I always knew that I wanted to be a mother. And my son is as wonderful as he is challenging. He has changed my life: my relationships, my marriage, my home, my body, even my perception of who I am. Now that he's three and I'm "pushing 40" as my dear friend likes to say, I am at a crossroads. I always wanted a child, but do I want children?
My husband and I have discussed, arranged, made lists, made promises, made threats regarding whether to have a second child. It's such an illogical decision, I've found, because there seem to be more logical reasons not to have another: our meager finances, small house, dwindling time and energy, out-of-town families and limited community resources (babysitters and all that). Most of the time, I feel stretched to my limit caring for just one child. And when I think back on my miserable first trimester, the difficult birth, the rough (to put it mildly) infancy with an up-all-day-and-all-night, fussy baby...ugh, do I really want to do it all again?
And that's when I start to think of doing it differently next time. Next time, I probably won't have to give birth five days after evacuating my home and watching my city sink underwater after a major hurricane. Next time, I probably won't be learning to be a mother in a friend's home, uncertain about the status of my own. Next time, I'll have so much more going for me: experience, confidence, my own bed. I know nothing is guaranteed, but this new person will have a family to join: a brother, parents, a home. And I'll be different, because I already am. I know better how to set limits before mine have been crossed. I know better how to ask for what I need. I know better how to enjoy the tiny moments of peace, of love, of divine joy.
That's what it's really about, isn't it? Discovering my capacity for joy, heartache, love, and frustration, feeling my boundaries stretching to encompass more emotion and experience than I thought possible. How flexible am I? Can I be big enough to embrace this hovering spirit I feel calling to me? Someone is there, waiting to call me mama, and sometimes I think all I have to do is say Yes, come to me, I'm ready.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Love Letter for the Big Apple
Do you know that Johnny Cash song? I've been everywhere, man, I've been everywhere: Milwaukee, Chicago, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, New Orleans, London, Paris, Barcelona, Prague, Berlin. I've moved across the country twice--from the Midwest to the West coast, then to the Deep South--and after college, I backpacked around Europe with money my Grandma left me when she died (enough for a plane ticket and a Eurorail pass). But I had never been to the one place I'd dreamed of visiting since I was a kid: New York City. That is, until last November.
Yes, I finally chomped into the Big Apple, and I loved it as much as I thought it would. It was fall, so the weather was crisp (but not too cold yet) and I was staying at the YMCA right by Central Park, where the leaves were sprinkling like snowflakes, the trees a riot of fall color. Ohhhh, THIS is why they write songs about this place! The hustle and bustle was exciting; having lived in San Francisco, crowded sidewalks and busy downtown streets didn't bother me too much--the trick is to go with the flow (don't stop and gawk, even if that IS the Empire State Building above you!).
I walked from one end of the city to the other, making sure to visit my own personal list of hotspots as well as a few in the guidebooks. My pilgrimmage to Macy's was in honor of Auntie Mame and Miracle on 34th Street, and I waited forever to get to the top of the Empire State just like in An Affair to Remember. Sigh. I love old movies.
I was in town primarily for a Poets' Forum, three days of readings, presentations, parties, and walking tours given by and focusing on poets. Many of the illuminaries of my field were on the dais:
Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Sharon Olds, Lyn Hejinian...and it was really cool to hear them read and discuss their craft. But I ended up feeling closer to the original New York poet than any of them: good ol' Walt Whitman.
My walking tour of Whitman's New York was fascinating not only in imagining the streets and bars and hospitals as he once saw them, but to hear his words about the scenes we viewed while standing on the very street corners he wrote about. One hundred and fifty years later, I was feeling Uncle Walt's presence rising from the cobblestones, his voice echoing above and through the cabdrivers' honking. I pictured him sashaying from one cafe to another in his women's pants, his long beard flowing, as he eyed the handsome young men--and, perhaps, the curious young women, too. Dare I insert myself into that scene?
In many of his poems, Whitman speaks directly to the reader, acknowledging that time and distance might separate him from me--yet also aware that through the words, we are connected, beyond time and space. Standing on his corner in his city, I listened to New York, so changed and yet so the same.
Yes, I finally chomped into the Big Apple, and I loved it as much as I thought it would. It was fall, so the weather was crisp (but not too cold yet) and I was staying at the YMCA right by Central Park, where the leaves were sprinkling like snowflakes, the trees a riot of fall color. Ohhhh, THIS is why they write songs about this place! The hustle and bustle was exciting; having lived in San Francisco, crowded sidewalks and busy downtown streets didn't bother me too much--the trick is to go with the flow (don't stop and gawk, even if that IS the Empire State Building above you!).
I walked from one end of the city to the other, making sure to visit my own personal list of hotspots as well as a few in the guidebooks. My pilgrimmage to Macy's was in honor of Auntie Mame and Miracle on 34th Street, and I waited forever to get to the top of the Empire State just like in An Affair to Remember. Sigh. I love old movies.
I was in town primarily for a Poets' Forum, three days of readings, presentations, parties, and walking tours given by and focusing on poets. Many of the illuminaries of my field were on the dais:
Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Sharon Olds, Lyn Hejinian...and it was really cool to hear them read and discuss their craft. But I ended up feeling closer to the original New York poet than any of them: good ol' Walt Whitman.
My walking tour of Whitman's New York was fascinating not only in imagining the streets and bars and hospitals as he once saw them, but to hear his words about the scenes we viewed while standing on the very street corners he wrote about. One hundred and fifty years later, I was feeling Uncle Walt's presence rising from the cobblestones, his voice echoing above and through the cabdrivers' honking. I pictured him sashaying from one cafe to another in his women's pants, his long beard flowing, as he eyed the handsome young men--and, perhaps, the curious young women, too. Dare I insert myself into that scene?
In many of his poems, Whitman speaks directly to the reader, acknowledging that time and distance might separate him from me--yet also aware that through the words, we are connected, beyond time and space. Standing on his corner in his city, I listened to New York, so changed and yet so the same.
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