beginning, when I became a parent. I went from being an accomplished, confident and completely masterful woman to a beginner in every way shape and form. It was all so new. I was so unpracticed, even the simplest things seemed impossible: breastfeeding, changing diapers, getting those little shirts over those big heads, getting out the door on time, taking a shower. In the 36 hours of my labor I transitioned from being an expert to being an outright, brand spankin’ new beginner.
What I came to believe was that even if I didn’t know how do to something, I would and could learn if it really was important enough. After weeks of showing my breasts to complete strangers I finally figured out how to feed my child discreetly even while waiting in line at the grocery. I could dress Max with one hand and sip an iced latte held in the other and could change a diaper in under 10 seconds flat.
But truth be told, the minute I mastered anything in this parenting gig, the minute I thought I had motherhood down and had begun to feel “good” at this new job, I was sunk again, thrown once more into the land of change, and mystery, and exploration without a map. If the last 7 and a half years have taught me anything, it is the inevitability of trading in mastery for mystery.
This has been accentuated by the fact that I am a girly girl mom raising a boy’s boy son. In addition to all the mysteries of child development, I have had to immerse myself into the secret life of boys. Without a partner to turn to to say, “You handle this,” I find I need to delve into topics I never would have imagined that I would need to explore, let alone master
Which leads me to “safety yellow” colored jock straps. Or rather, the choices between yellow mesh gym shorts with built in cups or yellow cycling pants with built in cups.
Max is starting a hockey program on Saturday. He has been counting down the minutes until I finally let him play. While I made him really work to earn the chance to play, truth be told, I was so excited that he was embracing a sport I knew. I thought that maybe, my own wobbly skating aside, I would get a pass on the beginner thing this time. That finally, he would enter a phase where I could skate along on information I had mastered long ago. That I was getting a long deserved mom’s rest in the stands where I could comfortably discuss the icing calls with the veteran hockey moms from game 1 on. Better yet, I could feel an expert again-if not at playing hockey, then well…at watching hockey…and being a proper hockey mom. In fact, I might be able to tell a few of those other moms a thing or two about off-sides and slashing and holding and all that.
I was beginning to get used to the idea that I could finally rest my weary little ego in the land of mastery. That is, I was resting until I got the email. From my darling and helpful good guy friend. The one who keeps me informed about guys stuff I need to know. The email from the friend that knocked me off my high horse and informed just how little I really knew. It was the email where he started to fill me in on jock straps.
Apparently there are all different kinds and I as a parent will have to help Max choose. He needs a special hockey jock strap which is different from the one his karate teacher had ordered him for that sport. Apparently the standard issue hockey jock shorts are safety yellow. Talk about a mystery… Yellow? Safety yellow? Its been hours since I learned this and I am still baffled. Why on earth, do they make them yellow? I mean, they are hidden, beneath black or blue or red hockey pants. Yellow bike helmets, I get it…but yellow underwear? Is it to make sure they don’t get thrown in the wrong pile of the wash? I have no idea and am not sure that I will ever know. But it simply a sign, a little laughable sign from the universe that even in the area I thought I would have down, I just don’t know how much I don’t know. And that there is no way to escape swimming in the land of beginning. There will always be a mystery.
So I am setting off, yet again, on another uncharted adventure. Me, my son, his yellow penis protecting underwear and I. I get to practice all over again, the art of being a beginner, of starting from ground zero, of knowing nothing and plunging in anyway, of just giving it a go and seeing where it leads. We always start right where we are completely new.
As for the whole mastery thing, well, I still would like to believe that one day I will get it all down. But truth be told, the richness of my life these days is coming from embracing the mystery. Parenting has taught me that in ways that are humbling and funny, sweet and torturous. And it will teach me over and over again.
On the mat I felt so stiff and sore tonight Tight in all the usual places and some surprising ones as well.
“Notice,” my teacher said, “where your mind goes when you feel stiff. Can you stay with the irritation? Can you stay with it long enough to let it teach you? What does it say? Notice without judging where your mind goes…Now bring it back…Stay present if you can and see what you can learn…”
This is a scene that replays a lot in our house these days. Max has done something he knows is wrong or disrespectful. I call him on it and he immediately looks away in discomfort. To look me in the face means having to see my disappointment or perhaps my stern face. As I talk to him I see his brain has moved onto calculating hockey stats or maybe to building legos. “Look at me,” I tell him. “I need to know you are present here with me. I know its uncomfortable but I need to know you are learning here. You can’t learn if you don’t stay with me”
The teacher is the student is the teacher is the student….
Staying with pain, with irritation, with disappointment, with fear. Whether we are 7 or 39 we rush away, rush toward anything that will dull the ache. Dreams of a sweeter tomorrow, ice cream or booze, new toys and new friends and new adventures. We leave the chores and the laundry undone while we search for the things that may soothe our heartache. Its so scary to stay here and keep going when we feel so uncomfortable…
But if we aren’t paying attention, we miss the lesson. At worst I am doomed to live it over and over again…or at very least to have lived through pain for naught.
