return

It's March 4th. Do you know where your New Year's resolutions are?

One of the intentions I set for myself this year (I prefer the term "intention" rather than "resolution" as I find it holds gentler and deeper meaning) was to focus on my writing as craft, and to do so, I would devote 10 minutes a day to writing practice. This would most often be done longhand, and following one of Amanda's prompts. I started strong early in the year, with a new notebook (!) dedicated to this purpose. And, most nights, I made the time to write. And then February happened.

 Not. One. Page.

(Of course I do plenty of writing in my Moleskine journal but those pages have an entirely other purpose. Keeping me sane, for one. Keeping me clear.)

So last night, cuddled in bed against the biting bitter cold, with a hot rice bag tucked at my feet and a hot cup of tea at my elbow, I decided I would come back to writing practice. And the prompt? Return. Ha!

Isn't is such a beautiful word? There is a sound of comfort in it, an echo of home. Of the relief we feel when we come back to where we are meant to be.

To return is the basic meditation instruction. When we sit to begin our meditation practice, we place our attention on the breath, on the gentle, wavelike rising and falling of the breath. The idea is to keep our awareness on the breath throughout the whole allotted time, but the understanding is that our mind will inevitably get carried away from its object of attention. But the fact that the mind strays from its goal is not considered a problem. In fact, the hallmark of a successful meditation practice isn't whether or not the mind wanders, or how many times, but rather the gentleness and kindness with which we return our awareness to the breath. Meditation is the practice of starting over. And over. And over.

I feel that we very seldom allow gentleness and kindness to lead us when we set intentions to either start a new habit, or to release an old one that no longer serves. Instead, we muscle into it. We make brave and rigid promises about frequency and duration and give ourselves stern talking-tos about how we really mean it this time. And in doing so, we set ourselves up for failure and disappointment because (say it with me!) to err is human. Launching a new habit or practice takes dedication, yes, but also a lot of time and kindness towards ourselves.

What if we entered this business of resolutions and intentions as we do a meditation practice? By taking it as a given that we will stray from our path, and not viewing such wanderings as a problem. What if we measured our success not by a strict adherence to our prescribed course, but rather gauged the worth of our efforts by the spirit of kindness with which we bring ourselves back to the path? What if we gave ourselves the grace of fresh new beginnings, not just in January but all the time, every day, with each breath? What would you begin again if you hadn't already convinced yourself you had failed? How would you return home?

Tell me. I'd love to know.

Find excellent meditation instruction here.

Following Write ALM's March Prompt-A-Day.

Having waaaayy too much fun with the Diana Photo App.

first things first

My eyes blink open in the dark mere seconds before the chorus starts from his bedroom. Did I hear him in my sleep? Or did my spidey-mommy-sense anticipate his waking? Before I can check the time--5:15am, 5:45am, past 6am if I'm lucky--I hear "Mama where ARE you?" echo across the hall. I pause. Plant my reluctant feet on the cold ground. Hand on my heart. There deep breaths. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live with ease.

Where am I? Here, always. Rising from the warm, tousled bed where my love still snores. Padding across the black hallway and opening his door, greeting his full-on embrace of the new day. When he wakes from a nap he's groggy, cranky, slow to open to the world. In the morning he races out, all eagerness and messy bedhead. I trail after him, brushing the night from my face.

If I'm lucky I have a chance to put on the kettle, maybe even pour my cup of hot water and lemon before the baby begins to warble and coo. (I used to start straight with coffee. My nerves can't take it. I have to earn my caffeine with hydration and protein. It's a bum deal.) I scoop him up--all smiles--from his little crib, and we snuggle in the dark bedroom, in the pale celery-green chair, worn to threads, where I nursed both my babes. He takes the breast. Often these days I  haven't seen or heard him for twelve hours. Not yet nine months and he needs me less and less. Let this time stretch. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.

There will come a day when it will be reasonable to rise before they do. The early darkness and silence will be mine and I will share it with a warm cup and an empty page. That day isn't here yet. In fact, my mornings are a buzz and a blur. But if I can slow down a little to the pace of the breath, and notice the spaces between the breaths, I can find little pockets of peace in those first few minutes, and for the briefest moment make a home for myself there. It can be enough, if I choose for it to be.


Metta--or lovingkindness--meditation phrases adapted from Sylvia Boorstein, as written in Dani Shapiro's memoir, Devotion.


Playing along with WriteAlm's February Prompt-A-Day.

on solid ground: a mama three-years wise

Yesterday my firstborn turned three years old. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday with a construction-themed party, good friends and good cake. He was crazy excited and ran around the room, jumping up and down exclaiming "Birthday! Birthday! Woohoo!" each time someone new arrived. I had almost as good a time as he did.

In the days leading up to his birthday, I've often been overcome with emotion. Tears come easy. I wrote about his birth last year: it was a long road, with my water breaking early and labor never starting and ending up in a C-section 69 hours later. It was a far cry from the cozy homebirth I had imagined and was deeply invested in having. Having a C-section was my worst nightmare, and it was, in fact, the hardest, most traumatizing thing that ever happened to me.

