spirals + fractals

The grief of mothering is unavoidable. It was written into my contract from the beginning but I couldn't yet read the writing when I first signed on.

I’m not sure I have made much of a peep about Maple being home for the summer. In part because that is her preference. Her life is her own and very much not mine to write about. It is my ongoing desire to respect that. And yet, I untangle most of my thoughts and feelings by writing them down in an out-loud sort of a way, and well, not doing that has a mixed result. I am a little tangled up inside this season, it seems.

She has been home for almost a month. A month! College summer breaks are long, and I am so thankful for that. I wish all school breaks could be so long. And not this interminable, endless slog of a school year. Eider isn’t out until the 20th of June, which means he only has a 2-month summer break. Rude.

In many ways, it is wonderful to have her home. All my babies, and therefore all of my cells, are here under our roof, breathing the same air, in arm's reach for hugs and all manner of reassurance. Mostly my own. And yet, she has very much outgrown who she was when she lived here. The first week or two was an adjustment for all of us, except for maybe Freddy. She misses her school and her friends, and her life there.

And for real, what a wonderful problem to have! As much as it hurts that she is somewhat sad to be here, I am really ok with it (I am I am I swear I swear) because her life is unfolding for her and it is excellent. She is happy! She is inspired! She is full of purpose and in a space where dreaming big is completely unobstructed and unfettered. Like, we are fucking winning with how this is playing out, are we not!?

The grief of mothering is unavoidable. It was written into my contract from the beginning but I couldn't yet read the writing when I first signed on. My problem, not hers. Not by any measure.

Essentially, I am beginning to get a sense that parenting grown children, parenting adults, is the ultimate practice of both/and. All the same parts of me that woke up in early parenting are alive and well, even as they are empty-handed. I remember, and a big part of me still lives inside of, the ferocity of my spectrum of roles as the caregiver of small humans who depended on me for every single aspect of their survival: physical, mental, and emotional. And yet, I also have the opportunity to embrace this gentle way I get to love them with open arms, understanding, humility, and the forgiveness required in adult familial love.

Recently, Freddy has been spending some time with an imaginary friend named Ghostie. I had never heard of Ghostie before and thought perhaps he had emerged per the influence and suggestion of one of the Worlds Beyond Magic Woods. Kitty Karate finds herself, for a time, in a world populated by the forgotten imaginary friends of HooMans. The world where they go to live out the rest of their existence once their child has grown up and out of them. Think Bing Bong in the Memory Dump from Inside Out.

I always perk up (and quietly freak out) any time an imaginary friend pops up. I read Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate. That cat didn’t exactly show up because things were going smoothly for Jackson and his family. Eider had an imaginary friend who emerged around the time Chris worked and lived out in Colorado for a five-month stretch one winter while the rest of us were back in Wisconsin. His name was Teeny-Oski, and I am pretty sure he wasn’t born because little Eider Bear was doing just fine without his papa around.

There has been a lot of stress around here lately and with that in mind I am not completely taken by surprise at Ghostie’s arrival. It makes sense that our littlest sponge might be soaking up some of mom and dad’s cortisol content. We are fine, the big picture is good, but the world is nevertheless burning and feeling altogether fucked right now and that in conjunction with some prolonged job insecurity (and subsequent healthcare insecurity which is never something any of us should feel casual about especially when a member of the family has cancer and is literally alive because of a live saving medication that costs over a quarter of a million dollars a year) is not exactly a walk in the part.

There are more than a few aspects of living inside a system that only functions well for the few, that will create some unavoidable wear and tear. We are feeling that. And also repeatedly heartbroken over this utter absence of human decency that seems to be the prevalent code of conduct both at home and abroad. It is brutal work being an empath. And yet we must. Keep going. When we are unable to feel in any and every moment the profound grief of a world on fire and the needless suffering of millions, we will know we have lost completely, and the jig is well and truly up.

I was snuggling Freddy to bed the other night (have you noticed how much transpires during this time with him that is worth noting?), and I must have fallen asleep and said something because he shook me awake and asked me what I said. Of course, I had no idea. But he snuggled into me and grabbed my hand and I asked him if he needed some bigger cuddles or for me to hold him more tightly. He said that he was a little worried about having a nightmare. I asked if he had started to have one and he said no. It is not unusual for him to speak or cry or even yell out in the middle of the night. I think his dream life is very active. For better and for worse. He said that he hadn’t but that he was a little worried about it and then he did this amazing thing which was to say out loud: I just need to remind myself that I am safe.

He found this tool and made it his own and for the most part it is perfectly true. He is completely safe. Well and protected. Guarded from any intrusion or external upset. As every single child that lives and breathes has a right to be. No matter where they live or what the story of their people is. This is the most basic truth of our collective existence and somehow it is something that has become politicized and distorted and convoluted into meaningless abstractions and disconnection, for which the collateral is the lives of our babies. OUR babies. All of them. Everywhere.

This is where my mind is mostly these days. In the tragedy of our time. In the distance between my own precious, perfectly imperfect growing children and the ones a world away, invisibly losing everything. I have been reading Omar El Akkad’s brilliant and brutal book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. It is not an easy read, but honestly, I don’t really think we always deserve an easy read. If you can pick it up, you should. I don’t really love to stir this shit up in these spaces these days, but we are living in a profoundly broken world and there isn’t much else worth stirring.

I believe I began this whole reflection in the mood of both/and, and that is where I can probably leave it, too. It is not the easy path. Holding two opposing truths in equal measure and balanced worth. But it is more reflective of nature’s own complexities. Simple until viewed up close, where she reveals her spirals and fractals and contradictions and rule exceptions. Maybe the code for growing up well, as individuals and also as a culture, lives inside the center of our ability and capacity to hold the both/and tension. To let the pain and the joy co-mingle so that neither is ever negated by virtue of the other. It is uncomfortable at best. But if discomfort is the price for endeavoring to be a decent person, then I guess that is a very small price to pay.

Onward friends. We are doing it.