This past Sunday I went to a lovely tea party with a new friend, something I had been looking forward to for many weeks.  One of the unexpected pleasures of these early days of motherhood has been the women I never would have met had maternity not thrown us together.  The party was held in the airy ballroom of an historic inn, a place that’s come to mean a great deal to me over the past year.  It’s where Maikael and I spent our anniversary last July when I was eight months pregnant. It’s where we enjoyed a leisurely early spring dinner in March, a desperate reprieve from baby.  It’s where I spent my first Mother’s Day on the sunny veranda.  In a cosmic twist of fate, this new friend of mine used to work at the inn before she became a mother herself.

Seated in a sunny corner of the ballroom, we enjoyed tea sandwiches served on frilly three-tiered trays, frothy fruit trifles, delicate cookies, and savory scones.  We sipped iced tea and picked our way slowly through each course, filling the spaces in between with intimate conversation.  We talked about our mutual struggles with this new phase of life, sought each other’s advice, and shared our histories.  One of my favorite phases of a relationship is the “getting to know you” stage.  Every story is new, every exchange rife with possibility.  Because I am so rarely able to get out and enjoy these kinds of decadent, quiet afternoons anymore, these experiences mean so much more to me than ever before.  As the ballroom slowly emptied we lingered just a few minutes more, scraping the crumbs from our plate, sipping the dregs from our tea cups, until the inevitable couldn’t be prolonged anymore.  The ripe anticipation of this day, which I had held in my palm for so many weeks, was over.

As I drive home, still relishing the details of the afternoon, the blackberry clouds roll in, creating a sagging curtain that hangs low and heavy overhead, threatening rain.  Each afternoon for the past few weeks the air has grown thick and humid and just when it looks like the sky is ready to unleash its fury, the clouds retreat, the air thins, and everything returns to normal.  Day after day this same dance has happened, a pas de deux between us New Mexicans and the elements.  But on this day the skies finally opened up, first sending fat raindrops to dot the simmering concrete like splattered paint, followed by thick sheets of rain that pound my little car.  Monsoon season is officially upon us, a reminder that the beginning of the end of summer is here.

There is something about this time of year that causes me to wax nostalgic, especially this year.  Perhaps it’s that “beginning of the end” feeling.  Maybe it’s the fact that I was married on the cusp of the monsoons, or that my daughter was born at the tail end of the season.  But nearly every day I am reminded of what I was doing this time last year.  When I wake up refreshed, I am reminded of the sleepless nights that plagued the end of last summer.  When I exercise I remember those early morning swims, the only form of physical activity that I could manage in my late pregnancy.  When I receive invitations for first birthday parties from the friends I took prenatal yoga with, I can’t help but remember sitting in a hot yoga studio this time last year, talking incessantly about our impending births, aware that everything was about to change.  As I took an early morning walk around my neighborhood park this past Saturday I was reminded of my baby shower, held exactly one year prior.  I reviewed my mental photo album of everyone in attendance and realized how scarcely I see any of those women anymore, shocked by how a year can so dramatically alter the cast of characters in one’s life.

Now the rains are here, clearing out the smoke from ravishing forest fires, soaking the cracked earth, washing everything clean.  In the scope of a year the monsoon season is brief. But it creates a bridge in time, connecting the fullness of summer to the first whispers of autumn.  It is a season unto itself, a reminder of how quickly things can change, how everything has a season, how some periods in time bring us back to ourselves over and over and over again.

Here is Abra just moments after her first monsoon rain, hair plastered to her head!  She didn’t know what to make of the rain.

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)

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.

It is said that authors read the kinds of books they’d like to write (and on that same token they write the kinds of books they’d like to read).  As someone who aspires to one day write a memoir focused on personal transformation, especially as it concerns rewriting one’s life in favor of a deeper and simpler rhythm, it should come as no surprise that I read this genre voraciously.  I recently finished Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers, a book I knew I had to read not only because the front cover described it as “an unconventional memoir,” but because, when Maikael read it, I listened to him laugh out loud night after night as we lay in bed reading before bedtime.  There isn’t much that makes Maikael laugh out loud, and these days I could use a lot more laughter in my life.

