Tension and Release

Artwork crafted by Laurel Mundy Illustration

I move slowly during the daytime hours, after the kids have left for school.

A wisdom in my cells tells me to take it slow while I can, because the afternoons in springtime, with its long luxurious daylight and, lately, warm setting sun, are a blur. Some days it's not exactly restful- more of a bracing myself before and onslaught of snack making, clothes sifting, bag packing, and shouting to various kids to take care of their bathroom needs and get their shoes on. I hold on for dear life to the quiet hours before it becomes madness and emotions and mess.

Luckily, today there is a more restorative kind of slowness. Perhaps its my protesting quad muscles, sore from the infamous Bulgarian split squats we did in bootcamp yesterday, forcing me to listen to my body. And so I actually hear my bones craving a pause to stop and take stock, to dive deep in search of thoughts, desires, worries, and to answer the question: what plan will best retrieve the life force I need for the day? How do I activate my most contented, joyful, enthusiastic, responsive energies today? 

Meandering, I gathered my coffee, planner, journal, and social media device, then ended up volunteering to count Vaux's swifts flying into a chimney at a local elementary school, part of a Audubon Society citizen science effort. The idea of sitting and counting angular little birds at sunset suddenly filled me with a thrill, and to me it's obvious why. 

It's all about the desire, the intoxicating pull, toward wanting to be part of something bigger than myself (however small). This idea sparks energy in me that I sometimes wonder is dead and gone forever, as a full-time mom of three. But that old feeling of "I can't wait to get out there" resurged with the same force it did when I was phenology monitoring in Mt. Auburn cemetery, herring counting on my Mystic Lake dam, and crunching through snow learning about winter plant identification with the wise and seasoned naturalist Boot Boutwell. The energy of community effort connected to place, nature, and science has always carried me far when I come up empty on self motivating. I need people. I need partners. I need teachers. I need belonging.

The other energizing force I'm consuming today is absorbed passively through art: watching Andor again, I appreciate the delicate, restrained, brilliant use of pacing as a narrative device. This show gives a masterclass in building suspense, forcing the audience to endure slow buildup at the risk of testing our patience and faith in the artist's vision. But then comes the release, made so sweet due to the way it was earned-- a close acquaintance with the struggles of the characters-- but also because of the brand it stays so true to: revolution, rebellion, and overthrow of a colossal evil empire. Hmmm-- feeling even more poignant this year. This is going to be a fun watch. 

To list a few features that stirred me in my revolution bones: The beat of the Ferrix anvil gong at the beginning of the first episode of season 2. (After rewatching the last episode of season 1): Maarva's magnificent funeral speech, and edge in her voice as she growls "FIGHT the empire!" And the lines Cassian says to the nervous new rebel "stepping into the circle": "You're coming home to yourself. You're becoming more than your fear. Let that protect you." (See below for the full transcript of Maarva's speech.)

Perhaps my humble volunteer efforts to count Vaux's swifts migrating from Central and South America, stopping by Monroe, Washington, which happens to be one of the largest roosting sites in the country for this threatened species, won't topple an evil empire. But it WILL feel like doing something. Because when I really take in Maarva's words, where she says, "we have each other"...that's where I realize where things are going wrong. The disease plaguing this country isn't conservatism or liberalism, but loneliness and isolation. Exacerbated by the trauma of the pandemic, but on a trajectory well before that due to hyper-technologization of our social worlds, we have all lost touch with each other. We've forgotten how to be there for each other, talk to each other, and even notice that we need each other. 

It's heartbreaking. But it's also fixable. We just need to go out and find our communities, the ones that make our hearts feel seen. For me, it's nerdy birding types. And that's just the start. 

Worthy Of The Stone

My name is Maarva Carrassi Andor. I’m honored to stand before you. I’m honored to be a Daughter of Ferrix, and honored to be worthy of the stone.

Strange, I… feel as if I can see it. I was six, I think, first time I touched a funerary stone. Heard our music, felt our history, holding my sisters hand as we walked all the way from Fountain Square. Where you stand now, I’ve been more times than I can remember.

I always wanted to be lifted. I was always eager, always waiting to be inspired. I remember every time it happened, every time the dead lifted me… with their truth. And now I’m dead, and I yearn to lift you. Not because i want to shine or even be remembered. It’s because I want you to go on. I want Ferric to continue. In my waning hours, that's what comforts me most.

But I fear for you. We’ve been sleeping. We’ve had each other, and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other and they left us alone. We kept the trade lane open, and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them, we kept their engine churning, and the moment they pulled away. we forgot them. *(SIGH)* Because we had each other. We had Ferrix.

But we were sleeping. I’ve been sleeping. And I’ve been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face. There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.

The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we asleep. It’s easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it’s true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it’s too late. But I’ll tell you this, if I could do it again, I’d wake up early and be fighting those bastards from the start! Fight the Empire!

Staying Awkward Brave and Kind

Now is the time to remind ourselves who we are.

Who we are doesn't change when the  imperfect democracy you were proud to be a part of is morphing into a nihilist dictatorial oligarchy.

We are still awkward, brave, and kind... and proud of it.

We do not have to become "harder."

