Time for sleep

Even now, after a year, sleep isn’t the same. Maybe it will never be like it was pre-baby: eight hours without a single moment of semi-consciousness. Now night is a blur of dreams, wide awake moments flushed with hormonal heat, moments yanked from sleep yet again, moments still nursing.

As a result some days my moods are like salmon migrating upstream. Often, they storm the turbines of my heart. Up, then down. Flailing. Inevitably.

Today, after a weekend of sun, fun, extroversion, and no naps, I woke up exhausted, with mastitis. Again. The cumulative lack of deep sleep has caught up. Things feel tangential and disconnected.

Most weeks I stay up late into the evening. These nighttime hours are my time for painting and writing; for locating the fragile connective tissue that holds my days together. This only works if I get a nap in with Bean in the morning, though.

We curl like puppies, a tangle of limbs under the down comforter. His bare feet pressed into my belly. We sleep like this for an hour at least. Sometimes two, and everything is okay. But last week there were no naps. Days of go, go, go. Days of longer sunlight. More to do. Friends visiting. Deadlines. It’s easy for me to try to live on credit with myself. To take out debt after debt in the sleep department.

I’m trying to learn how to listen to my body. To heed the warning signs. But it’s hard when most days I feel like I accomplish so little. A handful of sentences written maybe. Possibly a load of laundry. (And of course caring for Bean.) It’s hard to allow this to be enough. I’m so goal driven, so pushy, and impatient. It’s hard to bring myself back to the present and wait for the well to fill again.

Feeling giddy

What a difference a day makes. Not that yesterday was really so bad—it’s just that more than twelve hours of non-stop one year old can lead to moments of well, that picture said it so much better than words ever will. But the weather has been the perfect antidote to the stir-crazies, and today we went on our first bike ride of the season—just a lazy jaunt down to the waterfront & along the bike path to the beach.

Everyone everywhere is suddenly out and about, baring skin, kissing, or lying face up to blue glazed bowl of sky that was perfectly empty of clouds today. There was a certain aliveness in the air today. Everything is getting busy. Literally and figuratively.

With the onset of warmer days, drenched with hours of sun, everything is suddenly sensuous after a winter of comparative deprivation. The college kids are everywhere, in throngs, performing intricate mating rituals, much like the pigeons in the park and the wild circling gulls at the beach.

It was Bean’s first experience of sand—he went last summer to the beach but was so small then. A tiny, barely crawling big eyed boy who stayed on mama’s lap. So much changes in a half a year. He was running every where, willy nilly down the hill. Falling, stumbling, rolling, laughing. And then he came to the sand and stopped. And sat. And promptly fell in love.

Thankfully he seems to be past the stage of eating it. Instead he fingered it, looking in utter amazement at his disappearing and reappearing toes. He stuck sticks in it and stirred it, and scooped handfuls and stirred some more.

DH and I played with him on the beach, feeling the same wild spring fever as every other creature in sight, and managed to steal a handful of moments just us, after we got back. I’m still smiling.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Time # 4--A sense of humor is about timing and possibly furniture

Ikea furniture is always packaged flat—for easier transport, and because it requires less packaging this way. It is up to you to haul your boxes of furniture home, usually tied to the roof of your too-small car or shoved precariously in the back, with the trunk open, and when you arrive, you stumble inside with the long cardboard rectangles containing what will be your bed or nightstand, and begin the hours-long process of assembling things. It takes a lot of patience, and with any luck, your techniques improve as you go along.

You take a heap of flat boards, pegs, an allen wrench, and follow the schematics that, if they have words at all, are printed in fifteen different languages. You are aware that what you’re doing is a little bit like magic. You are turning the nearly two-dimensional stack of wood and particle board, glass and wicker, into something three dimensional and useful.

You build a wicker backed chair, after putting the legs in place wrong twice. Your cat will later love to sharpen her claws on its rattan and soon it will no longer be presentable, but when you first put it together, all you see are its clean lines and lovely promise. You imagine dinner parties, and sunny mornings over coffee.

Or you put together a glass-topped table that will for years, show every condensation ring but you still can’t be bothered to buy coasters. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make sense of the arrows and dotted lines: connect region B with point C using tool A. It might not be fine furniture, but it’s a start, and though you dream of owning REAL furniture, the kind you see in the windows of the home wares store you walk by every day, you’re happy with these flat-package creations for the time being.

