5 Years or Some Ridiculous Amount of Months

It has been awhile since I visited here, tonight I was prompted to come to say hello to my (almost) 5 year old boys. 5 years ago on the date I went into Huntington Hospital for a fairly uneventful and much held off c-section that brought our two people here. 5 years ago we all irrevocably changed in the minutes of 1117 and 118 p.m. when our small people were pulled into the world. 5 years .... how, how could that have happened 5 years ago?



I sit now alone in our temporary home in our newly found place called Home and my heart twists a bit because they are down with their daddy, finishing touches on the Old Home to make it ready for a new family. We spent 5 days together there to revisit, reconnect, reaffirm and celebrate what we are, where we have been with them. I laid with them in their once-ago room on an air mattress and we talked ourselves to sleep. We woke to the same light that bathed them so many of the photos in our archives, light I know, light I love.

I sit feeling a little bereft that I am not there with them but work duty calls me and I must be here. And they, they are with their Grampa and Gramma, enjoying the feel of once familiar rhythms before they change once again, back in they chrysalis of their Old Place but ready to test the boundaries of their new one. The things they say; about the infant phase being a blink and that they woke up one day and their babies were in college and that they didn't really know when it happened, those conversations you overheard when you were younger? They are all right. There will never be enough time with our littles but you can only realize that when they are not making shrill demands that skitter into your addled brain looking for a place to land.

The last 5 years have altered everything; our wants and needs, our goals and focus, our dreams. They have strengthened and weakened bonds, they have broken bonds. I have felt joy, guilt, completed, undone, unraveled, ashamed, free, bound, afraid and then fearlessly able. I have never felt more myself and more questioning of what that Self actually is, what she is to be, become.

I know some things now though. I know I was meant to be their Mama. They chose me, they chose to come to me and Tim because they are our People and we need them. We need them like air, like manna, like beer.

We are their parents because we are the only ones that could do this. Respond to their cries and then their questions; hold their limbs, fragile still but forming into the bones that will carry them, carry them far and wide, carry them well.

I am not always graceful or kind, I am no template for a Mother. I am brusque and sometimes too honest, I can be short and never focus correctly when instructed on Lego placement or Batman's attributes. But they trust me enough to ask me about everything, anything: where we come from, where we go, why food grows and every night it is my turn to do bedtime I hear this

 "Mama, I love you this this this this this this this...... MUCH!!!!!!! .... two tanks of love just exploded all over YOU!!!!" And I feel it, in my core. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my Soul.

Because I was meant to be YOUR Mama, my boys. And your Mama loves you more than anything, no tank could contain it, no world, no Universe. Happy 5th Birthday.



  xo, your mama.

Weakened by the Week

It has been a really weird week. I expected the boys back Tuesday but then the house was not done and then there was that storm that blew in and dropped snow on our place and all the roads around and so that delayed things. And so I am still here, alone. Sitting here, listening to Pandora and various public radio shows at a distractingly loud volume to detract my thoughts from being alone.

I have made things, I have cooked meals, I have worked steadily. But I still have more free time than the previous 4.75 years and some of it has been spent right here, in front of the screen, clicking, reading, seeking. Finding some pretty dismal stuff. Pinterest claiming images for their own, the evil-doer of the internets now when a few months ago they were lauded as The Best Thing Ever at AltSummit. People publicly annoucing the spilt of their marriage and the terrible things that are then said. Other people saying marriage should never end even if someone is beating the shit out of them.

What the fuck happened to you, Internets? It is so naive to say that, I know. But jesus, it is like civility, humane behavior, privacy ... out the window. The last few days I feel like showering the guck off. And mainly because I have had the time to click through links, read, seek.

I remember a few months back searching an old friend and I came up with his dad's obituary. A CHP officer off-duty killed on the road by some teens driving illegally in the family minivan. The comments underneath were horrific. People who did not know my friend, his father, his loss ... the things they said burned my eyes and heart and I prayed he never saw that page. Never.

__________________________________________

I am looking forward to their return more than I can say. This world, this online one, it not one to live in. So rough.

A bright spot in my lonely week, one far removed from the screen. Lunch prepared by my lovely upstairs neighbour. 90 next month. She made me German saurkraut and sausage and crispy potatoes and we talked for hours over a properly dressed table about aging and hospice and Germany and immigration and violence and dissociation and the definition of cooperative living. And I felt much more real than I ever do here.


