Waking open

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Something new is happening to me. It feels somewhere between waking up and breaking open. Something between being newborn and fresh in the morning, and feeling a warmth spilling out of a cracked open casing.  It is a pleasant, tingly sensation that I can feel everywhere, like a dam is continuously and gently bursting, sending rivulets around my core and limbs. It’s not entirely comfortable though, since with it comes the light of truth. I think I have been sleep walking through these last two years as a parent and have missed irreplaceable treasures. Not the sleep walking of the new parent rocking their infant incessantly, nor the existential trip of new identities and lifestyles. Those have been true too of course. It’s something deeper, like I wasn't entirely there. My heart breaks to think of it, of what I have missed. I know I was partially there, and that it’s not 100% true. But A has said more than once that she has noticed a subtle energetic absence from me, a holding back, especially the first year of Ben's life. It is partially based in the embarrassing admittance of resenting her physical relationship with Ben, the pregnancy, everything I couldn't have or do. It is also sadly based on occasionally resenting having a child and the immense giving of self needed to which A dutifully engaged immediately and without question. It's like I was a robot, changing diapers, going through the motions. I may just be having a mood these days, being 29 weeks pregnant, and be seeing things askew. But I know in my gut that it’s partially true because I know how different it feels in my body now to love Ben, and to love A as a co-parent.

So what happened? I can’t say for sure. But A and Ben went on a big trip for over a week without me and I had a lot of space to reflect and sleep in. Although I also had fun while they were away, when they left I wept miserably and lived to see Ben’s face each day on Skype. I made his year two baby album and edited together the home videos of his life up until now. Listening to his baby gurgles each day that week, something about the innocence, his beauty, they wormed their way through some barrier. I was also highly attuned to A’s daily traumatic sleep stories of our not-so-great-wee-traveler. I also received a very intense osteopathic treatment (which deserves its whole own post, apparently I am an osteopathic anomaly, darn red heads!) which focused in part on some energetic damage in my rib cage and back around my heart. When they got home, I held and held Ben. I looked him in the eyes. I feel like we met again, silently agreed on something. Like I made a hushed promise even I couldn't hear to be fully present from now on to his humanity, to his astounding self.

I think every parent mourns the passing of time, even when times are tough. Pictures and videos help, and are precious. Thank you technology. But we can never get our babies back, their firsts, the moments slipping by unnoticed amidst the meal planning and sleep training (yet another bout of which I managed post-trip, but with a gentleness, ease and sense of faith unlike any I've felt before). The best we can do is to be as fully present as possible in each moment, to really pay attention to our kids. Especially in the face of all that threatens to hurt them, our family, or our time together.

I am waking up, and breaking open. I am waking open, and the bitter sweetness that threatens to overwhelm me is also my salvation as Ben’s and this next baby boy’s loving Maman. 

E

Are you there God? It's me, E.

July 16, 2012

Several people, including some very close to me, claim they have lost faith. Not so much in a god, although that’s part of it. It’s like the news played another story of children drowning and it broke the camel’s back.  No joy or pleasure seems to make up for their ultimate premise that life sucks, people suffer and then die. Please don’t misunderstand me, God, I don’t feel this way. I don’t really know who or what you are, or whether you are just a figment of my rife imagination. I don’t care either. I am certainly not going to fight any wars on your behalf, except perhaps internal ones against doubt, fear and worst of all to me, loss of faith.

There was a long string of months a few years back when I was trying to get pregnant where I came close to losing faith. Faith in myself, my body, the “plan”, the Earth, everything. I had an idea of my relationship with you, with the Mystery, the Goddess, where you pulsed through me and lit me up, where I was a medium for your creative powers. I thought I could manifest anything I put my mind to, and that in the end, sperm meets egg and voila! Luckily, thought a little cell-splitting, mini-baby didn’t start in me back then, I somehow managed to keep my then threadbare sense of faith intact. I think meeting Ben made all the difference. Instead of becoming suddenly aware of all the dangers of life, and how I could lose him, I just marveled at the magic of two cells making such a perfect being. Despite it being a tough year, I learned a whole new kind of love, became more resilient, and decided that for Ben to be Ben, he needed to be born exactly when he was, exactly how he was, through my partner A. I don’t make the rules. I certainly don’t think anyone is sitting up there keeping tabs on things or mapping our fates (no offense). It is my chosen belief that Ben came the right way for us, and that belief makes all the difference. As they say to pregnant women in Hebrew, besha'ah tovah - all in the right time.