The Bucolic Plague chronicles the (mis)adventures of two city slickers who buy a mansion — and its accompanying farm — in the snug rural enclave of Sharon Springs, New York, and try to make a go of it.  Hilarity ensues.  But my favorite part of the book is decidedly un-funny, a scene in which Josh and his partner host a community home tour at their mansion.  It’s been an exceedingly long summer as they try to transform the Beekman Mansion from a weekend getaway into a profitable endeavor, and after overhearing some snarky comments about their efforts from their neighbors during the tour they retreat to the garden.

A woman wanders through the perfectly manicured plots, commenting how much she admires what they’ve done with the property and compares it to her own “Wabi Sabi” garden, a Japanese aesthetic that defines beauty as “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.”  I’d never heard the term before, but after reading more about it and becoming slightly obsessed with the idea over the past week, I’ve come to learn that Wabi Sabi embraces the concept that nothing lasts forever; everything in life is always in the process of becoming something else.  It finds beauty in the simple, growth in imperfection, uniqueness in the imperfect.  I was struck by how “life in pencil” the whole thing sounded.

The woman in the garden says:

When you two bought the Beekman, you began using it.  And with use, comes decay.  And with decay comes work.  And with work comes dedication.  And with dedication comes creativity.  And on and on.  You two will never be finished with the Beekman, it will never be perfect, and it will always be falling to pieces around you.

My life has never felt more Wabi Sabi.  Before Abra arrived on the scene, it was easy to keep things in check.  I slashed lines through the to-do list, cleaned the bathroom, promptly returned phone calls, and aimed the blow dryer at my hair from time to time.  When things invariably fell apart during the week, I always had the weekend to bring order and structure back to the fold.  Now my life feels as if it’s falling apart day in and day out, and there is no reprieve.  I am on an infinite loop of chaos, and I struggle daily to accept this new Wabi Sabi reality I am living.

Growing up, there was a family whose daughter I played with from time to time.  Their house was immaculate.  They were forever replacing the alabaster carpet.  There were no sloppy piles on the kitchen counter.  I doubt there was a junk drawer to be had in the whole place.  There was nothing Wabi Sabi about it.  But what I remember most was how uneasy it made me feel to walk through its immaculate rooms.  While there was the obvious nervousness about breaking a dish or spilling something on the spotless floor, there was a deeper disquietude that took hold inside those pristine walls. It’s easy to keep a house – and a life – in order when it isn’t being used.

Does my life feel like a train wreck most days?  Yes.  Do I wish I could feel more in control of a situation that seems to be utterly uncontrollable?  Most certainly.  But what I realize is that my life before Abra was held at arm’s length, never being fully used. Although many days drift by in a boring haze, I can say with confidence that every ounce of life is squeezed from them.  I begin the morning as a sopping wet washcloth, and by the time my head hits the pillow I am rung dry, every fiber of my being having been fully engaged and occupied in the everyday business of living and loving and raising another human being.  In what is becoming a nagging theme, I am once again reminded that my life is not a passing phase to be weathered.  There is no end point, except for the ultimate one.  For someone who has always carefully portioned her life into neat sections with easily quantifiable goals and milestones, a series of gentle starts and stops, the idea that I will never be finished with my life – that my life will never be finished with me – is nearly unfathomable.  There is only this life – my Wabi Sabi life – and it’s my job to ring it dry every day, no matter how imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.

Please join me on Thursday. February 10, at 1 pm EST for what promises to be a rich discussion on Mindful Mothering: Parenting in the Here and Now at TheMotherhood. Registration is quick and easy!

