Sacred Tears

I turn the water on and pull the plug to switch from the bath faucet to the shower head. It’s my daily routine, but today I am tired. Today, I have more to cleanse than the just the day off my body.

I am exhausted, to be exact. The kind of tired where you have been in survival mode for so long you don’t know how depleted you truly are.

I step into the shower, let the hot water run down my head, my face, my body.

I reach for the shampoo bottle, the same one I reach for every day. I push the nozzle on the lid to squeeze shampoo into my hand, just to realize I’m squeezing it the wrong direction.

“Wow,” I think. “Even shampoo is hard today.”

Today marks 6 weeks since I got the 4AM phone call. The call that took me from being just a phone call away from him to not knowing if he would be able to speak or hug me again. The call that replaced his name on my speed dial with the direct number to the ICU. The call that made the couch of that ICU feel more like home because I am only 6 feet away from him than my own bed because it’s 1300 miles away. The call that consumed my brain space with not only the emotional mountain that is picturing life with a question mark version of him, but the countless other question marks of insurance, long term care, logistics of the 1300 mile gap - logistics that surely, I am not enough of an adult for yet. I mean he’s my dad - my dad - how is this real? Wasn’t I shooting hoops and playing H-O-R-S-E with him in the driveway on Morrow Road just yesterday?

The call that took me from being excited to pick his able body and mind up from the airport to catch up on life to me falling on top of him in utter relief and excitement just to see his foot twitch in a hospital bed when he hears my voice.

The call that changed everything.

I lather my hair and slowly feel the heat rise from my stomach, to my chest, and finally up to my face. My eyes start to burn.

They say the shower is the best place to think. Something about the warmth of the water activating parts of your brain that aren’t activated otherwise. This theory has proven true multiple times, but today is different.

Today something is happening I can hardly put words around. Today, I become completely unhinged.

My hands and arms slowly fall to my side and subconsciously, I reach for the wall of the shower.

My fight or flight kicks in and somehow protects me from falling to the ground as I realize I cannot hold it all up, not even my physical self in this moment. I turn slowly and lean the entirety of my body weight against the wall.

I slide slowly down the wall and into the tub, the hot water now beating on my back.

What do you call it when you’re crying, but with your whole body?

I sit, my face buried in my hands that are buried between my knees, the hot water still doing it’s cleansing work. I’m not sure if the water running down my face is from my wet hair or my tears.

How did I get here?

Why am I crying?

Why can’t I stop?

My breathing is far from regulated - far from the box breathing techniques I had practiced with my therapist just an hour prior.

My body finally reaches the point of exhaustion where it can’t even cry anymore. I breathe in slowly, and as I exhale my knees slowly fall to either side. I am sitting criss cross applesauce in the tub of my shower. I am suddenly a 5 year old little girl again, just wanting to curl up in her daddy’s lap with his safe, strong arms wrapping me up and telling me “It’s alright, Babygirl.”

If I’m honest, the hardest part of all of this has been convincing that little girl inside of me that I am, in fact, a 31 year old woman with responsibilities to protect him now.

Motorcycle accidents or not, this is one of the most tragic life experiences one goes through, I think. When the tables of life turn and the people in our lives who have always been the ones to take care of us become the people who need us more than we need them.

The circle of life. The natural cycle of things. Beautifully sacred mixed with incredible grief.

After a few more breaths, I lift up my head. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but I know the song playing through my speaker is different than the one playing when I stepped into the shower. I stand my weak body up and wash what’s left of the shampoo out of my hair. I finish my shower and step out. As I towel my hair dry, I look at my face. My eyes are red and puffy, but I feel lighter. I feel capable of what’s left to do before bed. I realize that what felt impossible a half hour ago is actually as simple as brushing my teeth, moisturizing my tired face, making tea, and finding my way to my bed.

I can’t quite put my finger on the formula for healing, except for maybe that there isn’t one. Sometimes it’s as simple as adjusting your routine. Sometimes it’s remembering to drink enough water in a day. Sometimes it’s a self-help book or journaling 20 minutes a day.

And sometimes, moments hit you like a truck, literally take your breath away, and somehow you are changed without words to explain what happened or how, you just know that now you are lighter and clarity and peace have somehow graced you with their presence. And these moments? They remind us to walk through every moment with open hands, welcoming whatever comes - the good, the hard, the ugly, the painful - because you just don’t know in which form the healing will come.

Belly Breaths

Tonight is tricky. What is typically our 20 minute bedtime routine, give or take, is out the window completely.

You are having such a hard time book-ending your day with our normal bedtime routine. “But mama I’m NOT. TIRRRRRRED!” You express to me. You are not angry, just genuinely want more.

More giggles, more playing, more fun.

I get it, little one. I have those days too - particularly in these first few days of warm, beautiful, soul-reviving sunshine after a painfully long winter. More, more, more is all I want too. More, you will one day learn, does not always serve us well.

But as for tonight, you are not interested in welcoming this idea in the slightest.

“It’s okay, lovebug,” I tell you. “We can lay here and snuggle together while we wait to be sleepy. Big breaths. Maybe a song or two?”

You sigh. “I will twy,” you tell me.

This conversation repeats itself over and over again. Finally, you ask, “Can Sissy come in with us too? I yike it when she’s in here with me.”

