Everything Floats

The day has been hot and as I fall into the cool water, much, besides my sweat and the ache in my muscles, is shed.

I float. Every bit of me floats, and I smile as I look down. It is dark, the murmur of NPR in the background, and no one can see. In this moment, as I am entwined in my cocoon during my transformation, I love my body. I am allowed to love it, and not because I am alone, or that it is so dark, or because I must, but because I want to. It's an easy love, and I dive back into the water, letting it glide over my skin.

I decide that I am done with the self-loathing. I had told myself to stop this a long time ago, have talked about it, I think even written about it, but this time I know that it's really gone.

It's nice to hear, but I don't need those compliments any more. I don't want approval from anyone. I will just happily wear my skin, my muscles and bones, my fat, and I will love it. I will watch it change, too. I will watch it like one watches a sunrise, in aw of each phase and its beauty, until the sun is fully risen and we can't imagine it any other way.

Yes, everything floats when I'm in the water, but that only makes it easier to see, better to admire.

Be Like the Woodpecker

The picture is not a very good one, I know, but trust me when I tell you that the little black blob hanging off the birch towards the center of the photo is a woodpecker. As I was walking this morning I heard the telltale thwack-crack that is a woodpecker working his way through the trunk of a tree. It was much slower than I would usually hear, so at first I didn't realize what it was. On my way back around though, about a half hour later, in a contemplative sort of mood, I paused and listened once more. When I turned and looked up into the trees I saw this fellow, and though the picture doesn't show it, he was big! Of course, most of the birds we see around our house are the smaller types, mostly chickadees, so anything much larger than a tennis ball seems huge to me.

I watched him for a bit, intrigued by the difference in his method this season compared to warmer times. Rather than his jackhammer beak riveting its way into the tree, his progress was slow and steady, the tree frozen, making it hard to get to its life-giving innards. I don't know why, but watching him made me smile. Perhaps that it was life still goes on, though much slower, during this time of year, even if it sometimes feels like everything had paused. Even with the frightening cold we've had these last few weeks, the outside animals still live and work. 

I think, also, I saw something I needed to see. He worked with such determination, though the conditions were far from perfect and the results would likely not be what he truly wanted. I, too, often find myself in imperfect conditions that produce results that were not what I had originally desired. I will thrust myself forward, over and over, not in that quick, efficient pace, but slowly and deliberately, hoping each time I move myself against the thing I am working to break open, I will reach the prize within. 

The woodpecker was working because if he does not, he will starve. My work, the work of fulling my life with good and nurturing things, is not one that, in the biological sense, will kill me if left neglected. But should I stop and not take what little bits I can get as I break away the bark of life's challenges, certainly my soul will shrivel to nothing.

Though I don't always feel the strength or the motivation to dig into the things that give me the most nourishment, to get at the most filling and good stuff, I think I must remember that I must.

Note: Since I wrote this a woodpecker has since decided to make itself at home underneath one of the eves of our house. Perhaps he sensed our kinship?

Evolution

I've been thinking today, thinking about what I'm going to write.

I read an article about the brain development of 20 somethings.

I thought about the origins of my motherhood.

I considered my love/hate relationship with labels when applied to people. (I did realize I'm okay when labels are applied to things. I would prefer to not, you know, drink poison or something.)

I have grappled with self-identity.

And what have I come away with? Motherhood, like life itself, is a beautiful evolution.

A long time ago, but really not that long ago at all, when E. was a baby, I did something kind of foolish. I honestly don't remember what it was, but my husband called me out on it. My response: "My brain is still developing - you can't expect me to always make good decisions!" My brain, like my motherhood, has been evolving. And it's that biological evolution that has fueled, in part, the changes in how I mother my children.

I've always been upfront with the many disadvantages of having kids young. There is just so much risk to everything in your life - your finances, your relationships, your sanity (though, I suppose that's up for grabs no matter when you have kids), but there are advantages, too. One of the absolute coolest things about spending your early twenties amongst the wee ones is seeing how much you change, how quickly and how drastically. I am not the person I was seven years ago, when I was pregnant with E. And, of course, most people change a lot in seven years, especially moving from 19 to twenty-six, but that change only grows exponentially when you throw children into the mix.


I moved from a neanderthal living in a cave, in terms of self-awareness and understanding, to something resembling an evolved human being. I might still be living in the Dark Ages, fighting to reach my Renaissance, but I'm moving forward and I'm starting to like what I see in myself.

I thought this was interesting (it's from that article I mentioned above) -

[Geid] and his colleagues plan to compare the brain development of girls who become pregnant in their teens to girls who do not. “Teen pregnancy changes all your priorities and what you do with your time—how do those experiences change the brain?” Arnett agrees that such neuroimaging studies would be useful. “Even in industrialized countries, a lot of people still get married pretty early. You could do brain studies comparing people who experience their twenties differently and contrast how their brains develop.”

