When Maikael told me he was leaving on a business trip for two weeks, I recalled how I felt the day he returned to work after Abra was born.  I wondered how I’d ever manage taking care of a newborn, all by myself, for nine whole hours. Those same doubts crept up on me again and, wondering if I could survive providing Abra ‘round-the-clock care for two weeks, I quickly booked a plane ticket to visit Heidi in Las Vegas.  She has three young children, and if anyone would know how to handle whatever pediatric emergencies and pitfalls might befall us in Maikael’s absence, it would be her.  Plus she had a spare crib, extra car seat, and umbrella stroller, making solo travel with a baby as easy as it would ever be.

Although our most recent trip to Portland was a disaster, I was convinced, as I always am, that this time would be different.  Despite the fact that she had the set-up that most traveling babies only dream of, the unfamiliar surroundings left her feeling unnerved throughout the trip.  She cried when she was held; she cried when she was set down.  She cried when I left the room, even when I was plainly in sight.  She whimpered as we snaked our way through the lush gardens at the Bellagio, the throngs of tourists too much for her.  She became so upset one night that she vomited all over the kitchen floor.  She did not eat, she did not sleep, and after Heidi and I tried everything to soothe her, it was clear that she simply wanted to be in the one place she loves most:  home.

When I was pregnant, Maikael and I would pass quiet evenings imagining who this person under the swell in my middle was.  I remember joking, “I bet we will have a total homebody,” not quite believing that a couple that has visited over 50 countries between us could produce someone who prefers to stick close to home.  Part of our decision to have a baby in the first place was predicated on the travel success stories of our friends with small children.  We had seen first-hand the infants who dozed in carriers, the babies who slept through the night in strange houses, the ones who sat quietly on their parents’ laps in noisy jets, which buoyed our confidence in the (naive?) belief that we could continue to travel in the same way we always had.

After an exhausting fortnight apart, I worked hard to clear the calendar so that we could spend a quiet three-day weekend at home.  Abra and I met Maikael at the airport, and after a few moments of confusion and hesitation, Abra clung to him like a monkey.  That evening we enjoyed dinner and drinks on our patio, something I look forward to all year but that we haven’t been able to do all summer because of the smoke produced from the wildfires that are ravaging our state.  We pawed through souvenirs, flipped through vacation photos, and shared stories of our time apart.  Over the weekend we turned off the phones and made waffles.  We took a walk and ate strawberry shortcake.  We watched the skies open up and produce a much-needed rainstorm from the safety of our local frozen yogurt shop.  We curled up on the couch and watched two movies after Abra was nestled snugly in bed, a first in nine months.  We enjoyed an outstanding 4^th of July lunch at a dear friend’s house, but made sure we were home before dark.  It was one of the nicest weekends I’ve spent in a long time, circling ever closer to home.

I have been a “go-er” my whole life, always propelling myself from one adventure to the next; the irony that I have a child who prefers to stick close to home is not lost on me, nor do I think it’s a coincidence.  A friend recently shared with me a quote from Zora Neale Hurston that I have been turning over in my mind.  “There are years that ask questions and there are years that answer.”  It got me thinking about the seasons of our lives, how there are periods of expansion and contraction, activity and stillness, effort and ease, sowing and reaping.  And yes, there are years for going and years for staying.  We don’t plan to quit traveling – it’s too integral a part of our lives – but in this season I think I have something to learn from being content at home, a place I’ve always shied away from.  Perhaps it has something to do with learning to be comfortable in my own skin.  It’s time to stop moving for awhile, to cultivate a life centered around home and hearth, to settle into the quiet moments and unexpected pleasures that the ordinary world offers up each and every day.

Last Friday I spent a lovely afternoon with a woman I met through one of the five (yes, five) mama/baby groups I am a part of.  When we recently discovered a mutual interest in writing we decided to get together to talk about our dreams and ambitions.  As I drove up to her house, I noticed a colorful banner fluttering in the breeze in her front yard.  “Enjoy life,” it said, which immediately put a smile on my face.  She has a lovely, airy home, full of charm and character, and I longingly admired the expansive backyard that is brimming with vegetables, for her passion is gardening.  My backyard is a mess of river rock, save for the postage-stamp-square of dirt where I attempted to plant a garden two summers ago, the only remaining evidence three spindly tomato cages, encircling desiccated vines, that now serves as a perch for songbirds.

