“THIS IS LOVE: TO FLY TOWARD A SECRET SKY, TO CAUSE A HUNDRED VEILS TO FALL EACH MOMENT. FIRST TO LET GO OF LIFE. FINALLY, TO TAKE A STEP WITHOUT FEET.” – RUMI
Rumi is always right.
We’ve been home alone, my husband and I, since Sunday night. The house is dead. No noise or cries or giggles. Cartoons are off and we’ve proudly managed to watch a full length movie about WWII without falling asleep. Edgar, my sweet French bulldog pup, looks up at me with kind eyes. How did I ever live before having kids?
(First to let go of life.)
In the kitchen on the night of Tommy’s funeral. Looking right, his high chair and looking left a clean empty milk bottle. I kneeled down to get his formula. I grab it. I stop. I have done this tens of thousands of times before. Chin to my chest, bouncing on my knees, closing my eyes- oh yeah, I don’t need to do that anymore.
{Hundred more veils falling.}
In our backyard, I look at Isaiah biking. Look how tall! and big ! and smart! and daredevil you are!!!! Didn’t I just cradle you both in my arms?
{Hundred more veils falling.}
Motherhood opened me up to my complexity and identity. My priorities instantly shifted. A crash course in alertness, tenderness, multitasking and forgetting me. But in the forgetting is remembering. And then somehow I give myself room for growth and the dignity to discover what I think and what I want. I give more. I care more. I cannot know or be or do everything: I can only listen, notice and feel my way into my child. I’ve improvised with them and created a nest from day one and it’s been quiet and loud. Difficult and delightful.
(this is love)
Rumi is always right.
{to fly towards a secret sky}
And so i fly! I go for a manicure. I sleep in. I kiss my husband good night.
I take one more step without feet.