leap

take a leap today.
do something out of the ordinary.
go against the grain.
celebrate this fourth year anomaly.

the flood

how easily i forget that with floods come wreckage.
debris.

floods bring refrigerators and entire trailer homes from upstream. suddenly there they are, strewn about the garden. closets and all their contents dumped on the front lawn. microwaves, shoes, beer cans, trailer trash. floods bring mud so thick it sticks to your shoes making you lopsided and off balance. dog paws track it into your home for weeks and weeks. floods make a mess of life.

how easily i forget this is where he came from. from the thick mud of the river that was left on the staircase to the front door. he came from the mud that clung to my dress, as i labored on my knees by the fast moving current. the high watermarks stained that white house made of cedar. that is where he came from.

this is the day of explanation. he’s been this story his whole life. this river. this flood. actually two floods that brought him to me during that year of my pregnancy, 2004. he knows this, but he wants to know more. more questions. he wants descriptions. and at this point in my life i take a breath and swallow and begin again. i know i will do this repeatedly throughout his life.

we cross the colorado river at various times during the week. and he knows, since he was born, this is his namesake. other kids call it Town Lake, but river sings outloud “here’s the Colorado River!” but these days as he’s become more aware of the big wide world, he is more quiet in our crossing. he’s more inquisitive. and his questions fire at me repetitively. i’m unable to dodge his bullets. nor do i really want to. i just stand and face the firing squad. i take it, letting them wash over me. this is growth. this is learning, for both of us.

“how did the river flood our house? this house? our old house? was it far far away? was i safe in your belly? did it flood you? how did it rain for so long, momma that the river flooded? how? this river, right here? this one, momma?”

i’m fine with answers. they are, afterall, the story of himself. i owe him this story. the story of how he came to be. on certain days though, these questions feel more like probings into a tender spot. a spot that i try desperately to shield. but raising children i have learned is about us guiding them gently. they take the lead, but we take the reins through stories of our past. it is through these stories that we are connected.

and so i begin the story of the house that sat on stilts. the house in the country 38 miles outside of austin, with the kayaks and canoes in the yard. i tell the story of the summer flood and the ruined garden. i tell the story of the water leaving its banks again at the end of november. i tell the story of the house that sat in the hundred year flood plain. i tell the story of the river that rose thirty-eight vertical feet to reach our door and lap at our windows. “is it still flooding?” he asks. and i assure him that it’s not normal. that’s it actually rare. and that it probably won’t happen again. but i see that he looks at the river differently now.

he sees a photo on the wall from when he was four months old. he stares at it, the baby with the sun in his eyes. he hangs on the wall now, watching us eat at our small dinner table. “is that me, momma? is that our old house that flooded? what was in that room? was there a big bed?” for me, photographs capture a bit of the energy in the room from when the image was imprinted. that moment is what i remember. each photo tells a story. and that story is something different to each set of eyes viewing it.

he wants more. he sits in my lap as i pull out the photo album from 2004-2005. this is hard for me and i don’t know why. well, i do know why. and kenny knows why. but river insists with his innocent childish probings, and he steers me through this as if he senses the unease for me. as if he senses that i must do this, for him and for me.

he smiles at the picture of me radiating pregnancy. it’s one of only three photos of myself that were taken while pregnant. i remember this. the strain. the seemingly unimportance of it all as life and work and careers moved forward. it breaks my heart to remember this. it angers me. but he is smiling at my big round belly and at me smiling innocently at the camera. “i was in your belly, momma. right there under your dress!”

he inspects the photo of that ricketty staircase leading to our home on stilts. i dont’ want to go inside but he turns the page and flips through the pictures of his infancy and i’m awash in the moments that are captured there. the moments that i captured myself with my little point and shoot camera. and i’m overwhelmed with the prints, faded and red. printed at that time, from our home office. at that time i was grasping at photos to document it all for him, just incase. that time was documented with red pixelly 4×6 prints. he asks why they are so red and i am brought back to that heavy chested feeling. i turn the page. by the end of the photo album, he’s fulfilled in seeing his baby toys and we close the book. he literally skips off down the hallway to go play. leaving me and kenny alone with our thoughts.

kenny later uses the word vietnam. like, that time of life with a newborn felt like vietnam to him. or the connotation of vietnam. or how that single word is portrayed in movies. or just the feelings and emotions it evokes from people. and that furrows my brow. if that was vietnam for him, then what was it for me? and i get angry all over again for him leaving me behind, especially now that i know it was vietnam. and i was left alone in that dense jungle as i looked skyward to see his feet dangle safely from the helicopter that lifted him up up and away… until he was nothing but a dark spot in the sky.

