The Twig and the Anchor
Today was the first day of school. Not my children's first day of school ever but the first day of school for my two 4th graders and my 1st grader. The significance of this year is it is the first day of all my kids having a full day schedule at school. What does that mean for me? Seven hours a day to myself. That is a BIG deal to a mother who has been at home raising kids for nine years. BIG. Today is a big deal to me. I've emphasizes four words just in this paragraph alone to convey what a big deal this is.
I would be lying if I said I haven't been anticipating this day for a very long time. My past nine years have been about surviving. I am by nature independent. My mother always used to say that I raised myself. I like to do things on my own and alone. I have a great uncle who lived most of his adult life as a hermit and I have to believe I inherited some of that recluse gene. Being alone has never bothered me. I welcome it. It's not that I'm not friendly. I like people. I just like them when I can handle them. What can I say, I'm an introvert?
With that being my natural temperament you may well imagine what an adjustment it was for me when I delivered two highly anticipated but very dependent twin boys. An adjustment still in the making.
The constant and rigorous demand of two babies seemed to shatter me. I didn't know which way was up those first months and when I did get my bearings it further shocked me to learn what this new life would demand of me: constant care with very little respite. I was thrilled to have my babies yet the new world of motherhood was not a comfortable one for me. My personality seemed exactly the opposite of what was needed to be a good mom.
I learned I needed to hold on and keep my head up if I was to survive this. If I didn't, it wasn't just my life I was messing up. It certainly wasn't about me anymore.
I've spent the last nine years changing diapers, wiping poop off walls, holding toddlers down so they wouldn't hurt themselves during a tantrum. I've been battling bedtimes and arranging pick ups, making lunches and wiping faces. I've helped in classrooms and fought over homework and read bedtime stories. All this and more, all beautiful and important in a stunningly small yet essential way. And all with only a few hours of alone time to recharge. Now all my kids are in school all day I am left with ample time alone and I need to talk about it.
After I dropped my kids off this morning I drove to a nearby river trail that cuts through the canyon I live in. At the park where the trailhead starts the air was fresh and crisp from early morning rain and the sky was soft with fluffy clouds and powder blue sky. The trees glittered in the breeze, some already displaying smoky red and gold leaves.
I thought of all the opportunities waiting for me back home: stories to be written, books to finish, trails to hike but I felt something needed to happen. I need some kind of ceremony, I thought. Everything has just changed. I've been handed a new life. Though the thought excited me, I needed to do something tangible, something real to prove that this truly was the end of an era before beginning another. I needed closure.
I walked the pretty river trail to a bridge and stopped. I looked down at the water. One side of the bridge held water that was still, deep and quiet. I spotted fish and even a river otter calmly going about their morning below the surface. On the other side of the bridge the river ran swift and wide and kept up a ceaseless, busy chatter.
I thought about my mom.
My mom died just a few days shy of my boys' four month old mark. Shortly after I learned I was pregnant my mother was given four months to live. We prayed, begging God to deliver her and her life extended eight months longer. She was there when I delivered my twins. She had flown in for the occasion, from Arizona. She flew back home the following day, promising to be back soon. I learned later that she had been in a lot of pain and when my dad picked her up from the airport she crumpled in his arms and told him, "Get me home. I don't feel good."
Still she came out to California to see me as promised. She stayed a week, helping me and doting over her twin grandsons. She told me to wake her up in the middle of the night if I needed her. I needed her every night but never got her. I was too afraid it would make her feel worse. I got worse, my postpartum depression beginning to rear its ugly head.
I felt wrecked inside and outside and then my mother died. I was suddenly motherless yet somehow I was expected to carry on. I don't know how well I carried my load but I kept myself and my children alive. I fought depression, colic and teething while my mother's death loomed over me. I could feel my unfinished grief waiting in the wings, waiting for the moment I had a chance to catch my breath. The older my children grew, the more time I had to myself, the more my grief exposed itself. I sometimes wondered if my depression was a physical response to my untouched grief.
It was not all bad, these past nine years. There have been many more blessings than trials. We are a very happy family. There has been so much love I thought my heart might crack. There were times I felt my mother very close. When my third child was born two years after my boys I could almost smell my mother on my newborn's skin. I felt sure my mother had smothered my daughter in kisses and hugs before she was sent to me. I basked in my mother's love that radiated from my precious newborn. My own heart burned with love for my own three beloved children.
I suppose now, with all the time that has been handed me, it is time to heal.
As I stood on the bridge today, thinking of my mother, the two different waters felt exactly the right metaphor to my life. The rushing water, skimming over jutting rocks and whipping around bends, spoke of my last nine years. Stay afloat was the game. Stay alive. The current was always too strong to go against. It lifted me though and carried my onwards, no matter how much I wanted to stay put, or go back, back to the days I had a mom. I shed a few tears over the bridge.
The calm, deep waters are my new life now. I am still a mother but I am less tethered now. I can stand a little straighter. It will be much harder for me to be swept away. Instead, I am an anchor now. I have been giving life these past years; now I support life. My family can lean on me and they will not fall.
"And I could be an anchor/ Drop me in the bay and watch me hold you steady" -Mates of State
I am an anchor now and will be able to handle the grief I can now mourn. These past nine years have prepared me. My new situation will support me. Thoughts of my mother will come. I embrace them. I miss my mother but now I also have time to celebrate her life. I have time to reflect on her legacy, how she mothered and loved so well. My mother's life and legacy will strengthen me. She is my anchor, after all.
I rip off a twig from a dying bush nearby the bridge and take it to the rushing waters. I watch the current push past me without a second glance before throwing the stick in. I watch it sweep into the river's grasp and disappear behind the bend. This life is over now, I think. I can't bring it back. I cannot forget it.
I follow the trail, where I am surrounded by a wall of trees. I wonder how my children are doing at school. I think about my twig, far ahead me now, never to be seen again. I think of my past babies and toddlers and how much life was lived in those years. I think about the stories waiting for me on my writing desk at home.
I decide to turn back for home but not before picking up a grey, fist-sized rock. It feels good to hold its heaviness in my hand. It makes me feel anchored to the ground. I can feel the substantialness of my body thanks to its weight in my hand, as if the rock is tracing my form, pushing its realness to the forefront of my mind.
I reach the bridge and throw the rock into the calm waters. I've probably upset numerous life forms-an entire miniature ecosystem- with the new addition. I watch baby bubbles float to the surface. I don't know if it is life fleeing or going in for a closer look. I've just created a new world, upsetting the old one. By the time I leave, the water is still again.
I head back to the start of the trail. The sun goes in and out of clouds, dodging its responsibility of heating the summer day. A thread of family texts interrupt my reverie. I laugh at the comments, for a moment forgetting all that has happened. Life goes on, even in still waters. I get in my car and drive home to my new life.