I call my big(er) one in. She is reluctant at first - she is very protective of our one on one time in between Zinni falling asleep and when I tuck her in. “Big girl time,” she calls it, for she is far too mature to go to bed at the same time as a 4 year old.

But surprisingly, she agrees. She goes potty one last time and climbs in. I am now tucked snugly between them both - Zinni and I on her bottom trundle, Lucy to my right in her’s.

One or two songs slowly turns into making our way through our favorite bedtime playlist (If you haven’t already listened, JJ Heller’s “Calm” album of covers is a must if you have littles).

“But mama, I’m still not syeepy!” that little voice lets out one more time.

“Just keep listening,” I tell her. “Keep listening and keep practicing your belly breaths. I will do it with you - feel your belly puff up, in………… feel your belly fall, out…………. again, fill the belly, in…………. let it fall, out…………”

For a split second, I have the realization that I, too, am being comforted by the slowness of my breath.

By the lack of urgency.

By the fact that there is nothing else I need to be doing, nowhere else I need to be, nothing else I need to figure out in my mind. The day has come to an end, signaling permission to rest and let be all that is - not just for them, but for me too.

Freedom, now, to be right here in this moment. To feel their little heads on my shoulder, their sausage hands squeezing mine, to smell their sun kissed hair and skin after a warm spring day.

Before I know it, I feel my 4 year old’s breathing slow down, and I realize it is not by force. It is the natural rhythm of a sleeping baby - a reminder that no matter how hard they try to convince us otherwise, no matter the fact that their clothes are almost out of the capital “T” after a number stage, no matter the fact that they are becoming increasingly self-sufficient with each day that passes, there is, in fact, still a very real physiological co-dependency of a baby inside of there.

I listen more carefully, and realize my 7 year old baby’s breath has also slowed down, and her piglet size snores have made an appearance.

I close my eyes and they fill up with tears.

This. This is what makes every second worth it.

Every tear, every hardship, every moment I didn’t know whether or not I would make it through - this moment is living, breathing proof that I did. By no means have I arrived, nor will I, for “arriving” is not the point.

It never is.

No, not arrival. As cliche and excruciatingly frustrating as it is to be told this in the moment, the point is pausing in these moments along the journey and realizing that noticing them and breathing them in and letting them shape us is the point - that and that alone.

Not arrival, but the raw moments where we fall and fail and wonder and only see question marks, and choose to sit in them and be present and become curious about what they are teaching us and allow them to shape us and change us for the better so that in these moments of belly breaths and sitting with the inconvenient wiggles instead of rushing them away in the name of convenience - that is the point.

For right here in this moment, all of the question marks disappear.

Right here in this moment, I know without a shadow of a doubt I am exactly where I need to be.

Right here in this moment, maybe I have, in fact, arrived.

“Little” Victories

Little victories are everything.

And they are often subtle.

In the first days and months after my divorce 2 and a half years ago, the back and forth transitions were hard - impossibly hard. So much so that the entire day leading up to the 5pm hand off would flood me with anxiety as I emotionally prepared myself, both for their ability to walk into a peaceful space when they got to their new home with me, and so that I could tend to my heart in ways that were gentle and kind because the self-loathing was consuming for putting them in such a difficult circumstance, even though I knew it was a necessary one.

Making sure the pantry was stocked with familiar foods and snacks for them, a tidy environment for them to be able to feel a sense of rest and welcome - of homecoming even though the four walls of that one bedroom apartment were totally and utterly foreign to them - a happy mama that could provide a comforting spirit in the midst of newness and adjustment for all of us, all while learning to trust that there was no right or wrong because the situation at hand was never how any of us hoped or expected things would end up. I knew I was doing my best, but it never felt good enough.

Despite my best efforts as a mom, most of the time there would be a meltdown in some form or another, from one or both of them (sometimes all 3 of us together), in which I would think “How could you force them to endure this type of stress? How can you be so sure that this was right, even though everyone seems to be falling apart at the seams?”

I was resting solely on the truth that the right choices do not always yield the easier path, and yet my heart ached more than I knew was humanly possible. Trusting the process felt like an understatement of what I was doing - every step ahead felt daunting. Impossible. Any bit of solid ground under my feet felt so far out of reach; I wondered if it was possible to make a right and necessary decision, and still fail myself and my children.

Fast forward to today.

I had Pete snap this photo a week ago to capture how far we have come, how different their homecomings are today.

Two houses for little people are still not what they deserve to know or experience; the transition and amount of stress it forces their tiny bodies to hold breaks my heart and always will.

But.

Progress is what counts. Growth, stick-to-it-ive-ness. Consistency. Trusting in the process in those seemingly impossible moments that baby steps still count just as much - if not more - as the monumental ones.

And that they ARE happening, whether you notice them in the moment or not. •

Today when the girls come home, the first thing they want is to pile on my lap and snuggle for as long as time allows. They squeeze me and tell me “Mama you’re the best girl. I love you so much.” When I ask how much I love them they say “More than anything!”

They know.

I’m here today to tell you that success is not measured by how hard or how easy the fight is - it is measured by growth and your ability to believe in your self-worth even when it is the last thing you feel about yourself.

You are a warrior, and you were made not only to survive this brutal life, but to thrive in the beauty that is also weaved into every single step of the journey.