This is pretty much exactly what the process of acquiring a sense of humor is like.

If you’re me, that is, and you were raised in a home with two of the most earnest, somber parents on the face of the earth. My home was also devoid of TV which contributed to a) the blossoming of my wild and vivid imagination an b) the utter absence of pop-culture sensibilities and all the accoutrements of humor that come with this terrain.

For me, sarcasm, silliness, wit, and comic timing did not come preassembled: an already functional part of my personality from day one. In fact, for years I was almost entirely lacking of anything that could possibly pass as an acceptable sense of humor.

Unfortunately sarcasm is still mostly lost on me. And, though you can slay me with a good play-on-words (my father, in all his etymological neerdieness would, on a cheery day, toss out one after another at the dinner table, and you’d have to be well versed in homophones and double-entendres to find them laugh-worthy, which I was), no amount of hanging out with boys has helped me to understand why it’s SO FUNNY to repeat one liners over and over again.

But I am gradually starting to get the hang of funny. It’s taken years for me to assemble, but I'm finally starting to get that it’s okay to JUST TAKE THINGS LIGHTLY sometimes. To NOT be serious every single minute. Years for me to finally understand that having a sense of humor, first and foremost, means having fun. It means giving yourself permission to make a fool out of yourself—to jump into things, arms and legs akimbo, laughing all the while.

And Bean is like the schematics that come with the furniture. He makes being silly easy. At 13 months, he watches everything I do, and then replicates it, often with unbelievably comic effects. He’ll take a sip of water and then let out this delightful, over-exaggerated sigh, and everybody just dies laughing. Or he’ll hear music and start wiggling his booty around with complete uninhibitedness. Finally, I'm starting to see that this is what humor is all about: over-exaggerated uninhibition. Gusto. Glee.

So we make time for this every day: we sit on the floor, roll around some, and act silly. I’m hoping that by the time he’s big, both of us will have a rip-roaring sense of humor.

Weekend sweetness

Syrup making in an outdoor evaporator, old iron spiles, sap dripping into galvanized buckets with lids to keep the squirrels out. Standing around with people we barely know (our neighbors to the west) it feels so easy to be ourselves. To laugh, to throw the slimy tennis ball for their spaniel, and lick syrup from a paper cup, still hot, unselfconsciously. We share conversation the way two friends might a sandwich, snatching juicy bits here and there while Bean crawls about on the wood pile and gets licked by the dog.

“Doggy,” he says, over and over again. “Doggy.” And we can’t help but laugh with wonder and scoop him up. He’s starting to talk!

All weekend a friend has been visiting, and our house is full of the quiet harmony that occurs when someone you love is around. An extra set of hands. Dishes done. She laughs at all my husband’s jokes and and Bean adores her. Between us we've probably had six bars of chocolate. And in the moments in between everything else, we’ve been sorting out our souls over cups of tea or red wine , talking until we’ve gathered many bright words like handfuls sea glass.

Hair cuts today (I got bangs—see above), and playing in the late evening sunlight at the waterfront, chasing Bean about the lawn and drinking up the light.

I write, I have written

I tried to think of something clever to write to describe the weekend, but I couldn’t, because all I’ve been doing is writing and I feel squeezed dry tonight. (The yeast infection, the serious shin splints and the ridiculously cold weather haven’t helped.) Every spare second for the past three days, writing. I have about 10,000 words of stuff that in the good moments I think is actually decent. Then there are the moments that I feel like flushing it all down the toilet. These moments occur in abundance. But it’s some kind of progress. The deadline is tomorrow, so it’s up to the stars then.

The highlight of the weekend: see below.

Some nights I wait with an empty cup

Some nights I wait with an empty cup for the water to boil in the blue metal pot.

Some nights there is too much to define: the places where I begin and end, where my heart leaves off loving and begins needing unsayable things that make me flutter like winnowed chaff in the wind.

I want more than water and tea leaves, more than steam. Some nights the world stops in my soul and I must wait like a heart attack victim for the pulse of words and meaning to return.

I pour the liquid into my cup and burn my fingers on the steam; then bring them to my lips, hold them there, caressing their blistered heat.

