A few weeks ago my dad sent me an article from his local paper, reporting that the woman who bought my mother’s bakery shortly after she died was moving locations.  I studied the photograph of the woman in the paper, who stood smiling at the battered metal work bench that had been my mother’s perch.  I thought of the hundreds of hours my mother had planted herself in that very spot, pirouetting icing onto wooden picks to make sugar roses, a feat I had watched her perform a thousand times like magic.  My mother had a gift for transforming pedestrian objects into things of beauty, which is exactly what she had done with the spare warehouse space that she converted into a charming bakery when she opened its doors 15 years ago (writing that, I can scarcely believe it’s been 15 years).  It was the fall I was leaving home for college and my mom transferred the energy she had expended on mothering me into this newborn business venture.  She often worked 12-hour days, rarely taking vacations, all, undoubtedly, contributing factors that led to her suffering a heart attack at the age of 51.  So invested was she that The Bakery took on a life of its own, as if it was a character in her story or the newest member of our family.  Over time it became her life force:  the very thing that propelled her was what ultimately snuffed out her light.

As I read the article an unexpected wave of sadness crashed over me, its reverberating ripples still washing against me days later, and I wasn’t sure why; when my dad sold the bakery nearly 10 years ago I felt nothing but relief.  But now, the sands of time having obscured so much of the remains of my mother’s life, I realized that the bakery was the only physical structure that persisted.  The house I grew up in has been sold twice over.  Even the apartment my mother was living in when she died was converted to condominiums.  Although I haven’t been to visit the bakery in years, the place where she poured so much of herself in the final years of her life, I always knew it was there, a steady heartbeat thrumming in the world.  Over the years I had come to regard it as my mother’s mausoleum, a solid touchstone of her memory.

The last time I saw my mother was a week before she died.  It was early November and we went to an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum featuring the work of Frida Kahlo, a painter we both admired.  It was part of an exhibition on Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday where loved ones who have passed are honored.  Altars, filled with photographs, favorite foods, candles, and marigolds, are erected in people’s homes and public spaces.  Family members make pilgrimages to the cemetery where they lay out food for the departed and “welcome” the return of their spirits.  My mom and I were both fascinated by the ritual and beauty of recognizing that, as poet May Sarton says, “death ends a life, but not a relationship.”   Afterward, as we sat drinking coffee and discussing plans for her bakery, as we often did, she said a funny thing.  “If I died tomorrow, I wouldn’t have any regrets.  At least I know I died having made my dream come true.”

Last Sunday Abra, I, and a fellow group of mothers and babies marched in Albuquerque’s Dia de los Muertos parade.  I spent the week leading up to the parade dashing around town trying to find facepaint after Halloween (difficult) and dug costume pieces out of the recesses of my closet.  In the hours after Abra went to bed I transformed humble tissue paper into complicated marigolds to decorate her stroller, my fingertips stained gold and orange.  With each passing day I felt a deeper understanding of how my own mother had spent the same countless hours, stitching costumes, baking cakes, performing her own special alchemy.   As I pinned frilly marigolds in my hair and threaded calavera earrings through my lobes, the hassles of the week fell away; I smiled back at my painted reflection and thought, Mom would have loved this.

I pulled Abra’s festooned stroller from the car, a flurry of tissue paper flowers dancing in the wind.  We strolled around the staging area where homemade papier mache floats with dancing skeletons skirted the parking lot.  A sea of people, young and old, all festively dressed, smiled back at me and I thought, Mom would have loved this. We processed down the street, the world’s slowest parade, a series of fits and starts that allowed us to really take it all in.  I flung candy out to the children lining the street, who skittered to claim their loot.  I watched an old woman standing on her front stoop, a tattered sweater crisscrossed taut around her middle, bracing against the chill of the late fall afternoon.  I saw looks of sheer delight come over people’s faces when they saw our clutch of babies wheel toward them, and I couldn’t help but smile back.  A hard-looking man, thick arms blazing with tattoos, clapped his meaty palms together and shouted, “Let’s hear it for the moms!”  Even as I struggled to grasp once again the reality that, yes, I am a mother, the daughter in me couldn’t help but think, Mom would have loved this.