Spring Fever

Only twenty two days til Spring, but who is counting?

My forecast shows nothing but clouds and rain for the foreseeable future. When I noticed this yesterday afternoon while sitting on my couch, watching the raindrops fight the freezing temperatures as they slowly turned to snowflakes, a sense of dread filled my body. This is the time of year that takes my head relentlessly reminding my body and soul of what is true to remember what actually is, because Spring, and the redemption of all things, for that matter, seem impossibly out of reach.

And then this morning I take Remmi out to go to the bathroom, and my annual “All is Not Lost” reminder from Nature herself hits like the most beautiful punch to the gut.

It is cold, about 35 degrees.

It is not sunny, but it is not completely overcast.

And suddenly, I realize it smells different - that smell between winter and spring (for every change of the seasons has its own glorious, reminiscent, life-giving smell). This one, the transition from winter to spring, from death to life, from black and white to bursting, glorious color, from dreary cold to crisp, warm, Vitamin D - this one is my favorite.

Perhaps because it is the most drastic, the most clear reminder that death does not win - not in nature, and not in life. But then again, maybe nature and life are not mutually exclusive.

Back to Remmi - she’s finally found the right spot to poop.

The birds are singing now. And somewhere deep in my subconscious, I hear Ben Howard singing “Old Pine,” just like he has sung it to me every February since I can remember.

And the horizon - it is not orange with the rising sun, but it’s not gray and completely devoid of it. It glimmers a little.

It glimmers enough.

Enough to get me through these final 22 days.

Enough for my head to sustain my soul with what it knows for a fact about the changing of the seasons, since the language of logic and fact is a language my soul is not all that familiar with. What would we do without this profound interlacing of the mind and the heart? They both serve as such powerful forces individually, but somewhere between the two of them, the place where they meet in the middle and coexist, nothing short of magic happens and makes the world spin on exactly the most perfect axis. The world at large, and your world right here where your dog sees it fit to poop next to your feet so you can both go on with your day. For both worlds are equally crucial for the circle of life to do its thing.

No, 22 days is not that long, my head says.

I can sustain you for 22 more days.

Permanent Voids

Unfortunately, healing often comes with realizations that hold deep grief. There is deep validation that comes in connecting the dots between our wounds and our current realities and experiences, but sometimes the injustice of the truths of those same connections are heavier than we can bear. I call these permanent voids: a loss where the healing does not come from being righted or fixed, but simply by being given space to be acknowledged, validated, and felt. From being given permission to accept that many of our shortcomings as adults stem from unchosen realities of our childhoods.

And let me tell you: even the most privileged of childhoods hold loss. Because perfection is not a thing, not one person is immune to knowing loss in some form or another.

What do we do when a need that is supposed to be met in childhood in order to enter into adulthood is never, in fact, met in childhood? Are we supposed to continue through life - into love, into our careers, into parenthood - still? We are expected to, it seems. And not only are we expected to, we ourselves desire to live. We desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, to aspire and achieve, to bring humans up to do the same and partake in the joy and pride that we had something to do with furthering another generation after us.

All while holding voids that have yet to be healed and nurtured in ways that will enable us to do so in edifying ways - both for us and those we surround.

So then what?

It would seem highly inappropriate and unhealthy as an adult to express a childlike need.

And yet. We are culturally expected to grow and flourish as a human who has had their needs fully tended to, while grieving the reality that they did not, in fact, get tended to at all.

What deep, incredible, excruciating grief.

Different, but equivalent in magnitude to the type of grief we experience in the death of a loved one. Because it is death, in a way. It is the death of a dream, an expectation, a right as a human, when we lose, or in some situations, never receive, something as a child and carry that loss into adulthood. It is a curse of time - there are many gifts of time, to be sure - but this one is a deep loss: that of a permanent void. It is the type of grief you can do nothing to ease except sit with it, to feel it fully, until time does its work to ease the excruciating loss enough for us to move slowly forward and continue to live. And even here, though we can and will keep living, though we’ve proven over and over through each loss up to this point in our lives that we will come out the other side, the ache never fully goes away.

This is being human.

There is good. There is hard. There is everything in between.

The antidote, then?

Maybe it’s simply acceptance. Maybe it’s leaning into the comforting reality that we are not alone in it all. Because even though each of our stories and experiences are different, the human experience is always happening within the same human emotions we all share.

Deep joy, and deep grief.

Deep gratitude, and deep loss.

We learn that the antidote is not ridding ourselves of the grief and the loss, but learning to hold the tension of experiencing the joy and gratitude in life while also carrying with us the grief and loss that also make us who we are - and having the patience and forbearance to accept those hard parts in each other’s stories, too.

Maybe it’s being brave enough to show up, to feel it all, and to hold each other up along the beautifully painful journey of it all.

Bigger Than the Sky

My Sweet Lucy Girl,

It is your last night of being three. We have been counting down the days all week. Tonight you wanted an extra book for bedtime, and I caved because, well, “It’s your last night of being three.” I tell you this as if to set a precedent, a proper expectation.

But deep down, I don’t mind.

Deep down, I know that there will come a day where I’d give anything to go back to your last night of being three to read you an extra book, to breathe in the smell of your hair (washed all by your big girl self) as you rest your head on my shoulder and listen, thumb in your mouth and bear in your hand.

