The Spring and Its Newness

In welcoming spring, I welcome a new perspective. A new way of doing things. A new way of living. A new way of nurturing the lives I've created. I am also dutifully preparing myself, mind and body, for the births that I will be attending and the families I will be serving postpartum in the coming months. 

One of the ways I am going about doing all of the above is reading book after book after book, and almost completely ditching social media. In so doing I have found that I am learning more about birth and motherhood through reading books about nature, community and mindfulness than I have through reading books, articles and posts solely written for the purpose of teaching us how to give birth and raise children. 

Making these changes has enhanced my knowledge of self and my knowledge of our collective purpose as fellow humans. It has been made clear to me that we don't need to binge on research nearly as much as we need to simply be present and allow our natural instincts to guide us on our personal journeys. 

One of the best ways to practice staying present is to speak to others and get to know them better. Pay close attention. Allow yourself to feel what they felt. Learn from their stories and develop relationships that nurture your need to be generous. Make phone calls. Initiate time spent in each other's company. Be thoughtful about the conversations you have and treat no moment as less important than the others. Every moment is of importance. Every moment has a past, present and future state within your mind. Every moment is worthwhile.

I encourage you to read The Red Tent, Braiding Sweetgrass and A New Earth. I encourage you to read them while you take a break from social media. I encourage you to read them with a glass of wine. I encourage you to read them while your children watch a movie or play in the yard. I encourage you to read them while your baby sleeps at your breast. I encourage you to read them while you wait in waiting rooms and pump at your workplace. 

I encourage you.

I urge you to listen to the Free Birth Society podcast. I urge you to listen to this while you do the dishes. I urge you to listen to this while you fold the laundry. I urge you to listen to this while you drive in traffic. I urge you to listen to this while you organize the play area.

I urge you.

I urge you, and I send you love. I too feel the weight on our shoulders.

The current state of society is unfortunate for parents, especially mothers. We are expected to do as everyone else does and choose ways of caring for our children that have official names and definitions. We are always attempting to categorize the way we nurture, and we are always feeling that something is lacking - and that we are isolated in our weariness. But we are not.

Reading these books and listening to this podcast has reminded me that I am not alone. There are women within me, women that surround me, women that love me and women that guide me. There are women that struggle, women that inspire, women that succeed, women that fail and women that empower. And together as women we will save this world, just as soon as we recall where we come from, become our truest selves and reunite with nature and its incredible components. 

Read. Listen. Breathe. Smile. Be.

Slow

There was a summer storm three days ago. It was unexpected, but much enjoyed. The weather was warm and humid and the skies were gray, then blue, then gray again. The rain poured, then drizzled, then stopped, then poured and drizzled again. And it was beautiful.

The girls decided to sleep in until 9 a.m. that morning, but my phone, unfortunately, decided to NOT push the reminder for a breastfeeding class I was supposed to attend at 9:30 a.m. My joy at the extra two hours of sleep was quickly transformed into panic when I realized I was going to have to bust my slightly curvier mama butt to pump some milk and get both kids fed, dressed, packed up, out the door and delivered to my parents in a totally unreasonable amount of time. Moments before I decided to just skip pumping, take Isla with me to the class and walk out the door with my babies in their PJs, I messaged the instructor that I was running late. She replied with the most glorious words right as I buckled Lorelei into her car seat:

“Oh, I was actually going to cancel the class today!”

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I hate being late, like, really hate it, so it was a total blessing that the universe aligned in such a way. Though I need this class to fulfill a certification requirement, I’d much rather attend it on time and without my squishy, giggly baby serving as a major distraction (no offense, Isla, you just make it really hard to focus).