Someone recently asked me if I still miss my mother a lot.  “Every day,” I replied.  But the times I miss her most is when I find myself in the midst of something that I know she would have loved being a part of.  These are often small moments:  enjoying an especially tasty salad, discovering an interesting coffee house, or marching in a festive homegrown parade.  It is these times that life yawns wide, providing a space in which I connect with her spirit.  The bakery is incidental, a mere mantle of who she was.  My mother resides in the world around me – the crinkle of fall leaves, a bubbling apple crisp, the flap of a bluebird’s wing – and I honor her memory by connecting to these moments that life offers up every day.  As I held Abra snug after the parade, covering her against the cold that advanced into the lengthening shadows, Maikael captured a rare photo of the two of us both looking completely overjoyed.  It was a flash of what has passed and a glimpse of what is yet to come, a mother and daughter delighting in a shared experience.   Peering at this photo I understood, in the fullest way possible, that life goes on.

Last week The New York Times’ Travel section ran an article on Albuquerque that profiled The Church of Beethoven, described as “not church, much more than Beethoven.”  Founded in 2008 by Felix Wurman, a cellist who was seeking weekly ritual without religion, this Sunday morning chamber music series, interspersed with poetry and moments of silence, resonated with me.  All week I looked forward to going in sweet anticipation, having even arranged for a babysitter, but I awoke on Sunday morning in a foul mood, the previous night having been marked by fitful sleep brought on by another round of Abra’s teething.  When we arrived 45 minutes before the performance was to begin, only to discover that it was nearly sold out, my mood darkened.  We stood outside the converted warehouse space waiting with uncertainty for the possibility of standing room-only tickets, shifting from foot to foot as a duo of high school students played the accordion and oboe for spare change.  Everyone except me seemed to be enjoying soaking up the brisk morning sun and the music, and I wondered why I couldn’t do the same.

Once inside we stood in another long line that formed a serpentine around the perimeter of the packed room, waiting for espresso, and my black mood dug in even deeper.  Standing outside of myself it was clear that I was casting a pall over what was supposed to be an uplifting outing.  As I watched myself, simultaneously observing and chastising my behavior, I felt as if I was witnessing a runaway train that I couldn’t stop.  Ensnared in a net of my own making, I struggled desperately to escape this swift downward emotional spiral.  But like a helpless bug caught in a spider’s silken web the more I struggled the more entangled I became, inflated expectation having gotten the best of me once again.

My eyes swept over the cavernous space, which looked as if it had been outfitted from an obliging thrift store.  The rafters were strung with twinkly Christmas lights, old globes bobbed from the ceiling, and frilly lampshades were slung over antique lamps, casting pockets of warmth around the space.  The room buzzed with life:  the strains of the musicians tuning their instruments, the whoosh of the espresso machine, a timpani of chattering voices.  White light seeped through a stained glass window.  Suddenly I look to my left and notice a small vintage nightlight.  A little ceramic dog tugs at the coattails of a little ceramic boy, and the words “Let Go” are lit up at the bottom.  I point this out to Maikael, laughing, and immediately begin to feel a small shift inside myself.

It was a unique setting to listen to Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, not a grand concert hall but a spare space.  When the conductor introduced the piece he noted that, while it has been famously arranged for large symphony orchestras, the original work was created for a small 14-instrument group like the one assembled before us.  As the opening strains of the music floated through the air, soft and slow, I heard someone cough.  I heard a violinist turn the page of her music in a papery rustle.  As the music built I heard the conductor grunt for emphasis, his fist punching the air.  I even heard the silence.  It was easy to notice these details in such an intimate setting, and by the time we reached the piece’s most iconic movement in a deep crescendo, the Shaker tune Simple Gifts, any darkness I felt that morning had been suffused with light.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight

After listening to a local poet we hear a two-person concerto, also by Copeland.  Coming quick on the heels of Appalachian Spring, the clarinetist remarks how that work always reminds him that less is more.  “As much as we like to think that things like iPhones are making our lives cleaner and simpler, they’re not,” he says, a wave of knowing chuckles rippling through the audience, causing the man seated next to me to actually put down his iPhone.  “Copeland always reminds me that all we really need are a few well-chosen connections and activities to make a life.”  These words settle deep into me, a sentiment I have heard a thousand times in different configurations, but which pierce me differently this particular morning.  When the clarinetist introduces the concerto, he notes that while a symphony is like a city and what we’ve just listened to is a village, this concerto is like being at home.  He is right.  It is quiet and intimate; I can hear each gasping breath he takes.  As he sways lyrically to the simple tune I think of the days when people gathered at home and listened to one another play music as evening settled in around them.  I have a dawning awareness that what I was searching for when I came here today was life like a concerto, a drawing in close filled with soft, humble ritual and simple rhythms.  And while this morning has offered the place of easy repose that I was hoping for, I realize that I need not have left home to access it.  The real “letting go” is learning to take a piece of this experience with me and carry it forward into my everyday life, where the concerns of the spirit are bound by nothing more than the modest walls of home.

Last week I had lunch at a friend’s house, and as we munched on chicken salad sandwiches she asked me what I had been up to since I last saw her.  I stared at her blankly.  Not only could I not remember the last time I’d seen her, I couldn’t recall a single thing I’d done, my memories an inky smudge.  Time has taken on a funny quality this summer.  Even sitting here today, typing these words, I struggle to remember how I spent the days – which felt so full and packed at the time – that made up this season.  I know I’m not alone in feeling that summer has disappeared before my eyes like a clever magic trick, all of the goals, dreams and best intentions having slipped through my fingers once again.  Every May my friend, Meghan, and I excitedly share our summer plans through letters penned on milky sheets of stationery, and every August we regret everything we didn’t get around to.  (I wish I’d planted a garden!  I never made it to the summer concern series!  We didn’t take a single road trip!)

Working back through time, my friend and I finally calculated that it had been a month since we’d last seen each other.  So rattled was I that an entire month of my life was a complete blur that I sat down at my computer to thumb through the photos I’d taken on my iPod to jog my memory:

Adventures in eating

Dinner and drinks on the patio, enjoying the sunset

The children's museum

An early morning at the Botanical Gardens

Taking a breather in Santa Fe

Learning to stand

Summer storms

Two exceptionally good books

What struck me is what I suspected all along:  life had been full, but unremarkable.  There were were no major mileposts to mark my journey.  My camera was crammed with everyday moments, small but special.  When, I wonder, will I finally adopt the mindset that those moments are the mileposts?

Despite my sadness that the summer has passed me by, I’ve spent the past few weeks moaning incessantly about the heat, which presses down on me from all directions.  At the grocery store I skip the strawberries, which have passed from small and succulent to overly large and dry, as if they’re trying unsuccessfully to hang on to the season.   As I took a walk around the park this morning I felt a chilly bite in the air, the first blush of fall.  A small thrill shivered through me when I heard the rumble of a big yellow school bus as it wended it way through the streets, marking the first day of school. I am ever-conflicted, lamenting what didn’t happen, wishing away what did, pining for what’s to come.  Here I am, singing summer’s siren song before Labor Day is even here.  The truth is, one of my favorite things about living in New Mexico is that we will be blessed with warm days well into October.  There is no reason to write off the season quite yet, and in these waning days I can keep reaching for those delights I haven’t gotten around to (yet):

homemade ice cream
making a peach pie
a trip to the local pool
an early morning walk in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains

The garden can wait until next year.

Last week, after a long hiatus, Abra and I returned to our mama/baby yoga class.  Once a faithful part of our weekly routine, the frantic pace of summer, with its travel plans and swim lessons, got in the way.  It was the first time we’ve been back since Abra became mobile, a mere two months spelling the difference between a baby who was a shaky sitter to one who crawls with confidence.  I unrolled my familiar blue mat and placed Abra alongside me on the blankets; where she was once content to lie in the cushy piles and let her body be gently twisted to and fro, she quickly squirmed onto all fours and made a mad dash for the knots of rope hanging from the wall.  Yoga prop or instrument of infant death? I wondered.

I surveyed the room, studying the newborns in fuzzy pajamas that snuggled in close, laid patiently on their mats shaking a rattle, and nestled in their carriers for a long nap while their mothers struggled into plank position.  While she was now the oldest one in the group, I couldn’t help but remember the first time I brought Abra to class at eight weeks old.  She alternated between crying and nursing the entire hour, seeking comfort in my arms.  As the months progressed yoga quickly became her favorite weekly outing, fulfilling her need for quiet activity and demanding little of her introverted nature.  Now she was banging on the wooden blocks we use to help position ourselves, crawling up my arms as I reclined into downward facing dog, and lunging for the nearest baby.  Where she used to giggle and bat at my pony tail as I kneeled over her, now she fussed when I placed her on her back and tried to massage her legs.