We go through the bedtime routine, just as we do every night; the book, the song, the back tickles, one last drink of water (tonight, your “last one as a 3 year old”).

And then you ask me for one more snuggle. I say yes. I lay next to you and watch you rest your eyes and try so hard to keep them closed because all you want is to wake up and be four already. On the outside, we are cheering and counting down, for we are only hours away now.

But quietly, I blink back tears.

Quietly, as I watch you rest, I think about you, Lucy, and all the precious ways you are you.

I think about your books, the way you sit with your huge pile and “read” out loud.

About ladybugs, how you love to catch them and let them crawl up your arm.

About Rosie (the flower you planted yourself and named), and how excited you were to have your very own flower in the garden “just like mama.”

About swings, oh, you could swing for hours.

About music, and how much you love it – bonus points if it’s a song you have memorized so you can sing along.

About how you make your sister’s bottles, then stand on a chair at the kitchen sink and wash them, one by one.

About how much you love to help me fold washcloths and hand towels – oh, and your own socks, as of last week.

About how goofy you are – you’ve got yourself quite the sense of humor, and girl, you make us laugh.

About how much you love making cards for people you love, always covered in the same five letters (H, L, I, O, and A) because so far those are the ones you can write all by yourself without tracing.

About how much you love collecting rocks, sticks, leaves, anything from outside, really.

You are growing, girl. So fast. They say the days are long, the years short. As cheesy as it sounds, it could not be more true.

There are so many things I want you to know. So many things I want to tell you.

But for now, little one, I will leave it at this: be free, and be four. Be wild and strong and brave and curious and kind. Keep growing and learning and loving like you do. You inspire me every day with your love of learning and your stubborn spirit – regardless of how we butt heads at times, it is a beautiful thing and I am positive that you will change the world with it.

In the meantime, know that it is my honor to get front row seats to watch it all unfold, to watch you unfold and grow and become more and more you.

Above all, know how much I love you, my big 4 year old – “bigger than the sky.”

Hammers and Eggshells

His 6’4″ frame is standing outside my bedroom door. He is screaming – again.

My mother stands in the doorway – in the middle – where she’s always been. She’s safeguarding what she knows is my only haven. She is strong, my mother.

I’m sitting in a fetal position on the ground – head buried between my legs, elbows hugging my knees, fingers in my ears. I’m trying to drown it all out.

Now I am screaming. Over, and over, and over again. I cannot form words, only screams. A decade of false accusations, repressed anger, outrage, loss – it is all coming to the surface, but I don’t yet know how to speak the language of self-respect. I am conflicted: Obedient, repentant, good girls stay quiet, but saying nothing also isn’t working anymore.

No, an entire childhood’s worth of apologizing and staying silent is lost on the injustice of this moment.

It won’t stay locked up anymore.

My role has always been the peacekeeper. My 18 year old self has very good reason to believe there’s nothing you can’t apologize away. Whether you’re wrong or not, apologies clear your plate, and clear plates are the ones that can’t get yelled at.

At least this is what I am told. I am still unaware that I get a say in this role of “peacekeeper” that has been involuntarily placed on my shoulders.

I don’t yet know that true peacemaking is more than simply staying out of someone’s way, than not getting screamed at, than keeping everyone around me happy. I haven’t yet realized that I’ve been keeping the peace as a survival mechanism, and that what I’ve been left with is not actually peace at all. What I’ve been left with is one more layer of grief because in reality, I’ve paved a road where I’ve learned to respect everyone except myself.

No, the road to true peace starts on the inside, and it may not be the one that makes everyone around me happy – a burden that never should have been mine to begin with.

It is as if me screaming at the top of my lungs in this moment is my body’s way of taking over to protect me when my mind and heart are too paralyzed to speak up. Because in this moment, my screaming is not a conscience decision; it is not even at him.

It is instinct; it is at me – for me. It is one part of myself protecting another.

It is as if my body is dodging the bullets of my stepfather’s words by communicating to my inner self, “Nope, he doesn’t get space at your table any longer. Just because ‘you’re the one who can handle it,’ doesn’t mean you have to anymore. His words have no respect for you. Let them fall to the ground, and stand to your feet. You are free.”

My body stepped in and set my soul free.

I don’t remember what I’ve done, or not done, to make him go off this time, just that I am certain that it will be the last time, because I am breaking.

Just hours before, we’d attended an acceptance dinner at a local state college. It was the end of my senior year and I was going to stay close to home, pursuing both a college degree and my ballet career, my other refuge.

Then, in just 4 hours, I am torn in two: there is no longer anything worth staying in the toxicity that is him, but also, it is devastating that I’m about to say an abrupt goodbye to all I’ve ever known.

In hindsight I think I knew all along, or hoped, at the very least, that some version of this explosion would take place. Eggshells can only withhold so much weight, after all – and I’d built an entire life on them. I had spent so long trying not to let them crack, trying to keep them all together. Little did I know that not only would they end up cracking, but that they would get demolished entirely – and that I would be the one holding the hammer. Because, I will learn, the only way to be whole is to live a life without eggshells at all.

There’s a big problem with this, though, and that is this: the work of picking up that hammer is absolutely terrifying. 