But it's been three years, and in that time I've done a lot of internal work to process what happened and absorb the lessons of that experience. It was all that deep work that led me to have a much better experience giving birth to Cash last May. Though that birth, too, started at home and culminated in the OR, it was a much more positive, empowering experience. I feel I've pretty well integrated the events surrounding the birth of my first boy. It has become a meaningful story for me, and it deeply informs the work I do with expectant mamas in my prenatal yoga classes.

And, yet. Tears.

This was the day my water broke, I thought on the 24th. This was the day we went to the midwife's office and the day I took the castor oil I though the next day.This was the day we spent at home and I madly paced the backyard, listening to Madonna and Beyonce, trying to get labor started. The day we gave up and went to the hospital on the day after that.

There is gratitude. Gratitude for a healthy happy boy. Gratitude for being a mama three-years wise and having come so, so far from the pain and confusion of those early days and months. Gratitude that I never have to go back there again. Gratitude--yes, even for this--for that event that knocked me down and the story of getting back up again which I can, and do, share, over and over, so that other mamas can walk into their birth experiences with a bit more knowledge and fewer expectations.

But also sadness--so much sadness still, as though I'm uncovering deeper and deeper layers of feeling. All of this emotion, still, after three years?

Trauma lives in the body, the same vessel that carried both my boys. Seemingly random things will set off a land mine of tears. Sometimes, lying in savasana at the end of yoga practice, I'll flash on being back there, lying on the operating table, gazing up at the stark cold lights, my heart broken and my belly slashed. I'm--still--always ready to cry at the thought of the water birth I never had, will never have.

The deepest layers of sadness aren't for me, now, but for who I was then. For the tender mix of hope, despair, vulnerability and strength that characterized the days surrounding the birth and the first several months of my son's life. I want to reach out through time and hug her, and cry with and for her. But I also want to let her know that, though it isn't anything like what she envisioned, whatever she is experiencing is ok. That she will be ok. That she was a good mama from the start, though it would take her months and years to believe and affirm it. I would tell her that this is just part of the story, that there is so much good ahead. That she just needs to be patient, and kind with herself.

But there's space for these tears now. There is a safe container for them. They no longer threaten my equilibrium. Three years after the birth of my first son, eight and a half months after the birth of my second, I am more grounded, more resourced, happier than I've been at almost any point since. My feet are firmly planted on solid ground. I am connected to my strong center. And so I have the freedom to open my arms wide for these boys of mine, and the strength to hold them

revelation

The simplest things can be a revelation. The way we keep on relearning the same old familiar lessons, and are struck by their freshness again each time. How good it feels to be outside and how good a poached egg tastes. Answering that ancient ache in the bones by lacing up the running shoes again and pounding pavement with your feet. How it feels awesome and awful and awesome over and over again. The strange alchemy by which we get more energy by spending energy. Feeling clear about what I most want, I am focusing on a few simple things this year: being outside more, writing, saying yes to what needs to be done in the moment. It's extraordinary the freedom that clarity brings, and how, knowing what you truly want, how you most dearly want to move in the world, creates space for your life to settle itself around what really matters. So now we are going outside everyday, me and the boys. I strap Cash in the Ergo and Silas grabs his diggers and off we go. It's a dumb, simple thing but for so long it was so hard. Everything was so hard. But knowing what I truly want makes it easy. We say hello to the goats and to the horsie that live next door. Silas scoops and dumps and I play with iPhoneography and dance to Lorde in the middle of my yard and feel truly happy. It helps that the weather is gorgeous, January in Texas being more like April or May back in Canada, where I'm from. This new year feels truly new. It's exciting. But the newness comes not from introducing new things or goals or practices but from choosing to hone in on the old stuff, the stuff that used to make me most happy before I became a mother, before I lost my way a bit, caring for myself caring for the boys. It's a bit like returning home, to who I was with the poetry and the running shoes and the Annie Dillard books and all of the tea and writing. The yoga and the breathing. Elemental happiness. The truest beauty of making love, and the tenderness after. Returning to the deepest nourishment I know and finding the happiness that blooms from that place. The revelation is in the roots. Go there.



Joining Amanda and friends playing with Write Alm's January Prompt-A-Day.

new habits

There are years, said Zora Neale Hurston, that ask questions and years answer. In 2014, I intend to find my way into some answers, and to begin, these three new habits:

:: spend 15 minutes outside everyday ::

Already this has made a huge shift in my days, in the way it feels to be in my body. Either in the last cold minutes of light around sunset, or going out for hikes as a family, I've made a point to step outside each day. Most often with this sweet boy, who delights so much on being outside, who wants nothing more than to play, no matter the weather. I have so much to learn from him.

:: if something takes less than a minute, do it right away ::

Filling the dog's dish, taking a sock to the hamper, checking a phone message: so many little nagging tasks that are so small they're almost too easy to ignore. One of the ways I want to show up for my life is by not ignoring the seemingly insignificant little things, but instead to tend, right away, to what is in front of me, and thus prevent the small nagging tasks from turning into an insurmountable pile.

:: make something small everyday ::

Whether it's blogging or doing some timed writing exercise, every day, I want to write for ten minutes, outside of the clear-my-head morning-pages style of journaling that I do daily. This year I want to focus on writing as craft, and this is my commitment to that process.

What are some of the small things you're doing to change your life in a big way? I'm really curious to know.

Playing along with Amanda at Write Alm--January Prompt-A-Day