life – Spread Your Dreams

mom

As I laid down and waited for sleep to take me to tomorrow, I heard a child in the parking lot below,

“Hey what does the car tell you?”

shuffle shuffle his little feet went –

“Hey, hello?! What does the car tell you?”

shuffle shuffle his little feet went –

“Mom!! what does the car tell you?”

He so deeply wanted his mom to answer the joke. Her silence was an exhaustion he did not understand. The tenor and the pleading sound of the word ‘mom’ made my psychic cackles go up – I felt for her. He had probably been telling this joke all day and jokes like it for days. She hadn’t tuned him out, but just wanted 20 seconds of silence.

The word mom. Mom. Mom.

It’s a monolith precursor of asks and needs and wants – a monolith of demands and expectations that never seem to pause. It’s often a child’s first word and the word that turns every unique individual woman who has a child into a martyr servant-being for at least 18 years. Even if your life’s quest is to be a Mother, the constant, intensity of the chant of needs will become exhausting.

The thing about the word ✨Mother✨ is that it takes away the woman who you were- sometimes even before you had truly become her. As soon as this title is placed upon your shoulders the world believes it has a right to criticize and speak down to you – in addition to the criticism and juvenilizing that happens to women for merely existing – as if you cannot be trusted to care for your child in your best intentioned manner. As if your choices, background, experience, education, or any other aspect should be up for judgment much less condemned by strangers; women who have chosen not to have kids, or men.

As a mother, your mere existence is questioned at every turn. You are criticized within an inch of your life, but honored one day a year with a Hallmark card and a box of chocolates. Oh darling! Being a mom is a Gift!

The word mother is not lifted up as a goddess term in our culture, but weighed down into a diminutive caretaker. Mothers are rarely praised for what they give their children, which is the best years of the first chapter of their life. Often mothers later feel obligated to give years beyond the best of their youth, thieving from the greatest of the wilding and free crone years. Mothers are expected to give everything and yet people say, “Oh but you can do it all … of course you can have a career … of course you can finish school … of course you can have time to write.” And YES that can all happen, but in order for it to be balanced there has to be support and boundaries and not everything will get a mother’s full attention. Mothers can do it all- but that doesn’t mean they can do it all perfectly.

When mothers are exhausted and just done the tears may fall.

When mothers are exhausted and just done the jokes will not be heard.

When mothers are exhausted and just done the world can become too loud.

When mothers are exhausted and just done the wine may flow.

When mothers are exhausted and just done they may need to simply rest, but the world does not embrace their need to take rest.

Next time your the mothers in your life seem to be fading, do not wait for them to ask for help- that is not something we are good at. Next time a mama is fading, step in and offer to drop off dinner, ask when you can pick up a kid for a few hours, ask if they need help grocery shopping so they can spend an hour doing nothing.

Next time you hear a child hollering for a mama’s demand driven attention just let the mama know they will be ok – they don’t have to provide the punchline to every joke. More importantly they should not be the punching bag of society’s criticism.

displaced, of sorts

I am not in the right place. I don’t mean I took a wrong turn and will be late for lunch or showed up at the wrong building for a doctor’s visit.

No, it’s the constantly nagging sensation that I’m in the wrong space. Instead of feeling anchored and stable, though all signs indicate I am, I feel like I’m floating in my life – unmoored within a forgotten bay with an eddy current being all that keeps me from moving toward elsewhere. It’s a sense of not belonging – that there’s something I just can’t attach to here because my attachment point is somewhere else that I haven’t identified.

It’s not the need to run. It’s not that I don’t want to face something. I am content in myself and my general life; rather, it’s this intangible sense that I’m simply in the wrong place. However, at this juncture in life I must keep remain in the eddy that is my daughter and I’m not going to leave her. She will be finishing high school soon and on her own journey. I don’t know where she’ll choose to go or what will happen but then I will have time to find my right place and who knows that right place may not actually be a place at all. Instead, it may be the momentum of the open road. The thing is, while I’ve been in a relative homeostasis for the last 17 years, I’ve never imagined being in a place and having all of the accouterments of permanence around me. To my heart, the world is my home and perhaps that’s why I feel as if I’m in the right wrong place. It’s not that I am presently in the wrong place specifically, but more that being in a specific place for an extended period of time does not compute with my nomadic psyche. As with all things, though, only time will tell and until that time I will continue to grow and think, interact with and experience life. Until the next chapter begins, I will continue to enjoy this interesting life and have as much fun as possible in this cosplay of a person who lives the repetitive nature of the day-to-day.