blessingway

as i wove these thoughts into this fabric, i was thinking of each woman who chose a word. one word to remember during birth. and what that word meant to her. where it came from. how we share with one another. how we came to find one another. how we get each other through. i pulled the thread, i tied the knots, and i spelled love into this fabric.

there comes a time to celebrate life, motherhood, sisterhood.
shared stories of birth, strength, weakness.
mothering one, mothering twins, mothering siblings.

there comes a time when we gather.
we circle round one another and create and share.
we laugh and cry.

we celebrate the woman who is about to become
mother
yet again

remember.

let us all remember
we are cherished.

we are blessed.

phone phobia

i’m a terrible friend. i let my phone ring and ring and go to voicemail. all of my oldest and closest friends know this about me, and they are such good people that they still love me. they call and call and wait and wait. it’s a bit like knock knock. one day, one ring, i will pick up my phone and it’s like they win the lottery.

friday was the end of a very long week for me. involving lots of tedium that caused me to exert too much mental energy. doctors visits and the emotions that go along with that. careless comments that lead to overanalyzing the state of society and the world in general. thoughts take up too much space in my brain. i need a filter.

come friday, i was tapped. river was too, and after seemingly endless phonecalls to the claims adjuster (remember the valentine’s day accident? the {ahem} 16 year old girl who had just learned to drive two weeks before she rear-ended me?) my poor son was tugging at my pants saying “stop talking! just hold me!” and i cradled him in my arms and sang that old ballad into his deep eyes “hold me, hold me!” i couldn’t remember the words so i just made them up and he asked for it over and over.

then my phone rang.

sometimes there comes a knocking…

i answered it and my dear old friend from colorado was jumping for joy. ‘hey! you answered your phone! wait, is this a recording?!” gosh, i’m such a terrible friend. she kept me on the phone through laughter and tears, and we chatted while river made playdough boulders for his dumptruck and my dear friend wandered the aisles at vitamin cottage with her five year old daughter.

sometimes the world comes knocking and i hide from it. i know i do this. it’s my tactic. sometimes it’s too much to explain. too much has happened. too much time. too much too much. i need to realize that my friends know this. i need to realize that life goes on and on and on. i always forget that talking to an old friend is a little like a purge. like letting the air out of your raft, you get a little soft. when reliving harshness that happened some time ago, it wears you down. but with the security of old buddies, it’s healing. it’s like a cleanse, you know it’s good for you, but it is still discomforting to experience all those toxins leaving your body. all those words and sentences conjure up memories and visuals of a time that was not so long ago. but when i hear myself speak it’s like i’m someone else. and i’m a little thankful for that, and i’m also a little confused by it. was all that real? that space in time after becoming a mother was so blurry edged, it’s hard to hear myself talk about it. it’s easier to write it out and tuck it away.

my good friend and i were seamstresses together in colorado. she turns thirty a week after i turn thirty-three this march. she just graduated from college after dropping out of school at sixteen and getting her GED. she’s a single mother to a beautiful five year old girlie. she is life. she is accomplishment. she is truth to me. and she reminded me of all that over the phone. “kids are part playdough, mere. don’t forget it, when you think you’re fucking them up too much.”

so, conversations still linger in my mind after the phone has hung up. and my words and my stories i told her of times gone, of strengths and weaknesses are still floating around my head like a cloud. and i’m remembering something she said about sharing a story. it’s like sharing the burden, it makes your own load lighter. and that’s what gets us through right? carrying the weight for each other when our bags are too heavy.

after eating dinner with river and brushing teeth and donning pajamas, we lay in bed and the dreams come. i hate when i fall asleep with him so early and then am left alone in the house all groggy. and why those dreams? why do i always go back to a time before? and why am i so happy? and how is it possible to live in that time and have river with me? it’s nonsensical because i’m not actually an alumni of Virginia Tech if i was a college dropout. but it’s a dream, and i’m happy in it, and it makes it hard to wake up.

but i do wake up, over and over again as river is literally growing all night long. finally i give up all the little things i set out to accomplish that night. i set down my embroidery, i bookmark my page in the new book i want to devour, i leave the ice cream to sit alone in the cold dark freezer. i tell myself finally to just ‘be in it’. dont’ resist it. just let it come. i lay in bed and river lays on my chest, crying into my t-shirt, the sobs of not wanting to grow, not wanting the pain, just wanting to sleep. and i lay on my back wondering why i feel so alone, why it happens as it happens. why why why. and my tears remind me of this cleanse as they roll past my ears onto my pillow.