At the end of the class I was exhausted from trying to corral a curious baby for an hour, and realized that I had done very little yoga in the process.  It used to be so easy, I thought to myself.  As I rolled up my mat I spoke with a few of the mothers who I remembered from the previous months, one of whom invited me to join the group for lunch.  “I can’t,” I replied.  “I need to get Abra home for lunch and then her afternoon nap.”  Gone were the days, I explained, where I could reliably place Abra in her car seat alongside me at a noisy restaurant, trusting she’d nap through a meal.  In a matter of months we had graduated from rookie to veteran, and it suddenly hit me that Abra was much closer to being a toddler than a baby.

Although this is what I’ve wished for all along – a little person who could move about on her own, take consistent naps, eat her own food – a wave of nostalgia crashed over me as I realized that we are no longer at the beginning of the beginning.  Marks have been made on what was previously a blank slate.  History has been created, memories traced on what was once a clean page.   I feel a little pang every time I see Abra’s skin pocked with barely perceptible bumps and bruises.  The faint tan line below her tiny socks tugs at my heartstrings, a reminder that, in some small way, life is taking its daily toll.  Sometimes I think this ache has less to do with Abra and more to do with an awareness of my own life ticking by.  I am no longer reliably the youngest one in a crowd, perched on the precipice of the unknown.  Hopefully more life stretches ahead of me than falls behind, but so many of the decisions I’ve made are indelible, writing the story of what will unfold for years to come.

Time has played tricks on me, as the longest shortest year of my life draws to a close.  The days have often run slow as molasses, and I have pined daily for its swift conclusion.  Now I am shocked to discover that it is nearly here, a meager six weeks away from Abra’s first birthday.  A few nights ago I thumbed through Abra’s newborn photos, and she is barely recognizable.  I see a tiny baby whose wide mouth, often contorted into a cry, is out of proportion.  The roundness of her face has smoothed into the contours of a small child.  Her smooth black hair, slicked to her head like a seal pup, has given way to downy brown locks that stand on end, as if she’s stuck her finger in a light socket.  How, I wonder, can someone change so much in the course of a few months?  She is a shadow of her former herself, and so am I.

Although years and years still stretch ahead of us, sitting in that yoga class was the first time I’ve caught a whiff of lamentation, longing for what was.  I remind myself daily that every stage of life is a tradeoff, a constant exchange of freedoms and obligations.  And yet I unexpectedly found myself wanting a small baby to hold, knowing as soon as the thought was formed that’s exactly what I don’t want.  No, perhaps it is the painful realization that, while I had been away, a door closed silently behind me.  So often in life we don’t have a choice about what doors close when.  Sometimes we don’t even know the door has creaked shut until we try to walk through it again and are surprised to discover it’s locked, the key long gone.  We try furiously to pry it back open, even when we know our only option is to keep walking forward.  We wait for the next door to softly usher us in, knowing there are some doors you only get to walk through once.  After class I half-heartedly asked the instructor if it would be okay if we came back next week, knowing even as I spoke the words that this would be the last time we’d walk out of the studio.  Some doors are better left closed.

We snaked our way through the dusty valley, curls of smoke rising from the blue mountains that loomed in the hazy distance, searching for the turnoff.  Passing by a beautifully manicured golf course, a surprising sight in this desolate nowhere, we were finally stopped by an orange “Road Closed” sign.  An officer from the Bureau of Indian Affairs pressed her palm out the window, informing us that the Las Conchas fire, which has claimed over 145,000 acres in two weeks, had made the route impassable.  “So is the Cochiti Feast Day canceled?” we asked.  “Not as far as I know,” she said, indicating that we weren’t even on the right road that would lead us to the pueblo.  We turned around and passed the gas station, the attached mini-mart dark and shuttered in honor of the festivities, and nosed our way back along the winding road.  After another false start we turned around again, and then again, as if we were playing a crazy game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, finally following the line of cars at the unmarked intersection.  “I can’t believe there isn’t any signage,” I remarked to Maikael, who dryly responded, “Are you really that surprised?”