We sat cross-legged around the blonde wood coffee table, where my friend placed a heaping bowl of scarlet cherries and a homemade hazelnut cake, draped in a tea towel.  Using a manual, European style espresso maker, she brewed good, strong coffee from the local coffeehouse that I frequent, which she poured into beautiful blue, wafer-thin cups.  It may sound silly, but this little spread, laid forth with obvious care and attention, brought me a little burst of joy.  These things matter – or at least they do to me, and it’s not often that encounter someone who shares my same sensibilities in this arena.  My immediate impulse was to run out and buy that espresso maker, make that cake, and figure out where I could procure similar cups.

When we finally got down to talking about writing, we discovered that we both struggle with a nagging doubt that we have anything new to add to our respective genres that are already rich with so many talented voices.  When she shared with me her desire to write about gardening in a way that weaves together personal anecdotes, family history, and practical advice, I thought it sounded marvelously distinctive, and I wondered why we have such difficulty recognizing our own uniqueness when others can see it so clearly.  It brought me back, as so many things do these days, to the retreat.  One night when we were deep in conversation, Sarah, a talented photographer and social psychologist, said she often needed to remind herself that, “The universe has room for all of us.”  The truth and beauty of those words struck me like a bolt of lightning and keep crackling in my conscious weeks later.

Included here just because I love this shot (photo credit: Darlene Kreutzer Paetz)

I’ve seen my lack of faith in this basic principle manifest itself in my life in a variety of ways.  Often times, when I see others engaged in some endeavor that they are enthusiastic about, I begin to plot ways in which I could implement it in my own life.  (In fact, I wrote a whole post on this subject some years ago, and my struggle obviously persists to this day.)  Although I don’t enjoy gardening, seeing someone else’s beautiful garden that obviously brings them so much joy and pleasure suddenly makes me want to want to enjoy gardening.  Before I know it I am plotting how to transform my own backyard into a similar oasis, despite the fact that I can barely maintain a sad patch of land for which experience has proven that I will quickly lose interest.  We do this all this time – with jobs, partners, clothing styles, hobbies – but it goes against the fundamental truth that the universe has room for all of our unique ways of being in the world.

Because I do not fully trust in this basic truth, I often rush to “beat others to the punch” when I feel my sharehold is being threatened.  Before I left for the retreat, I was riddled daily with anxiety that I was “falling behind” with my writing, despite the fact that I was rudderless (how can you fall behind when you don’t know where you’re going?).  I felt as if there was some shadowy figure just beyond my reach that was going to “cut ahead” of me in the cosmic lunch line, and therefore I better get moving.  I am currently reading Tina Fey’s very funny memoir Bossypants, and in it she discusses “The Myth of Not Enough,” which is essentially her way of describing the fear that grips us when we doubt that the universe has enough to provide for all of us.  She argues that in the world of improvisational acting, where you are creating something out of nothing, there is always enough to go around because you’re creating it. It is impossible to run out of something of our own limitless invention.  What an empowering thought!

Photo credit: Celina Wyss

At the crux of my mistrust in the universe’s ability to provide lies a fundamental doubt of my own uniqueness.  In a sea of 10,000 voices – people writing memoir about change, about living in the moment, about what it means to be human – I wonder how mine can ever be heard above the din.  I struggle to trust in the universe’s ability to expand to hold all of our voices and stories. During our visit, my friend shared with me one of her favorite quotes about the craft of writing from Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  “Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”  Reading those words typed onto a small slip of paper, a little something shifted into place for me.  I can’t quite articulate my unique voice in the infinite ocean of words, but I know that I write to think and to figure out what I know (and don’t know).  I write to explore my inner world and memorialize the small moments in the outer one:  the ruby cherries and the tiny cups and the banners flapping in the breeze.  I write to become conscious of the life I am living.  I’m not sure that I can say it better than the multitude of talented writers out there, but I hope I say it a little differently, a tangible show of faith that the universe can, indeed, provide for us all.

One morning last week, just before we needed to get ready for swim class, Abra fell asleep resting in the crook of my neck.  She had been tired and fussy all morning, in desperate need of a nap but refusing to sleep; but here, in the fleshy folds of my skin, she found a moment of respite.  Her eyes slowly shut, creating delicate half-moons.  Her long, thick lashes, a genetic mystery, reached toward me.  Soft sighs escaped from her bow lips.  Her tiny fist, a gentle curl of fingers, came to rest on my chest.  I breathed in tandem with her, in and out, soaking in her warmth and quiet connection. It was a moment so rare that I reached down to pick up my camera, careful not to disturb her, to document what I knew would be a fleeting moment.