The next thing I knew, we were enjoying breakfast with my parents and discussing the weather in a very “not cliché” kind of way, because the weather was actually very weird and discussable. Another hot topic was the chrysalis my mom had transferred into a tiny greenhouse in her living room to protect it from the wind and birds outside. We had seen it first as a caterpillar in a “J” hang a day or two before. We examined it from a distance with Lorelei and watched The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Netflix in honor of the fact that it was beginning its butterfly transformation on my parents’ front porch. As we headed out to go home that night, Lorelei yelled, “Hey! Where’d the hungry caterpillar go??”

My mom and I took a look and were surprised to see that the caterpillar had transformed into a chrysalis when we weren’t looking. It was incredible to see, and we were all very excited. Lorelei was so excited, in fact, that she dragged her little red Adirondack chair over to the pot the chrysalis was attached to so she could sit and stare at it. Sadly, I had to tell her to get up out of the chair so that we could go home and hop in bed, but I reassured her that we would be able to watch the chrysalis for many days in the future.

“Goodbye chrysalis, goodbye ant, goodbye little yellow bugs, goodbye plant,” she said, before following me to the car. Goodbyes are never easy.

But, oh, how I wish we could have sat there as the sun set, and simply watched a transformation in progress without actually seeing the work going on behind the little green cylindrical wall of sorts. Nothing would have made me happier than to talk about caterpillars and butterflies with Lorelei while Isla listened and observed all the goings on. But a successful bedtime routine is all too valuable to me (Lorelei and Isla’s future moods depend on it), and it really was time to go.

On that weird-weather day a few days forward, Lorelei spent a lot of time watching caterpillars shed their skins and form their chrysalides on YouTube. But when it began to rain, we hurried outside to admire the huge raindrops that were glittering the sidewalk. Lorelei isn’t able to see rain all that often, seeing as how California has been in a serious drought for her entire life thus far, so being able to really experience a storm was very exciting for her. It was warm as we stood on the porch with my parents and watched the rain splatter. We guided Lorelei out onto the sidewalk so she could feel the heavy drops fall onto her skin, and we told her to stick her tongue out so she could drink some of the rain. After a little while, we went back inside and watched the rain stop and start again repeatedly out the window while kneeling on the couch. We eagerly listened to the thunder and told Lorelei that it was the sound that was made when the clouds bumped into each other. She liked the idea of that very much.

Eventually the rain slowed down enough that we could go out and play without getting soaked. As I looked around the front yard, I could literally feel the pace steadying. My mind was working more slowly, I didn’t feel as anxious as I usually do, I was able to play with Lorelei without feeling like I was forgetting to do something time sensitive, I didn’t feel like I was starving (a common side effect of nursing every few hours), Baby Isla was sleeping and the vibe in the air was a very, very peaceful one. Water drops on flower petals caught my eye, and I felt extremely inspired to photograph all of the beauty that I was surrounded by in a yard that I walk through hurriedly almost every day. The next half hour or so was very reflective and enjoyable for me. The air was still, Lorelei was beyond happy to be experiencing a different side of nature and I felt like my old, artistic self at the same time that I felt like a good mama. The combination of the two has never happened before, and this moment deserved to be remembered.

After Isla woke up and it was time to go back inside, I continued to see beauty in the most ordinary of places, like the contrast of the stormy skies against the curtains in my parents’ bedroom, Lorelei's attempt at wearing lipstick, or the colors shared by Isla’s blanket and onesie. I snapped away like crazy without ever leaving the moment. It was unreal and amazing and gratifying to know that I had nowhere else to be and was allowed to simply be myself, and actually enjoy it fully.

As the day came to an end and it was nearing the time to go home and help my girls go to sleep for the night, my mom and I both commented that the day in its entirety was actually really good. It never felt stressful, and everything that had happened that morning worked out for the best. We both love the rain, and I’m sure the change in weather was a much-needed change for our souls. I know that, for me, I was able to see my surroundings in a new light, and this ability allowed me to simply slow down and enjoy all of the mundane and ordinary parts of life that I never actually appreciate.

I’m thankful for the many wonderful and beautiful moments of that day.

And, I really miss the rain.