“We should live perceptively at the surface…we should cultivate a spirit of gratitude and wonder for the many excellent things the world supplies.” ~ David Brooks, The Arena Culture

Even though it was barely 9 am it had already been a long morning.  Abra rose with the sun, something that’s becoming an unfortunate habit these days, and I was running out of activities to occupy her.  Maikael had left the house early for a haircut, and my one planned outing for the day – a coffee date with a friend – had been canceled at the last minute.  With nothing to look forward to in the hours that yawned long in front of me, I was feeling a little blue.

Just then the phone rang.  “I’m going to Michael Thomas Coffee on my way home from my appointment,” said Maikael.  “What do you want?”  For years we have talked about going to Michael Thomas Coffee because Maikael shares the coffee shop’s name, and we’ve often wondered if that entitled him to a complimentary latte.  Despite the fact that the shop is minutes from our house, we have never once, in our seven years in Albuquerque, ventured that far afield.  When he returned home with steaming cappuccinos, we gathered around Abra’s blanket and swept foam off our lips while we laughed as we watched her roll back and forth.

Although it was Maikael’s day off, he had planned to work from home.  But the morning was already unfolding so nicely that, after lunch, we set off on an impromptu shopping trip, my first since becoming pregnant over a year ago.  I meandered through my favorite store, snatching colorful tops and pants I was convinced wouldn’t fit (but did!) off hangers.  Abra snoozed while I modeled new outfits for my very patient accomplice, and I realized that after hobbling by on a worn and ill-fitting wardrobe for the past few years, sliding fresh clothes around my body felt good.

That evening we left Abra with friends so that we could enjoy a quiet evening out together at a cozy restaurant for which we’d been saving a gift certificate.  In a rare moment of quiet and calm, we talked in hushed voices about all we longed for from our new life, which is slowly becoming just “life.”  A glass of cabernet was poured as we sifted through hopes and dreams, and I felt effervescent as I savored the last drop.  “I’m a cheap date,” I laughed, a year of pregnancy and nursing having left me with a low threshold.  By the time I dipped into the last profiterole, a scoop of cinnamon ice cream wearing a puff pastry cap, I realized how true that statement was.  These days I ruefully acknowledge that “it doesn’t take much to get me excited.”  I can’t help but feel a little lame when I gleefully anticipate an evening out all week, pouring over the menu days in advance and dreaming about what I’ll order.  What was once considered standard weekend entertainment – lunch out at a favorite restaurant followed by a new-release movie – has been elevated to sacred status.  I even let myself order the popcorn.

In recent years, it has taken increasingly novel experiences to bring me pleasure.  Maikael and I traveled to far-flung destinations, ate at the newest restaurants, courted new friends.  While these things were wonderful in their own right, it also left me feeling somewhat jaded and, more times than not, disappointed and dissatisfied.  I couldn’t enjoy a steak without comparing it to the one I ate in Argentina, or have a scoop of local gelato without rating it against the ones I sampled in Italy.  Like a magpie, always in search of whatever was shiny and new, I was slowly reverting back to my years as a petulant teenager.

It’s easy to feel like you’ve traded in the good life when you wake up one day and suddenly realize that you are awed by very small things that didn’t used to mean much.  But I can’t help but think that this is the gift of this new phase of life, a deep and abiding appreciation for “the many excellent things the world supplies.”  With a life bound largely to home and a paucity of leisure time, I am supremely content with life’s small wonders:  an extra 30 minutes of sleep while Maikael occupies the baby, a cup of very good coffee, a new outfit that makes me feel nice, a single glass of wine, a special dinner once a month.  In this moment, happiness is a day that slowly unfurls itself in a glistening string of surprises, producing one small wonder after another.

Please join me, Katrina Kenison, Karen Maezen Miller, Lindsey Mead Russell, Meredith Resnik, and other inspiring women I admire for what promises to be an invigorating chat on “Mindful Mothering” at TheMotherhood on Thursday, February 10 at 1 pm EST.  Registration for the site and the chat is super simple!