It will require me to willingly stand face to face with my deepest fear, look it straight in the eyes, and stay planted until I am the last one standing. Until I demand to be the last one standing.

But I don’t know any of this in that moment sitting on my bedroom floor. I don’t even know it’s okay to scream, to voice my hurt, to say I’m actually not okay.

All I know is I’m not.

All I know is it’s time to pick up the hammer.

All I know is my eggshells are in great danger.

Overcome

Last week I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life. It was 10:30pm, I was reading in bed, and suddenly my peripherals began to move. I looked across my bedroom floor and two feet away, there it was. It was the size of my palm, its body alone the size of a silver dollar.

In my room.

Two feet away from my bed.

I had heard for years how massive spiders were in the Pacific Northwest and couldn’t help but wonder why in all of my time living here, I was home alone at 10:30pm the first time I saw one.

But here I was.

I racked my brain, thinking of every scenario that didn’t involve me dealing with this.

I could call someone.

I could sleep on the couch and shove stuff under the bedroom door to trap the spider inside until morning.

I could chuck every item in my room at the thing until it died.

In the midst of my very productive brainstorming, I then proceeded to grab the two things closest to me; a coaster in one hand, a slipper in the other, I sat cross legged on my bed for 10 minutes, just staring at the thing.

I was waiting for it to make the first move, because reactivity is always easier than proactivity.

After what seemed like a lifetime longer than ten minutes of my pitiful criss cross applesauce stance, I was struck by something I’ve learned many times in my life (often the hard way), whether in monumental moments of fear or my wimpy moments of arachnophobia:

Running away is never the antidote to discomfort; it is merely a bandaid. 

It hides the wound, it does not heal it.

Every time I’ve allowed myself to be driven by fear, I’ve robbed myself of my own power. It is only when I’ve faced my fear that I’ve not only recognized how much power I have, but how seizing the power that already belongs to me makes what I’m facing less scary.

Less impossible.

Less big.

The hardest part about facing fear is we are choosing to resist our most natural instinct to protect ourselves by numbing the fear, instead of healing ourselves by staring terrible discomfort right in the face and feeling it. We don’t want to feel fear. It’s awful and uncomfortable. But we have to feel it to overcome it, otherwise we are not overcoming – we are remaining stagnant.

And it isn’t that facing the hard things make them easy, but it empowers us to stop running from them. Because we remember where being brave got us the last time:

Freer.

Stronger.

Braver.

Reactivity may be the easier route, but it will never make us brave, because it doesn’t require us to practice being brave. It is a skill, after all – being brave. And like all skills, being brave takes practice.

I looked down at my coaster and slipper and couldn’t help but giggle at myself. It’s also amazing how fear can hinder clear thinking. What could this spider actually do to me?

Palms and silver dollars pale in comparison to the size of my body and the power of my own mind.

Being alone in my room with that spider terrified me to my core – and then it empowered and healed me.

I caught the damn thing, after all.

Tainted Sunshine

This afternoon is spent how most of our spring and summer Sunday afternoons are – outside. For a split second, I trick myself into thinking it is a normal Sunday.

Into thinking things are as they always are, as they should be.

The fresh air is amazing. The glimpses of sun coming and going give breath to my lungs and hope to my soul. Lucy traces my lanes in the lawn as I mow.

And then the neighbor kid comes. As naturally and innocently as he can, he waltzes right into our driveway, his new remote control dump truck zooming right alongside him.

Lucy is immediately drawn within 6 feet of him, into his Covid bubble.

“Try it!” He says.

She no sooner takes it from his hand than my stomach twists in a knot. Before I can think twice, I yell, “Wait!” This simultaneously feels instinctive and counterintuitive, much like most of life right now.

Tension, put simply.

Instinctive because a human’s primary need is survival, and survival right now looks like social distance, but counterintuitive because a human’s primary need is also to connect, and connection most Sunday afternoons looks exactly like Lucy playing with her friend’s new remote control dump truck and squeals of pure joy oozing from both of their faces.

Panic, inner turmoil, unrest – every human’s gut reaction upon stepping foot beyond our own four walls right now.

They both freeze, stare at me as if I’ve just stopped them from jumping in front of a car.

It took every ounce in me not to burst into tears at their innocent, oblivious faces.

You can explain things a million and one times to a child, but precious, wonderful oblivion will squelch their logic every time – one of the most unfortunate skills we lose when we grow up – the beautiful inability to allow logic to win.

“When the sickness is over, then can I go past the driveway Mommy?” she asks, one foot in the cul de sac, one on the front lawn.

“Yes, baby,” I say, “when the sickness is over.”

Right at this moment another neighbor girl walks out of her house. Lucy and her friend, him now standing six feet away from our driveway, wave excitedly.

“Hi!” they say.

Their neighbor friend looks up, waves a nervous wave, runs back inside.

I wonder what she’s processing, what messages are going off in her 7 year old brain, in all of their little minds.

Excitement at the site of their friends, met instinctively with precautions that they don’t fully understand, but that they know they must take heed of because of the serious tones their parents warn them with on the daily.

It’s all too much. It’s not natural. Things are not at all as they should be. In a way it is beautiful, the blatant reminder of our need for each other.

In another way – a big, loud, angry way that most days has me ugly crying at least once – all I want is to hug my neighbor tight and watch the neighborhood kids play outside until the sun is setting and everyone smells of dirt and sunshine.