Some nights, I wait for words to rush up like the steam, to catch me unaware.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Time #2

Me as an 8 year old: Lanky as a bean pole with scratched knees, and sun blonde hair. Riding a red wagon down a washed out gully, full tilt. Climbing loquat and eucalyptus trees up to their highest branches, never falling. Rolling down the long stretch of grassy hill again and again and again. Keeping swallowtail caterpillars in a box. Becoming an expert mark with the bow and arrows I carved myself. Telling myself stories—outloud. Drinking root beer floats in ceramic mugs. Running naked with a herd of cattle in Covelo, CA when it was so hot, mirages would spring up everywhere at a distance…. And rescuing this squirrel from our cat. He became my pet for the year. His name was Chipper—because he liked eating corn chips, of course. He’d ride around on my shoulders, under my hair, or in a pouch I made.

Me as a teenager: Lanky and uncoordinated. Getting curves and waging a war against them. Scratched knees, a Lifeguard tan, sun and peroxide bleached hair. Riding around in a mint green Toyota Tercel with my best friend from high school eating cherries. Climbing cliffs at Goat Rock, never falling. Kissing boys again and again and again. Reading Dostoyevsky, Soloviev, Dante and Tolstoy for pleasure. Drinking beer, hating my parents and lying a lot. Writing stories---in my journal. Swimming naked at Salmon Creek beach with friends. ….And keeping chickens (7-8th grade), a rabbit, another rabbit, a dog, and Manx named Tomten.

Me in college: Lanky and mostly coordinated. Trying to learn how not to hate my curves. Scratched knees, East Coast pallor, my first pedicure and professionally highlighted hair. Riding my road bike 500 miles from upstate NY to Canada. Riding my mountain bike all over the woods. Climbing rock walls, sometimes falling. Kissing boys again and again and again, until I found the right one. Reading Diddion, Ellison, Kozol, and Morrison. Drinking wine from long stemmed glasses, learning to be honest with my parents and love myself. Writing poems and stories so furiously and copiously, I was sure I’d die of thirsting for words if I stopped. Running naked into the autumn waves at Harkness beach with my boyfriend (DH!)… And taking care of a python, a gecko, and an oyster toadfish (a work-study gig at a science center), milking 40 head of cows at a dairy (summer of my freshman year), and watching swans in the cove near my college.

Me now: Lanky and as coordinated as I’ll ever be. Finally loving my body for what it does: give birth, run long miles, hold me up right, give me pleasure; rather than for how it looks. Shin splints, East Coast pallor, and no-highlights pony tail. Riding the bike at the gym for cross training. Making plans to spend the summer rock climbing with my best friend from college. Kissing my husband and my beautiful Bean again and again and again. Reading Goldberg, Lamott, Kingsolver, Oliver, Illende and Bly. Drinking lattes for survival in the morning, loving my mother, missing my father, and trusting myself. Daring to write like my voice matters, and feeling certain that I’d die of thirsting for words if I stopped. Sleeping naked….And dreaming of keeping bees, and chickens; rescuing the neighborhood stray cat, missing my dog (with DH’s parents in NJ until we move) and tolorating the constant butt-first affection of my male cat, Mojo (why, why must cats be like that??)

Some things change with time. Other things never seem to.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Time #1

I ran 11 miles today. It felt like an eternity and I wanted to give up many more than eleven times, but I didn't. I chose to run indoors after my last long run left me chilled to the bone, but regretted my decision. It was sunny outside even though it was cold, and the scenery would have kept me engaged. Running indoors is synonymous with boredom, and though I brought these stories to listen to on my iPod, and could be seen from time to time grinning from ear to ear as a result, I couldn’t shake the monotony of running in place.

One foot after the other, staring at myself in the mirror for 1 hour and 45 minutes makes time do crazy things. This much I know: time is not a constant medium. In the last half hour of running, when both knees were burning and I was dying for Gatorade (which I forgot to bring) and I had to pee, it felt like each minute was stretched out the way a tape sounds when the tape film gets pulled. The song blares at warp speed, all blurry and ridiculous.

Other times —-like when on the couch and write in my notebook with the bright morning sun flooding in through the windows---an hour or two feels like a small pocketfull of minutes. I could sit there forever, writing. No amount of time feels long enough. Bean always wakes too soon.

So I've found that staying present in the moment: running only for these steps that are happening now; holding my mind in check, right NOW---is the only way humanly possible to make it through 11 miles. This is also how I make it through the rough days when everything's off kilter; and how I plan to make it through 26.6 miles.

Taken moment by moment, the quality of time evens out. Now is NOW. Thid moment I can bear—and then suddenly this moment has become the next.

