the weekend
i've always loved the act of traveling - of moving through space - whether it has been riding my scooter or sitting on a trans-atlantic flight or slowly exploring an underwater cave in the middle of a jungle. this weekend i took a 4 hour road trip to cooper, texas in our old truck. i was by myself on the dry texas highway and i loved every minute of it. i mostly listened to country tunes on the radio and cried, belting out those country songs from my childhood at the top of my pregnant lungs. man, i love doing that. it's been so long since i had the chance.
these were my first few days AWAY. when we realized that i've been with koruna every day for 2 years and that we're about to start this whole process over again, ian sent me to visit my mama, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle in cooper (population 2,000ish). before i meet this one who'll come from me, i decided to spend a little more time with those who've come before me.
i went to slow down. i went to be taken care of. i went to hear my granddad's stories and to smell my granny's kitchen. i went to stay up late talking to my mama. i got everything i wanted and more. i visited the cooper museum that my granddad loves so dearly. i got to shop at my aunt and uncle's antique store. i got to look through old family photos. and i got to see a matinee with my granny, who hasn't seen a movie since driving miss daisy. (and i thought i didn't get to see many movies these days...)
and i missed koruna and ian. it was fun to miss them for a couple of days.
family portrait june 2011
shana came over the other day and took our latest family portrait. it's so nice to have a friend you can still play with. thanks, shana.
expansive love
i've long had a fascination with matryoshka, but those beautiful russian nesting dolls took on a greater meaning for me while i was pregnant with my daughter, koruna. i saw them as a symbol of the unbroken maternal lineage of which i am a part - a woman coming from a woman coming from a woman.
i find it miraculous that baby girls are born into this world with all the eggs that they will have in their lifetime - that while koruna was nesting inside of me, all of her little eggs were nesting inside of her. i, in fact, held the eggs of my grandchildren.
i am also knocked out to think that the egg-that-was-to-become-me was once nesting inside my maternal grandmother when she carried my mama. thinking about that strengthens my emotional connection to all the women who've come before me and all the women who are still to come.
it struck me the other day that having a son means something entirely different since his children will not nest inside of him. it means that there is perhaps a little girl out there - or maybe she's not here yet - that could one day carry my grandchildren. who is this little girl? where does she live? who is bathing her and kissing her goodnight and teaching her how to love?
i know that since my sisters and i were conceived, my mama has prayed for the little boys growing up somewhere that we would someday grow to love.
she has prayed for ian for my entire lifetime. what a beautiful gift.
ian and i have been married for 3 years this week, which seems like such a short time since i've loved him for over 8. i like to think that my mama's love, the love of a stranger, was somehow helpful to ian throughout his life - that maybe it even guided him in my direction.
and so i open up my heart and send my love to my daughter's and my son's future loves, to their friends, their enemies, their teachers.
loving strangers is such a different practice in loving....
fragile
"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked." the above passage by kahlil gibran keeps running through my mind. i'm emotionally fragile these days, sometimes surprising myself with tears - happy and sad tears, but it often takes me a while to really figure out which. as my outward appearance changes, my inner landscape shifts to the point that, at moments, i am almost unrecognizable to myself. children change you from the moment they are conceived. koruna has altered me heart and soul and i can barely believe i get to do this all again with another human being. this may be the last time i carry a child inside of me. i'm trying to savor all of it - the ups and downs - knowing that this is the only time in all my son's life that i get him to myself.
i decided to go back and read gibran's passage on children and thought i'd share it:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
i'm feeling fragile today.
life IS fragile. health is fragile. today i'm just glad to be here. breathing. crying. loving.