All I want is to be together again in the flesh.

The Cure: Part 11

The tensions are palpable, so much so they are now impossible to ignore. And they aren’t all exactly the same – everyone you see is carrying a burden you know nothing about. Lack of resources, sick family, loneliness from isolation, anxiety of the uncertainty to come, the list goes on.

I was out grabbing a few essentials yesterday, and amidst the flood of UPS and FEDEX trucks on the road making up for all of the stores shutting down – one of the biggest upheavals of our day to day during this time – a knot formed in my stomach.

Things are not good. They’re going from bad to worse, and there is simply no getting around it at this point. The economy is beginning to crumble like we haven’t seen before, small family businesses are becoming obsolete, people are losing their jobs right and left (and those who haven’t lost their jobs have their hands tied with a lack of childcare).

It’s all too much. All for reasonable measure, no doubt. But it’s still okay to say – it just feels like too much.

As I looked around at all the cars on the road, though, into the faces of the people in them, I realized something else, too – their faces matched mine. It was almost as if they were hearing, listening, feeling their ways right into my head and heart. And you know what?

They were.

There isn’t one human who isn’t being affected by this terrible, strange invasion of every sense of normal we knew even just weeks ago.

Because the reality is that as different as we all are, there is one thing every one of us has in common, and that is our humanity. Our humanity that at its core is much more humble, more more limited, much more imperfect than we lead ourselves to believe here and now in the 21st century. In this day and age of incredible technology and access to anything and everything we may need at any given moment, we have become very good at deceiving ourselves into thinking we are immune to one of our most basic humans needs: each other. But in doing so, we are denying the reality of our very being. This works temporarily for our mental and emotional needs because we can hide those from the naked eye – a little concealer here, a fake smile there.

But enter a worldwide pandemic (nod to you, Covid-19), and it’s hard to look another person in the eye with any sort of agenda, be it social, political, religious, parenting, etc. Because all you’re looking at, really, is another human.

Another human just like you.

And it’s blatant. What is every store sold out of right now?

Toilet paper. Lysol. Soap.

Why?

Because it turns out we’re actually a lot more similar than we think to our neighbor – the atheist, the feminist, the rich one, the poor one, the preacher one, the gay one, the straight one, the staunch republican, the staunch democrat.

Every one of us needs. Not one human doesn’t.

And to need is a vulnerable thing because we associate it with weakness in our culture.

But what if we stopped projecting that tainted view of being in need onto one another, and instead offered it some understanding, some empathy, some compassion? Because we’ve all been there. Heck, we’re all there right now. And some a lot more so than others and for reasons that are way outside of their control.

Let us keep moving forward. We can. If there was ever a time to lay down our pride and comfort to save and support one another (literally), it is now. Let us be kind, let us be understanding, let us be generous, let us be self-sacrificial in the ways that we are able to.

May we bear with each other’s grief with extended empathy and understanding, and when your eyes meet those of another human’s, smile before you look away. Connect. Remind people they are seen. Of all the needs we don’t have the power to meet right now, this is one that we do.

And I believe that we can.

First Birthdays and February Snow

You came into the world after much waiting and anticipation.

And then it happened – you happened. On May 17th, 2018, that second pink line began the countdown of meeting you.

I didn’t know it then, but your big blue eyes and curly blonde hair (both of which convince strangers I am your nanny, not your mother) – my womb was forming all of it. All of you.

I did not take one of those 268 days for granted with you inside my body; I savored every second – even the hard, sick, bed-ridden ones. You were alive, you were healthy, you were there. I don’t know that I’ve ever held such tension before: paralyzing fear, while also wanting to be fully present, knowing how fleeting the season is of holding your baby in your womb – the quickness of it, the temporary-ness, the excitement.

The fragility.

And then you were here – all 6 lbs, 3 oz, 18.5 inches of you.

Earlier this week, we woke up to snow falling and time stopped. For a split second, your bare, tiny, two-day-old body was swaddled against my chest once again as we rocked and looked out the window of our apartment on Lone Pine Drive. The flakes were big and quiet that morning, but we were warm and nestled next to the fire, both of us exactly where we wanted to be.

Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Rest and snuggles were the only agenda we had.

No one expected it then, the snow. No one saw it coming. We never do; when the weatherman brings false hope for it enough times, you know better than to get your hopes up for such a thing.  But there we were, marveling at it all coming down, and I couldn’t help but think of the parallel between it and you. Of the magic of you. The wonder of you. The surprise and (un)expectation of you from the start. You were finally in my arms. Yes, the gift of you was -is – more than my heart could hold.

And then I blinked.

Now you are one and here we are once again, just as pleasantly surprised by those big, silent, February flakes covering the grass outside our window.

And still just as pleasantly surprised by you.

You are Here

It was time. 12 days early, but ready we both were. My heart was having a hard time holding on (literally) and needed you to be outside of my body. It needed to beat normally again; I needed it to beat normally again. And you were ready enough, they said.

So we went.

It was 4:30pm when we arrived at the hospital, 8:30pm when my midwife gave me the IV to tell my body we were ready for you. She asks all of the necessary questions, for all the things she needs to know so you can come into the world as healthy and safe as possible. I give her my heart history, including the pregnancy complications. She looks at my monitor and says, “Oh, yes. You do run a bit low.”