Moments later, as if she realized I was working to ensnare this ephemeral thing, she abruptly woke herself, breaking the short but magical spell that had fallen over us.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of a brief time last fall when all Abra wanted was to be held.  In those earliest days of motherhood I was constantly trying to pawn her off on someone else so that I could feel, once again, unattached and unencumbered.  I propped her in a stroller, set her in an infant seat that jiggled her to sleep, placed her in a swing, and slung her over a shoulder so that I could stir a pot or write a letter with my free hand. In a desperate attempt to maintain a grasp on an existence that had been obliterated, my life revolved around devising clever ways to offload her.  I’m not sure if I created a baby that now hates to be cuddled, or if her nature just set in, but current attempts to hold her are generally futile.  If I try to cradle her in my arms, she arches her back in dramatic spasms, quickly worming her way out of my lap.  The tighter I try to hold on, the more she tries to struggle out of my grasp.

Life is always playing these kinds of tricks on us.  We squander moments that can never be recaptured. We wish to reclaim something that was once easily obtained, but now find frustratingly unavailable. The tighter we clench, the quicker the experience slides through our fingers, elusive and slippery.  All that we have is this moment; the best we can do is to hold on to it tight and then gently let it go, riding the current of life as it ebbs and flows.  I remember sitting on the stoop one evening at the retreat, the late afternoon sun warming my back, my bare feet prickly on the rough cement.  I held a glass of red wine in a stout water glass in one hand, my arm slung over my knee.  I looked out at the expanse of green that stretched down to touch the sand and the sea, absorbed the puffy white clouds, soaked in the rolling waves, feeling completely at one and content with my life.  The beauty of that moment wasn’t in trying to prolong it, but accepting that what made it sweet was that it couldn’t stretch on forever.  It wasn’t for future consumption; it couldn’t be bottled and transported.  It was a moment to be enjoyed right then and there.  And as I held Abra in my arms I felt that same feeling bubbling up, knowing that, just as sure as I etched that moment in the sands of time, the tide would wash it out to sea again.

Considering the moment (photo credit: Darlene Kreutzer Paetz)

Now I am back at home, struggling to start “close in,” trying to discern what my first step should be (the second and third steps seem a lot clearer right now).  I wish I had a little of that beautiful coastal afternoon to sprinkle on my everyday existence.  But these lines from David Whyte’s poem reverberate through my head constantly, and I am reminded to:

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

As my mind drifts back to a blissful weekend at the ocean and fast forwards to adventures and dreams on the horizon, I remind myself that the ground I am treading on right now involves swim lessons and the sweetness of a sleeping baby.  Fully inhabiting my current reality is the first step, my “close in;” it is the work that matters most.

I arrived at the grey house on the beach spiritually, emotionally, and physically depleted, having quickly handed Abra off to her father at the airport with a swift motion and a hasty goodbye.  We had already spent four ragged days in Portland, during which time Abra was unnerved by the rhythm of the city.  Each of our attempts to do the things we enjoy – visits to nice restaurants, hip clothing stores and coffee shops humming with life – were met with deep resistance on her part and resentment on ours.  Her sleep was fitful and truncated, resulting in early morning walks through Portland’s damp, deserted streets, the only sign of life the city’s swelling homeless population.  After being trapped in a 400 square-foot hotel room with a teary infant for four nights I couldn’t escape the airport’s parking garage quickly enough, where my chariot waited in the form of a gunmetal minivan to whisk me away from my troubles.

Our house

Although I wasn’t sure what to expect from this group of almost-strangers, I came prepared to make some decisions about my creative pursuits.  Most days I harbor nagging thoughts about the writing I should be doing, and I was ready to put those thoughts to rest by moving into action mode (a regular posting schedule, a visual redesign, an online marketing plan), and I thought our conversations would revolve around the online world.  What unfolded over the next four days was anything but virtual.

After an exploratory walk down the sandy spit of beach that lined the front of our house, where tentative getting-to-know-you conversations transpired in small circles, we retreated to the cozy living room and crowded on the Tiffany-blue couch and sprawled ourselves amongst a collection of wicker chairs.  I crouched on a stout leather ottoman springing like a mushroom from the carpet.  An uncomfortable hush fell over the group as we settled into that middle place between perfect strangers and kindred spirits, and it was clear that we were collectively thinking the same thought:  now what?