To give some context, right before the quote above, the article's author poses this question: "Should parents encourage their 20-year-olds to shirk adult responsibilities lest they hamper an advantageous period of self-discovery and wild experimentation?"

I bring up these quotes because while they don't directly contrast my feelings that having children compounds the evolution a person takes on between the beginning of young adulthood and the end, it seems to challenge it. Basically, the article implies that because a person who chooses to take on "adult responsibilities" (i.e. family of her own, real job, etc.) they are unable to participate in a period of "self-discovery" and "wild experimentation."

You find out what you're made of when you are confronted with a challenge, particularly one that involves taking another person's life into your hands. While maybe it doesn't feel that way all the time, because, in the 21st century world, the stakes can be much lower, becoming a parent means you make sure your little person doesn't accidentally off themselves or get eaten by a wild animal in your backyard (genuine concern here in Maine). With that and any myriad of potential cultural issues to concern yourself with, parenting is precisely what the article suggests twenty-somethings need to help their brains expand! (You tell me spending five nights in a row trying to both calm a colicky baby and then figure out whenever you're going to have sex with your husband again isn't wild experimentation!)

Having my kids, being married to my husband, going to my awesome job - those have forced me to change, molded my brain and my body in ways that nothing else could have. And the more I interact with these forces of will and love the more I love the person I am becoming. Yes, sometimes I sit back and I wonder about what my life would look like if I had made different choices, and I still see a good life, a happy life, but it's not this life. I can also see humans evolving to the point where they have mutant powers and can bend time with their psychic powers (#nerd), but I'm not going to lament over the fact that it hasn't happened (yet), as totally awesome as that would be.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a primordial tail to ditch and some prefrontal cortext to develop.*

*Totally just throwing those words out there. I'm not sure if I even know what they mean.  

Itchy

I have a very bad tendency to spread myself mentally thin. I take on so many projects in my head (even if I'm not actually doing anything) that I become overwhelmed, which is usually quickly followed by feeling angry and then feeling out of control.

I have lots of wants, lots of things I'd like to do, all piled on top of an extensive list of things I need to do, but are a whole lot less desirable to start than the likes and wants. And when I begin trying to mentally sort it all out I hit a pretty thick brick wall of frustration.

Then I want to run away. I talk to my husband grad school in another state. I suggest he take up long haul truck driving (he does have the license for it) and we all live on a big rig and travel the country. I think about just leaving, just me, and going away somewhere, like Europe or Antartica (a la Where'd You Go Bernadette - I feel a certain kinship with the title character).

What usually happens, though, is I get mad, have myself a mini break-down and a bit of a cry. I leave, though my body is still there. I just can't be present. If I'm lucky, like I am today, my husband's home and I can get in my car and drive around by myself. Today, I drove to a gas station and bought pretzels, chocolate, and milk. I ate in my car. Then I came here, to the library.

I don't know if I feel better. I feel...okay. But I also feel like I'm wasting time, and those wants and like and needs are still pressing in on me a bit, though perhaps they are a bit more barricaded and I'm safe for a bit longer. I feel like I need to get something done, but I just don't know what that something is. It's like having an itch. You feel horribly itchy, but no matter where you scratch, how hard, how long, it just doesn't go away. The itchy feeling overwhelms you until you just want to curl up in a ball.

Here is a list of all the things I'd love to do, which I keep thinking about, but can't seem to settle, can't seem to start, for lots of different reasons (and often because they contradict themselves):

• Homeschool E. and M. either for a year or two or forever
• Teach full time
• Stay with Adult Ed. 
• Get my certification to teach at a Waldorf school
• Move to another state
• Live off the grid
• Buy a new house
• Write a book
• Have a veggie garden
• Have chickens and pigs and cows
• Live in one of those crazy tiny little houses that are only, like 500 square feet or something
• Be debt free
• Start a private or charter school
• Work in education at the state and then national level
• Actually have enough inventory to open my Etsy shop for realz
• Put together the nursing cover I designed (yes, I designed a nursing cover)
• Learn to knit really, really well
• Go to graduate school (Harvard and Antioch University are calling my name...)
• Hike places
• Travel internationally
• Travel nationally
• Sleep

You see what's floating around in my head? These aren't the things that I sit back and think, "Oh, someday..." This is all what I want now, knowing full well I likely can't have half of these things now, if ever. Yet in my head they stay and scramble to sort them all out or tell them to be quiet for a bit. And it so badly pulls my attention away from tasks at hand, people at hand, that I sometimes wonder if I'm starting to become transparent, because I am so not there. 

I often wonder when our futures will look more clear. I don't know what's going to happen a year or two down the road and perhaps it's that which makes the above list so insane. There is so much flux in our lives I wish I could just make one big huge change or have something big and huge to work towards in the not so distant future to help bring my whole life back into orbit.

Yes, I think I'm missing my gravitational center. Now I need to go find it.