Differences

You caught yourself musing over lines, strokes, differences on a predawn run the other day. The difference in three strokes. Three markings. Their directions can make a difference between a capitol A and a capitol Z. Each have three strokes. Yet the letters vary in placement, meaning, and usage greatly.You sit here at night as you write still considering this as you hear the West Seventh cross-country train sound its horn warning the city of its impending approach. A soundtrack that plays in the backdrop of your life. So many sounds that go unnoticed. This train zooms through here with urgency over tracks that are a mile away from your home in Saint Paul, and yet the train's whistle can instantaneously place you in the backyard of the rail yard at the Santa Fe Hotel where this train first came into your awareness. This train is one of the same trains that sits there, where you used to live. The pale yellow box car with the words Santa Fe painted on it in fading red letters. Yes, that box car you noted from your hotel window has passed you at the tracks in Saint Paul and you have sat in your car and watched, as your boys in the back seat delighted at the sight of so many cars, such a long train, passing before their eyes.

Today you swam in the Highland Pool for the first time without a swim cap, without a hair covering, in front of others. You battled and played with the sound track that floated through your mind with each stroke as you did lap after lap of 100's. I wonder what my spotty hair growth looks like to others. Should I have worn the swim cap? You extend your arm scooping water that is in front of you back as you swim. These thoughts like that faint whistle sounding off, a whistle that many nights goes unnoticed. You begin to sense and feel your body from the inside out. Letting the outside judgements float away. Let yourself know yourself from within. You watch. You play being the witness of your thoughts that the practice of yoga, of meditation, of running invite you to be with your life. You watch as your little self shrinks. The thoughts that can pull you down, thoughts that can make you sink without enough ability to catch your next inhale get pushed behind you with your next arm stroke and your feet flutter kick them away.

In between your training plan's laps you rest standing in the shallow end, head above water, playing with the plunge between watching others watch you and the self consciousness that comes from that, and you watching yourself as you moved through water, now standing tall to rest, letting the thoughts move through you. Pulling yourself back toward thoughts of love. Thoughts of  I am enough as I am.  This leads you into playful territory. Into playing with breathing on your left side of your freestyle and alternating your breath between arm cycles. Extending your exhale to naturally lengthen your inhale. Hair, no hair. Three strokes. Covering up. Not covering up. A. Z. Caring. Not caring. Playing with "both and ands" and shedding the "either or" mentality. Letting go of right and wrong thinking and allowing yourself to experiment, to play with cause and effects. Tomorrow you will run the annual trail race at Afton Alps, a 25k, and you've been there before, but this time it is different. And as you conclude this post, the whistle of the passing train sounds in the distance and you become aware again.

Peeling Back the Onion

So I am finally coming back to our neglected blog, like a favorite novel I am dusting off. I have missed our blog, our connection here where we meet on the pages of motherhood, friendship, nurturing our creativity, our ability to be prolific, or at least intentional. Where our lives crisscross like doodled hash marks on a mindlessly drawn dinner mat, waiting for a server to deliver the meal. I miss this sacred place of intersection, and instead of talking about it, I am just plunging in and recommitting to it. 

Seamus is now 15 months old and I feel like another layer to the onion of motherhood has lifted. The first being when he hit six months and I came up from air to look around, and see that yep everyone was still there in my life after six months of gazing down at his sweet cheeks while he nursed. The next layer revealed itself when he turned one in April and I breathed a sigh of relief that yes, he made it to one, able bodied, breathing, and in his case sprinting around our house like no other boy before him had done. (The others did not attempt walking, much less running until 15 months, he had mastered it by 12. Much to my chagrin.) Now this most recent layer peeled back to reveal my oldest boy waiting for more of my attention to his creative endeavor, photography. And no coincidence, my writing presses in on me for more time, and my running pulls me out of bed before dawn, or some mornings with dawn, when previously I would have hit snooze and rolled over; I roll out.