First steps

Meghan, our group’s de factor organizer, who has an innate gift for connecting people, began the “opening ceremonies” with a poem by David Whyte.  As her throaty voice intoned the opening lines, I felt a small space open inside of me:

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

Meghan reading (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

By the time Meghan reached the closing lines, hot tears were running down my cheeks in a fat stream, and something had shifted in the room.  Over the course of the weekend that small crack was pried wide open, flooding the space with the light and energy of this collection of women who, while disparate on the surface, proved to be true sisters in spirit.  We shared glittering pieces of our souls that had been crouching in dark corners over sunrise walks on the beach, twilight runs, communal meals, art projects, book discussions, shopping trips, photo sessions both goofy and serious, and too much red wine.  There was midday laughter and midnight tears, bedtime whispers and afternoon roars.  Our group solidified not in tentative steps but giant leaps, and the weekend unfurled in a beautiful string of days where time played tricks on us.  Being so far north so close to the solstice, the nine o’clock light often felt like late afternoon, such that we found ourselves in that rare, delicious place in life where time slips through our fingers.

Snapshots of togetherness (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

As the weekend progressed it became clear that, in each of our own ways, we were all struggling with starting “close in.”  Whether the poem set the tone for our time together or was simply the perfect message for our collective struggle I can’t say.  But what I do know is that, as we tried to create our personal “mission statements” late one evening, attaching tangible words to our faltering attempts to start close in, many of us broke wide open.  As the starry night blanketed the house I curled up in a chaise lounge in a dark corner and strained to make the words fits, arranging and rearranging them as if trying to make the pieces of a puzzle fit together.   I tried desperately to cram “writing” into the cracks, jagged edges running headlong into smooth corners.  Exhausted by my efforts, I finally gave up and collapsed into bed.  But after my second full night of sleep in nine months and a clarifying morning conversation with Darlene, the pieces began to fall into place.

Connecting (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

I thought I had come to this house by the sea to plot my path to a successful writing career.  But what I quickly discovered, wrapped in the warm embrace of this group of like-minded souls, is that I had come here to plot my path back to myself.  It wasn’t until I had stripped the worn patterns of a tired life, if only for a few days, that I could see how desperately I needed to rediscover my joy before I could do anything else.

That is starting close in.

We all have different first steps to take.  After just four short days there is already talk of leaving jobs and dusting off abandoned book proposals, resuming blogs and shedding unwanted commitments, moving houses and improving relationships.  There is talk of new creative projects and new ways of being in the world.  Someone’s mosaic tile, which we spent painstaking hours creating around the sturdy kitchen table, split clear down the middle on the trip home, an apt metaphor for how most of us left this weekend feeling.  My “close in” is more modest, but equally important.  Before I meet this group of women again next June, my work involves manifesting a new reality and realigning with my spirit, and sharing those understandings with you, dear readers, as I have time and energy.

Manifesting a new reality (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

This rejuvenating weekend was the first small step in reconnecting with my spirit and remembering what it feels like to be in sync with one’s self.  I had forgotten how much I love the water, the feel of sand in my toes, and wide swaths of green.  I had forgotten how important it is to feel deeply connected to kindred spirits.  I had forgotten my love of frilly pants, breezy shifts and hula hooping.  I had forgotten how to sing, dance, laugh and wear tiaras in public.  I had forgotten how much I love creating with my hands and appreciating beauty.  I had forgotten how much I love peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and sleep.  I had forgotten how to have fun.

One of my long-forgotten talents (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

One of the highlights of our trip to Portland was a quiet, unexpected day spent outdoors.  The skies cleared, making way for white, puffy clouds, and rather than spend another day in the frenetic pace of the city we huffed our way up to Washington Park to escape the constant thrum.  Here Abra crawled around on the dewy emerald grass at the Rose Garden, completely delighted.  We pushed our way further uphill, passing under the lush canopy of the Japanese Gardens, a cloak of silence falling over us as we entered the space.  We gazed upon sun-dappled maple trees that shone scarlet, moss-covered pagodas, murmuring streams, and narrow stone paths.  It’s not the kind of thing we would have done without Abra, our quiet soul, but for once we weren’t clinging to the past but creating a new way of being as a family in our present reality.  We were all, for once, happy.

