We are halfway through adventure moon here in watery, windswept New Zealand. According to my diary, and my instincts, and all the signs of the world, it is Spring's beginning. According to the professionals, we still have weeks to go.
I was looking back through my old diary to find a reference and became fascinated by all that we were doing in August last year. We were healthier & happier than we have been this month; the weather was better; the boundaries were cleaner. These are some of the notes I found ...
reading Divine Beauty and Anam Cara and the Bible and feeling my soul being filled
finish Martin Luther essay
sewing circle: pin cushions
storms in the night turning to ice in the morning
walk to the supermarket, gather wildflowers for the school table
hang suns in the window
the poetry of Henry VIII
Forest & Bird Society meeting
library basement tour
And here are some notes from last August's weblog posts ...
The gentleness of morning rain.
Getting up early to bake for my family before they wake.
Warm muffins soaking up honey sauce.
A little dog waiting so patiently for her person to wake up.
Hugs with snuggly people in pyjamas.
Chatting about Mark Twain, the Reformation, the budgie.
Sitting in pools of sunlight and shadow to discuss our coming day.
Rose curling up with her latest Borrowers book.
Breaking
two combs in Rose's hair. There is too much of the stuff, she looks like a walking bush at the moment!
There has been so much
poignant beauty expressed in my circle lately. It seems to me I have not been reading words but listening to the breathing of mothers - the deliberately calm exhalations in a needful moment, the silent inward breath sanctified by love, the consciousness of air coming in, flowing out, perilous and painful as one contemplates what ultimately motherhood will bring.
I have a confession to make. I'm really not here with you these days. All the rain, you see, it has watered my creativity, opened all the roots inside, and I've finally been able to breathe - which means write - which means that what people see of me, smiling, walking around, doing things, is just the automated exterior. The inner me is wandering through other worlds and eavesdropping on young people enduring difficult situations. (2009 - I'm in exactly the same situation! Only the story is different and there has been a book written and sold inbetween!)
This morning Rose and I had tea together in a busy little cafe. I remember wishing for it when I was dreaming her into my life. I hope one day I will sit with her over a pot of tea, the two of us creased with years, with well-worn love ... perhaps even her own daughter at the table, learning to straighten her back and use her napkin, her tea getting less milky as the years go by ...
This afternoon I stood in one half of a building while the other half was evacuated due to a fire alarm, and everyone said, "don't worry, there's a fire wall," but all I wanted to do was pick up my child and get out of there. I was not alone. One or two other mothers had the same tight expressions and murmurings of, "what if it's not a fire but a bomb alert or a gas leak or ..." but we all waited, against our instincts, not wanting to do that terrible, terrifying thing: go against the crowd. Eventually we found out it was just a drill. I am glad I waited, after all. And I am glad I was prepared not to wait. If it hadn't been for the firemen walking through our group, unconcerned about us being there, I would have gone for certain.
Motherhood is such a physical thing to me. An active instinct, a voice of muscle and blood. When I was pregnant, my child filled a place that had been empty in me. When she was born, that place came to exist outside of me, and yet somehow still part of me. And now there is another, different space within which may one day be filled and fulfilled, God willing. I have always believed motherhood was my purpose.
But also it is a dreaming thing. A thing outside time. Ten years ago, I was imagining, remembering, the morning I had today, and today I was remembering a morning I will have in ten or twenty years' time.
2009 again. The funny thing is that, although it seems reading through those notes that life was so settled, we were infact on the verge of a complete and overwhelming change, although we did not know it. The same is true this month also - except we know it, feel it, hold our breaths and pray for it.
Something good, please!
