This Mama’s Dharma

I am sitting alone in my meditation-cum-writing room, listening to the sound of the pouring rain crash against the windows and the earth.

My husband is leaving me.

After nine years with this man, it’s over.

I am in shock, and I have been expecting this for a long time.

There is something so much bigger than me at work here.

I now understand Karma, better than I ever have. The results of an unskillful action I took six years ago, before I had done any inner work, are now bearing fruit — and it means the end of our marriage. I cannot repair the past, and so I must live with the present it created. I don’t feel that I am being punished. This is just how it is. Our actions, both skillful and unskillful, wise and foolish, matter — and they have ripple effects that we can’t possibly imagine. This is one of the reasons I practice, to train the mind towards the skillful so that it produces skillful actions in the world. I may make mistakes, but if I try my best to live in awareness, I can only hope that they are small and reparable ones.

I veer between a pendulum of faith and fear, letting the pain pierce my heart to its core. But I am still here. I haven’t cried today, but I want to. Maybe I will take a hot bath and soak the grief in water.

There is so much I want to say, but I will leave it at this for now:

I know there are lessons I need to learn from this experience.

First, I must keep an open heart. If I harden my heart in hate towards my husband, I will not be practicing skillfully.

Second, I must trust that everything will be OK. I must rest in the dharma.

Third, I must meet my terror, shame and remorse — all the feelings associated with this enormous life change — with equanimity and compassion. It is the only sane response to this magnitude of suffering.

I think I found a symbol of that compassion this weekend. On Sunday, before my husband announced that he was leaving, when I was innocent and safe in relationship, I bought a pendant from a store in Provincetown, MA. It is Celtic-inspired, of a full breasted woman nursing a child whom she holds in her arms. When I saw her I thought, “this is an image of my higher power.” She is Mother Earth and she nurtures me. And in nurturing my son, I am part of that tender mother energy. It is in me and all around me. I wear my Mother Goddess close to my heart, and draw on her energy to pull me through this time of suffering, separation, and sorrow.

I look at Sami’s innocent face, the face that doesn’t understand what is happening between his parents. His smile, as usual, melts the hard lump of my pain and light peeks through all my dark places.

There is also a part of me, the part underneath the fear and bigger than it, that holds this crisis in wonder, that is open to unfolding possibilities I can’t even dream of today.

I feel my feet stepping on a new path — the path of single motherhood. It’s my karma. But I am not alone. My son is with me, and I love and am loved. Tonight I am whole, though my marriage is breaking and so is my heart. I let it all crack open, wide as it needs to.

It’s our third day in P-town and I am loving it here. The smell of the salty sea in the air, the fact that it’s a town full of gay pride, the cute and artsy shops, the way everything is so compact and you can get along so easily on foot. Just being by the water lifts my spirits and helps me to remember to rest in the vastness of the ocean of life.

I am working with gratitude and mudita (sympathetic joy) today. Sometimes this weekend, when I have seen my friend the bride with her family, who are all alive and healthy, I think “why do some people get to have families that are alive, and I don’t?” I whip myself up into a swirl of grief and self-pity and an overhwhelming sense of lack. It’s the little girl in me pounding her fists on the floor and shrieking, “It’s not fair!!”

Then I look over at my husband and son, who are very much my family, and very much alive, and I marvel at my uncanny ability to focus on the negative. That kind of thinking is a path that leads to nowhere but the multiplication of suffering. So I work with one thought at a time to incline the mind towards wholesomeness, to live in gratitude, to feel into joy. Not to block out the pain, but to let those things co-exist with the pain. Because life is a big bundle of all of it. Why not experience the fullness of its flavors? The bitterness is balanced by the sweet.

And it is Rosh Hashanah. A new year. A new beginning. It feels good to be alive today and full of hope.

I spent the last three days pumping morning and night to make a 5 oz bottle of breastmilk for my son. And last night, when Hani was about to give him the bottle, the lid came loose and most of the milk spilled on my screaming son, drenching his little pajamas.

“Why is it always the breastmilk that spills?” I beseeched the heavens. “Why?” “Formula never spills.”

And it is true. The other day I had just pumped one precious ounce of breastmilk and spilled half of it on the way to the kitchen. I don’t ever seem to spill the formula like that. Or maybe I don’t notice when I do, because it is just formula.