Once, when I was the manager of a teen jobs program on an island in Boston Harbor, we were holding a feedback circle, giving each other positive and constructive criticism, including us staff managers.

When it was my turn, I faced all 22 of my employees, each taking turns giving their 26-year-old boss their thoughts on how I was doing my job. Yeesh, looking back, that was a brave undertaking. Teen after teen, and even my middle staff managers, had similar advice: you should be stricter with us (first of all, it is striking that they were asking for this, but that's a topic for another day). But the last teen to go was Shauntera (or Shaunee). With her megawatt smile that ceaselessly radiated kindness, she told me, "Don't change a thing. You are perfect just the way you are."

The wisdom of this 17-year-old has stuck with me now for 17 years. 

The following year, the majority opinion was still ringing in my ears, and I couldn't help but feel obligated to try being "stricter." I realized my mistake almost immediately. The strict me never worked, and never would work. 

The awkward brave and kind me is just me, plain and simple. It's how I live my truth, how I authentically contribute to society, how I make the room brighter when I'm in it.

Lately, I'm feeling less alone in noticing this cacophonous, rabid nationwide shift to "hardness", distrust, fear, greed, power-grabbing, blatant lying, and bullying-- though others are at varying degrees of loss to explain it.

Take Prentis Hemphill, who observes that the shift is "not just anti-democratic, it's anti-vulnerability, anti-relationship, collective responsibility, connection, all of that." She notices the prevailing philosophy is "that we have to harden ourselves, we have to not feel for each other, and erase history and its ramifications." Her stab at why this is happening? Because "we are emotionally and relationally underdeveloped for the times we are in."

Dr. Shefali Tsabary explains the phenomenon as the scourge of the "raging unchecked ego on steroids on full display. It's always destroyed our world and it's destroying our world now" and that it begins in our homes with how we raise our children. When children are taught that power must be stolen from and wielded over others instead of cultivating it from within, and that to connect and form relationships with others they must be brainwashed, belittled, and controlled instead of forming meaningful caring connections, we get MAGA. 

And in the New York Times' latest reflection on "How COVID Remade America", the first major theme is the shift towards "hyperindividualism", observing that, "isolated, we saw one another first as threats and then as something less than real." Their doomsday view is that, "over the long sweep of liberal history, our circle of empathy had expanded steadily, until it encompassed nearly the whole globe; now it snapped back, as tight as a rubber band."

These realities, or anti-realities, leave me disoriented and exasperated. But it remains true that I will live my life wholeheartedly believing in community care, in radical honesty, in the gray area of nuance. Echoing Dr. Shefali, my personal power and internal knowing is unshaken. I am still awake to the vital need for truth, beauty, connection, collective responsibility, and vulnerability in the world. I will not let the madness of the mob harden me.

Radical Recognition

Something I discovered recently:

And it makes little sense.

Making to-do lists makes me not do them.

However,

When I make an "I've done" list

completely ignoring the things yet to do

I suddenly start doing things

With far more joy and far less resistance.

I'm three days in to this experiment, so I'm sure it will hit some bumps

But so far, it feels like I've unlocked something.

I started wondering why this works

And for me, it fills a very big void:

The huge imbalance between number of things I accomplish in a day 

and the percentage of those things that are recognized by anyone.

So when I make my "Did Well" lists

I'm hearing some feedback back from the void

The things I'm putting out in the universe aren't going nowhere

They at least are being mirrored back to me

Showing me what I'm capable of

And recording these unremarkable days for posterity

Despite there not being an apparent reason to remark on them.

And there was another discovery that occurred to me this morning. Side question: is this sudden proliferation of revelations thanks to my new practice of writing reflectively? More on that later...

Anyway, the second realization was, when you really really suck at something, you will someday appreciate that moment, because it set a new baseline. For example, about a year ago, I went to one of my bootcamp classes, the first one back from our Christmas travel whirlwind, fighting a cold, and after a night of very little sleep. I was bloated, hadn't exercised in weeks, and coughing. The workout was one of the hardest ones we've ever done, including 50 burpees in a circuit of other high intensity exercises, in 4-5 rounds. Granted, if I did that particularly workout today, it would still be horrible. But back then, I have never felt more miserable. I could barely do 7 burpees in a row, I went to the bathroom multiple times convinced I was about to throw up, and I overall felt disappointed in myself for not taking good enough care of myself over the holidays, getting enough sleep, etc., to come back and do a decent workout. 

But. 

That became a new baseline. That was a low, and since then, I've been working my way up. Today I did a similar (albeit burpee-free) workout, and I blazed through it. My coach called, "Proud of you!" on my way out. I felt strong, confident, and had fun with it. And I couldn't help but remember when I was almost in tears trying to do this a year ago. Thank you, past me, for setting that baseline, so now I can see that I've definitely gotten somewhere. These days don't just get sucked into a vacuum and disappear, wiping a clean slate each morning. We build on each day, and climb to new heights. We make something of this life. We are here for something.