Words cannot express how grateful I am to have been a part of this transformative weekend; it’s a testament to the power of connecting a group of like-minded women, and it’s impossible to fit all the insights and stories into a single blog post.  Over the next few weeks, I plan on expanding upon what I took away from my time with The Tribe, and how I am starting “close in” now that I’m back at home.  Thank you to my soul sisters Meghan, Sarah, Emily, Melissa, Celina, Darlene, Sophia, Rebecca, and, in absentia, Stefanie and Lindsey.

The Tribe (photo credit: Rebecca Murphy)

A few years ago I wrote a post about the power of saying “yes” in our lives.  We are trained to have restraint, to set boundaries, to limit our obligations, to conserve our emotional resources.  When it comes to taking bounding leaps of faith into the great unknown, most of us struggle mightily, myself included.  But just days after Abra was born, my friend, Meghan, approached me about a retreat she was organizing on the Oregon Coast for creative women from different walks of life, and would I be interested?  At this point I was still traipsing around the house in a nightgown at all hours, taking showers at 3 pm, and crying most days.  June seemed like an impossible future, eons away.  In my mind, Abra would be walking, talking, sleeping through the night, and eating T-bone steaks by that time, and although I wasn’t sure how I’d manage the logistics (I tend to be someone who jumps and then worries about the details later), every fiber of my being said, “Say ‘yes’!”

Over the past eight months it’s been exciting to watch Meghan’s creative brainchild grow from a flat, abstract idea on paper to a living, breathing, 3D collection of women.  We come from different states and different countries.  We are writers, artists, photographer, and filmmakers.  We are mothers, sisters, wives, and partners.  We are all spokes radiating out from Meghan’s wheel, but most of us have never met.  We have only spoken by phone a few times and have gotten to know one another through the modern marvel that is Facebook.  And next week, in Manzanita, Oregon, we will finally come together to share our stories, to help each other along our rugged creative paths, to relax, and to become, as we’ve dubbed ourselves, The Tribe.  But most importantly, I’m excited to spend time with a group of women who weren’t afraid to say “yes,” who committed their precious time and resources to one big unknown.  Is this not faith incarnate?

It’s the first time I’ve left Abra for more than a few hours, who will be with her dad two hours away, on another spit of Oregon coastline, visiting with her aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, and grandma.  Little did I know when I said “yes” so long ago that Abra would still be nursing eight times a day (my “project” the past six weeks has been pumping enough milk to sustain her for four days while watching  a nightly episode of The Wire).  I didn’t know then that she’d still be happily inching her way across the living room using her head as a pivot point, babbling nonsense syllables, and that her sleep would be a disaster.  But I’m glad I said “yes” anyway.

Think they'll survive without me?

I’ll be back after June 6 with lots of stories from our summer vacation to Portland, Oregon, and my time with The Tribe on the Oregon Coast!

Last Sunday I talked to my friend, Sarah, who recently returned from taking her four year-old son, Jake, to his first trip to Disneyland.  He had a wonderful time, she reported, saying how much he enjoyed the rides and attractions.  But he was equally delighted by the seashell-shaped pillows at the hotel, the novelty of swimming in a pool in May (it has been one of the coldest, wettest springs on record where he lives in Seattle), and the fact that Goofy wore a chef’s hat at the Character Breakfast.  He danced to the free street performers that most of us rush past on our way to Splash Mountain, soaking in the rhythms.  As she recounted her trip I couldn’t help but remember my own inaugural trip to The Magic Kingdom when I was five years old.  One of the most salient memories remains the Magic Fingers on the bed at the Jolly Roger Inn, which could be started by inserting a mere quarter; a pittance, I recall, for what I thought was mankind’s single most brilliant invention.

We’ve all heard the old – and, I think, tired – adage that children are more interested in the packing a gift comes in than the gift itself.  I wonder, then, why we never cease to be amazed by the fundamental reality that less is more?  This point was recently driven home to me during Abra’s bath time, a nightly ritual that parenting books directed me to carry out in hopes of ensuring a good night’s rest, but which I happened to find insufferable and boring.  I plunked her into the yellow duck-shaped bathtub that squeaks when you squeeze its beak and quickly sluiced her with lavender-scented water, hastily scrubbing her lanky arms and chubby thighs in an effort to get the job done as swiftly as humanely possible.  Just as I was about to lift her out of the tub and swaddle her in a fluffy towel, I noticed something unusual.  She was happy, an emotion I don’t usually associate with Abra after the witching hour of five o’clock.