I believe breastmilk is a magical cure-all elixir for my son. I do. Andi Buchanan writes about this phenomenon beautifully in Mother Shock. On some deep level, I believe that breastmilk will keep my son safe from all harm, will prevent all illness, stave off any untimely death, and make him smarter, too. I feel that it is my responsibility as a mother to provide him with breastmilk as long as a drop of milk is coming out of those nipples of mine. I guess the truth is that it makes me feel like a better mother to pump out the last remaining drops of my milk for my son.

But last night — maybe it was the ungodly hour, maybe it was the cold I felt brewing in my throat — it all felt like too much to bear. All that pumping for nothing, all those health benefits that my son would not get.

“I really want to quit,” I said.

“You should,” said Hani.

Fuck you, I thought.

I will not quit.

Because we work hard and we have the best intentions, and then things don’t always turn out as we want them to.

Because there’s no use crying over spilled breastmilk.

(I just had to write that line.)

So…things have been moving quickly on the babysitter front. How good it feels to take action towards my goals.

I met with the prospective babysitter today and I really had a good feeling about her. She is sweet and warm, smart and articulate, and she seemed really enthusiastic about watching Sami. Plus she had great references. So I am going to give her the job. I probably will stay in the house with them for a while until I feel comfortable leaving her alone with Sami.

I had an unpleasant discussion with my grandmother about it yesterday. She is really afraid that I will make an unwise decision about a babysitter and that Sami will come to some harm. My grandmother watches a lot of crime shows on CNN and I think it gives her a view of the world that is very negative. Or maybe she has always had that view. I don’t know. All I know is when I watch too much of the TV news, I need to remind myself that there is good in the world.

She insisted on reminding me of all the dangers out there — all the terrible things that could happen if I leave my son in the hands of the wrong person. To me it was like hearing that the sky was blue. Of course I am going to be cautious when it comes to who cares for my child. And let’s face it — terrible things do happen. A terrible thing could happen while my son is in my care! I am going to do everything in my power to prevent terrible things from happening to him, but there is so much in this world that is totally out of our control. So I am just going to cautiously trust that this is a good decision that I have made for us. That’s all I can do — just do the best I can with what I’ve got.

I’ve started reading Mothering Without a Map: The Search for the Good Mother Within by Kathryn Black. It’s a book about how those of us whose mothers passed away, or who in some way were not mothered, badly mothered, or under-mothered, somehow manage to be conscious parents in spite of it all.

I was talking with my friend Laurie today, a mom to a six month-old baby girl, who grew up with a depressed and angry mother, about how grateful we are for the path of mindfulness. Yes we freak out and we get anxious and we get caught up in this or that unskillful emotion or mind-story, but then, because we have a practice, there are those precious glimpses of awareness when we can see, “oh yeah, we’re doing that thing again.” And there is the freedom. Thank the gods for this practice, or I would be so much more lost than I am now.

My yearning to provide my son with safety and a wholesome upbringing is pretty palpable. I know I’ll be far from a perfect mother, but I can say with some certainty that as long as his dad and I are around, Sami’s childhood won’t be particularly dysfunctional or traumatic. We love each other, he is loved deeply, we have enough to eat, I have the luxury of being able to stay home with him and lavish him with care and attention. His dad adores him beyond measure. I take him to music classes and Baby and Me Yoga. I play peek-a-boo with him and read him books and carry him close to my heart. I do everything I can to respond to his cries and soothe him. I can’t help but think that he chose to incarnate into a relatively stable early life–that’s just his path. I of course can’t say that his life won’t be hard, but he won’t suffer the same sorts of wounds that his dad and I did in our childhoods.

Comparing Sami’s upbringing to mine is like comparing day and night. By the time I was nine months old, my mother had already had more than one breakdown and I’d spent several days with her in a mental hospital. She loved me dearly, but she could never manage to stay in consensual reality long enough to keep me really safe. And then there was my grandmother, who raised me from the age of five and a half. She could keep me safe, but there was a piece of me that doubted her love. I always felt like a burden — where did I get that from? She said I came to her “damaged goods,” and that it was too late to set me right again.

