Today is my birthday. I took Wilfred to a new play group at the pool in Johnson and snuggled him to sleep for nap and bedtime. I chatted with maple and eider and made food and hauled wood. I made some shapes and took a bath and read a book. Mostly, the day was all of the normal mama things, especially after a long weekend away and Chris gone now for work. Thankfully, it feels like the season is given to celebration and if I get to fold myself in to that mix for a stretch of days, I’ll take it. I am guessing we Newlins will have a bit of merry making ahead of us this weekend in the form of cake making and finding our tree and doing a little bit of elfing. I will knit too. And read. And write. And eat. And do some yoga. Basically, a perfect story.
Mostly, I opened this space up tonight to deposit a bit of my writing from the past weekend with Christina and Mary Angelon. It was rich for me in all sorts of ways and I imagine I will process that more in the days to come. But for now, just these few snips.
***
For the last two decades the ma in me has been in suspended relief, stuck in the goo of everything that leaks, seeps, and oozes through all the stages of longing, conception, gestation, birth, and early rearing. And right now, sitting here with these heavy breasts away from my final baby for the first time, I can feel that life bit by bit drying up, dissolving into dust, nudging closed a door long wedged open. I held on to a hope for so long that I am over-conditioned to the act and even after having gotten what I wanted my hand still think they need to grip. Even now. Empty Space.
When my milk is gone this time the door will close and not reopen. The time of the Maiden is done and now I am the Ma that makes her way god willing to the Crone. If there were a key now might be the time to remake it, forge a new one for a new lock, for a next passage.
This hurts and is harder than I want it to be maybe because I am so happy to have what I do but good grief I am so nostalgic all the time for the early days- even as I am in them. Again. The loss of this time has been something I’ve denied and fought against for so long and now that its finally time I am at once ok, excited even, and utterly shattered. I am shattered.
***
Even though it is so cold now and the ground is frozen, deeper every day, I see small green leafy shoots push up everywhere I step my feet. Something is rising, fresh and new, from far beneath the ice and snow, where the earth is dark and loamy. My eyes are still so tired but the light that’s coming in around the edges now is bright and clear and so full of something more solid than hope. It is so good to be away for a few days. To sleep long and easy in a bed made sweet for me by old friends. It is good to get some distance. From here, today, I can look back on my people and see them as they are, free from the up-close residue of our perpetual proximity. And great news! They are ok! They are more than ok, they are excellent. Of course they are. Beautiful and fine. So fine.
Chris keeps sending me all of these pictures of the kids and finally I had to say hey just send me a picture of your face. I just wanna see your face. He helps make so much possible for me. Help me remember me. This morning in the shower I thought again that I should write him a letter. I should write him a letter. I want to write him a letter. I never do. I put so many words together all the time and launch them into the ethers and I am pretty sure he reads them all. But none are ever just for him. I mean, they are all meant for him but none ever just. I think its time. He’s so many things. My fellow torch bearer. We take turns but almost always walk together. Different but never really separate. Not anymore. And As I was showering and being with me and remembering to remember- I just once again thought good grief, I got it good. My presence is the ground of being. But his is too. His is too. And in that remembering, small green shoots, pushing up from under my feet.