Instead, I crouched down next to the tub and searched for some makeshift bath toys.  She gingerly tugged at the satiny loops of the loofah sponge, as if she was plucking petals from a daisy, and enthusiastically slapped her hand across the surface of the water.  She squealed as she kicked her legs through the warm water, sending a soapy spray straight at my face, which made me laugh right back.  When I poured a steady stream of water from a small Tupperware container, creating a miniature waterfall, Abra sliced her hand through the water, intently watching the stream trickle through her fingers.  She turned to me with a broad smile and dancing eyes, a mix of pure joy and wonderment, which pierced me straight to my soul.

Passing through the baby aisle of Target last week I had to suppress a deep urge to buy a cylinder of seafaring bath toys, reminding myself that, at least for now, she is perfectly content with a sponge and a plastic cup.  Why add variables to an already balanced equation?  Although I am cognizant that enough really is enough, that knee-jerk impulse for more surprised me.  But what has surprised me even more is that bath time has become one of my favorite parts of the day, a respite from whatever has passed before.  In the long stretch of hours that we spend together, it’s the only time when Abra and I can simply be in each other’s presence without demanding anything of one another.  While I’ll sometimes “play” with her, more often than not I simply sit by the tub and let my mind wander as I trail my fingers through the water.  Abra is often lost in her own world, too, and we are operating in tandem, together but not together, the inevitable push-pull of parent and child swirling down the drain with the spent water.

Today is my birthday.  I turned 33 years old.  As I’ve written before, my birthday is typically a big deal for me; in fact, over the years it’s stretched from a single day to a month-long extravaganza.  But this year I didn’t feel much like celebrating.  Maybe it’s because I have an eight-month old baby who goes to sleep at 6 pm but still doesn’t sleep through the night, causing me to slink to bed shortly after her in an effort to maximize my own sleep.  Perhaps it’s because my husband left for a business trip this afternoon after a hurried brunch that consisted of shuttling the baby back and forth across the table between bites of Belgian waffle.  But I suspect it has to do with the fact that my birthday is a tangible reminder that, 33 years into my life, my day-to-day existence has never felt farther from my deepest hopes and dreams.

Thirty-three: count 'em.

I have, as you’ve probably noticed, been suspiciously absent from this space for the past two months.  It’s not that I haven’t thought about writing here a million times.  At least once a day an idea for a post floats through my mind; once or twice I’ve even sat down to type the words.  But just as quickly as the words have tumbled forth in fits and starts I have tapped the “delete” key, finding myself paralyzed, wondering what’s the point?  Who cares?  Does the world need another mother’s voice?  Is that even the voice I want to speak from?  Wouldn’t my time be better spent doing 8,000 other things? At the root of all these questions lurks the biggest one of all, the one that is too scary to even broach:  who are you NOW? Rather than face this hairy beast head-on, I quickly close the clamshell of my laptop and take a nap or read a few pages of a book.  But I am haunted by this compulsion to write.

All of us reaches a place somewhere along our journey where the road becomes especially bumpy, where our headlights can’t slice through the soupy fog, where the path that winds blindly ahead is completely obscured.  Or sometimes we look around and realize we grabbed the wrong map when we left the house and are thousands of miles from our intended destination.  But along the way we met people and had experiences that changed us, and we wonder if it’s worth restarting the journey we set out on in the first place — if that was even possible.  Right now, as I study where I stand in this quaking world, I realize I am a shadow of myself.  I don’t say that to bemoan my fate or lead you to believe I’m unhappy in my life.  I say it in the most literal sense:  I am in the process of becoming someone other than who I was, and right now that figure is still crouching in the shadows.  She is dim and spectral, not fully formed, not anywhere near being able to step into the light.

Tonight I wrote an email to one of my “blog friends,” seeking advice on how – or if – I should continue to blog, and if so, if this is the right space.  I told her what I’ve just told you:  that I know I have something to say, but I’m not sure what it is.  That my identity is shifting with this uneven journey into motherhood, and while I want to write about that metamorphosis I’m not sure what my specific perspective is, which feels somehow illicit in a profession that values specificity.  I wondered aloud how I could write about what I know when I don’t know who I am anymore.  She responded with an email that encouraged me to write about this not-knowing, this process of discovery, this particular time of life when something is on its way to becoming something else.  In short, she encouraged me to embrace the specter.  And suddenly I realized that the deep uncertainty that has marked the past eight months of my life is what has kept me from writing here – and yet it’s the very thing I should be writing about.

