It’s been a day. A good one, mind you. But short short short naps. Wailing, screaming, pillow-over-the-rail-of-the-crib tantrums & tears. At least 47 minutes of it, from when I started tracking the time. And this surprising rage welling up from somewhere deep inside me. Mind travels a million miles an hour over that talk that I must have immediately with his father, who, I think, should maybe even come and pick him up for the night. Because if OWL had a bed over there, if he napped OWL when he was supposed to nap and didn’t feed him to sleep and so on…. Well, my little prince would be sleeping soundly on his own. All bullshit, I know. At least 93% of it. Truth is, I was unable to maintain our boundaries around sleep. I chose comforting the achey mouth with 4 new teeth and molars pushing the pink gums to white and the runny nose. In my bed. Instead of letting him cry it out. Alone. In the dark. In the walk-in-closet-turned-bedroom with no window or heater (not that my heat is on either).
All struggle. Can’t get a word in edgewise. No calming. My requests for him to lay down so I can rub his quivering back unheard. Rage seeping up from top of my rib cage and the bottom of my lungs. And I look and see this glow in the dark skeleton, with an enormous head in proportion to its green glowing bones, throwing fits and weaving and stomping. Laugh and cry, hand over mouth. Another example of farce disguised as tragedy, although in my laughter I still feel the seething rage. That forever feeling saying I cannot handle these moments. The humor and anger holding the space, each looking at the other. Not competing, but not giving way either. Each holds its presence.
Meditate my way through the anger. Put on water to boil and steep the tea. Light evening blessing incense, thinking that the night could use any sort of offering. And I sit. The rage emerges so strong it burns and radiates from my chest. Like throwing a rock through a window. But only for a moment, and it quickly dissolves into a sadness. A deep sobbing sadness that reaches back through the years, the decades even, and finds me as a frightened child. An unworthy daughter. An untrustworthy friend. A never-to-be artist. An unloveable lover. An average student. A failed wife. A struggling single mama. This moment so alive and far-reaching.
I desperately need to do my homework, which I’ve been trying to do all weekend. A last-minute drop opened my wait list space in a UW program – great news. But I missed the first class, and I have that wrong side of the bed feeling about that. Quite a task just getting the books that evening, hauling a sleepy OWL out in the cold in the big stroller after dinner. Next night he won’t sleep until I lay down with him, lights off, my book away. Mr. Short naps these past 3 days. No time no time no time.
In sitting, this is what I see. This program is the first thing I am doing for me, just me, in a very long time. It’s new. Going through with it, I am committing to the discipline of learning, to working on my work. Honing my craft that means so much to me I spent years ignoring it out of fear. Not just first thought best thought not good enough stop trying. I’m stepping out of my OWL bubble and in to a world where there are – imagine this – people. Which means opening myself up to who knows what. Our world treats the homeless shopping cart radio man the same way we treat our friends and the co-op employees we see everyday. OWL embraces each leaf and rock and tree stump and utility vault cover as spectacular. He babbles and I endlessly explain the world. The difference between trees and bushes. Why we don’t run in the street. He makes his own version of signs for meat, butterfly, cracker, cookie, and juice. I reinforce with praise, and make the sign properly but without correcting him. It is so sweet, so humbling, so tender a place to inhabit. But in my recent glimpses of the so-called real world, I experienced such hostility. Degrading chatter disguised as humor. Possessive body language slamming the doors of connection. And now I see my task ahead. To carry out the simplicity of knocking letter magnets off the refrigerator. Maintain that openness. Hold the space for the tantrums and wonder. Remain awake.
Travels with OWL 