As we parked our car at the foot of the pueblo, bass voices and drums booming in the distance, two tourists tumbled out of the car next to us.  I knew they were tourists because they complained that a two hour trip from Taos had taken them nearly four, and the woman asked frantically what time the activities had begun. “When I called the pueblo office the man could only tell me that it would start somewhere between 10 and 11,” she fretted, clearly unfamiliar with the approximations that rule New Mexican time.

We followed the sounds of the singing and drumming to the plaza, where scores of pueblo members and visitors ringed the dusty square.  In the middle danced every shape and size of man, woman and child, circumambulating the crusty earth.  Some were covered in seafoam paint, others striped in black and white.  Some shook giant rattles.  Other wore fir boughs in their hair.  The sun bore down hard as one wave of performers made way for the next, an event that would stretch on for hours, a never-ending chorus of sound.  Although all homes are open to visitors on Feast Day, we had been invited to dine at the home of an acquaintance, the first time in six years that we’d been able to attend.  “Just ask for the Governor’s House,” Rose had said, assuring me that everyone would know the way.  After asking scores of people who had no idea where the Governor’s House was, we finally received vague directions.  Abra and I stayed at the car while Maikael disappeared down the dirt road, returning minutes later.  “That’s the one,” he said, pointing, miraculously, to an adobe house situated on a small hill just above our car.  “But nobody’s home.”

We sat in the car, the baking midday sun plastering us to the seats, while we considered what to do.  We hated to turn around after coming all this way, after all these years.  But it was hot, Abra was fussy and, having prepared to enjoy a feast, we were famished.  Just then, Maikael looked up and said, “Hey, isn’t that Rose?” Our friend’s eyes met ours and she let out a squeal of delight, clearly surprised that we had actually made it.  We hugged her, equally surprised that we had found her.  Inside the cool house my eyes wandered to a small altar, a framed photo of Rose’s father propped against a towering statue of the Virgin Mary.  Ceremonial drums were stacked alongside the big screen television, a collision of past and present.

At the other end of the house I could see a dining room table set with dishes.  “I got up real early to cook,” said Rose, who scurried amongst a throng of Crockpots that sat at the ready.  We gathered around the table, and soon a host of small bowls were placed before us:  posole, red chile, enchiladas, green chile stew, and a medley of salads.  Unsure of Feast Day etiquette, I followed the lead of my tablemates, who took only very small portions – the intention is to eat at many homes – and quickly exited, making room for the next wave of people who sat patiently waiting in the living room, like the vestibule of a restaurant.  “There’s room for two more at the table,” called Rose, the makeshift hostess.  Afterward, while Abra contentedly crawled around the floor, we spoke with state senators, old friends and family members.  A group of firefighters, brought in from Fort Apache, Arizona, to fight the blaze that roared just a few miles away, even stopped in to eat a quick meal before returning to the trenches.  A chorus of “thank yous” and a wave of gratitude followed them out the door.

Abra started to yawn so we decided to head for home, an hour away and a world apart.  As we drove back to Albuquerque my mind drifted, reflecting on the day.  So often life here in the Wild West is frustrating, filled with hazy directions, dead ends and unexpected detours.  What I find maddening about this place is what I find maddening about life in general:  where are the clear sign posts to guide my journey?  While I know that no such thing exists I keep beating my head against the cosmic wall, always searching, rarely trusting.  Nothing ever unfolds quite as I expect it to, and yet through divinity I end up arriving exactly at the right place at the right time.  There is a reason New Mexico is called “The Land of Enchantment,” for it is here, on days like this, that we enter the flow of life, celebrating small wonders, the fellowship of others, a bounty to share with friends and strangers alike.

I wish I had photos to share of all the wonderful sights I took in last Thursday.  But in accordance with pueblo custom, no photography was allowed.  As I overheard one woman say, “We’ll just have to keep the memories in our mind’s eye.”  Instead, enjoy the above shot, which captures one of my favorite parts of living in New Mexico:  the incomparable sunsets.  Like my friend Lindsey, I’m becoming fairly obsessed with taking photos of the sky.

