Life on Mother's Day

I haven't been blogging lately. There are quite a few things that I haven't been keeping up with, and as usual when I feel my control slipping I fall into being at my worst: bitchy, intolerant, rude, full of fears. Weak and little and helpless and scared.


Which makes me normal and human, with that level of self-hatred that seeps out and makes human interaction so unpleasant. My list of complaints is long, and while most are legitimate, that makes me normal as well. Life is hard, and people die from it. In comparison to that, I should feel lucky and get back on whatever made me so positive during this broken foot ordeal. 


Writing those cheery daily emails was what worked for me. I was forced to put a good face on things and be generous because everyone was being so helpful and generous with me. The little pitfall was that they were doing it because of my injury, and that makes me caress my little disability and be just a tiny bit reluctant to let go of it.


Just one part of my psychology, of course, one that I fight to keep recessive. Being special because of one's needs and thwarted desires is a big trap and not something I want to nurture in myself. The drive to get back on my feet (literally) is just so difficult emotionally and physically and so far from my usual operating personality that it will be a huge relief to get back on my bike and hook up that trailer and re-inhabit my working life.


Not that I ever left it. I just finished my big 1500-piece order and am quite proud of myself. At one point it looked like I would have to let it go to someone else after wanting the contract for 20 or so years. I managed. I didn't think I would make it to opening day of the Market, or Tuesday Market, and I have managed all of those things and have served my existing customers and even taken on a few new ones. It was a lot harder than before and I have had to watch a lot of people do my work, at considerable pain and effort to them. But I did manage it, quite a lot of it.


It's evident that people who need help themselves are often the ones who end up giving it. They are too familiar with the helpless and hopeless feelings of need. They don't help because they think they will get something from it...they just can't help responding. They ride the line between enabling and saintliness. It's messy and uncomfortable and I would so much rather be in that world where I didn't need anyone and no one needed me. 


Not that I was ever really in that world...just imagined it sometimes. It seemed so simple and quiet. I just played with my Jell-O and imagined myself in the Smithsonian. Being crowned fed that illusion nicely and it was just fortunate that all that hoopla came at a time when I was living such a compromised existence. Now that it and the birthday and the Hallmark Mother's Day stuff is behind me I have to get back to my real life. 

Physical therapy starts this week and I know it will bring a lot of resistance and hope. I just have to get back on my bike, and start getting myself fully back into the retail that makes my living. OCF is looming and I have made no inventory whatsoever. And might not get to. My custom work is taking priority and now that the big order is finished I will be getting the *little* orders that are the crew shirt backs and I like to do those.


I actually felt very happy printing all those giant piles of shirts the same color. It was efficient and I know I will see so many of them walking around the place, and it makes me feel proud and a part of things. I enjoy feeling independent and productive so much. It's a huge part of me and why I work almost every day. I have been remembering that I don't even take Sundays off between May and mid-July...usually. 


And here I am working. Even blogging is a bit of a chore with this cervical or carpal distress or whatever it is I am having. I'm going to ask the PT to work on it with me too, since my foot is just one end of the body that is undergoing this problem. My whole body and my whole life is undergoing this injury. I'm out of balance, and my life is out of balance too. 


Restoration is the phase I'm in. Bit by bit I take my life back. I am forgoing the boot for a shoe and even a bare foot and trying to put weight on it, a little more each day. I pushed a little hard one day last week, seeing how long I could stand. I worked a full day and included about two hours of standing at the end. My foot swelled up and got bruised from wearing the wrong shoe (I have one suitable shoe for my right foot, and it was supposed to be an indoor shoe.) I had to scale back a little, and try again, more slowly.


I'm in what feels to me like crushing debt, with no progress in sight. I'm constantly paying out for what should be bringing it in. I have a little silent scream ringing in my ears. I know I need counseling (blogging therapy is limited...) but that costs a lot of money too! It's a vicious circle and I already knew about it and don't think I needed this extra lesson. 


