Anchoring the Monkey-Mind of Motherhood

Ok you got me. I am dusting off the keyboard and plunging in after many mental failed attempts to post…so here is a string of almost posts. A form I feel like I have written in too often as of late: as of Seamus’ impending arrival, arrival, and now post arrival. Between travel and motherhood, and boys bickering, I am fried at the end of the day too. It’s the constant refereeing I find myself in, and you are right even if it is just a phase and one I pray will pass, it sucks to be in it. I can’t figure out if they are fighting because they get my attention, albeit negative; they are coming off of a month of travel, they realize that Seamus is here to stay, or they need school and that schedule to start up again. Or all of the above. But, man, I am sick of saying, “You need to listen. You need to be nice to your brother. You need to be kind.“ Or the threatening, “That’s one, that’s two, that’s…” and before I get to three they snap-to. Not sure what I would do if I actually got to three, but I am tired of hearing myself on repeat these days. Especially after solo parenting for five days. I know I need to raise my horizon line to the far off distance and not the nearsightedness I am stuck in. 

So I sigh, and try to get back to something larger than the minutia of my children and whether they are getting along or not. This blog, my writing it helps me exhale get past my monkey mind and settle into my breath.  So what has happened in my month of blog neglect?

Well we traveled…to Boston to see friends and family and languished on the ocean drenched in sun, sand, and waves. We caught crabs and picked dead sand dollars, and played in tide pools. We bar-b-qued, and went to carnivals, and ate ice cream at Captain Dusty’s, and for the first time in years Peter took a proper vacation. No checking email or responding to work. This was not his initial intention. It never is, but when you leave you blackberry out in the rain that is the result. And after ten days, well nine, because day one he was still plugged in, he was a new man. 

The Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Ann

During July I have to say my anxiety hit a peak. It hit a peak because well I don’t know if it was a hormonal shift that I didn’t see coming. The lice our neighbors accidentally shared with us that we had to rid ourselves of before departing for the east coast. Or the adjustment of being blessed with four kids six and under—it can feel at times an abundance of joy and good fortune or an abundance of needs and demands that I do not have enough hands to meet. Never would I trade it especially after going through a few years of not being able to have children. But wow sometimes the awesome responsibility hits me. 

After being out east, where it felt like I was literally bumping up against my past life of living in Cape Ann, we traversed to the high desert of Santa Fe. Seeing the browns of the desert punctuated by crisp colors of green and blooming desert flowers, I began to sink into myself more. However, Peter was back at work and my past fears of being solo parenting in the desert tapped me on my shoulder again, ever so sneakily. For the first few days I had the knack down. We went to the Children’s museum, swam at the Santa Fe Hotel pool, hit the library where we stocked up on books. Then day four hit and Peter had a sixteen hour day of work and wow anxiety spiked so strong I ran from that day like a wild animal in retreat. Instead of sinking into it I over planned and by the end of the day I was fried and crying and so were the children. You see, going places with four kids all in car seats is an undertaking much less doing it five times in one day, equals ten ins and outs of the car. It was too much. I realized that I was living life like a person without kids who has the freedom to plan a jam packed day, not one with kids who needs to listen to their rhythms and respect them. And so I once again learned the hard way, that part of parenting is mastering the art of being still while the littles dance around you in circles like a Mayflower pole; they occasionally bounce into you and ricochet back out from its center.

The calm of the desert grasses

So when we returned to Minnesota it took an act of will to just stay home and unpack. Sink into home after travel. Be an anchor after being adrift. Turn my head toward the unopened mail, the grocery shopping, the back to school preparations, the reconnecting of our friends here. I still have not done it all, but I am slowly reintegrating one step at a time and realizing our roots go both deep and wide simultaneously, like those of a dandelion, which makes them hard to pull up. And for this I remain grateful.

Ripped from the Nest(s)

A few days ago, I rode a snowmobile out of the mountains. It was just after 7 AM and across the valley, the Valhalla Range glowed orange in the new day. After two switchbacks, we left the sun behind and buzzed beneath Western red cedars that smelled moist and alive, like spring. The sky was scraped clear of clouds and a brilliant, unapologetic blue, and as we hurtled through the forest, I felt both fantastically grateful and a little bit sad. 

The ski season was officially over, and so was my stay at Snowwater, a ridiculously gorgeous wilderness lodge at 5,400 feet in the Bonnington Range nine miles outside of Nelson, British Columbia. For the past four days, I’d been holed up in the mountains with some of the raddest adventure women in Canada, skiing untracked powder, doing yoga, practicing silent meditation, and learning the basics of holistic nutrition. This was all part of the inaugural Cat Sass, a women’s-only “empowderment” retreat run by local ski guide and adventure entrepreneur Galena Pal. 