***

Here is a brillaint piece of writing about time.

Here are other self portrait takers.

It's March

It’s March, and like clockwork all the maples and hickories, oaks and beeches along the sidewalks have swollen nubbins of buds. The air is just that much warmer. The sunlight lasts just that little bit longer. And it makes all the difference.

It’s been one of those weeks that has zipped by in a blur: moments scattering like a flock of grackles. Now as I sit down to write with a steaming cup of tea, it takes me a moment to gather up the memories, to locate myself in the present of this flutter of action.

A few things that have happened this week:

DH and I got to work on the house together for a few days in a row(we’ve stuck gold with the baby sitter. Bean adores her!) and this made a huge difference for us. Not only are we finally making what feels like significant progress, but we also feel like we're on the same page for the first time in weeks.

Another good thing on the homefront: 0ur kitchen cabinets were delivered on Monday, each Shaker style piece in its own cardboard box, nestling together like some extraterrestrial cityscape.

It felt like Christmas, opening them. Drawers with pneumatic buffers, a pantry with folding out storage shelves, a sink base wide enough for this kind sink; SPACE, finally for all our serving dishes, utensils, measuring cups. Progress feels like it is finally being made, and we’re moving now more rapidly towards laying flooring and building the remaining walls.

Yesterday, DH took over the evening routine with Bean and I took the night off. Time at the gym, and then to Barnes & Noble where I spent the rest of the night organizing notes for the manuscript I’m working on. It felt so good not to be rushing. To have the time to run a full seven miles (in just over an hour), and to linger reading the latest Elle magazine on the stretching mat. And then to finally sink into my writing long enough to gather up all the loose threads and get a hold of the big-picture tapestry again.

Today, I got this project underway. I'm really excited about this (and I hope you are too!)

And tonight walking to my intaglio print making class all the bells from church towers around the city were chiming—dinner hour. It was so beautiful---the sun just set, and the sky awash with rosy pinks. Then to spend three solid hours with a bunch of other artist women getting printing ink and whiting under our nails: heaven.

What does it take?

Sometimes it feels so impossible to do this well: to be a mother and be all that that requires and still do other things. To have days like today when Bean was restless and fussy and probably teething (when he would cry and achieve spectacular meltdowns when I denied him things like the phone or a full pitcher of water) and to keep intact some sense of purpose outside of mothering.

I can’t help feeling anxious: a writing deadline for a workshop I want to take this summer is rapidly approaching. I want it so much my heart aches, and yet, immediately the chorus of doubt starts warming up.

On days like this I lie in the dark of the bedroom nursing Bean for what feels like the umpteenth time, and to grasp at the wisps of images that linger at my mind’s periphery. A new idea for a painting. A handful of possibilities for the manuscript I must write. But when I finally settle down after the laundry has been done, the dishes washed, I am able to locate only tiny fragments.

I try to remember to breathe, to let the hurdy gurdy of my heart play easy music, even when there is hubbub all around, the room strewn with a hundred small things: shoes and toys, books, little snippets.

I try to remember to pause, to let the kite of my soul lift off the ground even when the day brings complication: so many things that are not either/or, that are not simple, that are instead sticky with doubt and exhaustion.

I try to remember to let words be more than the little pieces: linking contents with ingredient, newsprint with the days events, even when I am empty like the broken glass I swept into the dustpan from the kitchen floor.

I try to remember to be patient, to stitch together moments into a mosaic of things that matter: tea & crumb cake with Bean at Barnes & Noble in the morning; buying 79 cent Dagoba chocolate samples and raspberry licorice, fresh naval oranges, milk in a glass jug, and squash & maple ravioli. A half hour to myself (the only time all day) when he finally napped in the afternoon: just me and the cat and more tea on the couch, eyeing Annie Liebovitz's pics in Vanity Fair. And later, reading essays from this collection at the gym.

Decisively NOT spring, but still good

Did I say something about spring? Right. It snowed ALL DAY yesterday. Beautiful, sparkling snow, but snow none the less. I actually am not complaining. I like things to be decisive. It’s the waffling that gets me: almost winter and almost not. Cold enough to see your breath, but not cold enough to tell the crocuses to wait. So now we have snow, and I’m fine with that. At least it really feels like winter. We went to the Mardi Gras parade downtown. The streets were choked with foot traffic. Revelers in gloves and mittens screamed for beads. Bean napped the entire time—even when a float impersonating a barge went by, blaring a barge horn.