Without quite knowing what I was going to say, I cut myself a fat slice of birthday cake, poured a glass of wine (I am not above mixing the two), and typed these words.  They are not polished nor perfectly formed, more musing than poetry.  They are rough and ragged, more heart than head.  Sort of like everything else these days.

The first whisper of spring comes when the magnolia tree in our courtyard unclenches its purple fist of petals, a palpable sign that winter is releasing its icy grip.  The cherry trees that line the park are aglow in downy blossoms, clutches of cotton balls reaching skyward.  March in New Mexico is characterized by cool, calm mornings followed by warm, windy afternoons that send last autumn’s spent leaves in whirling eddies.  When these enormous gusts rush toward her, Abra flicks out her tongue like a lizard, as if she can taste the world.  She squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself against the breeze, and makes a high-pitched coo.  Even our yoga teacher recognizes what a visceral experience the winds can conjure, noting one brisk morning during class that they stir up energy and leave us feeling as if we’ve been put through an emotional blender.  As the world opens itself to new beginnings, the spring wind is there to remind us that change doesn’t come easily or softly.  Sometimes it blasts us head-on, tumbles us about in the existential clothes dryer, then spins us around in some crazy game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey until we don’t know which way is up.

While all the signs of spring are shyly blooming around me, my heart is still in the frigid clutches of winter.  The world greens, but my inner branches are bare.  Like the slow revolution towards a maternal summer solstice, most of the new mothers I know have started to turn their lolling heads towards the sunshine of their babies’ faces.  They greet the sleepless nights and crying jags with good humor, their bleary-eyed vision focused instead on the quickly-advancing parade of firsts, the giggles and peeps, the luminous smiles.  I’m still slogging through sooty slush, wondering when things get easier.

I am navigating this new world in fits and starts, the seemingly endless cycle of freeze, thaw, and refreeze that marks those tremulous days of early spring.  There are times when I ride the wind with ease, gliding effortlessly through life.  I manage to juggle everything with grace, to intuit how to fix nebulous problems, to feel as if I have a firm foothold in this emerging life.  I am making progress.  Things are getting better. Then the wind quickly flips her coattails, a gale force that sends me skittering down the street, my life blown open once again.  In the blink of an eye our household is beset by illness, injury, and car troubles.  I am scattered and sour, overwhelmed and uncertain.  My hair is a tangled nest of locks, my new pants are splattered with milk, and a dull headache rages in the background.  Any semblance of order quickly falls to pieces, and at the end of the day I am left with the unsettling feeling that I am back at the proverbial Square One.

Just when it feels like I will never get the hang of anything, the spring wind lifts me up again.  It assures me that winter can’t last forever, that March will soon be a distant memory that gives way to calmer days.  Until then, I expand and contract with the emerging world around me, chipping away at my wintry heart, making way for a new season that’s seeping in through the cracks already.

I arrange the ragtag troupe of dolls in their pew, straight-backed on the tattered chintz sofa.  I open the hymnal, a faded collection of American pioneer songs bought at a tag sale, its tangerine cover graced by sweet drawings of square dancing youth.  I create an altar under the antique map of the state of Washington, as good of an altarpiece as any.  What I preach that glittering Sunday morning I cannot recall, but I know my experience with religious doctrine up until that point was spotty at best.  There was a drawing of a freckle-faced Jesus colored hastily during a brief Sunday school stint at Kent United Methodist Church.  Easters that were bathed simply in pastel eggs and trumpeting lilies.  Seething jealously each Thursday morning when the CCD kids formed a tight ring at the bus stop, hashing over the details of the previous evening.

I have always been obsessed by life’s deepest mysteries, the ones that religion delves deeply into, grapples furiously with, and dances a madcap tango to.  I reside in the vagaries of the soul, wrestle constantly with The Big Questions, and strive to feel a connection to that ephemeral something that is just beyond our grasp.  My studies in theatre and counseling were propelled by a compulsion to zip myself inside the skin of someone else in order to understand the human condition, and had the foundation of my life not been formed on a spiritual fault line, I have no doubt I would have found great satisfaction in studying theology and entering the clergy.

When Abra was born, we didn’t struggle much with what part religion would play in her young life.  “Let her choose for herself when she’s old enough to decide,” seemed to be our collective decision.  And yet my eight year-old self, the one who created ceremony out of stuffed animals and folk songs to feel connected to something bigger than herself, wondered what Abra might be missing out on.  So when my mother-in-law asked if we would consider baptizing her during our recent trip to Mexico at an historic Catholic church, my hesitation was, I admit, perfunctory.

