Feed Your Soul

When her babies were born, she became devout. She knelt to change diapers, bowed over cribs in the stillness of night, pressed lips against cheeks and brows so soft she could have wept, and often she did. 

She traded sleep for lying in wait, eyes closed but ears ever open for the sound of stirring, squeaking, for the onset of tears that would mean stumbling out of bed and pacing, pacing, so many countless hours of pacing, until the little head nodded to sleep once more. Sleep for the babes, but not for her. 

She traded pleasure books for parenting books, silk dresses for snot-smeared sleeves, make-up for making up after tiffs and tantrums and tidal waves of post-partum tears. She lost herself and found herself, learned to mother, learned to let go, and let go again, and again. 

There is a point at which every mother must reclaim what she has let go. 

Looking back, other mothers told her, I would have taken more time for myself. I gave up so much for my children. I would have carved out space to feed my soul. 

Yet others will remind her of quickly these years fly, how they're only little for such a little while --blink and you'll miss it -- as if to justify putting her own life on hold to capture every moment of theirs. 

This is not how time works. It is not how memory works. One life cannot stop to preserve the memory of another. 

So, bravely she goes where few mothers have the will to go without the deadweight of guilt dogging their footsteps. Lightly she steps onto the stage, dresses herself in ancient gowns and breathes life into another's body. Yes, she is away from her boys. Yes, she misses them, and they miss her. Yes, these late nights are taking their toll. But oh hell yes she is feeding her soul. 

A Day in the Life

 

M is the kind of kid who's happy in his routines. He's only two -- though he'll tell you he's two and a half, and he'd be right -- but he enjoys a cup of coffee in the morning with his mom and dad. For those of you who are worried drinking coffee will stunt his growth, the writer would like to invite you to measure his parents. For those who are conditioned to regard what they read with a healthy dose of scepticism, you're right in assuming the coffee is M's special decaffeinated brew: ground chicory, figs, malted barley and acorns. He has his own M-sized mug and all. He likes his coffee and his kitsch, like a true Rioux.

Like his mom, he enjoys his baths. Morning baths, mid-day baths, meltdown baths. The occasion doesn't really matter. He'll take his bath with bubbles, or without, but he has his favourite companions: playmobil Santa, the handless Spartan, the ferry boat, the Dunkleosteus. You know. The usual suspects. For the record, his mom prefers to bathe alone.

M likes to help in the kitchen. He's good at chopping herbs and checking for quality control. He's not afraid to let it be known if something falls below his standards of satisfaction. Too sour = frown. Too juicy = frown. Camera too close to face = frown and flail of fist. 

At the end of any day, M likes to rest on his favourite pillow: Mommy's chest. He is a contended little chap. A palm tucked under the neck-line goes a long way to keeping him so. 

A Few of E's Favourite Things

1. Coffee-shop dates, black-forest cupcakes and maraschino cherries

2. Building cardboard box dragons and riding double with his born-to-be-wild dad

3. Being king of the castle (look out, you dirty rascals)

4. Impersonating an All Blacks fan and waving a flag to prove it

{ Okay, so that last one isn't quite a favourite, but it did make for a memorable day when E's kindergarten class represented New Zealand in their school Olympics. }

It's Cool To Keep Your Cool

This was the title of J's new project with E.

"It's cool to keep your cool!" she'd proclaim when, for example, he resisted stabbing his brother with the blunt end of his toothbrush when said brother's chubby, flailing, toddler hand connects with his shoulder.

Sometimes, more often than not, she'd proclaim this after the stabbing has already occurred.

When E truly did keep his cool, he was rewarded with stickers of cool things, like bugs and pirates -- these items are still cool, she checked; cars and trucks, for the record, are not -- which he'd then put on his bedroom door.

Half a year later, E's bedroom door is tattooed from top to bottom with stickers. Conveniently, they cover up the marks where wooden toys have been used as battering rams in the throes of a category 5 E hurricane -- catastrophic damage will occur. Half a year later, E still hasn't learned not to respond with aggression when a line that only he can see is wrongfully crossed. Needless to say, the sticker plan didn't stick.

And now J is desperate for someone to come up with some brilliant new strategy to help her keep her cool when, for example, a meltdown occurs when she asks E to wash his hands before eating sushi with his fingers, or when her calm refusal to indulge his sweet tooth with a trip to the candy store is met with a relentless dictatorial diatribe that would wear down the twin marble lions of NYC Library fame: Patience and Fortitude.