Later, one my favorite people in the whole world drove four hours through the snow to come see us. She is the same amazing human being who arrived on day four after Bean was born when everyone had left and all the excitement had supposedly died down---but really I was too sore to walk or do laundry, DH had a fever of 101 and was vomiting with the same evil stomach virus that I’d had before going into labor, and I was a mess of tears and exhaustion. She came from Boston and took one look at us and started cleaning. THIS is the kind of friend you want in your life. The kind that takes one look at your exhausted face and instead of ogling uselessly at your baby during the five minutes he’s asleep, does your dishes instead. Oh how I adore her.

So, she arrived in the middle of the snowstorm and we drank many, many cups of spicy chai tea with milk and ate oodles of cookies. Life is good.

Feeling a little off kilter

Everything felt slightly out of step today, the way it sometimes happens on TV when the image is broadcast seconds before the audio, so the actors are moving and speaking but their words come trailing after and nothing quite lines up. Even the weather felt like this: snow fell hard in the afternoon for about twenty minutes, and then the sun came out exuberantly.

I'm in the midst of working on more paintings for my cafe art show. This is the background for one. I'm painting gold finches in flight that will wing their way across this surface, but somehow the texture of the background as it is right now captured my mood. Pithy, a little dark, a little murky.

I'll post more when I know how both turn out (*chuckles*).

We keep talking

The wind pulls around the house today, making the windows rattle and pulling stop signs this way and that. Bean never got sick (he’s teething instead), but I’m on the cusp of something. A sore throat and too much tiredness filling the spaces in my soul with easy sadness. Outside light dapples the pine tree by my window. The sky is torn. Gray, with gold tufts as though it’s stuffing were coming out.

DH and I fought in the whispered dark of our bedroom last night, over the accumulated stress of renovating and of taking things for granted between us because of it. I feel terror when I see us falling into patterns like this. When whole days go by and all we do is talk about the house, and pass the baby back and forth.

But rather than letting silence fill the space between us, push at each other. We argue, and the friction shows that there is still a fiery pulse below the surface, of love and passion. In the midst of the heat we discover all over again that there is nothing here that we want to lose. What we have, we want. Our love, even when it is painted a dark purple with resentment, is sweeter than any separate peace.

As long as we are talk, throwing our words about like the silent knives in a martial arts flick, we are not stuck. More than fire, I fear stasis. I watched my parents move ever further apart in their marriage. There was a morass of non-communication between them. They didn’t talk well about hurt, or sadness, or about the messiness that comes from trying to synchronize two individual lives. Sometimes they did not talk at all.

So we sparred with words last night in the dark until we found our way out of the tangled maze of feelings. So hard to do: to keep talking when the anger rises hot; when all my mind wants to dwell on are escape routes and stubborn silences.

And when light from the street lamps fell in round circles on the pavement of empty streets, we found common ground again and pulled close under the covers. We found our way back to that precious place: skin pressing against skin, against each other’s hearts.

A long day

Yesterday, winter festivities

I love living in a place where instead of complaining about the cold, people celebrate it for a good cause. There was hot coffee to be had amidst the revelry, as groups of costume clad folk made their way down to the water and JUMPED IN. There was whooping and gafawing and general yodeling going on as the DJ played "Cold as Ice" and brave souls got wet. Mind you, they needed to break the ice from the water first. I'm not a brave soul, but I took pictures.

We had a wonderful morning outside in bright winter sunlight, an afternoon nap that stretched on until early evening---the three of us to a bed. Then I managed to squeeze in a five mile run at the gym which brought my first week of marathon training to a close with my cumulative total miles run adding up to twenty. This is the first winter I haven't gone into hibernation, and I'm pretty thrilled.

Enjoy the chilly pics. There are more here.

Ski jump eyelashes.

Ice sculpture

Rocks on ice.

Uncarved blocks of ice.

Chilly.

Clutter

February always gives me cabin fever. It is that month before anything noticeably spring-like happens: before buds swell or mud arrives—but after the magic of winter has worn off somewhat; when it just feels cold out no matter what, and all the stores rub it in by displaying only flip flops and little skirts (this should not be allowed, I think.)

It doesn’t help this February DH, Bean and I are living in about 900 square feet of space and we’re straining at the gussets. Maintaining tidiness here feels like trying to keep a house of cards erect in a windstorm.

