Here is the teaching that lives closest to my heart: Tell the Truth. Seems super basic. Which is good, because it is. It is also harder than fuck to keep eyes on. The truth, itself as it is, in the very center of all things and my most essential self, is steady. Not exactly fixed because it has the freedom to evolve and unfold and infinitely become, just like me. But it is everything that sits right up close to the truth that makes the hold itself so slippery. And honestly, it is all of those things that sit close that have me almost entirely consumed in the day to day and leave my vision a lot less crystal than at other times.
These days, my best moments, when most of the parts of me are present and I feel super steeped in gratitude, are in the evenings when Chris and I are doing Wilfred’s whole long and rhythmic bedtime routine. Bath and bubbles and tooth brushing and lotions and potions and snuggling and jammies and stories and all the added silliness that sets him up right for an easy transition to sleep. (most nights. not gonna jinx myself jeez.) It is a soft and cozy time. Just being together. In those moments I am in the love of and respect for the papa that Chris has grown into as well as the grace of Wilfred’s particular presence in our lives. Even though I am tired and feeling the pull of a moment or two to myself. Those are still the central to me moments that I am always calling myself back to. Some central truth of who I am and who we are embodied in the bedtime rituals. And not just Wilfred’s really. But the remnants of memory of the sweet, soft, close of day time we shared with the older two when they were small as well.
And still. Those moments can also feel as much a part of the hamster wheel I find myself on as many of the others. A lot of day in day out and trying to recoup what’s been lost and pay the price and recover what feels to be the compounding deficits of a couple of years of truncated connections and fragmented isolation. Wilfred is amazing. My heart. As Chris calls him: the prince that was promised. omg. To say we adore him is such an absurd understatement. And he has delays. He struggles with many sounds and even though he has so many more words than he did just a few months ago, it is still a difficulty for him to make many of the words that he would like to be using. And he is anxious around other kids. He clings and cries and tries to steer my body back in the direction I came from. He does eventually melt a bit and settle into some shared space and time but it is a rough entry to be sure. All of it is in such stark contrast to how our big 2 were. But then again, much of life, and the world, are.
With Maple and Eider, we were always with other friends and their kids one way or another. At playgroups, at storytimes, at activities, at shared family meals. All of these things that haven’t taken hold in the context of a new community in a new state in a pandemic world where inside hangs are sketchy at best, terrifying at worst. I guess I am just feeling the absence of these things in our lives these days. Or the clunkiness of our efforts toward them and my child’s lack of fluency in them as the subsequent result. I am simultaneously missing and longing for the broader nets of community to carry me and my emergence into the here and now in some meaningful way.
Day after day feels mostly the same. I have to remind myself how much bigger and more grown all of our kids are than when the pandemic began. I have to update my current operating systems lest I continue to treat the toddler like a baby, the tween like a kid, and the teen like a tween. I have to catch up, ya know. To now. Even though it is real hard to know what that even means, even is.
Most of the folks that I work with are in some experience of anxiety or depression or both. Everyone is hanging on. At least that is how it seems to me. And those that appear to be thriving, well, I have my doubts. I can’t help it. I am skeptical about how much thrive is possible in the world as it is today. And if I am honest, I am not even going for that right now. Maybe in 5 years. Fingers crossed. But right now I am all about good enough and not losing sight of any part or anyone so much that something essential falls into decay or disrepair.
I was recently looking through a journal from mid-2020 and I saw a quick note that I had jotted down. I remember at the time that I heard it and wrote it down feeling like it was a worst-case scenario, now I actually can see the hope in it. It said: Immediate Pandemic 2020- late 2022; Intermediate Pandemic 2022-2024; and post-pandemic 2024+. So, I guess, maybe in 5 years. Maple graduates high school in 2024. I mean, isn’t it entire lifetimes lived in the years between 2020 and 2024?
This is kind of a tangent in a sense, something that applied to life when we lived somewhere where we had embedded community stretching out over the course of years and we weren’t still in the getting to know you phase but made infinitely more complicated because do we come inside and hang out or no? Do we take our masks off or not? How can we connect if it feels unsafe to connect? Anyway. The tangent: I was talking with an old pal this morning whose daughter is graduating this year and we were lamenting how we move everything around when they are little so that we can be “home with the kids” and that oh heck “we can work more when they are older.” But she said that right now as she links together a string of “last times” with her girl, she is like wtf NOW is when I need to be home with my kids. In one way or another, this has always felt true to me. When they are little and they need you for mostly everything pretty much always you are a great big steady and waiting target. But when they are big and independent and seemingly need you not so much do not be fooled because when they do need you, they really need you and the target is tiny and obscure and hard to spot and on the move.
Ok so lots of data here. The years are apparently flying by but every day is a slog but nothing changes but everything is different and whoops actually turns out it all changed over the course of days that I was so tired with malaise and dread that I did not notice. Whoops whoops whoops and CRAP. There is no way I can get this right. Plus I really am sooooo tired. But too sentimental to do the things that could possibly restore me in some slivers to myself. I could wean my (27-month-old) baby. Not gonna happen. He is my B A B Y. I haven’t even turned his carseat forward facing yet. Sheesh. I could rest more. Maybe, but when would I knit? I could lay off the caffeine. But hoooooow? And yet I know that something must give. I am hanging on to whisps of inspiration gathered up from eons ago and I am unproductive and foggy and hard to pin down inside of myself. It is a thing. I don’t feel great. My bones hurt and my blood feels bitter. I try to do the things that will reinstate me to me, do the little big things ya know, but in truth, I just want to crawl under my duvet and stay there until I am truly all the way done staying there. Ah well. Onward I suppose. In some way.
I guess maybe this is the truth today. As it is. For me. Or what lives right close up to it. I am a work in progress. Trying to keep my eyes on the evolving truth that lives inside of me. Backtracking or playing catch up. Trying to filter out all of the outdated stories I have been telling myself and rewrite the script more suited for today. How you spend your day is how you live your life or so they say and I am studying the terms of what that can or cannot mean for me. Today. And as needed. Thanks for bearing with me during it. No inspo all truth telling. As we do.