I’m throwing in the towel. Goodbye Reverb10. Nonsense.
Today’s prompt? Body integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
I won’t justify that with a response.
Prompt: Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.
Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody!
I don’t believe in it.
I think that snowflakes and flowers can be beautifully different. Even deformed fruit is pretty cool.
People? People are too judgmental to be beautifully different. And self consciousness gets in the way.
I think we can spend too much time looking for “beauty” and “perfection” in other people (never mind ourselves) rather than trying to accept them for who they are.
“Who are you?” would be a better prompt than “what makes you beautiful?” Because beauty is all subjective, isn’t it.
And it’s not something I aspire to.
As I said, I just don’t believe in it.
Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?
Since moving I have actually found a fairly good group of mothers. I find mothers a bit hard to be honest. I think, because in the scheme of things I haven’t been a mother very long. And moving around like this means that I never get to see how people I have known all my life parent their children. Because parenting is cultural and it is an amalgam of all of your life experiences. So when you meet a mother for the first time you don’t know where they are coming from, or indeed where they are going. It’s worse than a first date. You may well find one that is on your wavelength, but man does it take some hard work. Then your child starts hitting everyone he sees and you don’t know where you stand.
I’d like to develop these tentative friendships. Sometimes actual human contact is in dire need around here. It lets you breathe.
What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
I have actually been making a few things recently (which is why I’m behind with this Reverb10 thing). There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Especially when you’re madly disorganized.
I’m currently working on a “Stocking banner” thing. And I have to get out the tree skirt I made last year. I can’t remember why, but I do remember that I wasn’t happy with it. And that it has to be fixed. I also have great intentions of making a “Tigger”, but I have to try and figure out a pattern first. You know, with all of the free time I have. And there are decorations for the Christmas tree to be made (but as long as I make a few before the tree comes down on January 6th, I’m not that bothered!)
I’m not going to mention the curtains that I have every intention of making. Soon. There are so many windows though. And I would need so much material. I think it might have to wait until I have more confidence and or patience. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once….
What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?
(Prompt Author: Alice Bradley)
Before I became a mother, when I was pregnant and thinking of these things, I thought “My child will watch very little television”; “S/he will not eat sweets (candy)”; “No fast food!!” etc etc. I was also under the misguided impression that I could avoid all plastic, noisemaking toys. Naturally enough we would live in a utopia of my own making. But utopias such as these don’t take other people into account. When you’re pregnant you think you can control the world. And you probably can. The mad hormones scare the bejaysus out of most people, but they wear out and you become worn out, so things slip. And you come to realise that your child is better off with a relaxed mother rather than one strung out over a bit of sugar.
Everything in moderation! Surely the human body is able to metabolize a bit of sugar. And small children need calories to grow. And tv? Well, it’s educational. And it’s not tv if we watch it on the computer. Ahem.
So, over the past year I have let go of all of those “standards” I imposed on myself. I have a happy, healthy little boy. With the most wonderful imagination, despite all of the tv he watches. A boy who will choose carrots over fries a lot of the time. Chocolate though? He’s a man after my own heart when it comes to chocolate.
The thing is, when you sit down and think about how your life is going to be with your child (when they are abstract) you never factor in their personalities, do you? Because you can impose your will as much as you like, but their personality will be a factor, no matter what you do.
So I have let go of those mad ideals I had before he was born, because they were just that, ideals. And we plod on, taking things as they come.
Mostly.
I’m not sure that you can have a two year old and not have wonder in your life. Well you can, if you ignore everything they say and do. Although I’m not sure why people do that. It makes the world such a bleak place. I am subject to the whims and vagaries of my fella. And it’s brilliant. His little flights of fancy were the reason we were feeding the “elephant” pine cones in the park yesterday.
Our "elephant"
And we’ll probably do it again tomorrow.
New things are always greeted with a slight intake of breath and a “What’s that Mammy?” Not always greeted with joy, I grant you, but there is often laughter. You can’t help but laugh when you’re in a public restroom and you hear a sound, one that you expect to hear, but that a two year old boy meets with surprise and a “What’s that Mammy?…What’s the lady doing?…Sssshhh Mammy, listen. What’s that?”
Exciting things are met with a “Look Mammy, LOOK!” And if I don’t, he’ll twist my head around until I’m looking the right way. Then he’ll peer into my face to make sure that I am actually looking. Because sometimes I’m not. And I have to wonder about myself. This stage is probably the only one in which I will be able to see through his eyes. Why am I not looking through them every day? Why did I not let him out of the buggy yesterday too look for lizards? Because it would be too hard to get him back in. “Amorra we’ll look for lizards.” Yes we will. Yes we will.
I think that as a stay at home mother to a small child you exist. There may be others out there, bounding around, living every moment, but I haven’t met them. My days pass in a fog. No, not a sleep-deprived one. One of, well, drudgery. Days are, if not the same, then very similar. Every moment that you do try to capture is so fleeting and fragile that as soon as you think “This is…(special)”, something else has happened to negate it entirely and you end up shouting or running at top speed to avert some sort of disaster. You wander around with yoghurt in your hair and hummus on your elbow, humming some inane children’s song, listening to other people’s conversations never knowing when to join in because something happens as soon as you give birth and whatever social skills you may have developed up to that point disappear, and you hope that with any luck they will have reappeared before you have to face the nightmare that is the school gates.
In the years to come I will look back at the pictures and “remember” the moments from this period of our lives. But it will be a re-remembering. Because I can look at those pictures now and see us, in all of our glory and still wonder what I am looking at. As time goes on, my mind will weave a story of our lives. My son will be the one who “never cried”. There are no pictures of it you see. There are no pictures either of the days we sit around doing nothing. There are only pictures of us doing things. We will be the family who were “always doing things”.
Because you don’t remember all of the bad days. Do you? If you did it would be even harder to get out of the bed in the morning. You remember the good days. And you wake up hoping that today will be one of them.
As for feeling alive? Have you ever put your elbow in a blob of hummus? Felt it seep through? Cold ooziness. With a hint of garlic. It made me want to retch. And strip naked. But I had to wear that badge of motherhood all day, because I had a husband in bed, recovering from a nightshift and a small boy who can’t be trusted to be left alone.
Foodstuffs become entirely different things when you put your elbows in them.
You’re alive if you can feel it!
What stops me? A lack of will. Perhaps willpower. I’m not entirely sure. You see I’d be hard pressed to tell you what I did each day, never mind come up with things to cut out. The way things stand at the moment I’m passing things out with my right hand and taking them in with my left. On and on and on. Of course there are some niches I could carve out for writing. Sometimes though, you just have to be. 2010 was a year of being. 2011 might be too.
Someday though. Someday.
For 2010?
Moving
2010 will always and ever be “the year we moved to California”. Everything else will be dwarfed by that one event. I’ve moved before, but moving with a small boy and a husband is an entirely different kettle of fish. The kettle is made all the more different when you go from packing a suitcase for yourself, to an entire household. And on a deadline? With no definite address to go to? Phew. Moves like this will be in our futures too. Every four years. Or less.
Our lives will be punctuated by moves. But the first one? The first one was something.
My imagination was in overdrive. The move process. The trip across country. Our lives here. Because you can bring all of your stuff, but people get left behind. And there is no doubt that you are somewhere else. But that’s not always bad.
Moving has enabled us to make new friends, to carve out a little life for ourselves. A life that is fuller. And richer.
2011?
Open
Open to change.
Open to life.
Open to friends.
Open.
