I could not have anticipated what this space would mean to me when I set out writing here. I thought perhaps that it would be a nice way to fill in some gaps and let folks who may be interested in studying with me have a more personal look at who I am. I did not know then how important it would feel to reveal truths about myself in whatever small ways I do here. I did not have any idea that I would be able to feel this space waiting for me, like a living, breathing force in my life. And so, it has felt quiet here for the last few weeks as I have been gathering my thoughts as to what is appropriate to share here. I have had a few ideas of what I have wanted to write about: a short story about what it is like to work with me privately in my home, my reflections regarding a particular saying of Darren Rhodes and how it has worked on me over the last few years.... But there is a bigger truth that has been swallowing everything else up and eclipsing anything else that I have considered writing about.
The truth is that I really do not know yet what this space is. I do not know how much to reveal here. But I do know that one of my biggest values is in being open and honest and sometimes uncomfortably forthright about the truth of who I am, and the times that I have attempted to be otherwise have been to the serious detriment of myself, my marraige, my family and my community.
This week, I have been in the incredibly slow and painful process of loosing a pregnancy. It is another one of the extraordinarily ordinary experiences that so many women go through during the course of their reproductive lives and so few ever talk about. And it is so huge. Especially when you consider the heart-wreching detail that for so many women such as myself you go on for a little while still being pregnant to a baby that is no longer living and that one way or another your body must figure out how to let it go. I had no idea. I naiively assumed that it was a spontaneous event. I had no idea that I would be hanging around my house for days on end wondering if this day is perhaps the day. And yes, I know that there are things that I could do to move things along. I am just choosing in this moment not to do them.
You see, with any true story, there is most often a back story which provides relevent context for the current events- and mine is no exception. Last July, I terminated an unplanned pregnancy. It was a situation that I truly never thought that I would be in- much like the current one- as I have always wanted a 3rd child. But last July was only 4 months on the heels of the biggest Dark Night of the Soul that I had ever seen and I was quite literally pulling myself up by my bootstraps and thanking god that my marraige was not ending. My husband and I were licking our wounds and loving eachother with all of the fierce vulnerability of 2 people who have hurt and been hurt by eachother to the very core of who they are. And as much as I wanted another baby, my desire to rebuild my marriage took precedent to all else and I made my choice.
Here again, I imagine I am wonderfully ordinary. While I believe to this day that that was the best decision for my marraige and my family at that time in our lives, having an abortion was the most devestating way in which I could imagine ever betraying my body. I felt the discord and grieved intensely for months. My husband and I processed it relentlessly both at home and in the office of our amazing therapists. After many months and with a lot of fear and doubt and excitement and thrill we tried intentionally to have a 3rd. And now the tables have turned and it is my body that is betraying me.
Yes, I know that that is me painting it a wee bit dramatically. But the triggers are there. So, while I know that I could go in to the hospital and request a d&c and move this process along- I am choosing instead the path of patience, of waiting, and of trying to re-build the severed trust between me and my body. A year ago, after my abortion, I felt so alone. As though all of the Light had gone from me and there was no love or regard for me in all the universe. This year, even as I am full of tears and heart-ache and longing- I feel so held in the Grace of gods love in the form of Chris, our beautiful children, my mom, my sisters, my friends near and far who have stood with steadfastness in the pain of my current heart space and not waivered in there love and care. They were all here last summer as well, the difference is that it was not so easy to see as I myself was not so clearly here.
So I am here. Taking my time. Feeling incredibly grateful for all of the abundance in my life. And also feeling accutely aware of the suffering the we each bear on a day to day basis. The extraordinarily ordinary tragedies that befall each of us.
(this picture was taken the day after I realized that I was going to miscarry. maple was holding this sweet little bantam that she had named pepper. in the great mystery of life and irony of time, when she woke up in the morning she found that her chick had passed in the night. with the depth of understanding of a quasi farm girl coupled with the truth of a big and infinite heart, we held eachother as we both sobbed big round tears and tried to gain some sort of insight into the mystery.)