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.

IslandWood, 13 years later

Cold, stiff, purple and yellow bruise, grips the edge of my knuckles on my left hand

Mystery and pause, why do I start to worry so quickly?

We were at IslandWood yesterday.

A place that still holds the magic I remember from 13 years ago.

Where I used to be a participant and an explorer,

Yesterday I was mostly an observer.

Teagan, age 3, was like a mystic guide, traipsing and sashaying through the forest

With the wisdom and zen of a seasoned inhabitant

She led us down the Marsh Trail, though it was technically forbidden

And we all followed, curious.

This is a trail I had forgotten about, and perhaps could hold more magic than any other in the all of the property.

She found the edge of the marsh, and knelt there softly, pensively

And we asked what are you doing?

And she said I just want two minutes. Then turned back to face the water, gazing.

Rajan, kindergartner, tentatively joined her, slowly remembering what it was to feel joy in the forest,

Though he experienced the toddler years in a different climate, and still acted like a foreigner here in the temperate rainforest of the northwest.

Then he played too, noticed how the trees ringing the marsh all leaned toward the water at various angles.

He tiptoed out on one of them and hovered over the water, playing with a log floating near the edge, stepping on and off in a little dance.

Teagan found a tree dotted with tiny white fungus on one side, and without me knowing, meticulously collected them, then clutched them in her hand as we continued our walk.

We could have wandered there forever.

As we rounded the corner heading back to the east to join the Spine Trail, I felt my inner knowing saying, this is when you just stop thinking and be happy you are here.

When in a place like this, it’s easy to tell yourself, be happy here, be here now.


They asked a few times, is there a rock monster here?

The rock monster is a feature of a trail we frequented in San Jose, at Sanborn County Park.

I was busy hustling us down the trail and dodging the rain and looking at the map, and absently said, I don’t know, maybe there is one here too?

But I am now noticing how interesting that is. That they remember such a salient feature from a park we haven’t been to in at least a year. That forest had towering trees too, and was a rare place of verdant ferns and moss in the dry Bay Area biome. So they were connecting some thoughts, signs, and feelings there had in this place with a place from our former home, in a far away place.

The thing I want to know now was, what were those thoughts, signs, and feelings? What little magic did they feel that brought them right back to the rock monster?

He was a big triangular boulder, made of a soft rock like sandstone, that had two hollowed out holes for eyes, and one big hole for a mouth. We would find small rocks to feed to him and pop them in his mouth. It was easy to feel like he was a real, living, benign monster, a friend in the forest that only children can really make sense of.

We won’t be able to see rock monster again for some time now.

But will they keep that feeling alive? Will new rock monsters spring up for them in new places we come to know?

The gift I will acknowledge I gave them back at Sanborn Park, was a familiarity with a place in nature that they could feel at home to wonder, pretend, and play in.

Which places will we come to feel at home in here?

It will have to be a place we go to plenty of times.

That is what coming home to me is, then. Finding our magical spots, and visiting them to dip our toes in those mysteries.


The bruise then, is a mark left by something out there, perhaps, telling me don’t forget to come back again.

Did I hit my hand on something, did a strange bug bite me?

I don’t remember any such sensation!

What kind of critter could cause it?

I thought I was welcome enough there to be greeted warmly by those wild residents.

Maybe I’ll return to the mantra, and try not to analyze.

Be happy you are here. Be happy you were there.

Be happy you can return there again.