But both my mother and my grandmother did the best they could. I understand that now. It’s hard to resent people who did the best they could with what they had. Now I just feel compassion for them both. I feel nothing but compassion for every woman who takes on the responsibility of nurturing a life, whether it is the life of her own womb or someone else’s. What an awesome commitment, how all-encompassing and relentless of a job.

I guess that’s part of growing up — we stop being so angry at the people who raised us. We stop feeling like victims.

People have horrible childhoods all over the world. That’s not to say that I don’t despise child abuse of all kinds, of course I do. I have zero tolerance for child abuse. But the reality is that if we are lucky, those of us who suffered trauma in our childhoods survive and find a way to heal or move on without causing too much irreparable damage to ourself or others. If we are even luckier, we find a way to make something beautiful out of the shards of our brokenness. That is what I hope to do as a mother and as a writer.

All this to say that I hope that someday Sami will look back on the mothering he received and feel good about it. I hope he will have all the safety and secure attachment and bonding he needs to grow up to be a strong, self-confident person who trusts in the beauty and goodness in himself and in this world. I hope I can make a whole childhood for him despite the fact that mine was so very broken. That possibility feels very alive for me, and for that I am so grateful.

Today I took Sami to a music class, and he was enthralled by the other kids and the singing and movement. He had a great time chewing on a set of bells and playing with sticks.

I was enjoying the class too, but when I left I felt this sort of visceral sadness, and then it hit me why. It was the grandmas in the class. There were two of them: one who was taking care of her granddaughters, and another who had joined her daughter and granddaughter in the class. The grandmas were so vibrant and beautiful, all crone energy that I miss so much. The presence of the grandmothers was a reminder of what Sami and I will never have. Maybe that is why I reach out to older women. I need them in my life.

How do I go from feeling such a sense of lack, to living in gratitude for the people I do have in my life? It’s like there is a step missing. I don’t know how to get from point A to point B. Maybe it’s because I don’t need to “go” anywhere. Maybe I just need to feel both of these things. I need to grieve and I need to be grateful. One does not negate the other.

And so I had a day full of emotions. I cried in the car after the class while my son napped. Later in the day, I laughed from the depths of my heart as I played hide-and-go-seek with him. I took Sami for a walk down Georgia Avenue at dusk and I thought about how much I loved life.

On Sunday, during a conversation with my friend Shira, I had an epiphany. I have to invest in myself. I need to hire a sitter to stay with Sami several hours a week so I can finish my book. It’s an absurd proposition, financially — to pay to write, with money we just don’t have. It feels like such an incredible leap of faith. It is frightening, actually. But I feel increasingly that it is the right thing to do at this time.

Guilt rises up in me when I contemplate leaving Sami with someone else for 8-12 hours a week. But it’s not healthy for him to be around a mama who is postponing her dreams. It’s not fair to him. He doesn’t deserve my unfulfilled energy hovering around him. He deserves a mama who is centralizing what is important to her and is not living just for others. A new friend, who used to be a therapist, told me that many of her clients were not angry at their parents about what they didn’t do for them, but for what they didn’t do for themselves.

I just finished reading Show Me The Way, a beautiful memoir by Jennifer Lauck, in part about her own struggle with balancing motherhood and writing. I devoured the book. My first thought was, “what a lovely memoir.” And then I said to myself, “damn it! I can do this! I can write a book too! I have to write this book!” I have to prove to myself that I can do it. For the first time in years, I don’t care about the publishing. I have to do this.

I just need the time and space.

I have read Julia Cameron’s advice about the “Time Lie” and how to grab time here and there, but I don’t think I am one of those people who can write in the gaps in their lives. I have been trying it and it just doesn’t work for me. For various reasons, early early morning doesn’t work for me to write, and by the end of the day, when Hani gets home, my brain is fried. I have to carve out the time during the day. I need healthy chunks of time. The stuff I am writing about is deep, core, painful stuff. I am dredging out memories from the deepest recesses of my brain. I am reliving trauma and healing from it simultaneously. I need time and space to do that.