I have been feeling a bit down and self conscious about a family photo shoot we did recently (I always feel this way after looking at pictures of myself), and I started changing how I dress because of what I didn't like about my appearance. I've been wearing these nursing tanks for convenience for the past 21 months of breastfeeding. I tell myself, yeah they are not flattering, but there's no point in spending more money on better nursing tanks because I'm almost done with breastfeeding (3 months to go). However, I did spend money on some decent nursing bras that are a bit more flattering, with better posture support, that I've gotten out of the habit of wearing. (Partly because the hooks are all getting bent in the wash, ugh). But when I wear that bra, and a nursing tee over, and tuck it in, you can actually see that I have a shape, instead of being a mushy blob. Those family pictures did not show me in my best light, I feel OK admitting. But instead of stewing about it, resenting and commiserating about it, and denying it, I'll look at it as a baseline. I would like to look better in photos and feel more confidence in my look, so going forward I try something new. I find something I like better. I look forward to the next opportunity to see a picture of me that more accurately reflects how I feel about myself.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I've come up with new ways to motivate myself and deal with adversity all of a sudden. I think this new practice of radical recognition was the key.

I'm imagining that many people can "slay" without a list of their boring achievements each day, and I can't help but wonder how they do it. They have a photographic memory that keeps those things in the back of their mind, feeding their ego and self-esteem? They don't even need to hold onto these facts but rather it becomes an amorphous fuel that efficiently fuels their confidence? Maybe there is a spectrum, or even a progression, showing that this confidence-fueling machine becomes muscle memory after I master the baby steps. 

But maybe not. Maybe this is just how my brain works, and I'm at the point in my life that it makes more sense to figure out what works for my brain and then change my environment or approach to be more conducive to my specific needs. The "why" perhaps is irrelevant, even. This is what seems to work right now, so I can just do it for forever if necessary.

It also has to be said, that this is what I need especially now, while doing the heavily invisibilized tasks involved in being a full-time parent. Instead of fighting incessantly against the headwinds of doubt and insecurity, I'm making my work visible, even if only visible to me. I'm externalizing the weight of this work. When I write it down, I set it down, and move on.

As much as it would be nice to have others see my work the way I want them to, only I will ever full see it the way I want. So that's what I will do. Counting on others to recognize you in the exact way you want will always set you up for failure, disappointment, and a breakdown in the motivation chain. I need to have a self-sufficient confidence-fuel source, an infinite well of belief that mistakes, screw-ups, and bad days are essential pieces in the work to keep building up from the baselines. The baselines, at the end of the day, are what make everything possible.

On the Cusp

That feeling of being on the cusp

It's better than a drug

The Tower of Terror before the 100ft drop

The red maple leaf just before it releases its branch

The plates of hot food on their way to your table

That is Monday.

How many times I've wondered what this day will be like

Thinking it's too far in the future it might as well be impossible

It's when my second child starts Kindergarten

And joins the world of her peers 

This cohort of exuberant youth

She will be a part of this generation forever, 

They will go though everything together

As I feel I went through things my whole school life

With everyone and with no one

United in experiencing the times at a certain age, confusion

With our own ways of making sense of it all.

Her brother is 3 years her senior

He is firmly implanted in the Alpha generation

I just dropped him off at a birthday party, arm in a cast

Boys dripping with sprinkler water tearing through the house

Barely a grownup in sight

And I just said, you good? Ok see you in a bit!

As his friend whipped out a sharpie and started signing his cast

That is the amount of laissez faire I feel with this kid

Because he has navigated so much already

And we have adequately gauged each others' levels of trust

We have a steady state to operate from, and I wonder if this is how it is from now on

Whereas middle daughter, we are taking on challenges anew

Seemingly every day

And I am holding on for dear life and so is she

Never truly knowing what we're capable of.

But now, I feel it

I feel her readiness

I see her steadiness

And how freaking strong she is. 

We sat in a quiet house after her first soccer game

(Which was one of those white knuckle experiences)

And poured thousands of beads into a sorting box

We were mostly silent, checking with each other like colleagues here and there

And I realized how adult it all felt.

This is who she is when I'm not also chasing a toddler

Who clouds my brain's ability to truly see her and her maturity

(While also keeping us joyful, silly, and full of wonder)

She made a friend at soccer, and I'm thrilled that she understands

That making friends is a fairly straightforward process, for now

And I see her trusting her gut on what friendships feel right.

So when Monday comes, 

I will be trembling

But also trusting

Her heart will lead her true

And I'll catch her when it feels hard.

The other side of the trembling leaf

Is me:

Completely blind to what awaits on the other side of Monday

When it is all of a sudden just me and baby boy

He only just now blooming into personhood

I continue to defer the day when I become just me, solo, in my daily life

I continue to have a darling attached

But it's a new kind of motherhood now

Back to the beginning when it was just me and a baby

But now I have 8 years of experience in the bag

And I perhaps have more finely tuned instincts on how to make our days

And what I want out of the deal too.

I see us out there, in the community, 

Working out

Volunteering

Making friends in the forest

Trying baby soccer

And just ready to see the world anew again

Through his sweet 18 month-old eyes

And what if I even found him a babysitter

A substitute me that he trusts

To make it that much easier to get away when I need

To get that oxygen I need

At the coffee shop, on the hiking trail, with that friend

With my inner friend

Who has been missing me desperately.