More often than not, J keeps her cool. She'll be the first to admit it. She's been credited by strangers for her "grace under pressure", praised for her "yogic calm".  But the odd time she breaks -- when she slams bowls of uneaten breakfast into the sink and screeches and bellows and calls them spoiled rotten brats (yes, she's done this -- how graceful would you call her now?) -- those moments sting like an unbottled bee. 

And this is when she is reminded of words she has often given J, who gives them back to her in kindness when she needs to hear them: be gentle with yourself. Or as Elsa would put it, Let it go. 

Breathe. Begin again.

 

Mountain Time

It's 3 am and she is writing on her laptop in the baby's room. The baby is in her bed, next to the boy, next to the daddy, and there is little room for anyone else. But that is not why she is writing on her laptop. If it were sleep or space she were seeking, she'd be on the futon downstairs, or even the floor. When it's sleep she needs, she's not picky. But she's not tired. She's awake with possibility. 

It's 3 am, Pacific Daylight Time, but somewhere in the world it's afternoon. In another city, with other beds and other families, it's 3pm, or thereabouts. She is on another timezone. She is on the wrong side of the world. She should be in Kathmandu right now. She's on Nepalese Mountain Time.

And this is the real reason she's awake. Somewhere in between the layers of sleep, something stirred within her. An itch, an urge, an idea. Something big, but spoken softly. Was it even a voice? Where had it come from? Never mind that, it was clear and strong and it got her out of bed, into the baby's room and onto her laptop where she is now typing. 

She is going to Nepal. She is going to take E with her. She is going to bring her baby boy -- now so much more boy than baby -- to the other side of the world to see what happens there. She will save the pennies she has been spending on toys and clothes and who knows what for who knows why and she will buy two tickets to Kathmandu where she will teach English to Buddhist monks for a summer and she will bring him with her. The boy she carried and birthed and broke will come with her, on the biggest backpack adventure either he or she can fathom. This will be a healing journey, the ultimate mother-son-reunion, and there will be such a homecoming when they return.

You Will Burn After Reading

Yes, that sounds dramatic, hyperbolic, and uncomfortably zealous in the way that only religious fundamentalists and horror-film fans can stomach. But bear with her. She's working on an idea here. It's a little unformed, like that glimpse of what could be either ghost or gore if you dare to look, or maybe it's nothing at all -- and would that really be such a relief?

What she means is you will be lit from within when you read this. When you read this, this, this, whatever it happens to be when it happens, it will light a fire within you and you will burn for, for, for...

For more. For the same again. For it to be you writing now, for it to be yours. For these incendiary words to be from you. For you and from you and out in the world to be claimed by those who like the feeling of being caught by a flame, to catch a flame and swallow it and let it consume you just enough to be all you want to do and be and feel.

This doesn't happen often, maybe because there are few words that can do such magic, such spontaneous combustion and phoenix-from-flame renewal; or maybe because it's rare to find yourself willing to surrender in the way you need to in order for the spark to catch; or maybe it's because, like anyone who's new or (worse) has forgotten it's not comfortable to lose yourself in a feeling that's not entirely painless, because that's desire, my loves, that's what we all need to ride and reign and release and regain.

Oh, she's on fire alright. She read and she will read and she will keep reading and there will be such a flame in her life that who knows how it will scorch her.

She Must Write

Not for money. No, there's little money, when you break it down (or it breaks you down) in writing these days. She has watched those with real skill, real grit -- those who pull no punches from their keyboards -- struggle to keep the money coming in with their flock of words. She knows there is no money in writing, enough said. So this is not why she must write.

Not for love. Or perhaps she should say, not to get love. Not to get herself in or out of that tempting territory. No longer is she in need of proving what her heart can do. No more will she rearrange the lines of poets and lovers before her to tell her own story of love, to convince herself of her heart's own purpose in beating so so strong. Not for love, not even for love of writing, because this is not the kind of writing she must undertake.

She must write, now more than ever, because she is a writer. Because, regardless of what she has told herself over the last however many several trying years, she has always been a writer. She writes to share her story, to live her story, to connect her story to the stories of others and see her place, her connection, to the larger story that we all share. This is not poetry. This is not philosophy. This is our common truth.

She writes because she is here.