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)

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.

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.

Posted by Elizabeth

Yesterday I carefully wrapped my collection of bluebird ornaments in their crinkly tissue nests, ready for next year.  We hauled the Christmas tree, its boughs fringed in brown, to the courtyard, where it lies in wait until we can manage to find the time to recycle it.  My modest decorations are cozy in their boxes, down for a long winter’s nap.  The last of the tamales are gone; the Christmas ham is fading into memory.  The holidays are over.

The New Year rushed in, kicking up her icy skirts, as temperatures lingered all week in the single digits.  It was too cold to tarry outside for long, and we were too stuffed from the holidays – emotionally and physically – to do much beyond eat leftovers, have a meal out, watch a movie, do the laundry, make a few phone calls.  Rather than feel sad that the sparkle of the holidays has lost its luster, I’m glad to put them to rest.  In the midst of the yearly fanfare, despite my best intentions otherwise, there is always too much doing and never enough being.  The month of December swallows me whole, and by the time it spits me out on January 1 I am ready to get back to life as usual, to resume my routine, to have things be normal. The dull tarnish of winter suits me just fine.

Nothing thrills me more than opening a fresh datebook and being met by swaths of open space.  The New Year is what “life in pencil” is all about, a time when possibilities seem limitless, when opportunity is at our fingertips, when change is palpable.  Even those amongst us who usually shy away from change are swept up in the allure of new ways of being and the promise of new beginnings.  This is the time of year when I set grandiose goals, when I add items to my ever-expanding “to do” list in a dizzying flurry, when I imagine the ways I want my life to be more, bigger, better.

But this year feels different.  Maybe it’s the excess of the holidays still gnawing at me, or the lingering reality of deflated expectations, or the fact that I haven’t slept well in days.  Today, rather than eagerly filling those blank calendar pages with goals and ambitions, I find myself protective of the space, wanting to hold these vast tracts of nothingness close.  Like most of us, my days begin with an impossible list of tasks to accomplish, and from the moment I wake to the second my head hits the pillow I am in perpetual motion, a whirling dervish of getting things done. And when I fail to cross off everything on my list – and I rarely get everything done – disappointment tears at me.  On those odd occasions that I accomplish everything I set out to, I don’t feel the satisfaction I anticipate, but find myself simply adding more items to the list.  It is a Sisyphean task.

I’ve tried everything to maximize my time, from multitasking to mindfulness, but I am always left in a tizzy, the equation never equaling gratification.  The only solution, it seems, to getting the most out of my days without feeling perpetually at the end of my tether is simply to do less.  I know from the start that it will take tremendous willpower to resist the pull of productivity, which undermines my very self-worth.  I understand the trade-off.  Phone calls and emails won’t be immediately returned.  Letters will go unanswered in greater stretches.  Three grocery trips will be consolidated into one.  There will be haystacks of clean clothes in the laundry room for days, rather than hours, at a time.  Nothing will happen as quickly as I’d like.  Saying “no” without guilt will be my daily practice. But my hope is that, in return, I will be rewarded with life’s intangible pleasures, more unplanned, idyll hours, the ones that open themselves to reveal the things that matter most.  My hope is that I won’t feel so wholly exhausted — spiritually, physically, and emotionally –at the end of the day.  I hope to feel more like myself again.

Today is my first practice at doing less.  It is my dad’s 63^rd birthday, and he has always lamented the misfortune of being born in the afterglow of the holidays, when people have tired of revelry, when they have done too much and can’t muster the energy for one more celebration.  His birthday gifts are often purchased slapdash, or worse yet, he falls victim to the Christmas/birthday gift combination.  And I admit, I’ve fallen prey to this myself.  Perhaps if I did less in December – and the rest of the year – I’d have more energy for January.  Last week, with a million things to do, I set aside a soulful hour on a dark afternoon to make a tin of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, which I mailed along with a card that made me laugh out loud, knowing how much my dad appreciates something home-baked and a good pun.  I emailed this photo to my dad early this morning so that it’ll be the first thing he sees upon opening his inbox.  I’m setting aside the to-do list to make a special video call to him this afternoon.  Today I won’t get done everything I need to, but hopefully my spirit — and someone else’s — will shine a little brighter.

How are you rewriting your life this year?