Here I am now… a list:
single mom, middle-aged divorcee…
that kind of woman is dangerous.
she is never destined to be anyone’s wife.
shakti lives on in twenty-year-old memories.
they still long to breathe her in though
they would never bring her home.
her power crosses decades and oceans.
her vision reignites passion for those who believe.
when she is taken, she revisits them all.
remember who you are, shakti.
remember your life of service and devotion:
take only what you need.
at 4am, i woke to find the skylight above my bed filled with stars.
wide awake in the wee hours, i understand this as a time to pray, so at this moment i stepped outside, bare feet on wet deck, gazing up at the spacious mystery.
there was no verbal prayer, there were no words, no platitudes, no random cheesy internet memes passing through, no workshop-speak… just gratitude. just seeing my place in the space again. feeling wet summer air and coolness after days of 90 degree heat.
i returned to bed where my little girl was sound asleep next to me.
i noticed that once again, she’d wiped boogers on the wall next to her head. i wondered where the cat was. she never came in. the dog, asleep in her bed at the foot of ours. oh how much i have to love and clean up after.
at 5am, i got up again. i unfurled a yoga mat and sat for a morning practice.
ujjayi breath, folding over and then arching my back, stretching out the tension, feeling the warmth coming on, the energy, the metabolism boost… folding over and into this, relishing the dawn light – as a mother, these hours of dawn and twilight are mine and mine alone… in them, i need to fit another universe entirely. these are the hours when no one else needs me.
“Mom?”
I hear my old stories kick in. I can’t do anything except mother. I am too busy for self-care. I am sucked dry from need.
It takes everything, everything, to rewrite that story.
I breathe deeply as I fill my cup again and bring her some water. Go back to sleep, I say. It’s too early. I will be here for you when it’s time to wake up, and I will be happy, ready to serve again. And dutifully, sweetly, she does. Within mere seconds I hear the deepness of her rest take over again, the heaviness of her breath as she so trustingly sinks back into a land of dreams… this balmy, post-rain summer air so peaceful, so energizing, full of so much promise for this day.
What sound does an owl make?
Who whoooooo
What sound does a monster make?
Cheep cheep.
That’s not a very scary monster.
Scary monster up there.
Where?
In the trees. In in in the CLOUDS.
You mean like a storm?
Yeth.
Storms scare you?
YETH.
So, who were you before this?
In… In the clouds. In the MOON.
You were up there with the clouds and the moon?
Yeth.
Did you like it?
YETH.
Do you like it now?
Yeth.
Here, she begins running circles around me.
I make circle.
She runs definitively for a few rounds.
Circle are. Monster out. Monster up there.
For the moment, anyway. The window ledge is extra wide and lined with plants. i’ve got pillows propped up against it, but later when i go to bed, i’ll lie flat, and fall asleep with the moon in my face. the bed is on the floor since my daughter sleeps in it with me and I have, for many years, been pretty much a floor dweller anyway.
I like most things low.
Of course, saying this I am remembering those last moments of pregnancy where my daughter had gotten a lot more low, and those were aching days. I loved being pregnant until then, until I became cumbersome and so did she and I was ready for the next step of miracle to begin.
My due date came and went. Days and days went by. Finally, she came.
Now she sleeps next to me each night. I love sleeping with her, mostly. And then there are times when I miss my own life of defining who got to sleep in my bed, when, and how…
But like any love relationship, this here and now of having her there is something sweet that I can count on right now.
This now is fleeting as many things in childhood are, except those things we fight, and then relax into saving…
So I accept that no one else will be joining me here for the moment. It is worth that small sacrifice for this, though, for the regularity of this sweetness and comfort, for the gifts of the present.
I know, too, that my choices from here on out, and that the others who may eventually sleep in my bed, will be and are affected by her presence, regardless, in a way those choices and people never were before – thank god, it means I have more respect for myself, more responsibility to care for myself, to do only those things (and people) that serve my highest good. This is actually a very good thing.
This does not mean, however, that I feel any guilt whatsoever about going out last night, enjoying some social lubrication, dancing to great live music and exchanging pleasantries with a really good-looking someone else who “didn’t have the kids tonight”. It’s nice to be understood in that respect.
I am pretty sure I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself except in all the very best ways, and I drank a lot of water the last hour I was there, went to bed sober, got up on time, did a quick excuse for yoga and resumed the everyday tasks of feeding and wiping and dressing and Duplo-assembling and hugging and kissing and redirecting impending blowouts and I thought to myself, there are some times when the high road is appropriate. And sometimes, such a rare and unpredictable sometimes, tequila is what gets me high.
Shaking an uninhibited ass on a dance floor does the same thing as often as I can (which at this rate is about four times a year). And all this makes me a better parent. Swear it.
Just an hour of silliness and flirting reminds me of how I became a parent in the first place – there is a me that has opened, fully, that has flowered and then bloomed, ecstatically.
Eventually, I believe my daughter will look back upon me and see my faults, see the things I have fought to learn that the following generation is always so lucky to have handed to them. I hope, too, tho, that my daughter can look back at me and believe that I loved as wisely as I foolishly allowed myself to, that I laughed a lot and danced when spirit (or good bass) moved me, and that I had a good understanding of my medicines.
sanguine meander 