I’d give a lot for a dishwasher tonight (the sink drain keeps clogging, and it gives me the heebie-jeebies to unclog it.) More for a basement that doesn’t flood with every rain storm (our boxes of books and summer clothes sit damply on pallets).

Tonight I am restless with longing: for a bedroom that is JUST a bedroom (not a nursery, and the epicenter for endless heaps of laundry), for a studio (that is NOT the dining room table), for ample cupboards and closets and shelves to store things in properly

I’m bumping up against my own thoughts like clothes on tumble dry. I feel wrung out.

Face to face

I joined a marathon training class last week, and on Tuesday I sat in a room with twenty other people (all but two of which were women) for the first class, where we got to meet each other, talk about our goals, and take a peak at the crazy running schedule we’ve all decided to partake of that will have us running 40 miles a week by early May.

It was funny sitting there, looking at each woman’s face. I imagine all of us were doing the same thing: looking at each other. Sizing each other up in one way or another—looking for inspiration or camaraderie or competition. Yet aside from our names (written on blue and white labels on our shirts) and our previous running experience, we shared very little with one another verbally; most of the information we gathered about each other was based on our visual impressions.

I think it is interesting that when we encounter another person face to face we immediately label them based on the visual information we gather in those few split seconds of meeting. First we label gender. Our minds get hung up on this. If it isn’t easy to discern, we keep looking for identifiers—long hair maybe, or breasts or an angular jaw. Then we look for similarities to ourselves: age, attire, and physical stature, all become a part of the equation we seem to use to decide if we have enough in common to take the risk of starting a conversation.

It takes so much to get past this visual labeling system, and because of it, it often takes a long time to get to know someone new. There are many delicate ‘first date’ conversations as we seek to align ourselves compatibly with one another. Information is conveyed through actions and looks just as much as it is conveyed through words. By comparison, the medium of the blog makes this visual labeling system take the back seat. Through a blog, it is easy to get right to the heart of things—to just out and say things, divulging our selves without the varnish we put on for first impressions.

Through blogging I have found many women who I am inspired by, and feel connected to because of our shared experiences, or insights, or humor, or art. Yet I wonder: would we have made these connections if we had initially met as strangers face to face? Sitting there in a room full of other women, each of us looking with wide eyes at the training schedule for all the remaining weeks between now and the end of May, I wanted for just a moment to not see them, and to have instead see the things that really matter to them.

I would know so much more about the woman sitting across from me if I could know that she likes dark plums, black tea, and writing with India ink, and that she just broken up with her boyfriend of four years. Instead all I could gather was that she was probably in her early thirties, has short hair and red shoes, and took a really long time to fill out the marathon registration page.

I can’t help but wonder: am I the only one who feels this way, or is it something innate in the way we interact? Is it easier to take risks with friendship when you don’t have to think about that coffee stain on your shirt or the way your breath smells. Is more at stake when we meet face to face than there is across the page?

Tomorrow, 28

Tomorrow is my birthday, and today my mother sent me a box full of calla lilies. Each waxy bloom perfect, it’s yellow pistil caked with pollen.

She has never sent me flowers before—every delicate stem wrapped in cellophane---and receiving the long lovely box at the door and putting the long-necked blooms into water made me profoundly happy. It is funny that flowers can do this. So much is contained in the gesture of giving them. These flowers were saying: safety, unending love, openness.

This year I became a mother, and as a result, began to see my mother in an entirely different way. Since my father died, my mother and I have been navigating new terrain in our relationship, and it has not been without land mines. So much lies buried in the geography of our shared lives. So much love and wonder and hurt in our souls is brought to the surface when we talk, and sometimes stumbling upon each other’s every weakness—clumsily, hurtfully, without grace. But gradually we are learning to keep some things: to keep safety, to keep openness, to keep love steadfast even when we come up against these jagged edges.

So with my birthday coming tomorrow, I find myself contemplating how this day is wholly mine, and yet wholly hers as well. My birth marked a turning point in her life—that changed everything for her. I understand this now with new wonder and appreciation. I realize the sacrifice, the worry, the frustration of motherhood that she felt—and see myself in her, just as I also see how much I am her opposite.