Having a new baby, is sacred it takes you into your center. Like diving into the center of the onion, its raw, pungent, sweet nucleus, its heart, its core, and then gradually layer by layer working your way back out to its papery sheaths. Seamus’ feet still tender, have slivers from walking barefoot on my brother’s dock, they will never be that newborn raw again like last summer. And reading your Outside post, made me miss the carefree ways of summer, the way I grew up, the way I want my boys to grow up. And yet, this summer has felt heavy with humidity; with summer’s abundance juxtaposed by some friends who have had near and dear losses, and with the anomaly of our lack of travel. No Seamus’ baby feet will never be that fresh again. As I write this, Sandro Cisneros’ words from A House on Mango Street echoes in my mind, “Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.” Summer is about barefeet, solitude, a space for myself to go, the quiet raucous; and having a baby is about that clean fresh paper before you know the poetry they will inevitably write upon your heart.  

And so, I begin again adding another layer to the sheath.

Bat-her-up...

Yesterday morning I took note to pay homage to the bat. That’s right as I woke to start a fresh week of spring break vacation in Minnesota (where spring still feels two seasons away!) a bat was being euthanized. I felt slight guilt, some shame, and sadness because he was being put down because of his wrong turn, my fear, and our doctor’s logic.

It started Friday night, after dinner, I cleaned the kitchen, Peter read books to the boys when I heard him say in a terse, flat lined voice, “Bat. Bat in the house. There’s a bat in here!” His voice grew in intensity and intonation and I knew it was no book he was reading and yet I had a hard time comprehending that there was an actual bat in our house.
“Take the kids out of here.”
I pulled them into the kitchen. F. dodged under the kitchen table. Peter yells for the broom. I oblige.  As I pass him the broom I see this graceful, wobbly frightened flight of a little brown bat swoop from one corner of our living room to the next and then up the stairs, and see my husband, broom in hand dash up after him. He managed to catch him alive in what the boys call LegoLand, our guest room that has been transformed into a Lego town of their own creation.

Sealed in a ziplock gallon bag we were at a loss as to what to do next with this bat. I love bats in their natural habitat, but I feared this bat in my own natural habitat. If we let him go outside our house chances are he would reenter. While the risk of rabies is low in a bat, it exists. And, they say they can bite you in your sleep without you knowing you’ve been bit-their teeth are so small, and their bite marks nonexistent. This was the freaky part for me. And, while I googled what to do with a bat, the what if he bit one of my boys already thought ran through my head. So I called a girlfriend of mine that works in the Sudan Mines of northern Minnesota. With her help, we decided to bring our bat to the University of Minnesota diagnostic lab for testing. Without this test, our doctor wanted us to go to the ER within four hours of exposure for rabies vaccination—which I hear is a painful series of four shots. No thanks.

My fear led me to lose sleep that night. What if there was another bat in our house? How could I sleep with my boys unprotected from more bats in the other room? What if another came in our home? What if we already had contracted rabies and didn’t know it? My mind raced, I slept little, and my boys slept together in the bottom bunk that night. I knew I needed to release this fear. So I researched what bats symbolize and have decided to take the presence of the bat as a messenger so that his last flight is not in vain, and my fear does not persist but instructs I found this blog the most helpful explanation of what this bat could mean:

Yes those are Batman sheets my boys sleep on, and the irony is not lost on me.

“Bats represent: Social relationships, communication, motherhood
It is a symbol of communication. Native Americans observed bats to be highly social creatures with strong family ties. They are nurturing, exhibiting verbal communication, touching, and sensitivity to members of their group. Bats are sensitive to their surroundings and are seen as intuitive, with the ability to see through illusion and discern truth. Devotion of the Bat totem will never fade, encouraging the journey to achieve the highest possible potential from an individual. (Information paraphrased from this page on Animal Totems)
Since bats are the only winged creatures to suckle their young, they are also a symbol of motherhood (and by association… fertility and sexuality… which is also supported by the dwelling in caverns in the “womb” of mother earth.)
Eastern cultures view the bat as a symbol of wealth, longevity, peace, good health and a good death. In China, the symbol for bat is “fu” — which is also the symbol for “good luck.”

So as I prepare for baby 4 to arrive, I take comfort in the bat symbolizing motherhood, rebirth, shedding the old so that the new may emerge, needing it’s night vision in order to see more clearly what awaits me. I thank our bat for his bravery, his visit, and his compassionate understanding of my innate, and short sighted fear—even if I still hope another doesn’t enter.