I did my hair proper to visit her. Because she deserved properly done hair. Call me a dreamer but I wish the whole Internets would stop, do their hair, sit down with someone who is almost 90 and survived the Holocaust and listen and shut the fuck up.

As I will right now. Some calming images of my home because now I am all het up.



M upstairs also introduced me to the publication The Sun, a magazine of really lovely print writing. Reading it reminded me of when blog reading was inspiring, ad free and clearly written to be read, not inflame, defame, destroy, wound.

Though this current issue (not up online yet) shattered a part of me. The piece Underneath the Armor of the young Marines in Afganistan, in and out of battle gear. 20 year old battle hardened warriors when out of gear look like... 20 years olds.

How I wish this world could be so different, so much better, so less saddening.....

Solo

I've been away from my boys one week a year since they turned two. Solo, alone. I don't travel for work, no. I travel for sanity. And I am a very blessed woman for having a partner that has allowed that space for me.

This time, this week, is different. They left me. Headed down South, my three boys, to work on the old house, touch base and reconnect. I have been alone in our new home, albeit temporary home/apartment. But it is my first time alone in Our Space, with their Lego scatterings, Tim's socks that need washing, our dishes and coffee paraphernalia.



I have come out of sleep each morning listening. Looking for a small silhouette in the doorway asking if it is was daytime yet, Mommy. And yet it is quiet, the early sunrise over the hill pulling light into the day, softening their room in its glowing. Made coffee for one, donned work attire, checked in by phone. Headed out.

Returning to a home undisturbed and silent is disconcerting. Knowing it is temporary is comforting. I have progressed in the way of sorting and quilting and 'catching up' in general. and I thank the blessed gods of all for this not being my norm.



They bring light and true Life to my days. In their churning chaos and needs, they define me. The library pulls but not enough. Making of dinner calls but not quite enough. Making is there to fulfill but also fill a hole. Me time is relative when there becomes just too much of it.

I love being a mother and wife and worker and woman and person. I love taking the time to realize that. I miss my babies, babies no longer, I admit, but I miss mine own.

I am grateful to love my life. I am eager for their return. I am trying to embrace the quiet. I am not so good with it.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills. -Joseph Roux

Settle In

Set·tle    /ˈsɛtl/
verb (used with object)



1.to appoint, fix, or resolve definitely and conclusively; agree upon (as time, price, or conditions).
2.to place in a desired state or in order: to settle one's affairs.
3.to pay, as a bill.
4.to close (an account) by payment.
5.to migrate to and organize (an area, territory, etc.); colonize: The pilgrims settled Plymouth.
6.to cause to take up residence: They settled immigrants in urban areas.
7.to furnish (a place) with inhabitants or settlers: The French settled this colony with army veterans.
8.to quiet, calm, or bring to rest (the nerves, stomach, etc.).
9.to stop from annoying or opposing: A sharp word will settle that youngster.
10.to conclude or resolve: to settle a dispute.
11.to make stable; place in a permanent position or on a permanent basis.
12.to cause (a liquid) to become clear by depositing dregs.
13.to cause (dregs, sediment, etc.) to sink or be deposited.
14.to cause to sink down gradually; make firm or compact.
15.to dispose of finally; close up: to settle an estate.
16.Law .
a.to secure (property, title, etc.) on or to a person by formal or legal process.
b.to terminate (legal proceedings) by mutual consent of the parties.



This is Me now. All of it. All 16 parts speak to me in some way. But for the most part my Soul speaks right now and so the definitions just make sense. Because I am settled in a way I have not felt in... forever? A calm; a lesser need and a greater need.

And the calm that has descended into my depth and made me settle into a Center that does not feel like swirling right now but more like sediment, layers slowly shifting and deepening, creating a base that feels solid, like concrete. Breathing solid concrete.



Things that were once so scary are less so. Things I did not want to do are seen in a different light. People I want to be near are people I want to be near... but there is new space for people that I should want to meet. I am grateful for the ease of transition, for the lovely Marcie I met at the park with her babes that came equipped with costume bag, snacks and an eager desire to find a friend like me as I wanted to find a friend like her.

Who do you thank when you profess to not really pray anymore? I turn to the Universe in general.
Thanks, Universe. You are tops.