Letting them shine

Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations.  Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit.  ~Robert Brault

I do not know about you, but I have a very busy mind.  Every moment of every day I am busy comparing myself against the expectation I have of myself at the moment.  It could be from a trivial thing like how clean is my kitchen.  To a thing of more consequence, like am I choosing the correct thing to be working or to be home with my children.

I know, as a student of awareness, that from time to time this squirrel cage of a mind gets "taken out" on my children.  I am just not one of those mothers with a calm and quiet demeanor at all times.  I snap at my kids on occasion, and then I listen to myself and think, "Is that really necessary?"  Today the two, playing together, mind you, were in the kitchen with my whole linen closet on the floor wrapping each other up in "beds" of my towels, sheets and pillow covers.  I am not sure what the game was intended to be, and they were having tremendous fun.  Of course, as cute as they were, all I could see was that they had unfolded all that tedious work of folding and sheets in particular are hard to fold.  I think I even said something to that effect.  And even as I was talking to them about it, part of me did not care at all. 

If only I played like they did all day long.  I really think that is what the gift of life is intended to be, a precious gift, full of wonder.  I am not saying this like a human being must or even could be happy all the time.  But there is something that children could teach us adults.  And as I folded up the laundry after they were asleep and the house was finally quiet, I ran through all the moments where my children fill me with awe.  They really live life in the flow of life.  They really are happy more moments than not.  They create whole worlds and love each other and all other kids, no matter the duration of the relationship.  Their openness, their zest, their volume and passion for every waking moment.  Really, my busy mind can keep on chattering, I am going to listen to them.

The park in the fleeting sun

As I am at the park today, my eagle eyes scan for my children as they weave in and out of a swarming maze of children and park equipment.  Just the job of tracking them is enough to wear me out.

From time to time, I draw close to where they are playing and catch the words between them. This glimpse into their imaginary world together causes a pang in my heart.  Maybe it is more like a catching of breath after a long run.  In those moments of preciousness that is like an ache, I can suddenly get what the kindly stranger in the hardware store was talking about as he whipped out a picture from his wallet of his "baby."  Now a young man smartly-dressed on his wedding day. 

My two children are both now preschool age.  Already.  In lightning speed time.  I remember just a few days ago rolling my eyes at my uncle waxing poetic about his two children.  He said he never imagined feeling love and adoration like how he feels.  He said he never imagined that would happen to him.  He said he never imagined loving every little new thing they learned.  He said he was so fascinated with his children.  At the time, in my artistic early twenties, I thought he spoke in cliches.  Now his two children, baby days long past, are ending their high school years and considering what college to go to.  And here I am, feeling no older myself than the day I listened to my uncle, as I follow around my two as well as I can as they two run in different directions. And here I am as my two babies do crazy acrobatics on the park equipment that makes my hair stand up like a dog under attack. 

My best friend just had a baby two weeks ago.  I hold her slice of perfection in my arms today, as the wind plays with my hair and cools my cheeks just the right amount.  The day is unusually sunny.  In the Northwest that means, it is sunny.  Everyone who could make it was out at the park.  In the fray my children meet up with school friends and make new friends as the parents hover around, buzzards on the perimeter.  We all bask in the sun of the moment.

Our kids migrate to the newly-designed splash park area, and my two head in fully dressed.  He drenches his jeans until they sag down baring the crevice of his bottom.  Her dress is plastered to her form as her feet pad eagerly and quickly after her big brother.  I have that stop-my-heart feeling again.

My son finds a little girl he goes to school with and is holding her hand, running under streams of water, round and round together.  They look like dancers in a waltz.  My daughter, my no-longer baby, holds the edges of her completely drenched pink dress like she is going to curtsey, and runs with insistence after the two older ones like she does not want to miss the dance.  A tiny bare-foot Cinderella with an upturned face.  As I stand there loving them, I am suddenly rocking on the porch-swing of my future, looking back at this moment.  Nostalgic for their little faces, their still-chubby hands, their zest for the adventure of life, the almost defiant way they play without stopping.  I stand there and wish there was some way to pause the reel of my life.  I stand there and wish to treasure this moment as they play in all seriousness.  Vital, soaked, circling together.

I am still holding my dear friend's little newborn.  I just know I am going to turn around and this tiny little child is going to be talking to me the world she imagines, about what she likes to explore.  I will not feel any older.  I can not explain the experience of how time flies, especially around the children and this season of life.  It is like being on a train that does not stop.  I look at her tiny eyes opening, the curve of a cheek beginning to fill in from being well-loved and much nursed.  I smell her like a flower as the kids squeal and splash.

Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends

(The title is a quote by Hafiz).

I have the priveledge of being with a lot of mothers every week.  Many mornings, I speak with other gentle mamas as I drop my boy off at preschool. I speak with mamas as we stand around the periphery of a park and watch our children play as if they have known each other forever.  I have been at their sides as they birthed their babies.  I have weekly dates with my best friends, who are now mamas too.  I also have the priveledge to teach mom and baby yoga once a week.  Through those classes, a special sort of community of mothers has formed.  Looking back, it's been more than four years, on and off through maternity breaks... that's a lot of mothers bringing their babies together, week after week.

Two things I notice.  One, is that, we really are of the same heart.  We all want to be great moms, and we worry that we are not.  We all adore our children - everything about our child tugs on our heart, the sighs at night, the special ways they move that we study since they are babies, each and every smile, especially the first ones.  We are surprised at how much our children fill our hearts.  It's so strong, it's surprising. 

We all are human, and as human beings we are daunted at moments by what we have taken on, the depth, width, breadth of the commitment of being a mother.  How many times have I heard a woman say, "No one told me it would be this challenging!  Why didn't they tell me about (fill in the blank - loss of sleep, crying and wailing, how scary it is the first time they get sick - all the parts of being a mother that are immense)?" 

I guess you could say that the moms I meet in my daily life are of the same culture.  And, if you start to talk to people, I imagine that we really truly all are of the same heart, worldwide.  We want everything for our children.  We want to do well for them.  We adore our children and want to treasure them in our arms as long as we can.  We would do anything so that they thrive.

When I was giving birth, especially for my first child, I really did, in the throes of that passionate and painful moment of transition, have a vision of all the mothers who had come before me, who had all done what I was doing.  Think about it, every single human being on the whole planet was carried inside of their mother.  That is the only way we have ever brought a human into the world.  The only way.

The other thing I observe is that we do better when we are together.

Maybe it is function of that same heart; we do better when all the parts of a heart, all the muscles are working as one.  Like the Hafiz quote, we are very old friends.  And without friends (this includes family) we would just not thrive as mothers.

One yoga student came up to me recently, with a brand new baby in her arms, just beaming.  I mean, radiant, in her rumpled tee-shirt and sleepy cheeks after savasanah.  This brightness was a marked difference than her expression in the same yoga glass for her first baby.  When I asked her about it she said she is just so taken care of by the mothers she knows now.  She has people bringing her meals, watching out for her big boy toddler, just coming by to talk.  They threw her a lovely blessing way or baby shower.  So she is just provided for, cared for and she has all the more energy to just enjoy the fleeting newborn baby days.  She did not have this same community tending to her with her first baby, and it was stressful. She kept talking about how grateful she is and how the experience of having a newborn (even with the added challenge of a toddler as well) is estatic.  It was so touching, lovely.  Is this not as it is meant to be?

It is the commitment of my heart that mothers have support and connection like this dear mother of two.  If a mother is supported so that she can relax and express her natural love for her children...is that not the world we would love to live in?  A world where our heart can beat as one.

My darlings as it flies by

By the time I am posting this photo, my son is older than this. 

I love the light in this image.  It captures the nostalgic nature of being a mother.  It is all written in the heart, but it seems like every once and a while, you look up and you actually see your children, alive and playing, and you really see them.  And, because the moments between actually seeing them, and the rest - where we are all scurrying around trying to do stuff, get things done, and running about like hamsters on a wheel - are so rare and precious, emphasizes this feeling of it flying by.

This pathway that Micah is riding on is the same pathway I played on when I was that same age.  This is a miracle of a sort, for me, as I was raised an international citizen - with a father in the American military and a mother from Colombia.  There are not many places that are familiar in my life.  The home where my parents now reside is the first home they ever purchased when I was a preschooler; they remodeled it after their children all flew the nest.

One Mother's Day, as I was speaking with my Mom and acknowledging her for what a wonderful job she did, I was suprised by what popped out of my mouth, "When I have children, I promise to always live close to you, as a gift to thank you for the kind of Mom you are."  And, now, look at us, as the time flies past, we living close by and enjoying weekly play-dates at Mama Fafa's house.

If I ever hear a common theme from people who have loved and raised their children, it is "enjoy them, because it goes so fast."  So, I am trusting the Moms and Dads who have gone before me on this one, and I am, as best as I humanly can, enjoying my darlings as it flies by.