Echo

At your suggestion I dove into Poser. And, while I am only on the second chapter, I can already see how it mirrors my own life, living back at home amongst concentric circles of complicated family and friend relationships. Rallying against the liberal, know what’s best for your child by ingesting organic only foods child-rearing, following a code of mommy ethics that cloaked in freedom harbor restrictions. And I feel myself wonder, how did you know not to move back east once you and Steve began having babies? What innate wisdom did you acquire that I lack(ed)? Deep breath. It feels too surreal like an echo of my current life, and I am only on Chapter Two, do I brave the rest?

Peter is traveling again amongst the mountain ranges of Utah verses in the back country of Canada showing clients the wind farms that are already built and that will be built. And I find I am struggling with my old friend, anger. She seems to come out in the morning and at night when my resources or time is limited. She comes in the form of having to ask my kids repeatedly to do something. “Please get your pajamas on. Please get your pajamas on. Please get your pajamas on. Please don’t make me ask again. I am getting angry. Please will you get your pajamas on???” Boiling point hit, voice rises. Boys respond. I feel horrible. Outcome achieved but at a price.


So I ask how can I break this pattern and create a healthier one…as I write this the only thing that pops into my mind is trying to take the rush out of things and add humor—ok so that is two things. But come on, what else do you implore when you are well, imploring? When the echo of your requests rings so loud you can almost transport yourself to a canyon you're hiking and the sound of your voice reverberates off the walls.

Picture from our New Year's Day Hike 2011 with our families just outside of Santa Fe, NM

So my plea tonight? Resources please…how do you request something when the first request goes unnoticed by your child and your exhaustion at the situation is hitting a boiling point? Resources please!

Steady Stream of Energy

I woke up this morning way too early to Liam. Peter responded by scooping him up and acquiescing his request to sleep in our bed, only Peter went back to sleep in Liam’s bed. Normally this is a non issue, but this morning, Liam would not go back to sleep. For three hours as dawn crept in he talked, poked, and tossed, waking me each time I began to drift off to sleep. I woke up a zombie. A zombie with a perplexing question on her mind…how do moms keep steady energy day in and day out? Right now it seems like I have days when I am at turbo and then days when I can’t imagine making it through with out a coffee, a coke and some chocolate and this pregnancy those handicaps are beginning to show themselves. UGH!

So what do you do to keep an even flow of energy in your daily life? I want the flow of energy that is constant and more at high gear than low. I know some of it is resisting the caffeine, and going for the better foods; resisting the curl up and vegetate and going for the hike; resisting the “I don’t know how I will make it through today,” thoughts to gratitude for another day with the littles who will be big soon enough.

Deck the Halls...No Really...

Ha! Talking with you tonight reminded me of the few Christmas' since we've had kids when I didn't have it in me to buy a tree. Truly. The first was when we were going to Boston with Finn and an infant Liam and our finances were so tight that it seemed superfluous to spend a dime on a dying tree. So we bought a tinny Target one that was maybe 18 inches high (which is currently at a friend's house because they too are heading to their inlaws this Christmas). It was drab and desperate and melancholy.

The second Christmas with no tree was when I was pregnant with Andrew Kieran, living out in Gloucester, on the shores of the Atlantic. I couldn't drum up the energy to buy and decorate a tree. What a sad sap I was, missing home and because of it having a hard time setting up a home. My roommate and friends from college, Drea & Bryan, remedied that. They took Finn and Liam for a Saturday while we house hunted and when we returned they had bought a small, live tree, and decorated it with homemade ornaments they made with the boys, (which still are on our current tree now--I can't bear to throw them out). They made and decorated Christmas cookies with our boys, and indulged them in some hard core Star Wars watching and stick ball hallway playing in their Brookline apartment. It bought tears to my eyes and cheer to my grinch-filled heart that definitely grew three sizes that day.

Some days, even some years, we need those friends to pick us up, I only wished Drea and Bryan had saved me from the tinny tree year. So go plant that beautiful little evergreen in your yard and decorate it! Plant it far away from your house so it doesn't give too much shade to your sunny home, and close enough to see it from your windows lit! Wish I were there to break ground and throw the first full shovel of dirt away.