It all comes down to the thrill, the promise, of routine

After a summer of maelstrom

Of travelling as a family of 5 to India

Of testing out summer camps and long warm nights at the baseball field

Of camping for the first time with other moms and trying out big kid life

Of spontaneously crossing the border to Vancouver for one night

Of supporting my girl in her nature camp as practice for Kindergarten

Of achieving a dream and hiking in Rainier wildflower heaven with the kids

Of flying again to visit family in two states 

And finally returning to my soul's favorite place on earth

Popponnessett Beach, Cape Cod

The beach path, the white bridge, the snapping turtle

The soft warm sand, the horseshoe crabs, the constant waves

The ice cream shop, the marketplace band, the mini golf

The crush of the white shells underfoot

The outdoor shower, the back deck grill

The warmth of family, the good taste of all food

The laughter of cousins who pick right back up every time

It in fact is the easiest place to let my soul rest

So now that I'm back

I can remember that soul clearly

And figure out, I hope, what it needs next

What parts of the new routine can be reserved for her

Can celebrate her

challenge her

nourish her

While still keeping her connection with these little beings strong

Not missing a moment, a smile, a tear, a worry, that I'm able to witness.

We are a little universe now, 

A solar system maybe

Or at very least an asteroid field.

We vibrate with these times

We record the movements of the stars

We expand, we contract

We grow.

Some recent delights

A quick hello mostly prompted by my delight in this "color pop" camas pic. First time seen in person, Burke Museum native plant garden, yesterday. 

When I wonder which moments or days in life I've felt the happiest, there is a common theme: it's when I'm experiencing wonder authentically; and when I'm with my kids, it's experiencing wonder together. 

We were kids in a candy store at the museum. The best way to describe it is that it's the closest one can come to being inside of a book. Walking around animal specimens from many angles, touching a sauropod femur, watching a video about the scientists who found a t.rex skull, trying on camouflage and checking your reflection in various habitats, traversing a geologic timeline, and eating delicious frybread tacos. 

We were scouting a birthday party space, and we stumbled upon a core family memory. 

And while I'm in this random space of sharing delights, here are two more flower finds for the record books this year. Solomon's seal (my first, I think) and a spectacular purple trillium. 

Harvest Moon

The heat of summer has passed, but the frenzy has not disappeared. It has been redirected into new channels, and these changes have been clunky and tiresome and mired in glue. We are not gracefully shifting, as the trees seem to do so flawlessly. We are lurching, stopping, resting, but continue getting up every day and trying again.

Though when I really stop to take it all in, I take hope in the uncontrollable. The seasons that come both predictably and unpredictably. This year the rains came early and quashed any fears of a hot dry fall with long suffering smoky air. But those maple trees, sure enough, starting tinging orange at the top almost to the day on the first of September. 

Thank Spirit that I have no control over these things. Thank you God for conducting the symphonies of life, earth, energy. 

Down here in my feet, I have a tendency to feel alone, to take it all onto my back, and just focus on being as noiseless and presentable as I can while I strain under the weight of everything, maybe even asking if I can't take on more. This burden, of course, is all psychological, not physical. It seems the more I impress upon my brain, the less I attribute to my muscles. And those muscles are just begging for more work. This embodiment trend seems to have meat to it: a shift of the burden from the head down into the body seems like relief, if one can actually do it. So let's see what real stuff I've been holding in here, and feel them down to my toes instead of just circulating and rehashing their meanings over and over in my thoughts. 

The annals of this September included pitfalls and boobytraps like:

-Teagan taking scissors to her hair for the first time, and taking enough off the top of her head to fashion herself a semi mullet.

-The whole family coming down with covid the first week of school.

-The hardships of adjusting Teagan to yet another new school, but with renewed hope that there IS a place for her here, with glimmers that she WILL eventually come out of her shell little by little if only we can stay healthy and consistent and steadfast through her anxieties and tears. 

-The guilt I feel that I'm neglecting my oldest as he seems to be the most adjusted of the 3 kids, starting his 3rd grade at the same school, with established friends, sports, and routines. But I see his emotions starting to flare, his tiredness wearing him down, and my mind scrambles to figure out how to meet him where he's at, to reignite and nurture his spark 

-The creep of overwhelm that comes from the pace of life dialed up too fast. The suitcases from our Boston trip are still unpacked. I went straight from summer family vaca mode to back to school shopping mode, no time to reset and recover (then, said covid storm ensued). Every room in the house has become a play zone and Legos are seemingly permanently embedded in the carpet. 

-The rain has showed up early this year, and it's that semi-annual scramble to find seasonal appropriate clothing that fits bodies that have grown a whole size in 3 months. So that means having to hunt through the laundry piles every morning to find one of only 3 pairs of pants that barely fit Rajan every morning, and I HATE doing that. Who likes having to wade through physical piles of your failed tasks every day just to cover your body in order to do any basic thing and feel a semblance of humanness/sanity? 

But. 

-Teagan has just recently started wanting to go to school, despite some whimpers and complaints in the morning, so she can be with her friends and give them gifts. My girl, making friends 💜🩷💙🩵💚. If that is the only good thing to come of this fall, I'd be happy enough. 