But I suppose I did. Compassion is not the same as empathy and although I am caring, I can do a lot better. I was rude and demanding yesterday, trying to survive Market with only two hours of sleep, and I feel like my little Catholic girl needs to go to confession and communion and do some prayers of supplication. Mother Mary intercede for me and make everything better please, because I am doing all I can already and it is all too much. 


But prayers are thin efforts compared to the actions I must continue to take to maintain my relationships and return some of this help I've taken. I have to continue to struggle to be graceful in my distress and notice the distress of others. There is a long list of what makes me feel so lucky and whole and it begins with still having my real Mother in my life. 


Every day with her on my side makes me strong and resilient. She is the source of all my strength, the one who taught me how to put myself to sleep at night and to feel safe in confusion and to work hard, to clean well, and to keep order in all things. She set the standards and paid attention. It was not easy for her to raise five kids and gardens and hopes and dreams and to get us through times that no one knew how to navigate. 


My continued emotional dependence on her is really more of a nostalgic thing, as I am 62 now and do have my own life in some order. I don't ask her advice really but I do find I often write her emails listing my distresses and giving details of my hardships...I wonder how she receives these. I remind myself not to complain and to spare her things that might worry her, but I also feel compelled to share with her what my life is really like. I want her to know me as I want to know her, and whenever we are together we do have a beautiful connection that is a deep river in my life. 


I was once part of her body...that is a force that can barely be understood. She has known me every day of my longish life...in a way that no one else can come close to. There is much she does not know about me, of course, as it should be and is with all of us, but she knows things that even I have a different take on...she has my full life history to draw on when she reads my complaints.


I hope she remembers my resilience and cheery nature and how much I loved folk dancing in junior high and costumes on Hallowe'en and Christmas traditions that involved a lot of work and little real deep emotion. I hope she sees me now as an extraordinary person who took what she could give and ran with it. I hope she forgives my weaknesses and momentary lapses in grace and sees my whining for the real sharing I wish I could do in better ways. 


I hope she is more than satisfied with me, I hope she is proud of me every day. I hope she is proud of all of her family and what we did with her genetic material and selfless nurturing.


Birthdays always remind me of how many years we did not celebrate my Mom's birthday. Despite the gorgeously decorated angel food cakes and special dinners she always gave us, the parties and clothes and cards and now checks she always provides, Mom never got much attention from us on her birthday. It must have been galling, and I hope it was not as bleak as I think it was. I blame my Dad, of course, for not making us do it as parents must train their children constantly to meet their societal expectations. We didn't treat my Mom like she deserved to be treated. I'm really sorry for that. 


As adults we have tried to do better but I'm 3000 miles from Mom and even a yearly visit is so hard to do. My efforts to honor her don't match the depth of emotion that comes up when I think of how much I love her and appreciate her. It's my primary love, as deep as my love for my son, which is just another facet of the same love. 


As my grandmother's genes were in the eggs in my mother that made the eggs in me that resulted in my son, you can't separate yourself from your children. It's a miraculous and superlative aspect of being human that is almost beyond our emotional capacity to address. 


What your children are is what you are, and we aren't as separate as we wish. My Mom is essential to me. My son is my life in a new phase. This line, enriched by my fabulous siblings and enhanced by my wonderful friends, is for me, the pinnacle of human life. 


And life, on this gorgeous spring day, is bursting with beauty. I'm sad about death and destruction and disability and disaster, but we need those to balance the beauty. We suffer those to feel the fathomless force of life. 


Thank you, Mom, for the gift of my life. A day and a card and a phone call can't do justice to all that you have given me so selflessly for so long. 


I'm going to sit in the sun today and look at the glory of a clean glass of water sending sunlight to the tops of the quince branches. I'm going to transplant my little tomato seedlings grown from the best of last year's Rife's Red Hearts saved from the year before. 


I'm so lucky to be here. By next month I will be back on my bike and back to what seems normal in my world. It will feel good. That's a glimmer of what feels good. 

Life's a mystery and a joy. May all beings be well. Thank you so much, universe that I see and can't see. Let my eyes open further to joy and sunlight and Life.


And thank you to all women, who carry life around like it was just an ordinary burden. Just a task on a list of tasks. Just a moment in an ordinary day. Which it is, as it is all we know.