to the guy behind the counter

i know you. and you know me, but you feign amnesia when you see me. i think it’s silly.. the fact that we were three, four, and five years old together in a three story tudor home in New Jersey. i ate your grape chapstick and you stuck lima beans in your nose. we dug for indian red clay in the side yard.

yet nothing. no smile. no nothing.
and it baffles me as to why.
and i don’t know why i care.

you should find this interesting at least. that we have moved all over the United States between 1979 and 2008, and we end up in the same towns at the same time. New Jersey, Colorado, and Texas. it’s interesting to me, the timing of it all. and now you work here, at this mailing center attached to the bakery where i go to write.

today the line at the post office was more than my three year old could handle. my beloved post office that is never crowded. so i walk into your store with my wiggly child screaming about the need, the want, the necessity of gelato. and you pretend yet again to not remember that we were best friends in kindergarten. and it’s just not what i wanted in that moment.

you are an aspiring writer, and i know this because our mothers still speak and our families exchange christmas cards. and here i am handing my precious packages over to you. it’s not how i wanted it to be. with my son writhing in my arms and blatant disregard on your freckled face.

“those are my babies, ” i want to tell you, “take care of them.” but instead my son cries and you grimace. my wall builds and i want to stomp my feet “i don’t even like you! what’s your problem? i’m fucking married with a kid, why are you such a freak? why won’t you just say hi?”

but i don’t, because my momma raised me right. and because he is holding my babies. fifty pages of words stuffed into a twenty manila envelopes.

and he is the aspiring writer, of what, i dont’ know. but i see the recognition of the addresses he sees going to CA, CT, MA, and NY. the names of literary companies and agents written in perfect penmanship.

he asks if i want a receipt and so, instead of my fantasized toddler tirade of adult proportions signifying nothing but my own insecurity, i say “yes, thank you’ and take one last look over my shoulder at the manila envelopes there on the counter.

it feels a bit like when charlotte’s spider babies fly up up and away from wilber. ‘goodbye!’ they sing.

so, off with you.
you words.
be free from me.
go find homes in the minds of agents.

fears

i was a vivid dreamer as a kid. nightmares, flying dreams, you name it. my mom always told me that dreams were ‘wishes, desires, hopes or fears.” and not always in that order.

river is three. the day of his birthday, quite literally, the world opened up to him. it became a very big, very scary place. he is full of wonderment and overflowing with emotion. he collapses into a heap on the floor. he melts like the butter he craves. he hides under the table and chairs, he sobs outright and repeats struggles that occurred days ago. and it’s not over the apple that shouldn’t have been sliced or the stripey shirt he doesn’t want to wear. it’s the fact that burt fell on that 1971 episode of sesame street, or that the sun may possibly set soon (it’s noon and he begins his asking, worrying about the looming darkness that is sure to happen). the emotions come from growling dogs and head bonks, they come from no eye contact and too much eye contact.

it seems that this week, his heart is just bursting at the seams.

it’s such a different type of parenting. we have come through the physical phase. i got real comfortable in that one. we were in it for awhile. i wore those shoes well. heck, i wore holes through those shoes! we have been in the not typical ‘why’ phase, but ‘how?’ phase for some time as well. but this place we have entered recently is a stage of fright, timidness, worry and concern. it’s a new challenge for me. god help me, this kid is a mini-me. and i wonder how to best help him. how to offer him the right tools to carry with him through his life, so he has a better go at it than me.

on the eve of valentine’s day i went to bed with a question on my mind and i was given a very stressful dream. i woke up with a tight jaw and sore ribs. part of my dream came true when i got rear-ended on a way to a friends house that morning. (happy valentine’s day!) and river’s fear of being crushed by a car was brought to the forefront of his mind as he stay bucked in his carseat while i fumbled for a pen and paper in the middle of the street at 9am. he’s sobbing, “but i didn’t want her to hit us! i am scary, momma! i didn’t want to be crushed by her!” and i dont’ know what to do first, so i get her information and am completely frazzled just wanting to get back in the car with my son and assure him that he is safe. and i actually thank her. thanks for hitting me! my son is freaking out, have a great day at high school!

on the way home a few hours later, after some thrift store therapy, a flock of birds were flying in the breeze, swooping and dancing. it was very beautiful, and we were watching them while stopped at a red light. suddenly it sounded like an arsenal of bird bodies thumping the side of my car. “ack!’ i scream covering my head and face thinking that bird feathers would fly in my open windows. river’s eyes are open watching the scene. how do i even explain? who would have thought?

this week has just been like that. very exhausting. very upside down. very messy and teary. “i want your arms around me!” he cries at night and i hold him so tight, all my arms around him like a momma octopus feeling her baby’s heartbeat through all eight of her arms.

i used to worry of sheltering him, but i know that he needs it now. and he falls asleep that way, with momma blocking out the big world.

valen-times

“is it valen-times yet?”

this hallmark holiday is a wonder to kids.