She leaves the room and comes back with what seemed like a million cords and monitors.

As differently as I pictured my labor with you going, it turned out to be perfect. Those first ten hours turned out to be sleepless for both of us, but so sweet. I imagined you were frustrated at the sudden upset in my womb, beginning to contract and force you out of the only comfort you’d known for almost nine months. On the outside, I spent the night with my eyes glued to the monitors, watching our hearts beating side by side, my hand resting on my belly for what I knew would be the last night with you inside. The nurse came in hourly to increase the pitocin. I kept watching, holding, waiting, breathing.

The night eventually passed and morning came. More contractions. More waiting.

Fast forward several hours; things are progressing.

I’m sitting on an exercise ball now. I can no longer talk. Breathing is hard and takes every ounce of my energy.

I’m leaning over with all of my weight pushing against the bed. Head down, eyes closed, I breathe in big and slow. I breathe out big and slow.

Wash, rinse, repeat every 2 minutes for the next 3 hours.

The midwife comes in to check me and I am still only dilated at a 6. My heart rate is steady, but still too low. They worry the stress of the pain will be too hard on my heart.

“The anesthesiologist will be here in an hour,” they tell me. “And then we will break your water.”

That’s 30 contractions. I can do 30 more.

The anesthesiologist is kind. He tells me to breathe, and that relief is coming. Turns out the lidocaine shot, however, didn’t work and I felt every inch of that needle go into my spine.

We are 20 hours in at this point. I scream and begin to weep.

My midwife squeezes my hands, looks in my eyes, and tells me, “You’ve been a fighter since you were born, Alex. You can do this. You are doing this.”

I nod and cry harder. She’s looking straight into my eyes.

I cry because of her willingness to step into the pain and help me hold it up. It doesn’t make it go away, but it makes it just a little bit lighter; it makes it bearable. If only she knew that in holding up my body, my IV’s, my 17 thousand cords to make sure my physical heart didn’t slow down too much, she was holding up my all that my heart was holding, too. She wasn’t afraid of my pain, emotional or physical.

Her eyes are still locked on mine.

“You can do this,” she says. “You can. You are.”

I cry. I breathe.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

The epidural begins to set in over the next hour, give or take. Time is a blur, after all. They break my water and tell me it will speed up quickly from here.

So I wait. I rest. The lights are dim now and music is playing softly in the background. I wonder if I’m about to meet my baby boy or you. I wonder about your hair color, your eye color, what name I will be calling you in just a matter of minutes, now.

It is time to find out. The doctors and nurses put on their gloves – my midwife on the left of my face, Nate to the right. I watch too with the birth mirror, because I’m obsessed with watching life come into the world; there is not one thing like it on this earth. There are no words.

I push 3 times and s h e – you, my Rainbow Baby – are here.

A rush of blood, an umbilical cord, a loud cry.

The most beautiful, alive cry I have ever heard.

Your eyes open almost immediately when I bring you to my chest and lock with mine.

More tears. Endless tears.

“You are here,” I say to you. Over, and over, and over again.

The years of single pink lines. The countless ovulation tests. The vulnerable risk to hope again after loss. You were worth it all.

Yes, Zinnia Leigh. You are here.

White Flags & Foil Art

Aluminum foil, that’s all it was.

“For decoration!” she said. “I want to make something for decoration.”

“Foil is not for playing,” I say. “It is not a toy.”

She turned and walked out of the kitchen and as she did, my heart sank.

Her shirtless little torso (because, age 4), blonde curls bouncing, face hung low; my cold words cut her little curious heart like a knife.

Life is decoration in her world – be it magnets, picture frames, plants, handmade art in some form or another; the girls loves to create. It happens to be one of my favorite things about her. And her pride, oh her pride in her creations. 

And today, I wounded that pride. I shot down her wonder in the name of “obedience.”

In the name of “submission.”

In the name of “winning the battle.”

Time and place for all of those things – yes. We’ve encountered 72 of those other times and places today, in fact.

But the battles that make your heart sink, the ones that shoot down positive intent (in the name of play, in the name of art, in the name of beauty, creativity, wonder)… the ones that create wounds in some form or another – those ones are worth a pause.

Must I pick every battle?

I look down at my chopped veggies that I’m about to coat with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread on my beautifully foiled baking sheet to be roasted.

Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes or until edges are browned, it says.

But I pause. I pause in the name of presence.

In the name of creating.

In the name of wonder.

In the name of Her.

I peel off a square of foil, fold it hot-dog style, once more in half, and once more. I give it to her and she smiles, not saying a word. I kiss her forehead and walk back into the kitchen to the tune of giddy squeals and rustling foil.

There are, in fact, some battles worth surrendering to.

Foil art being one of them. 

Treading Water

I close my eyes. I hold my breath. I jump.

The water is cold, but bearable. 

Suddenly, I am the 10 year old shell of myself, like a fish in the water. Not a care in the world but the temperature of the water and keeping it out of my wind pipe. 

I press my arms and hands forward and feel the bigness of the water, its freedom. 

In this moment, I release life and focus solely on my destination, on the buoy ahead. 

On my breath. 

I push the water behind me with each stroke. I feel the coldness of the river rush over me as I inch little by little towards the buoy. I can see it each time I come up for a breath.