I remember sitting around on the ground with some cool Unitarian teens talking about Life, and asking them what was important to them. When it was my turn, in addition to those I love, it really came down to my faith. I don’t think I could live without it. I don’t know how people do. I know there is suffering and death. It’s everywhere, including in our homes and hearts. I know there are genocides and pedophiles. I know I live a blessed life compared to so many, so who am I to talk? Despite these things, I hope to take it to the grave that life is still wonderful and worth living, whatever the circumstances. I know it’s an imperfect logic, with pockmarks marring its shine. I know it’s rare for people like Viktor Frankl to survive horrific things like holocausts with their sense of self, their feelings of love and hope still alive. But I know people are happy in all kinds of situations in the world, even if only in moments. The smile of their child, the kind offer from a neighbour, the ladybug making a funny pattern as it walks across their hand. It’s a matter of our lens, what we notice. I think people are also mostly good, even without laws making us civilized. Everyday you see it, if you’re looking for it. Someone offering their seat to the 8 month pregnant woman, the old grumpy neighbour giving out chocolate on Halloween, the bus driver who stops his bus full of people and walks the very elderly woman not only off the bus, but across the street (true story). Most people don’t really want to hurt anyone.

I think life is complicated and interesting, and that everything carries light and dark within. Sometimes things are great, sometimes they aren’t. Yin, yang, the wheel turns. It’s not a bad wheel, it just is. We chose to see what we see, and act how we act. Without turning a blind eye to what we can do to alleviate others’ suffering, I am in favor of us choosing to focus on what’s still good in life and take action accordingly. When we’re on top, share. When we aren’t, take comfort in the little things like the miracle of our breath, the one person who smiled at us walking by, the warm night on the street. No matter how bad it gets, like Viktor wrote, the one thing people can’t take from us is our attitude. It’s our choice. Make lemonade and all that.

I don’t know if prayers do anything but focus my own mind. But God, if you’re listening (and by “you” I mean the cosmic mystery, not an anthropomorphic entity), here is my prayer: May those I love, and anyone else who is suffering from loss of faith, find a thread to hold onto and follow that thread all the way back to the Source. May they find a blanket that comforts but does not smother nor hide away. May they sense love suffuse their bodies, the one thing that keeps most of us going, and may it gently carry away grief and fear of loss and dark thoughts. May they wake up tomorrow and see the beauty peppered throughout this imperfect, perfect life. As Coach Taylor says, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”

E

Relationship Tests

Any pregnancy likely triggers conflict. Take one hormonal, bloated, cranky, hungry, sleep-deprived and nauseous woman and add one partner who, from the pleasure of sympathetic hormone reactions and her own issues may be some or all of the above (not to mention nursing a kind of twisted jealousy). Top it all off with the heavy luggage of years of helpless anger, heavy expense and monthly broken hearts. OOph! We’re in the 2^nd trimester now, and things are somewhat gentler. We are starting to get excited. I went shopping!!!!!! [please note, the baby store was closing, so…]. I wanted to post this email I wrote to A a few weeks ago, after a tough day of A feeling anxious and worrying about what this pregnancy could do to us:

“Remember how strong we are. Partnership is like muscles and the more you work them out the stronger they get, the more resilient, the better able to carry us long distances or to climb over mountains. We have been attending a seriously boot-camp style relationship gym for a long time, and we have nourished ourselves and taken breaks and all the things you need to be able to keep going. I believe that’s why it worked this time, from our commitment to rest and re-connection. That being said, we don’t want any injuries and so we need to take reasonable precautions. We need to be sensitive to each other while also being patient with each other’s not always being as sensitive as possible. We need to do special things together and talk about other topics (with each other and others, once we start talking). We are not this, it is part of us. Part of the many steps in our wild and wondrous journey. As Pema Chodron writes:

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes and opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience.

I have that up at work. It helps me remember that life is not supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be interesting. I also have one up about wanting to experience my true potential for love, which this next chapter in our lives will help!! I love you. Can you endeavor to set aside as many worries and anxieties as possible and have faith? In us, in your body. You need to be feeding your soul right now too. Embrace the goddess of creation within, see your mentors everywhere in nature. We’ll have more fun that way!”

E