These days I am finding myself compelled to stay, stuck to the spot like glue, to linger with my discomfort just a little. To stay with the irritation for just one more breath. To hear what it is whispering. To hear it without judgement…If we can clear away the clutter we can tune in to our silent, certain knowing
I am stripping down a lot of the things that used to distract me. I am clearing out the clutter and the things that make noise. And yes I am hearing some things–not just hearing but listening and taking them in. Some things are things I would rather not hear, but they are true and I need to absorb their wisdom. Other things are useful and helpful and I wonder how I could have missed them. And some things, some things I am learning are downright delicious. Like relearning the fact that when I hang upside down with my head cradled in my arms, it may hurt but I can stretch out my spine and relieve compression and tightness that I carry and even misinterpret as stress. Or that nothing is more healing than holding my son and hearing what his heart really needs.
This Christmas was the first Christmas where it happened. Max sat, surrounded by a mountain of carefully picked out gifts and cried. Santa Claus and I, we had failed to deliver him the Christmas he had hoped for–or rather the gifts on his list he had so desperately wanted.
I took a deep breath, and realized that this was a moment to teach. Teach about disappointment and recovering from it. Teach about the bounty of gifts that he had, how lucky he was. Odette told him stories about what children in Rwanda get for Christmas. Slowly but surely his big old tears stopped falling and he started to happily, joyfully play with the gifts he had received, suddenly aware of the magic they represented.
Looking back at our Christmas now, I can’t help but see a powerful lesson beginning to unfold for me too.
Ironically I began my winter by teaching the lesson I would spend all winter learning. About the trickiness of hope and attaching myself to vision of what my future happiness looks like. About the disappointment that comes from yearning and longing and about how I lose sight of the gifts in my life when I am looking for that one elusive cherished desire. And I learned this winter about how while hope can leave me drunk on possibility of how wonderful it might all be one day, the hangover is an empty feeling and the sneaking suspicion that maybe I am not really quite enough.
Yeah, this winter, in very small ways hope kicked my ass. And I saw hope for the sneaky character it is, something that makes me feel warm and fuzzy now and again but something which can turn every day into the Christmas where I sit surrounded by gifts sobbing.
I have to admit, as spring time images of hope come fluttering into view, I have not done a good job receiving them openly. I have wanted to scream at the top of my lungs–OH NO PEOPLE….DON’T YOU DARE COME TALKING TO ME ABOUT HOPE. DON’T YOU SEE HOW TRICKY AND DESTRUCTIVE IT IS? YOU THINK I AM GOING TO GET SUCKED IN AND SET MYSELF UP FOR DISAPPOINTMENT AND MISS ALL THE GIFTS IN MY LIFE? YOU MAY BE A SUCKER…BUT I AM NOT!
And yet, something tugged on me and my grouchy, self-righteous ways. Tugged on me like a little child pulling on my sleeve. The child that does not give up, saying “mom…mom….mom…” over and over again until I listened, maybe a little reluctantly.
What if HOPE isn’t about the future? What if HOPE is not another word for longing? What if HOPE isn’t about holding onto something that hasn’t yet materialized? What if we have been misusing the word all this time? What if we have somehow bent it out of shape? What if all this time that I was “holding onto HOPE” I was clutching something else?
What if HOPE is about the present? What if HOPE is about recognizing the beauty and the joy even in the most mundane and ordinary moment. What if HOPE is about finding love in the midst of horrible pain and just focusing in like a laser on it–not because it predicts a better day coming, but simply because it is beautiful and perfect exactly as it is? What if HOPE is about seeing the possibility in now? The action I can take right now that opens up a whole new way of being, regardless of where it takes me? That makes joy and love present right now–regardless of what happens next? What if HOPE is about savoring every moment of life for the gifts and the joy and even the challenges and lessons that it brings?
What if I had it all wrong all these years? Well…what a wonderful time to start again, I suppose.
These are some of the things that I have been thinking about all winter…that I have been turning over in my head as spring has started to bloom.
Jen Lemen and Stephanie Roberts have this lovely project called Picture Hope. They have a proposal to travel the world looking for images of hope and capture them on film. They have been voted as the number one most popular idea and now they are going with 19 other ideas to a final adjudication. I am so proud of my friend Jen and her soulsister Stephanie. I suppose it would be easy to start hoping that it all comes together and that they win the big prize. Truth is, I know that they may or may not win in the end and I can’t let my little fragile heart go wishing. Instead I will simply sit in the joy that through daring to see the possibility and take a step forward to challenge us all to see hope–not as something abstract and future oriented but something that can be captured with a lens they are already living the dream.
Max, my son, was named after the boy in the wolf suit in the Maurice Sendak story. From the moment I first felt him move inside, I somehow knew he would be my wild thing. And I loved him and his untamable spirit with every bit of my soul. No other name would do.
Where the Wild Things Are is one of my all time favorite books. I loved it as a child. I loved it as a teacher. I love it as a parent. And now, I cannot believe that they are making a movie out of it.
What is life if it is not an epic journey in a boat we create out of hope and fear? Who are we if we are not all sweet tender children in wolf costumes, angry and imperfect, but authentic, taming our monsters and loving them all the same, embracing our fears and then setting sail back home to ourselves to our hearts to everyone who loved us exactly as we are,fierce costume or not.
I cannot wait.