We nose the aging Toyota 4Runner down the cobbled road leading up to Santuario de Atotonilco, kicking up plumes of dust in our wake.  We step inside the dark office where Abra’s birth certificate will be registered in the church records, and after some minor confusion about the difference between “Mexico” and “New Mexico,” we are guided towards the church across the way.  I carry Abra in the crook of my arm, her frilly white dress fluttering in the breeze as she squints against the harsh sun pouring down.  Inside the cool cathedral, surrounded by peeling frescoes, it quickly becomes apparent that we are the smallest group with the most modestly-dressed baby.   One girl, surrounded by a clutch of friends and relatives, is as pretty as a wedding cake, her long gown trailing a cascade of frothy fabric.  A little boy looks positively regal in an oyster-colored cape, the scepter the only thing missing from his royal costume.

We take a seat in one of the small chapels just off the main altar, whispering to one another as I quietly nurse Abra, who is rattled by the unfamiliar surroundings, which soothes both of us.  A wrought-iron table supporting a simple porcelain pitcher stands at the ready (the chapel with the large stone baptismal font is, unfortunately, undergoing renovation).  The small room quickly fills with people as the priest, draped in a long, white robe, steps to the front.  He begins speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, a rat-a-tat-tat that I quickly lose track of but wish desperately that I could understand.

Prayers and benedictions are spoken in unison by rote, as if everyone has walked down this well-worn path a thousand times before, and I murmur along as best I can, lagging a step behind.  Although the other three babies being baptized look alert and ready to begin their journey into the Catholic church, Abra alternates between crying and sleeping, a pendulum of energy swinging back and forth.  But each time the priest approaches her – to anoint her chest with a smudge of sticky oil, to sprinkle a shower of holy water on her tiny forehead – she stares intently into his eyes, a wave of calm washing over her in a way that causes a wave of chills to crash over me.

When the moment of her baptism comes, we approach the rickety table and the priest leans over and whispers, “Donde esta la concha?” My mother-in-law turns to me searchingly, her eyes translating, “Where is the shell?”  Lost in the script of the day, I had no idea that we were already to the part where the dainty scallop, used to trickle water over her head, was to play its part.  In its absence, Abra receives a steady cascade of water from that obliging pitcher, matting the fuzzy tuft of hair to her head and causing her to issue a cry that reverberates through the stony chapel.  But she is calmed once again when her baptismal candle is lit, casting a soft glow across her face and transfixing her gaze.  She reaches repeatedly for the flickering flame, as if she is reaching out to touch tradition itself.

At the end of the ceremony we make our way to the small altar to have our picture taken with the priest, as if we are posing for a photo op with a head of state.  Unsure whether to smile or look stoic, I awkwardly hold up Abra’s baptismal certificate for display, as if I have just won a major award.  I have fumbled my way through this experience, utterly in the dark, unsure what was coming around the bend.  I am once again that skinny eight year-old girl clutching her makeshift hymnal, standing at the fringes of something bigger than herself, wanting desperately to be a part of the ritual and ceremony but not quite knowing the steps.  But I am closer than I’ve ever been because, whether we are willing to admit it or not, our children are the unwitting vessels of the lost pieces of ourselves.

When I ask Maikael later to translate the priest’s opening words, he says, “Being baptized is just the beginning of the journey.”  Who knows what choices my daughter will ultimately make in her spiritual life; that’s for her to decide.  But I hope she’ll always know that she is connected to a force greater than herself; that she feel a little less lost on the journey than I have; that, like a flickering flame, spirit and faith be so palpable that she need only reach out and touch it with her fingertips.

I’m back!  And I’ve missed you.  Sorry it’s taken me so long to get my act together after our epic journey to Mexico.  Abra barely slept for two weeks and, well, it’s taken me twice as long as that to get back on track.  But I’m here.  Thanks for waiting.

Life in Pencil is taking a much-needed vacation to Mexico!  I’ll be back after February 22 with many “life in pencil” stories and insights to share from my time away.

Also, thank you to those readers who participated in yesterday’s “Mindful Mothering” chat at TheMotherhood.  There were about 600 people who watched it all unfold live (!!!).  If you missed it and are interested in reading the conversation, click here.

Until then, be well.