wily life

I have been in a holding pattern. A bit of the blues have had their grippy way with me and my writing has sunk from the surface. I was doing so very good at writing everyday and getting work transcribed and then I tanked. I never know when it will happen or why and often don’t realize it has happened until I look up and realize a week or three has passed. This time, I caught myself, the weight of a new day holding me in bed – the sadness and anxiety to overcome in simply sitting up. Making deals with myself to get up, go pee, put slippers on, feed the dog, boil the water, portion the coffee grounds … stepping through each step of my morning with the pressure of a drill sergeant. Sometimes I wonder if I am not one but two, simply because there’s part of me that won’t feel capable of moving and another part that is screaming orders and demanding action. I experience both and move forward as one. This is a strange and wiley life.

sixteen returns

I was contemplating all the things I contemplate when I masturbate. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, a couple of the people I’ve done- because they’re only a couple that really turn up in the darkness of my solitude- and amongst all of those thoughts 16-year-old me came roaring through and mad-as-hell.

Suddenly, we were back together on a train in 1991 and heading into Athens, Greece. She looked at me and said, “What the fuck happened to you? We were going to see the world, learn languages, fly planes, embed into war zones. TELL THE STORIES. Where you are today … that is not US, but I am stuck with YOU. I did not sign-up for the bullshit life your decisions have made for us, but there I am- sitting with you in a fucking office- day after day- feeling blood pressure and cortisol spike.”

“I get it. I don’t want to be there either, but Arwen is my heart and I can’t live all those dreams things until she’s launched.”

“I love her too, she’s my kid too and she wants the adventurous life you HAD, but better. SHE said it. So why did you fuck it up? Why did you stop being free and living your adventure?”

“I fell in love a man who had potential.”

“Was it really love,” it wasn’t a question, she knew the answer.

“We know now it wasn’t … it was hope, but it felt like what I thought love should feel like. I fell into the arms of what-if and potential felt safe.”

“You/me/us. We were the ones with potential. We always made our-self safe. You let us down.”

“I am fully fucking aware, but I love my kid and WE will get to launch soon too. The dreams never stopped, they just got delayed.”

It was enough to calm the 16-year-old that still sits within my heart. Her dreams will come true.

new year, new day

happy new year … time is shorter than ever for us and I intend to sop it up with glee. I will write more and read more and walk more and watch the world instead of screens and meet new people and try new things. I will keep in learning to fix old things and re-use instead of replace. I’ll meet more dogs and observe more birds. I won’t keep my mouth shut when my soul nudges me to speak. I hope to share most of my days with friends, and maybe lovers, but space and time will not be wasted begging people to join me in the joys of life that I have left to celebrate.

Some days will be hard. Some days will be sad. Some days I will want to be entirely alone and feel even more empty, and it will all be too much, but those days will pass, as they always have because life is cyclical.

I will miss some things and be surprised by tripping into others- I won’t be stingy with my presence by worrying over where I could be- I’ll open my heart and marinate in where I am. If I am no longer engaged, I won’t lose myself in wondering if I should stay, but arrange a graceful exit- or just cut strings depending on the situation.

In this new day, let it be known both my home and heart are always open to break bread & hold space for others who want to grow, heal, love, and live. I am here to celebrate each of us and to hold you when all you can do is cry because the tears prove we are still surviving.

We are each a beautiful soul- each a speck of the universe that is a universe in each of us. It is inconceivable that we are in these meatsuits topped with an organic computer, the likes of which the most advanced of the organic computers can barely conceive, and we just incoherently fumble through our lives- barely looking up from the machines we’ve made and are now using as oracles to guide us on how to live. It’s an obscene waste of the miracle of life’s magic and while they are useful, I vow to re-connect with the world beyond the screen, using these machines to grow human connection, rather than limit my time from others. I’m 50 this year and life is only going to get bigger. I’ve been learning and letting go and now I get to use all those tools to really begin loving & living.

From those of you near my age (or for godsake younger), I don’t want to hear how your body is too old now or how something you loved can no longer be done. Do not excuse yourself out of living because you’ve lived your days into a bored or stifled place. Your body may ache from inertia, but it’s not done unless you let it be. Each day is a new day and each day we are gifted a choice whether or not to let our soul shine brightly through the conduit of our meat suit or to let our soul dim. Our big ol’ brains will work to compute a shoulda-woulda-coulda triangulation of the easiest path of decisions on living to draw out the baseline shelf life of your meat suit, but is that really that life your soul deserves? In the end, our brains short circuit and our meat suit ceases to function, but that small voice that has believed in you more than your brain could ever imagine … that soul light wants to shine. Your soul doesn’t want to live at baseline, your soul wants to be the MVP of it’s universe and as we are each a speck of the universe and a whole universe within- BE your MVP.