“what am i made of?”
flesh and bone, heart and soul.

“is a baby horse, a soul?”
a baby horse is a foal.

“is the sun setting? is it getting dark? is the moon shining? when the sun goes to bed, we brush teef and go night night. and we wake up tomowwow and it will be valen-times? i think so. i think maybe it will be valen-times.”
yes, baby. good times. good times.

valen-times.

dreamstate

i was sleep deprived for quite some time. i started back at work (next to the kitchen and across the hall from my bedroom) with a one week old at my breast. i shouldn’t have done that. i carry so much momma guilt for that. but what else is mom and pop to do? at the time i was shellshocked, i was caught between two worlds. each foot on different continents as pangea slowly moved apart, pulling me in two different directions. eventually i jumped and landed on two feet safe and sound with my baby asleep in the sling. watching the office drift miles away from me, in the hands of another woman. that jump saved my life.

sometimes i write things in my sleep. sometimes i send these words out in my dazed state. like a dream. off they go, never to be seen again. most of the time they are forgotten. lost. but sometimes, sometimes they come back to me.

i’m not so sleep deprived anymore. but i’m a big zoner. surf slacker. i need time to zone out. i like being bored. even while multitasking i dream of daydreaming.

sometimes when you’re bored, do you ever google your name? have you? i just did. maybe i stay up past my bedtime. maybe i should be sleeping to catch up on all that sleep deprivation i racked up in those early days of motherhood.

tonight i saw a reflection of who i was then. when river was a week old. when this gushing of words was released to someone, i have no idea who, or how, or when. but i have an idea as to why. i know why because i knew how it felt to see the pieces of my former self laying there on the office floor around me with the spit up and the soaking wet burp cloths.

it was tonight, probably three years later, that i found Apollo’s Fire. and my humble shellshocked weak words peering back at me from the glow of the computer screen. almost like a flashback.

“We came down from the mountains on snowshoe. Approximately 10,000 ft. elevation overlooking the Boulder valley.

From Sioux tipi to Pacific Dome to one room cabin. Our life was nature-centered. Packing in water and keeping organics with a propane refrigerator. Splitting logs for the constant feeding of our woodstove. Stoking wood fired water heaters for hot showers under the stars and Snorkel hot tubs for weekends full of warm water gluttony. Sewing with Uni-Solar PV modules providing the power, reading Thoreau by LED lights, occassionally watching PBS by means of a human pedal powered generator.

A simple life, really. Pure and true.

We grew our minds, our spirits, our passions. We grew our grassroots solar installation company. We planted little seeds with solar installs throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California, and Utah. Those little seeds sprouted and formed communities of a collective conscience.

People became more aware and we spread the knowledge of renewable energy everywhere we traveled. We shared our story and our passion and found many many people out there just like us. “Peace through Solar” we’d shout and dance until all souls could hear us.

We worked with states and cities and counties to help create solar rebates for the masses. We landed in Austin, Texas and have called it home ever since. Our son was pushed into the world right there in our living room. Our little mom and pop company has gained recognition and continues to grow and touch lives everyday.

There is so much more to do, more stories to share, more solar to install. Always and forever moving towards the sun. Life is good and the sun shines down on us, and we try our best to reflect it back for others to see.
~ Meredith W. cofounder of Armadillo Solar

three

yup. he’s three. when he warms up to you, he’ll tell you himself. he’ll show you with three crooked fingers covered in sweet buttercream frosting. but he’ll hide under the table as “happy birthday” is sung to him and he insists that he is not river, but is actually a kitty cat.

the emotions and memories of labor are stored in my fat cells, in the creases of my stretch marks. they tell me the story of who i am. and yet, i don’t know how mothers do it. how they go on. how they don’t linger a little while longer. how they don’t overstay their welcome. today. yesterday. three years ago. the memory follows me around like my true to life son follows me today. the memory becomes my shadow. the memory becomes part of me.

i’ve written about river’s first birthday and i caught myself hinting at it again, and later, i wrote about river turning two. and tonight, as the darkness was falling all around us, river’s sleepy words echoed his reassurance to us all:
“and when i wake up to-mowwow, it will be my birthday.”

yes, it will.
happy birth day, baby.