Here is an example of what happens when I try to squeeze writing into the margins of my life. The other day I was writing a book review while Sami napped in my arms. (My son is not a napper. He naps best if he is physically on my person.) There I was, hunched over the computer in a completely ergonomically incorrect way, trying to write with a sleeping child draped across me. I was doing rather well at it, actually, and had gotten a first draft *almost* finished. I had a few more thoughts I just had to get down, and then my son woke up. I knew that if I didn’t get those thoughts down, they would leave my sleep-addled brain. So I put him down and frantically tried to finish. The only problem is that my baby is attracted to the laptop and kept trying to shut it as I was writing. I noticed irritation arising in me because he was innocently thwarting me from my writing. I wasn’t present for him or the writing. He was whimpering and he wanted his mommy to pay attention to him. I felt awful about myself as a mother and as a writer. It was at that moment that I knew I’d have to find another way.

So I am taking action — sending out ads for babysitters, and maybe interviewing a potential sitter this week. I am hoping that the universe will cooperate with this process.

I often have dreams that Baby Sami is talking to me. Last night I had a semi-nightmare that Sami, in his baby form, opened an angry little mouth and said to me, his loving mother, “when I get older, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Whoa.

So…this afternoon I was in the kitchen eating lunch and Hani was watching Sami in the living room. He was crusing along this wooden buffet we have, Hani couldn’t catch him in time, and he fell onto this part of the buffet that sticks out a little.

He has a small cut on his eyelid (that barely bled at all). The eyelid is a tiny bit swollen, and there is a small red mark on the bridge of his nose. He cried a little but was fine, and in five minutes he was heading for the buffet again.

It looks worse than it is, but I feel so awful. I went into a really dark place about it and just cried and cried. He is fine: I don’t know why this is so out-of-proportion-to-what-happened scary to me. Kids hurt themselves. My son is experimenting with a new skill that unfortunately involves the unpleasant effects of gravity.

Yes, one of my jobs as a parent is to protect this little being to the best of my ability. But I can’t live in fear that if I turn my back on him for one second, he will mortally wound himself. We are babyproofing the house to take care of the obvious dangers, but in this instance, my husband was watching the baby, and he still couldn’t prevent an accident from happening. Bad things happen to everyone sooner or later. But oh how the mama bear in me wants to spare Sami all pain and sorrow.

I think what bothers me so much is that Sami bled. I’ve never seen my child bleed before. It was a miniscule amount of blood, but it was symbolic of something for me and it let loose a whole lot of fear and shame.

All I wanted to do for the rest of the day was to hold him close to me and not let go. He is so small and sweet and vulnerable. I wore him on my back as much as he would tolerate. Of course the time came to let him roam free again, but I was in a hypervigilant state when he did. I don’t want to be the kind of mom that hovers nervously around her kid and bombards him with fearful energy. I want Sami to feel free to explore his world, within the bounds of safety.

I know the answer to this fear and pain I’m in. Lots of compassion and love. I need to kiss not only Sami’s boo-boos, but to kiss my own old, old wounds again, and expose them to the healing light of love.

I have been tearful all day today, and I miss my daddy.

Around August 10, Sami started to pull up on things. He hadn’t even mastered crawling yet — he was still crawling commando style. But he has the will to be vertical, my little one does. Now he pulls up on everything. And he crawls like a madman. It’s so cute. I’ll put him down in the living room, and I’ll be in the adjoining kitchen, and within a few minutes he will crawl on into the kitchen to be with me. He pulls up on my skirt or pant legs until we are standing there, together.

I watch him pull up and fall, pull up and fall, over and over, and I admire his persistence. If only I was so willing to fall, and fall with abandon, and get up and try again. I learn so much from my son. What a blessing he is.

My feelings are mixed about my son’s newfound verticality (is that a word?!). This means that soon he will be walking, and he will be walking away from me. As it should be. Once he was a part of my body, and we were inseparable. Then I birthed him out, and he was separate from me but still a part of me. Now he will grow and become more and more independent, but he will always be a part of me. I remember the first time I sang that Thich Nhat Hahn song to him:

No coming, no going
No after, no before
I hold you close to me, I release you to be so free
Because I am in you, and you are in me
Because I am in you, and you are in me

I cried when I sang that song to Sami, because it is so apropos to motherhood. What a dance of surrender. This is the deepest letting go I have ever known. And it’s only the beginning.