-Today is the full moon, and I woke up to 3 emails telling me it's the full moon, and suddenly I felt synced up to other people in this universe for once. The full moon today is unusually peaceful, so far. I attempted my first mommy baby yoga session down in Wallingford, amongst mostly first-time mommas with 1-2 month olds. I hung out with my acrobatic and loudly babbling 6 month old, feeling a bit out of place, but compared to anywhere else, I told myself, I am more in place here than most anywhere. After class, we walked in the sunshine past the park, up some small hills, past pleasingly spunky high schoolers just out of school early this jubilant fall Friday, and into a bakery /coffeeshop where an older woman tickled and gazed at Jayan's chubby soft feet, to which he replied with flashes of dimples and gurgles of thumb. I texted with my husband from a sunny but cool patio table, dappled with leftover raindrops, and sent a photo of my sandwich, the "happy garden." Then we strolled back to the car until he dropped off to sleep, napping all the way home and then some, so that I read a book in a camp chair in the driveway, sun and wind and clouds smiling down on us. 

It is almost the end of September, and I guess my lesson has been, it takes a month, at least, to digest a big change. School doesn't start and immediately a new life clicks into place. School starts while summer is still crashing into the station, memory cars accordianing into each other. Don't stop for a breath, just put your head down and change course. 

But here at the Harvest Moon, we are meant to begin reaping what we've sown. As the pace of the steam engine slows, we stretch out those cars along the track, decompress. Now breathe into the spaces. Is this what they mean by integration? Once there is breath in the spaces, does that hold the memories and lessons in place, processing them, unloading their cargo, and sorting them toward their destinations? It's fascinating how it is only rest and breath that can complete the supply chain of lifeblood, vitality, joy, purpose.

Harvest Moon day started out peaceful, but later, the lunacy and paranoia energies reared their heads. I was suddenly stripped of patience after one negative parenting moment. Then irritable and rebellious when I couldn't decide on how to put supper on the table, or agree on a show to watch with hubby. That's Ok. It's the energy, the environment, and it's sometimes unavoidable. But after that, remember to rest, breathe, integrate. Weave your positive intentions back together, like sweetgrass. Remember the moon. 

Growing Crystals

When I feel unsure as a mother, teacher, person, I often come back to science.

Weird, for someone who never outright pursued science academically (though I tried, as an undergrad, and switched when my confidence wavered).

But not so weird when I look at my patterns. I always come back to it.

When I chose to leave publishing to pursue teaching environmental science on Bainbridge Island. Then continued my second year of grad school at UW and loved my Community Forest Ecology class most of anything I learned that year. 

When I started water quality testing programs for kids on Spectacle Island as a park ranger, and when I helped adapt Thompson Island Outward Bound's curriculum to Boston Public Schools science standards with hands-on, place-based experiential activities. 

And when I decided to become classroom-certified in middle school science through Boston Teacher Residency, and undertook the hardest year of my professional and mental health life. We started that year off by reading "Science Matters" by Robert Hazen, and I could take that message and basically apply it to my life.

But when I became a 7th grade lead teacher at Christa McAuliffe Expeditionary Learning charter middle school in Framingham, I often reminded myself and my students that science is wonderful, but it is even better when complemented with artistic pursuit and appreciation. Incorporating creativity into the engineering design process, and to the creation of products that exhibit their learning, enhances the life of curiosity, experimentation, and observation. 

I left the teaching world when I was faced with obstacles of my own mental health, yet again, and my ambitions to start a family. I went into a wholly unknown world, grappling with a different way of being that had nothing to do with achievement and intelligence, and everything to do with nurturing the heart, soul, and body. This was very scary new ground for me.

Mixed with the arrival of my son, my husband and I threw ourselves into a phase of cross-country moves for his work, and I brought along Rajan as my buddy, my partner in conquering the world one West Coast city at a time. This tumultuous time was a backdrop for my new personal mountain to climb: becoming a mother and reckoning my old identity with this abrupt and very new and different one. 

I found a part-time job as a curriculum developer and educator at an nature preserve that married these two worlds quite well, so it stemmed the uncertainty for a bit. But nothing was ever quite the same when I had my whole world waiting for me at home while I went out and taught other people's children during the day.

Before long it was time for another move: we made the decision to move north to the Bay Area mere weeks before we discovered we were expecting our second child. With both new big events looming, we stopped thinking and went into emergency planning mode. I planned to finish out my job for the summer while Santosh moved northward ahead of us. A plan that makes sense on paper but sucks in implementation. We had one chance to apartment hunt over July 4th break, and that pressure damn near broke me, hormonal, first trimester crazed, and on our last day, panicking in the car demanding we make a decision right then. 

It seemed like that was the beginning of a cascade of difficult events for a small family. Eventually moving to said small apartment (but huge and fancy by Bay Area standards), coping with pregnancy and a high energy 2.5yo boy while hubby figures out the new job, all while frantically looking for a permanent home before new baby girl arrives. 

Teagan was born in January, with white pear blossoms blooming outside our first story window (spring occurs in January in San Jose, apparently). We had one year of positive growth, beautiful weather, and me getting high on learning how to be a mother of two in the best way I knew how: getting outside as much as possible. Teagan became the constantly carried baby, and had plenty of fresh air her whole first year, tagging along with brother on every schoolday at nature preschool, playgroup, soccer class, grocery trip-- the works. 