This is the gift and the challenge of being a parent: to shepherd a little person into adulthood and then let them go to be anyone they want to be—entirely unique unto themselves. My son is already, even before he can talk, totally his own person—and I can’t help but wonder how he’ll see me throughout his life. First just as his mama, but maybe later hopefully as a source of inspiration—-and maybe as the writer, the artist, the teacher and dreamer that I am. And I wonder too what he will be like throughout his life, and how I will see him—-as a child first, and then later as his own person, and a source of inspiration.

Last year on my birthday I was immensely pregnant, right on the cusp of the unknown. I couldn’t fathom how my life would be, and my days were heavy with a certain anxiety—not to mention actual the actual heaviness of my belly. Then blink, and a year has passed, and here I am, beginning training for a marathon, in the midst of renovations on a new home, and the mother to a small boy who has started taking steps (!) towards me, eyes twinkling and arms outstretched.

Like each beautiful lily drawing drinking water from the jar, the moments of this year have been sweet and good.

Artist's Way week 3

I’ve been meaning to check in about The Artist’s Way, which I’ve taken up along side a hundred or so other bloggers, with encouragement from the wonderful Kat, but I never had a moment’s pause. Today however, the rhythm of things seems to have settled somewhat, and I returned to writing morning pages (I did them only twice last week—though a full seven the week before.)

Like several other AW bloggers I Cameron’s emphasis on ‘recovery’ does not resonate with me. Rather, I wanted to do this ‘workshop’ to nurture my muse, to hone my artistic ability, and to develop some creative momentum.

Cameron often seems to be writing for the artist who has left herself behind. She writes: Name five lives you would live if you could do anything. I balked at this. I am still young and carefree enough to be in love with my life—even when I hate it. Even when I come to the page day after day and can write nothing. When there is only pith and rind and no fruit at all.

Yet I also find that there is also great deal of truth for me in many things Cameron writes. Taking time for myself without feeling guilty—and being fully present in the time I do take (without listening to that internal voice that tells me to hurry up, or spend my time better), is something I need to practice, and the Artist’s Way is making me do this. Cameron calls this ‘developing some autonomy with your time.’ That rang true for me. Also: 'show up at the page and pay attention.'

Some things that I have enjoyed doing this week:

• Writing notes in the wide margins of the book. This makes the process of reading interactive. I begin to form my own thoughts in response to the text, and give them validity by putting them down, right away, on paper.

• Being okay with not writing morning pages. I have enough voices in my head making me feel guilty about the things I don’t do every day.

• Bringing a new attentiveness to little segments of time by myself: mini artist dates to the grocery store fruit section, on a walk about my land with a camera, an evening with a cup of tea and collage materials. I think other mothers will relate to this: time for oneself comes in small lurches when the baby is asleep.

• Instead of thinking about imaginary lives, I’ve been thinking about the lives of people that interest me. I’ve been asking myself what interests me about these people. Why do I admire them? People whose lives interest me this week are: William Stafford, Robert Bly, Peekaboo Street, Lynn Hill, Ansel Addams, Martha Grahm, Barack Obama, and Sofia Copola.

• Part of the way I am nurtured creatively is to be learning. I want to make small artist dates with myself to research some aspect of each of the people I listed this week. I want to know: how do they live their lives? What makes them who they are, unique, distinctive, creative?

And I want to know: what makes YOU unique, distinctive, creative?

My answer: I am messy. I get paint on my hands, and glue on my jeans. I am drawn to color. I use bold lines. I am fascinated by language: how it captures the essence of things, how it changes by region by country, how it holds thoughts and love and spirit. I love looking up the origins of words. This helps me know each word’s secret. When I take photographs, my eye searches for texture. When I write, my inner ear searches for a certain cadence that flows naturally. I have a thing for good pens. I use a molskine journal. I eavesdrop constantly. I am each day entirely filled with wonder at the beauty of things in this world.

Your turn.

Delight

In the Artist’s Way this week it says: “The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.”

Here are my reasons for delight:

*I went on an artist's date to the grocery store last night and let myself revel in the scent of mangos, the big glass jugs of milk, the ripe avocados. In line I ate raspberry chocolate. And the best part? It was just me.

* We bought our house yesterday, in the middle of torrential rain. It is officially ours!

* Today it is sunny and DH’s parents have arrived to help us with babysitting and initial demolition for renovations.

Indigo Leaf Magazine has been launched and I’m so excited to be a contributor!

The Mama Says Om STORE is open, and the t-shirts are fantastic!