Head up, breathe; head down, push. 

Over, and over, and over again.

Just when it seems like I’m making no progress, like I am merely treading water, I look back and see the dock far behind. 

I press forward. 

My arms are tired. My legs are burning. My ears ache, for with each breath I submerge deeper and the pressure builds; I long to know there is space for it all, for every ounce of myself; limbs and toes, fear and pain.

Under the water, I hear the roar of the boats. They are miles away, but they ring loud.

I am spent; I have nothing left.

But then I look up and realize I am only two feet away now.

As my hand touches the buoy, I exhale hard to catch my breath and realize I am yelling. I don’t fully know why or how or when I started or when I stopped, but I know that with each shriek I feel release. 

I feel free.

I look back at the dock, my starting point; it’s so far away now. 

I take one more big breath before heading back. 

Breathe, push. Breathe, push. 

Over, and over, and over again. 

Finally, my hand touches the dock.

I’ve made it. It turns out that what felt like treading was not in vain.

And though I am tattered and exhausted, I am thankful to feel. It is in this depth of feeling that I realize I am, in fact, alive.

With every ounce I have left, I pull myself up onto the dock.

Now, I rest.

Now, I am still.

Now, I am whole. 

The Communion of Scrambled Eggs

The act of making breakfast this morning was the most sacred moment of my week by far. Maybe of the last month. Nothing fancy, just the usual buttered toast and scrambled eggs (salted please, Mommy). 

That’s not generally the way I would describe cooking with a 3 year old alongside “helping,” but once again, I’m learning things in the least expected of places.

“Can I stir the eggs, Mommy?” 

My insides wince, knowing that will mean twice as long and extreme supervision because – toddlers + raw eggs + glass = no good outcome ever – but I surrendered.

Surrendered to patience.

Surrendered to mess. 

… Surrendered to j o y. 

The simple kind, similar to that you would find in the first bloom of spring, or the first quiet hours of the morning when everyone else is still asleep, or finding a coupon for a free espresso beverage at the bottom of your purse (and every mother of tiny people said AMEN).

Joy in the simplest of places – why am I always caught so off guard, as if it’s not a lesson life teaches me over, and over, and over again?

It wasn’t until the food was plated and I carried it to the table that it hit me, the beauty of that moment. The frustrations of yesterday still looming, the chaos of life still very real, stress still rearing its hideous head and wreaking havoc on our souls more often than it should. 

But in this moment, we stopped, my little side kick and I. We stopped to break bread. A meal we prepared together, with our own hands. We slowed down enough to nourish both our bodies and our souls with simple things like toast and the presence of each other. 

And today, that is more than enough.

The Cure: Part 1

Living to see and experience a pandemic is something that has left me at a loss for words, but not in the way I expected. Everywhere we turn right now, it seems we are being tempted to fear.

The hoarding, the quarantines, the closing of businesses – it is so much. Life as we know it has come to a screeching halt. It’s downright eerie, this panic and quiet desolation. And for good reason, might I add. If we want to live to see the other side of all of this, this is undoubtedly the way through. It is not this that I have come to question, but something more. Something deeper. Something we are at risk of missing if we are not willing to look more closely.

The question, as always, is what are we to make of this? For again, as always, the answer is deeper than what we’re given at face value.

Have we been sentenced to cabin fever, or a permission to slow down?

To be cooped up, or to rest with our families – the very ones we have committed ourselves first and foremost to?

I wonder if our lives have become so rushed and distracted that we’ve lost the ability to see the ordinary, everyday beauty right under our very noses. It is all too tempting to slip into “FOMO,” to deceive ourselves into believing we are missing out on the spectacular busy-ness we have so accustomed ourselves to.

But what I’ve found over the last couple weeks of what I thought would be extended time “cooped up with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to see” is how misguided my perception has been of what is truly spectacular.

We were created to be, to experience, and to know deeply the extraordinary, yes. But maybe we can use this standstill in time, space, and activity to redefine that word, rather than living in fear and dread of what it looks like to live “without.”

If our bodies and souls are nourished with food and the people we love, after all, are we really without?

Maybe the extraordinary has been here all along and we have simply ignored it, swept it to the side, in the name of bigger, better, more.

May we look up.

May we keep doing our daily, ordinary things – brewing our coffee, preparing our meals, working (accepting whatever form that comes in right now and releasing those parts that we cannot control), cleaning our houses, folding our laundry, bathing and snuggling our little people (did you ever stop to notice the preciousness that is their bedhead?), taking our vitamins, drinking enough water, eating well, supporting the smaller businesses and creators who work to bring beauty and good into the world so that their worlds can keep spinning too.. the list goes on.

And for the love of all that is good, wild, and holy, may we step outside. May we breathe in the fresh cusp-of-springtime air, smell its beautiful flowers, touch the moist, fertile earth it all comes from, and remember that it, too, is what our creator has formed us from. May we prune our gardens, simple or grandiose, remembering the importance of shedding what is dead, unnecessary, or both, to make space for new life.

There are so many things – so many sacred things – right in front of us, if we would only look.

Yes, we are whole right now. As is. The world is not stopping – it is our pace and perception that are simply being held under a magnifying glass. May we have the courage to truly look at and make the space for what we find this close up.