Then, at the one year mark, the pandemic began. We thrived comparatively because of our neighborhood bubble of little friends, but there were harrowing times when I could see wildfires in the mountains from our window and I felt the anxiety gripping my heart to the point of chest pain. During this time, another move was planned, the final one (so far), to Seattle. While waiting for case counts and restrictions to fall, we had no idea when this move would actually happen, only that it would. A permanent-seeming limbo.

I'll fast forward through the predictable stress and anxiety (which was perhaps also covid-affected) of moving states, staying in an apartment for 6 months while house hunting during a very very expensive and competitive time to buy, and the multitudes of schools I tried for both kids as we went (not to mention the supports for me in health, social life, and fitness that I cycled through), to us being here now. We've been in our home, a big home, with a yard, in a suburb, for one year now. Things are starting to feel settled. 

And here we are again, expecting a baby, our third, a boy, arriving in 10 short weeks. I have both kids in a school that seems stable and predictable enough to think (knock on wood) maybe we won't have too many other crazy changes coming at us as we get ready for a whole new person to join our family.

But we're also at the stage where, how do we keep life interesting?

How do we avoid phoning it in, letting family life feel old and stale?

The interesting challenge we're met with because of our history, is that we've never really lived anywhere long enough for this to happen. We've never stayed put enough to try things, see how they turn out, and then tinker with it till it's approaching a "swimming" ideal. 

We've never planted seeds and stayed with them long enough to see them bear fruit. 

We've never watched crystals grow long enough to see their beautiful full expression.

And here we are just starting to see those crystals form.

In Rajan's folder yesterday, he had a stapled homemade "Book About Whales" that he created in his free time at school. He said his friend Keller made one about machines. But they weren't assigned it as a project, it was just something he wanted to do, "because I like whales," he said.

I cannot hide the fact that my inner science nerd is just beaming about this creation. It made me think of that time my brother made a joke in his speech at my wedding that it was no surprise that the girl who liked to "breach like a whale" in our swimming pool went on the be a science teacher. Now her first-grader is making books about whales, with one fact and accompanying illustration per page, such as "Whales are mammals," "Whales take big breaths," "Whales eat plankton," and "Blue whales are the biggest mammal," and my heart is doing somersaults of glee. Like, I really want to publish this book and share it with the world.

The kids and I did a crystal experiment the day before yesterday, with a kit given to Rajan by Santosh's parents' church, which we attended on Christmas Day in Chicago. I had never done this before, so my inner science little kid was right with them in my curiosity. We read what crystals are, colored in cardboard trees, and poured a mixture over top of the tree and in a basin below it. Then we kept it still on the counter and watched the crystals grow and turn color over the next 12 hours. 

The result was aesthetically pleasing, funny to the touch (like foam), and very gratifying (time wise). Then it was quickly destroyed with pleasure and tossed in the trash, but not without photographs taken to prove our accomplishment.

These are things we've been doing more of since we decided to cut back on screen time. I had been slacking off the month or so before Christmas as pregnancy dominated my bandwidth and travel and gift preparations took priority.

Yesterday we did basketball drills in the driveway as a family at 8p.m. at night, before that we played chess for the first time in awhile, though my memory is the one that has suffered, not Rajan's. We read his new "Level L" book, "The Greedy Python" by Eric Carle, and he triumphantly sounded out the word "astonishing" which was an appropriate word for that moment. 

Some of these new things lately are helping me to locate a familiar part of myself, that science-curious soul, that holistic educator, that investigative journalist that lives deep down inside me. That person that has been there since I was a rookie girl scout planting beachgrass in the freezing rain with my mom and a bunch of strangers. That girl on the dock at a lake in Maine with the ponytail braid and relaxed, stress-free smile, who my dad saw in a photo and told me, you haven't changed a bit. That weirdo who like to leap out of the water and splash back down like a whale to the giggles of my siblings. That middle schooler who IM'd a marine biologist on AOL to interview her about her job for a school career exploration project. That writer who penned an autobiography from an imagined me at age 85 who lived in Australia, wrote children's books, and beat breast cancer. 

When you become a mother, your tendrils of self, especially the most indefinable parts, become buried. At first. But maybe they are reseeding themselves. They are taking safe harbor while I build brand new parts of myself. The parts I never learned how to grow: humility, acceptance of failure, a giving of myself to others like I have never known, a way to become not just proficient at the hard things in life, but the basic things: like keeping a home clean, organizing a lifetime of material stuff, figuring out what relationships to keep, nurture, or revive. When the dust settles, maybe those old seeds will take root again.

In the Haze

 

Well, OK.

Here is my brain dump.

Clearing away the fog.

In the midst of the haze.

Smoke, really.

The haze of the summer

It was thick, hot, nausea

It was frenetic activity

It was family and travel

It was impermanence everywhere

It was a herculean epic

It was not restful.

But we did it, we did summer. 

It was another first.

The haze of September

I thought it would be the month of ease

But ease after maelstrom 

Alas is not how things work

It was a month of recovery

Then sickness and more recovery

And the smoke started then.