I will do nothing if not encourage others to declare the same joyfully reckless assault against inertia & apathy. We haven’t survived all the bullshit life has thrown at us just to sit in the corner and wait to die. Every day we wake up, life is a new opportunity, a new story to write. Let your soul shine. Claim your story.

free range mama

I was sitting in a very hot bath, enjoying a semi-silence, but Zach Bryan cooed in the other room.

The other room, my daughter’s was a spotless room, because she cleaned head to toe, while she had COVID, but no fever that day. As I sat in my bath, she was completely locked in on her chemistry, advanced chemistry, thank you very much. She’s incredibly capable and it’s fascinating to watch her navigate this complicated world with such grace.

Meanwhile, my room was a complete disaster. It’s true. I had worked all day, and it was not as bad as it had been in the past. I suppose, at least, clothes were not strewn across the floor, but random computer cables were and jewelry adorned my dresser top with scattered indecision. There were papers out because I had thought I might need them someday, and that someday has passed, but I hadn’t had the gumption to toss them yet. There might be another someday. It was just a hot mess.

But I lounged in my bath and I dreamt about a future where I can spread my dreams. My future and what I want to do and where I want to go in this world. And I know I want a place.

I want a place that my baby will always be able to come back to, a place that both of us can always call home. Presently, that’s my mom’s land, the last bit of our family land. I know my mom won’t always be there. She will die at some point. It’s just the guarantee of living. Once she dies, I don’t know if I still want the land where she lives. It’s just outside of Austin and it will get busier and more crowded. Water will become more of an issue, as we may or may not continue to get rain. And so I thought about it. I thought maybe I will look for a place far north- somewhere where things are damp and green and water and food grows with the seasons.

This idea of place is something to think about for my future, but it’s not required for me. A place in the future comes down to: I want my child to always have a place to come home to. She has commented, “I don’t really have a childhood home.” It’s true, I bought and sold two houses- the first sold because of divorce and the second from being overwhelmed with managing a home on my own. Selling both is one of the few regrets I have in life, but there’s no reason we can’t create one for the future. A place her children will always know, should she choose to have them, and a place she can return whenever she needs.

I want to work toward that and in that, I want a place that I can lock up and leave and go away from for months at a time. I still dream of volunteering with Peace Corps. I should have done it with or without her dad so many years ago, but he said the psych evaluation was foolish and dug his heels in against having one done. I acquiesced and dropped the application process. A bit later, an opportunity opened for me in New York and I was able to leverage that into a move to the City for us. While that was an experience I would never trade, it’s not the calling of volunteer community development and support I still crave. Once my daughter has flown, that will be a goal to achieve- serving in Peace Corps or with another organization.

I also want to hike great distances- the Appalachian Trail- America’s southern borders- at least some of the Pacific Crest- to walk the Santiago Trail in Spain- the caves in France where it is said Mary Magdalene lived after Christ’s ascension. I don’t have a goal to scale any mountains, but I want to see the world on foot. Maybe a little on bicycle, but there’s something about my feet to the earth, step after step, crossing miles and passing through time, that makes me really happy.

While I walk, I want to hear the stories of the people I meet- collect them like a bowerbird, collects shiny objects. I want to collect the stories of people’s lives and wear them in my soul. Woven like the stardust, they are. Stardust that is now only atoms of air that rest upon our ears, and I can carry with me. I want to learn the fiddle so I can play the woven songs into the night.

I want to learn ASL so I can share the stories of people that can’t hear my language. Other languages as well- a babel fish placed in my ear would be a wonderful addition- so long as I can reply to all.

I just want to be of the world, and I want to love within this world. To me, that is love. It’s your soul sharing with souls. Stop for a bit here and there and hither- work in kitchens or learn massage so I can make due. Wherever I go. There’s cooking. There’s writing. There’s organizing. I’m sure I can get it together to be on the waves of the world. Then quietly there will always be a place- that place I’ve set aside for us. Small and simple- accessible from a second bus and a ride from a local to the top of a long road, at the end of which will sit a little house overlooking a nice, low, curving hill that ends with water. It will always end with water.