Bedsharing

There is a part of me that thinks, with the new baby coming, we should start putting you to sleep in another bed: a crib, a mattress on the floor, something that affords some more physical and auditory space. But it’s just so tender, so pleasant, and easy to go to bed with you, reading a book or two, watching you play with toys until you’re ready to cuddle in and nurse to sleep. Some nights you’re not sleepy right away and you crawl back and forth between the papa and I; he juggles you up and down and practices your karate kicks and you blow raspberries on my tummy, making me laugh out loud. But eventually you come over to me and nestle in to sleep, sweet and gentle, legs kicked out from under the covers and eyes closing slowly, one hand on my chest. I get up to tend the kitchen or myself, those last things of the day that need doing. Often, papa falls asleep too and there you are, the two of you, sprawled in the bed, breathing and dreaming alongside one another. I feel so lucky, so incredibly blessed with my little family; I don’t want you in another room alone. I know, too, there will come a time that is the last; the last time you will want to sleep with your little body next to mine, the last time you will reach for me in your sleep and be comforted by my skin. I’m so looking forward to hearing your thoughts, to watching you dance and run, and to someday seeing you off as your own woman in the world. But there’s no reason to rush you now. The time will come. For now, you can stay with us my little one, and share the bed and dreams.

In the early mornings
when the papa is home
and the baby falls back to sleep,
I lay her on his chest
and sneak out to the garden.
The smell of the earth is rich,
full of sand, pine chips, and musk
as I crouch among the plants.

Sometimes there is dew and often bird song
and I pull tender white roots or water
and sing softly to my small friends
with their growing green leaves. 

The world is so precious
in these stolen moments
alone with the earth.
I feel grateful;
not the
"list of things I know to say thank you for",
but the
"my breath and bones and body
are happy and home"
solid and resounding gratitude.

This world is crazy.
If I get to wish,
(and we all do)
I pray that my daughter
will grow up to know
peace and belonging
with her connections
in the
web of life. 

I pray she will find joy
in the small and simple things.

What will I remember of these hours of stillness
when some day the house is full of voices and running footsteps
and you no longer fit in my arms
curled and sleeping and full of milk?

They say it goes fast,
that in a blink of an eye
you'll no longer be a baby
and I will wonder where it went.

I try to hold this time in my mind and in pictures,
to trap it with my words.
But is like trying to hold the afternoon sun that slants through the nursery window;
I can see it on your face, feel it through the blanket,
and yet it streams past my fingers,
untouchable
and fleeting.

Already your heavysoft body is bigger
and I can almost hear you growing,
getting longer and stronger
with each tiny breath. 

Your eyelashes are thicker than yesterday
and I break into a million pieces

while you,
in perfection,
sleep on.

The apple blossom petals are falling,
the delicate white moons fluttering like snow flakes
down to the green orchard floor,
the scent gauzy-light and sweet on the gentle breeze. 

I sit in the hammock,
lulled by the thrumming of the bees and robin calls
while my daughter nurses and then sleeps at my breast.

We don't talk so much about the sensuousness of being a mother.
The deep nourishment of that so soft
skin on skin,
the intimate pleasure that comes
from the weight of her body,
the sharing of breath and warmth
with one so new to life.

Never have I given so many kisses,
or gazed so deep and so long into another's eyes.
Never have I slept so many nights
with my body curled so closely around another's,
her hair tickling my lips with each inhale.
Never have I bathed or breathed or sang
with another's sacred heart pressed so close to my own. 

Is this how it used to be,
when our ancestors all slept and ate and played together,
enjoying the nearness of everyone all at once?

I close my eyes and listen to her soft noises
as she turns her small head against my chest,
her tiny hands resting on my belly as she sleeps.
Her mouth finds my hand to gum with drooling lips.

Thank you for this gift of being a mother.
Of all things, it is the most naturally, tenderly human
I have ever been.

It's a beautiful day,
sunny, warm with blue skies and that particular stillness of holiday.
It may be one of my last days truly alone for many, many years.
It feels sweet,
so long and 
so short at the same time.
Moving slowly around the house,
around the farm,
followed by the dog and
the stillness of the air and little else. 

Waiting for you is bittersweet. 

I have been told how things will change once you arrive,
how my heart will grow bigger than I ever knew possible.
How I will stretch beyond my limits.
How the adventure that awaits is like nothing I have experienced
or can imagine.

And,
I have always loved the hours and days of being alone,
content in the presence of self.
And,
I have come to love this pregnant body,
its grace and fullness that exists only now.
I know your coming will only multiply our love exponentially,
And,
already I miss the time
of just me and your papa,
laying my head on his chest
and feeling most the thankful ease
of fortune and luck and love. 

But even as I walk alone in the afternoon sun on this golden road
and the golden light
shines on the golden grass,
I look forward to sharing it all with you.
I imagine you on my chest instead of in my belly,
hearing the sounds of the land,
watching the dog chase the groundhogs,
tasting the world. 

With each step on the earth,
I feel the gratitude
and the grief of this moment,
knowing it will never come again.
And with each look to the horizon,
the excitement and anticipation of the unknown change
and the journey of life with you. 