The haze of October, it is only 20 days in

Is more and more and more smoke

So while our bodies have healed

The sickness has dulled

And my stage of pregnancy is now an

"energetic" one

The days are lingering on

As we wait for the smoke to clear

Tomorrow the rain arrives.

Oh my goodness the rain arrives.

It is much too simple to write those words

Without recognizing their monumental meaning

The rain arrives,

And I will leave

On Tammy's coattails up into the mountains

The witch coven is convening

And searching for larchglow

And I will try my best to be a singular person

Not solely the mother who is tension-tethered to the needs of two child-humans and one fetus.

Of course I will not stop being that to them

Even while away

Especially to the one inside me

But for someone who needs solitude to recharge, renew, rise

Motherhood is an act of hard fought survival

Of confusion and intangible lostness

Planted right down in the dirt of beautiful, astounding growth, 

The awareness that now I know how to touch what life is itself

And even be one of those who whisper it to fullness and light

Those conflicting realities are both so true

They tear one's heart to shreds

Even while the heart insists that it holds

the power to rebuild itself, over and over again

Here in this haze, we hunker indoors

We avoid the choking pollutants 

That hover for days in our atmosphere

The fires to our east are being allowed to burn out

To wash the land in renewal

While also welcoming in climate change

Our new reality of heat, drought, fire, flood

 

Indoors, I am a soul who stagnates

I let my legs cramp and atrophy

I tend toward distraction rather than experience

But the kids go on living, as long as I go on feeding them

As I always do, every two hours

And as they persist, their brightness evolves, unattended, spontaneous

Their colored beach landscapes and wax-stick cats

Their excitement for holidays and pumpkins and ghosts

Their constant bathroom accidents

The neverstopping laundry machine

The evergrowing mountain of clothes-to-fold

The eversmelling pee couch 

And the undending exasperations of pottytraining

I get two steps forward, then fall five steps back

As I finally figure out, after a more than a year of starts and stops, how to drop my toddler off at school

She still screams

But I have finally built that layer of skin 

That allows me to just turn and walk away

And that is what helps her to move on

Who knew?

But then here we are, this week,

And the smoke makes outdoor school

The most terrible idea

I, who finally had it all figured out

Am now avoiding my toddler at all costs

Hurriedly handing her whatever screen she asks for

And pretending I didn't just hear her shout

Uh oh, I accidentally peepee'd! 

On the couch we were reserving for non-pee sitting

It's hard to rustle up the urge to care

When another puddle of pee will show up elsewhere in 24 hours.

I finally open my computer

And tell myself, at least typing makes me feel legitimate

After the attempt at sitting with a planner, notebook, and memoir to read while blasting a Danish netflix show as "background noise", while helping a sidled-up toddler with her Wild Kratts game, failed so curiously to allow me to tap into any creative flow.

Yes, at least open the computer and let your fingers fly

When you type you don't have the opportunity to judge your handwriting and hand fatigue while still trying to have a full and satisfying deep thought.

When you type you can save that bunch of text in a place that has a greater chance of being kept track of

And you can stick pictures next to the text to make it look pretty

And actually, there are nonironic reasons why this helps as well:

I stitch together these images from my haphazard week and finally see 

The jewels of meaning hidden within and between them

The rhythm of a life in the time that I'm in

The small-child time, the middle of my parenting-life identity confusion time, the climate change/pandemic-induced panic times that fade to everyday humdrum because that is the only was to keep living in such times.

While I've been paying so much attention to the non-ness of everything--

I'm not organizing the playroom right now

I'm not an engaged crafty active going-for-walks and hanging out at playground and organizing playdate parent right now

I'm not working the routine that I've finally set up so that I can find myself again (coffee shop, library, book club, oracle card, journal and blog, create and breathe and stretch and emanate peace, creativity, activism)

I'm not finally setting up that budget, or purging my PTSD-infused cases and cases of pre-pregnancy + various stages of expanding body parenting clothes

--The yes-ness of things go unnoticed:

I am texting with friends who help my soul recenter

I did buy a witch hat on Amazon to wear on our coven larch hiking adventure

I am going to a brunch to celebrate a beautiful friend's birthday

I did set a boundary with another friend who only wants to meet on her terms

I am giving myself grace yet still showing up semi-regularly to my Mommastrong workouts and virtual gives-me-life community

I did sign up for a Zumba for Moms+Kids class and attended my first one

And felt those deep joyful chills I get when I feel the revolutionary vibes of moms existing in spaces with their children but FOR themselves

I am not cooking plant-based meals (though I really miss this)

I am finding healthy food when I can, and allowing those cravings to drive me

And ordering takeout when needed

I am getting by

I eat Costco-made chili, but buy green onions to chop and sprinkle on top

I make a vatful of quinoa, and put in the barest of ingredients: cucumber, tomato, spinach, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper

I eat cereal again shamelessly

It is all working out

Those things that make me anxious 

Which Sara Bareilles says points to things your heart desires

They will return again

I will go to coffee shops again

I will cook again

I will walk hard and far and feel the sweat on my back

I know where to go now

I know how to find the hills that allow me to ascend.

We are rapidly arriving at where we began last year in this house

Our one-year anniversary of settled living

-of the start of settled living

-the potential of settled living

-of being slightly more settled from here on out.

