Learning about showing up
Posted on | September 22, 2006 | 13 Comments
A week of waking up, stumbling to the shower, making my way to the coffee pot and out the door just as the pale fog is lifting. I drive along the dirt road, the gravel slick with mud from the evening rain, and watch each how the leaves are turning. Now, at the end of the road all the maples are golden. I want to hold my breath. I want to slow things down enough to be able to drink up the beauty of the early morning light falling on the backs of grazing horses, and the mountain rising up tall and humble from the patchwork of trees like an old monk seeking alms. I want it to go slow enough to remember the breath of my sleeping son, eyelashes long and delicate in the first light of dawn.
I turn at the end of the road, onto the highway full of cars and make my way towards the brick school building where I work. I love it there, as much as I can. Some days my heart feels tightly wound like the pieces of an old pocket watch, and I tremble thinking of my little boy at home. Thinking of how my life now is like a grapefruit, torn up into sections of bittersweetness. But I’m growing used to the rhythm of this—getting up, leaving, doing what I am good at, and returning in late afternoon. Often I come home to my two guys sitting in the back yard in our two lounge chairs, side by side, sun splashed and handsome. I try to shift gears, feeling an internal lurch: longing for down-time, for solace, and then throwing myself full-throttle into the daily act of devotion that is raising a child and loving a husband. Some days DH and I reach out and touch, hold each other, drink each other up hungrily, and laugh. Other days, we have nothing to give, and in our emptiness we starve eachother. We bicker and get snappish. We hold on to little things, and forget how much we love.
But I am learning to be patient with time. Learning that things will come to fruition and fall into place if I give them space to do so. Like the morning poems I’ve been writing. I start with a handful of scraps, a few random lines still drenched in the half-consciousness of dreams. If I’m patient and I return to these lines later in the day, I find small gems I rarely expect. Things I’d never think of if I wrote later in the day, when impatience and busyness saturate my pores. So I’ll keep showing up next week. Showing up at the page. Showing up at the now of my life.
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13 Responses to “Learning about showing up”
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I am Christina Rosalie
Hello. I'm so happy you've stopped by!
I am a multimedia storyteller, digital strategist, idea starter, stalker of wonder, finder of four leaf clovers, MFA graduate student, and mama of boys. My first book,
will be published by SKIRT! Books in September, 2012.
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September 23rd, 2006 @ 12:15 am
Such power you reveal. I want you to know how grateful I am that you show all the parts of your relationship with DH. I come from teh knowledge that everythining should be perfect and if it isn’t there is something wrong. I am slow learning that the “perfection” is in the not being perfect.
Thank you.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 2:05 am
all i can think of to say is a quiet “me, too. me, too.”
September 23rd, 2006 @ 2:39 am
i’ve always been a stay at home mother, never worked outside the home, but i can tell you that at the end of the day, when my husband returns home from work, there are days where we have snap at each other. c’est normal, je pense–it’s normal, i think.
. . . also, as i read about how you love to teach, i think of the children that need you and the blessing you are and will be to them. we need more teachers like you who love doing what they do even if it tears them to leave their loved ones for a bit.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 5:48 am
I hear you on this rhythm thing. I am inspired by your poems and I am writing haiku. Thanks for all your writing and you lovely pictures. Each day you give us a precious gift.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 9:14 am
I loved loved loved these words:
Some days DH and I reach out and touch, hold each other, drink each other up hungrily, and laugh. Other days, we have nothing to give, and in our emptiness we starve eachother.
That is what I love about your blog really. Sometimes within a post I will find a sentence or two that just perfectly fits in the crevices of my mind. I love the conversational but poetic nature of your writing.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
As usual, I am in awe of your words and images.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
beautiful photos
to match beautiful words…
as always.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 6:13 pm
oh that last photo just takes my breath away– simply gorgeous.
September 23rd, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
Oh honey. That photos looks like Andrew Wyeth…just beautiful.
Sometimes I think writing is the only way to remember anything at all.
I also have those days where there’s never enough time, and I feel am trapped exactly where I don’t want to be – but I think it’s feeding me, with seeds of desire for something different. So I am thankful for that, that now what I want I am able to define.
September 24th, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
Those photos are haunting. The snapping and forgetting the love…happens to all of us. One of the real gems of aging is getting to a place where we can stop beating ourselves up when it happens…and instead focus on shortening the length of its stay.
September 24th, 2006 @ 3:25 pm
C, this entry is incredibly profound – beautiful and honest. Thank you for sharing your talents.
big love to all 3 of you from London.
ck
September 25th, 2006 @ 11:44 pm
I love the way your words encapsulate the intensity of a love so romantic, erotic and giving at the same time.
In a world full of broken down marriages, your blog emits a sense of hope, joy and a possibility of a loving and fulfilling marriage between two imperfect people.
Thank you for showing us how to love.
With much appreciation,
Caleb
Singapore
September 26th, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
Love that first photo… the rainbows glow.