Galena is 27 and has worked at some of the best backcountry ski lodges in British Columbia, where 99.9 percent of the guests are men. Desperate to change that, she invented Cat Sass and enlisted the help of her friends to teach yoga and nutrition, pamper us with spa treatments and massages, and guide us down some of the sickest lines we’d ski all winter (well, in my case, some of the only lines I’d ski all winter). 

loading up Snocat, leaving spring behind 

Crazily enough, I’d been on the fence about going. Driving out of Santa Fe before dawn last Friday, my two girls at home sleeping in their cribs, I’d chanted to myself “You can do this, You can do this.” For 9 months I’d felt trapped and antsy in the baby bubble, desperate for some room to roam. Now that I was finally breaking out—just me and my breast pump!—I felt like I was being torn from my baby, and she from me. I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  

But then I boarded the plane to Salt Lake City and there were no tiny children clinging to me and I could actually read a magazine—two!—and the fog lifted from my brain and I had six or so creative thoughts in a row, one of which was This is pretty great. And then I got on the next flight to Spokane and I might have actually dozed off, and no one was yammering at me, and I was officially GONE! Outta there. All the anxiety and pointless fretting and gloomy what-ifs had vanished, and in their place: sweet freedom!

freshies

Many hours later I was on a SnoCat rumbling up the road to Snowwater, with a bunch of Canadian women. We were still strangers to each other, so I didn’t know that one of them was a former expert downhill mountain biker who’d crashed so many times, and so hard, she now suffered from constant migraines, or one had helped invent a sport called noboarding (that’s snowboarding without bindings) or that one was an avid sport climber and artist and another was a former champion swimmer-turned-holistic nutritionist. All I knew is that they had the exotic look of inveterate mountain women, with their beat-up fur-trimmed Sorels, thick Peruvian sweaters, scuffed Hunter wellies, Quebecois accents, and dark, wild-woman hair that hadn’t seen sun for months. I idolized them immediately. 

The only other time I’d done a women’s only trip was an avalanche course seven years ago. One whole element—men—had been removed from the equation, and in its place bloomed a nurturing sense of girl-power, completely void of competitive machismo. Cat Sass felt the same, right off the bat: uncomplicated, easy. We were here, with each other, and could be exactly who we were, with no pretense or posturing. 

we wore avy beacons to keep us safe

First and foremost, we were skiers, and we dropped steep lines, stacking our tracks in curvy figure 8s next to Maria’s, our lead guide and co-owner of Snowwater. To keep from triggering avalanches, we skied one at a time, so there was no frenzied rushing or trying to be the first to the bottom. Is there anything more annoying than trying to keep up with someone the backcountry, especially when that someone is your husband or boyfriend? Didn’t think so. Hurrying takes you out of your body and into your head, where mental static interrupts the flow and nothing feels quite right. 

We spent one morning in silence, sitting in meditation, eating breakfast, and then snowshoeing to the top of meadow where we gathered in a circle. Earlier, we’d written on small scraps of paper our wishes or intentions, fears and desires, anything that had come to us during sitting meditation that we wanted to send off into the universe. Galena carried a small metal tin, and we lit our papers one at a time and watched them smolder and released them with the smoke into the mountain air. It felt good to let go and say a small prayer to the fearless writer and mother and adventurer I want to be. 

 

The night before we left, we put on silly wigs and danced like crazy around the dining room. We were celebrating the ahi tuna we'd had for dinner, April's 32nd birthday and the baby boy in her belly, and four perfect days cocooned in the mountains, the deafening racket of real life muted, if only for a little while. That morning in yoga, I'd done a headstand for the first time. I'd forgotten what it feels like to focus so intently on learning something new, undistracted by tiny clinging babies and screeching toddlers and deadlines like thunderheads on the horizon, and just be present. Here and now. 

Snowwater had become my new nest, and I didn’t want to leave, but if I had to go, surely I could figure out ways to bring Cat Sass home with me. I climbed onto the snowmobile and held on for the ride. 

Give a Little Love

I always know when I’m just about to come out of period of hibernation: I buy a lot of books and start working out harder. It must be part of some deep, subliminal urge to push my mental and physical edge and bust out, literally, of a rut. This week, as I begin to claw my way out of the fog of having a new baby and losing a father, I started a new book, Quantum Wellness. In the first chapter, author Kathy Freston outlines the “eight pillars of wellness.” You will not be shocked to learn that exercise and meditation make the list, but she puts a refreshing spin on the other usual suspects. Instead of commanding readers to diet or eat well, she urges you to “eat consciously.” This means paying attention to not only where the food was produced, but how—with peace and healthful intentions. (Skip the veal and factory-farmed pork, please.) She’s also a big proponent of visualization and having fun. What’s not to love about that?

Most of the eight are already on my personal Sanity List, with one big exception: service. Plenty of studies have shown that giving to others boosts our immune systems and triggers the release of the feel-good hormone serotonin. In other words, when you help others, you help yourself. This isn’t a new concept, but it’s new to me: For the past year, I’ve been plagued by a nagging desire to make a difference beyond my own front door, but I haven’t yet figured out how to carve out the time or where to put my energy. There are too many worthy causes!

But recently I heard from an old friend, Amanda, founder of an organization called Shine that empowers women and girls around the world through service, art, yoga, and travel. Amanda went to Uganda last year with Off the Mat, Into the World, a non-profit that uses yoga to inspire grass-roots activism, to help build a solar-powered birthing center in Nsaasi Village. When I read that the first baby was born at the Shanti Birth House and Learning Centre, in late January, a little spark went off in my brain, connecting all the stories I’ve been reading about sub-par birthing conditions in developing countries with my love for Africa and my own two births. After hatching two tiny squirrelly newborns, I’ve come to understand that birthing is probably the most powerful and unifying of all human experience. It should also be the most hopeful: There’s no good reason why half a million women should die in childbirth each year.

under african skies, 2006

Amanda’s going back to Uganda this spring, and I’m itching to go. I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me this year, but I do know that this year is going to be the year in which I finally figure out how I can best help others. It may be women’s health or it might be the environment—don’t even get me started on the ways in which we’re completely trashing the climate for our children (reading about Mark Hertsgaard’s new book Hot scared the pants off me). Either way, I’m going to follow my inspiration and trust what emerges—shadowy and, with any luck, promising—out of the fog. Wellness for all, I hope.