And my hills will be waiting for me.

Words of wisdom

At the start of this hike, we read the sign together. 

That's funny, he said. 

Then on our way back down from lower falls

As we turned the corner, crossed a bridge,

He mused, the river is really nice.

I said, yes! it is nice and peaceful

Yeah, he said. And calm.

I replied, I like how rivers show us how to be peaceful and calm. 

I guess nature really IS our teacher, he said.

--

Still sitting with the beauty, magic, and power of this day. 

Still processing how a being so young has this ability to connect with the world in ways I don't even know.

Crossroads

Dear World,

Kristen here. 

Sitting at a crossroads.

I've arrived at a place I've been pining for. 

Yet now I'm stalled, unsure of where to go next.

Rajan is blazing through Kindergarten. He started at one school in September, then we moved in November to a different town, 45min away. Then he started another school in January, and has just muscled his way through despite a swirl of change and challenge. He soldiers on, unruffled, yet saving his tenderest self for us, his safe place. I'm so thankful for that. I am so honored and proud to be his safe place.

Teagan has burst onto the world stage, it seems. A pandemic baby, who persevered through big brother jealousy, lockdowns, falls, and moves under the shelter of her small little circle, she is out there now, being a sassy three-year-old with a supersized imagination at her little forest preschool, which is new and growing right alongside her. She's becoming a force of stamina and energy, a baby tornado in its earliest stage, just getting ready to pick up speed. 

Santosh and I are where we usually are, barely holding onto sanity as tasks loom, as life marches forward unrelentingly. We try as much as possible to stop and recognize how far we've come. We try to give ourselves permission to move slowly because things take time to take root and grow. 

I have a desk now, and I've started to stake claim by piling it high with books I want to read. I make time to read, and then wish I've figured out way to go for more walks. I run and do yoga, and wish I had more time to clean and cook. I cook, but then I feel frustrated that the laundry piles are sitting dormant. I tackle the laundry pile, but stare wistfully out the window and wish I spent more time outside, noticing the signs of spring, thinking about how to get started planting a garden. 

I take my family to the garden center on the weekend, and we dream and dream and dream. We stand there surveying the scene, the kids chasing each other up and down each row of the expansive nursery, and we say to ourselves, we're here now! We did it! And this is stuff that we can actually do for the first time ever. We lose a whole hectic Sunday the following weekend fighting the crowds at Costco, checking various stores, then finally hauling all the pieces to a new playground set home, setting them into the garage with a heavy thump. 

Seeds, all of them. Seeds that make you feel crazy, because they give you these waxing and waning feelings of hope and fear. I am excited to try this new thing! But what if it doesn't work out? And oh my gosh this brought so much work onto my plate now, can I really handle this? 

And then I start wishing I could be a student again, and take a Master Naturalist course. Or at least find a way to volunteer on habitat restoration projects, learning, helping, and connecting all at the same time. I google the local conservation district, they have a request form to fill out for homeowners who want help restoring their yards to native habitat. I feverishly fill it out and hit send. But now I wait: do they even respond to these things?

You know, I think the intuition does get exhausted sometimes. I value it, it's my greatest power: my knowing. But your knowing has to be responsible for a lot. It has to know when is time to sow, and when is time to wait. When is time to work, and when is time to rest. And then it deals with the meta-mind questioning it, am I doing this right? Is my internal compass working properly? How can I trust myself with anything?

Here is where I wonder if there was some kind of flow that I could rely on, a community of voices that helps mark the seasons and direct the energy that I could just float in. That would be nice. Give my overworked intuition a break. Just allow myself to follow a crowd for once, instead of bushwacking my path through head-high weeds. 

It doesn't help to get envious, or angry, or hopeless that the flow is not just there, picking me up and carrying me when even I don't know I need it. Those kinds of reactions make me feel even heavier. I guess for now I mark it down as a footnote. An, oh yeah, and if I ever seen a nice current going by my window in the direction I want to go, might as well hitch a ride. 

And I might as well memorize right now, what even is the direction of the flow I want to take? I need to recite it carefully so I can keep my eyes peeled for that chance if it ever comes. That place, that flow, that energy I want is one that fills me up with a happy jitter, I think I am starting to feel it right now as I think of it. A buzz that resembles the one after going running or doing yoga, after drinking 2 glasses of wine and blasting some music in the kitchen, after a brisk walk outside on a cloudy day, when you notice new birdsongs and bursting buds, after clicking share on a poem you wrote and seeing people respond to it. OK so that's what it feels like. Be on alert and grab hold of the bandwagon when it gets here. 

Perhaps I can practice the buzz, so I get better at detecting it. When my body is devoid of buzz, drop everything I'm doing and go find it. This is important stuff. I can't forget the buzz, I can't lose my way in this forest. Keep it alive and burning. 

Purpose is a scary word. I hate it sometimes, because it seems to imply that you need to choose one thing. I have many options in front of me right now, and what I most want to do is choose them all. Or at least, keep all the roads open until I get better at knowing where to go. 

This is the tension of the crossroads. But I believe I'm brave enough to stay here this time, instead of running the first way the wind blows as I have in the past. I'll stay still and listen for a bit. I'll listen until I know.