On the Day You Were Born
by Debra Frasier

On the eve of your birth
word of your coming
passed from animal to animal.
The reindeer told the Arctic terns,
who told the humpback whales,
who told the Pacific salmon,
who told the monarch butterflies,
who told the green turtles,
who told the European eel,
who told the busy garden warblers,
and the marvelous news migrated worldwide.
…………………..
While you waited in darkness,
tiny knees curled to chin,
the Earth and her creatures
with the Sun and the Moon
all moved in their places,
each ready to greet you
the very first moment
of the very first day you arrived.
…………………..
On the day you were born
the Earth turned, the Moon pulled,
the Sun flared, and, then, with a push,
you slipped out of the dark quiet
where suddenly you could hear…
a circle of people singing
with voices familiar and clear
……………………
“Welcome to the spinning world,” the people sang,
as they washed your new, tiny hands.
“Welcome to the green Earth,” the people sang,
as they wrapped your wet, slippery body.
And as they held you close
they whispered into your open, curving ear,
“We are so glad you’ve come!”

the midwife bond

“The midwife wonder’d; and the women cried”
King Henry VI, Part 3 by Shakespeare, William

“Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.”
Moby Dick LXVIII-CXXXIV by Melville, Herman

It’s creeping up on river’s birthday, and this time of year will now always remind of so many different things. I keep coming back to my midwife, and the wonderments of people as to why women love their midwives so much, with such intensity and loyalty. It comes down to trust and openness. I often see bumperstickers throughout town that read “I Heart my Midwife” and I usually speed up to get a look at the woman who resembles me. She is a stranger, yet I know her.

We search for our midwives in times of need. We come to their doorstep, glowing and nauseated. Our hands nervously grip questions jotted on crumpled paper. We come to them in times of need, when we are full of concerns, love, and life.

They embrace us and we forge a relationship, somewhat distant at first. Strangers meeting over private issues. Soon it becomes an hour visit of laughter with weights and measurements on the quilted futon in the home office. Once a month we drive to town with a smile to meet her, a wanted sister. A medicine woman.

Over the months the relationship blooms over chai recipes, books, and music. We give her our trust. We package it up nicely for her. She is the keeper of the truth. As ugly as it seems to us, she is unflinching as we let it go into her possession. It is too heavy for us to carry along with the weight of this unborn child.

Monthly visits turn weekly with swollen ankles, heartburn, and anxiety over the unknown. We must be open to birth a baby. We know this. She is comforting and constant.

She is the early morning conversation. The nervous laughter that bubbles with each contraction as I watch the sky turn from pink to blue as the sun rises over the Colorado River. Yoga is her church and she needs it today, as much as I need to bake cupcakes while labor continues and contractions lean me real hard into the kitchen counter. Oven mitts are misplaced as she keeps me on the phone chatting.

I know what she is doing. She is tuning in. Turning on. She is timing. She is absorbing my breath over the phone line. The tone of my voice, the quick intake of crisp winter air as another contraction climbs up on me. She is smart.

The sun sets and she drives fast. She arrives with glowing eyes and a face full of smiles. She disperses her energy, so mellow, like scattering rose petals down the aisle before the sacred ceremony. The passing through the portal. The rite of passage that is a first birth.

The coyotes call outside the house while I’m in the birth tub. When I’m limp and loose and half out of my mind. She sings to me when I’ve gone monkey. When I can do it no more, when the tears crash heavy on my cheeks, when twenty hours of back labor has become all consuming. When the image of a posterior baby becomes something bigger than life or death or pain. She calls me back. She focuses my gaze onto her. She gives me acceptance to be scared. She reminds me of Ina May Gaskin. “Your body was born to do this.” But most of all she gives me strength to walk through that ring of fire. She gives me freedom.

We love our midwives because they are the first to touch our true love.

We love our midwives because they give us life, and life again. They save us from ourselves. We love our midwives because they keep our true loves from growing up motherless children. We love our midwives because of their laughter when they proudly exclaim “Holy crap!” As the scale tips to nearly ten pounds.

We love our midwives because they leave us tucked in a warm house. They drive home and later admit to rolling like children on the carpeted floor, letting tears streak their own cheeks with the release of energy and emotion.

They sleep. They dream. And they begin again.
Another day, another birth story.

This is why we love our midwives.