But isn't that how it always is, if we're lucky? The sorrow and the joy both
holding us
in their
ever
tender
hands?

Walking

I walk for the dog,
the way his ears flap and bounce
as he takes off down the road and into the field
where the prairie dogs chirp.

I walk for the plants,
the mullein and willow and cattails,
the Colorado grasses as they bloom golden and seed
and wave in the wind.
For their smells and soft faces turned towards the sky.

I walk for the birds,
the flickers and meadowlarks,
the robins and magpies,
the finches and the sometimes hawks and even eagles.

I walk for the clouds,
for their shapes and scents as they drift
towards the highlands
and spread out over the flatlands.

I walk for the mountains,
the slabs of stone thrusting from the earth in the distance
and the smaller crumbled and slanted foothills.

I walk for my legs and hips,
for my heart and mind,

to remember that pulse of life.

But I walk most for the feeling of all these friends bring,
the sense of pure joy that rolls through my body and through the life I carry inside me.
I walk for the two of us,
that we may together know the essence of the morning,
the contented peace of evening
in these wild places.

Conversations

Perhaps one of the reasons there is mental unwellness in the world 
is because we are, most of us, alone in our own minds.

Alone, or surrounded only by the voices of other humans: songs, words, people created thoughts.
(And the far end of the imagination spectrum is delusion, the madness itself.)

Depression, anxiety, apathy:
perhaps they are all results of 
a one sided, compulsive conversation 
because there is no other source of input.

Most of the time, in our cities or houses or cars,
there are simply less voices 
of the life around us.

<<<>>>

When I go into the forest, into the jungle,
into any place of wild that is not majority human or human made consciousness,
The voices are all around me:
the plants, 
the birds, 
the water 
and wind 
and rock.
The earth and the soil and the unseen.

When I can be still and listen,
our human made world does not stand as sane.
In the presence of the wild song,
it is exposed gently
and given permission to pass away
like an exhale,
leaving only the heartbeat of life
and
truth.

Inside

The eyes of the artist 
do not link to the brain,
they are connected directly to the heart.
They see each petal of flower
or edge of cloud in the sky 
as birth and death,
pain and joy,
infinitely unfolding beauty.

It is the same for your patch of white skin
shining between the sheets
in the bright moon light.

I am lost again! 
And must go outside 
to find home in the song 
of the stars.

 

::

Though it was December
and Wisconsin,
it only rained when I came home.

The clouds hung like wet towels
draped from the sky
and the fog wrapped around the house.

Inside, too, it was not winter.

The Japanese beetles that had been coming
for years
did not know they should be sleeping
and crawled over the ceilings and walls
and under the covers
to find my skin at night.

Even my parents festered with the strageness,
thickening and unraveling
long buried sadnessess that turned
their faces to the wan light
with shame and anger.

There was no cold restful slumber here,
after the cancer treatments were laid to rest.
Only saturated shrubs and grasses,
rich in brown, green, and confusions.
And hard shells with humming wings.

While the "C' word has danced at the edge of my life,
whirling away a friend's leg at 19 and anther's life after years of fighting,
it isn't until I am driving through the Wisconsin countryside
that the fear of it wraps around my heart
and I grip the wheel hurtling around green shadowed corners of curved road.
Cancer.
My mother.

It is apparently caught early, and a routine treatment.
But as I have already learned, Cancer's path never seems consistent
and soon we learn it is in the lymphs
and a much longer, aggressive treatment is necessary.

I am grateful I am there to hold her hand at the first consultation,
feeling the light, airy weight of it,
the tissue paper-thin skin covering the bones,
exactly as mine will be someday.
 ---
Walking across a festival ground weeks later
thousands of miles from home,
alone in a sea of revelers,
she tells me "Virginia is For Lovers"
and recounts a story of her early days (before children),
working at the wood stove shop,
and her young co-worker who went to Virginia for her honeymoon.
Mom would drive to visit her in Wausau on the weekends after she moved away,
a weekend girlfriend visit.
She laughs recounting the details from long ago,
and it breaks my heart as I realize this is what I could miss the most:
her voice on the other end of the phone, keeping me company,
with small facts that are of no real importance,
other than that she keeps them,
and shares them with me when I am alone.
---
Once I took my parents on a small roadtrip in Colorado,
visiting my favorite mountain towns,
eating decadent food and taking pictures of peaks and waterfalls.
I asked them to tell me the stories of their lives.
My father remembers bb guns and getting in trouble,
his dad's work ethic and Friday night 6 pack.

My mother laughs a lot during her telling,
amused at her own amusement.
She draws a map on the table with her fingers
of where the candy shop was from her house
on the walk to the Catholic school.
Some blocks down, some blocks over.
 ---
 My boyfriend and I were traveling somewhere,
as we do most days these days,
and talking about non-attachment.
"It's easier to be a monk," he said.
"The more you love, the more you stand to lose."

Before we hit the road, my therapist gave me an assignment:
Ask him to build a place for an altar in the truck
and place a photo of your mother on it
amongst your other sacred things.
Have him hold you and sit in front of it each day you are in that vast world

so far from everything else
and send her light.

I will take this challenge of love, of potential loss.