thanks giving

If I didn’t continue to believe that practice is central to all things, there would be nothing left to say. No stories left to tell.

Maple arrived home last night for the Holiday week. We haven’t seen her since we returned her to school three months ago. I tell myself that I am used to her absence and that I am fine with this new configuration of family life, but last night as I lay in bed and listened to the quiet purr of her voice comingled with her brother’s as they quietly coversed into the wee hours, I felt a part of myself arrive back inside my body that has been so long gone that the absense had moved beyond my perception. I am not right when she is gone. I am not myself in my wholeness. I am partial, incomplete; a redacted universe. Unknown, and estranged from myself.

But we are so adaptive. We harden and heal over the gaping holes. Crusting up and making do. And thank god, honestly. There is no world otherwise. No tomorrow. Not if the bodies that conceive and carry and feed and nourish and eventually coax independence and self-efficacy, could not withstand the wound.

These past months have been the hardest of my life. I think that is true. I am glad she has not been here to witness the difficulty. She is often my strongest critic, and in these months, I have been harsh enough for all of us. I have wanted to throw in the towel more times than I can count. Or lie down and give up and let the changing tides carry me out. It has been hard to hold onto the vision of a life in which all of the parts fit back together again and the pressure abates enough for us to make our way into tomorrow with steps near enough that our legs can cover the distance. I have felt very connected these past months to the hopelessness of the American experience. The joblessness. The depleted resources. The non-existent safety net. The lack of access to a clear pathway forward into something that works.

We have been duct-taping our life together and maybe it is good that she hasn’t had to witness it. She was spared. Which makes one of us, and that is certainly better than none of us. These months have been hardest, from what I can tell, on Eider and it is only now, as we begin to see the horizon, that I can let my mouth begin to shape the words of what it was. That or, had she been here to keep her magic dripping into my veins, we might have never dove so far down. She would have made me speak on the nights I was mute. She might have made me feel in moments when the numbness was all the self-preservation I had left to manage.

Who knows. And, it’s not as bad as all that. We are through, I believe. Having dodged nearly all of the bullets with only a few near nicks already on their way to healing up. Relatively unscathed, other than the looming pit of debt we had to dig out back. We are whole. We are together. We can still laugh straight from the ground up through our bellies and out our crowns. Cuz they are indeed crowns and the win is still the win. Us with us. Onward into the magic of the year’s end, where we sparkle in the dark.

Maple and I chatted late into the night. As we always do. Ahhh, to have my daughter here to talk and talk and talk with me. One of the biggest gifts of my life and the biggest yes I have to remember to always utter, even as my eyelids droop and my face begins to slough off. Until I had to clock out, and Eider could clock in and pick up my mantle. But before the collapse, she spoke to me of the steadiness of self-love and how much opening that allows for the tolerance and love of others. How much strength comes from owning when we fall short, giving grace both out and in, and endeavoring each day to strive toward the best version of ourselves. Every day. Again. And again.

If I didn’t continue to believe that practice is central to all things, there would be nothing left to say. No stories left to tell. Of the continued effort. The pain, as well as the pleasure, of having to remember, over and over again, that the choice is mine to make.

Last week, when I was back in Wisconsin to visit Whitney and her brood, I took myself to a 90-minute 26+2 class. The first one since I had visited in March. It was so hard. It was so hot. I was at the very edge of myself, holding on only to the familiarity of the postures. I was doing all the things short of panicking. Pushing up against wall after wall inside of my body, inside of my mind, until all that was left to do to get through was to go all of the way quiet, be as still as possible, and trust that each breath led me closer to the end and cooler, lighter air. Inside and out. It was perfect, you know? I am in no hurry to go again but it was so good for me to remember how strong my will can be. How much discomfort I withstand and still carry through. However wretched. However ugly. Still perfect and gorgeous and whole. Still a wonder.

Thank god for reminders. And I am having them all now. In all forms and all the time. In the return of my daughter, in the trust and confidence of my oldest son, in the land and wildness that holds Freddy and his friends when he is not here with us, in the rhythm of the cows as we move through a milking ritual that feels as old as time. In the way Chris continues to offer me his insight and understanding and love through every season and circle of this life within a life within a life that we still build side by side. His arm my arm, my hand his hand. One heart, containing many.

This is all. A forever beginning. We are so old now. And so very new.