She stood in her purple tutu looking like a little girl. She toddled around fascinated by the colorful presents stacked in the corner and the strange little folk, just her size, invading her play area. The grown ups fawned over her walking skills and her gestures of affection. A special day just for her; a secret special day for mommy. We all gathered in our home on the day of the 2010 monsoon to celebrate the passing of a year; my little Anastasia turned one. I looked at a picture from moments after her arrival, and realized that time is precious and fleeting, and a year of growing and evolving into this little human passed by while I blinked. My little 6 pound 19 inch crying and sleeping bundle morphed into a 20 pound 29 inch mini-being, with an attitude and personality all her own. No longer my baby, but my little girl.
Everyone said to me that she won't remember her 1st birthday so take care not to go overboard. I listened to a point: balloons and paper plates, snacks and homemade cake, no special games or decor or themes or grande feast. She may not remember, but I will. This 1st birthday was less of a milestone for her than it was for me, the anniversary of becoming a mommy. All I needed was to watch her spend her day exploring and enjoying the adventure.
Reflecting on the past year produces a headache and tumbling stomach. I feel agitated and frustrated and something I can only comprehend as guilt. So much pain, physical and emotional, taint this first year of her life. Part of me hears the cliche that children are resilient, she will remember nothing of her mother's struggles, nor will they affect her evolution. The other part of me screams LIAR. Children are fragile, dependent creatures affected by their environment every moment, every breath: just because they cannot voice their part of the suffering doesn't mean that they are unscathed.
Modern mothers tell themselves what they must to make it through the day. Our lives are different from our parents or grandparents. We don't live with or close to our families and most need dual incomes or more to survive. We don't know our neighbors, and if we do, we may wish we didn't. The village no longer supports the family; we leave ourselves stripped of the community energy. We are the post-women's lib generation with its pros and cons effecting every aspect of our daily lives. We want to work, be independent and strong; we want equal pay and responsiblity, and we want to be a mother and wife and keep house and socialize. Somewhere in there something has to give. How do we justify it? Why do we think we have to be superwomen or super human to have worth and value?
I see woman who fall victim to the Jones' mentality, and treat their children like pawns in the game of who has or hasn't. We voyeuristically accept this as normal through our reality TV extravaganzas. This hurts our children and creates generations of adults who feel entitled and don't understand the word no. When did love turn into money. Money is both a necessity and a luxury, but it is not equal to the emotion that is shared by people that produces sentiments of fondness, appreciation, respect and affection. Love is not something tangible. Love is when my daughter reaches up to caress my cheek or twirl my hair. Love is her giggle and hugs. We've forgotten what is important, perhaps, or maybe we have just chosen to turn our back.
Long ago I lost my faith in popular religion. I spent 8 years in Catholic school and my entire life in the Greek orthodox faith. I watched my father painfully lose his on his death bed, and that crushed me even more. I know I need something to believe in, and science doesn't cut it. Do I believe in God or gods or Powers that Be? Some days. What I respect about religion and its faith is its determination to bring harmony to an otherwise chaotic life (and death). I appreciate the ethics and fair treatment that inevitably leaches through the preachings: not so much the morals, but the values. I stand in conflict wanting my child to learn the community lessons of faith, but me being too lazy and uninterested to wade through the church services. I know I can find support there amoungst the believers, but shame keeps my distance. To teach my child good values and ethics and respect I stand against this wall. Society has turned religion into a war or falicy or cult, but I need to find a way to surmount to instill its side effects into my daughter. I need to figure out how to rasie my child in a world that seems menacing and hateful without boundaries or respect.
Rewinding a year in my mind is sort of like falling down the rabbit hole: moments flashed and thoughts passed, nothing really clear; some things seem larger and others smaller and time doesn't exist or exists too vividly. I know I see my mother as a different being now. I forgive her for things I blamed her for, and respect her for things I didn't understand. And this is only the beginning, I know. I weep for my hurts and her hurts and all the hurts of my ancestral mothers. I have a new hurt for those who will never come to this place of womens hurts. A mother's pain from birth to the ends of time is a blessing. Now I can see my year in review and not resent how I felt or even the fog that blinded my path.
I think about being a teenager and how horrid (and stupid) I behaved. The suffering I caused my parents I can never take back. The nights of fear and tears that they shed for my stupidity tear at my heart. I know now how even minutes after curfew must have ripped my parents to pieces with fear. The need to protect and guide is so powerful, so instinctual, so fierce. My child will hurt and be hurt and I cannot stop it from happening. For all my parents did to help me navigate this life, I still hurt. They made mistakes, but we are human and fallible and don't know the questions to 42. I spent hours, days, weeks, and months crying to be with my daughter every moment of her early breaths. I needed to protect her from the world. I couldn't comprehend how to manage this life and motherhood because there is too much dark in the world. I resented the life I brought her into because it wasn't ideal. I hated the causes of my pain. The love I feel for her cannot be touched, explained or compared. My inability to comprehend this rush of emotion raged within me, and still does, but with filters now.
So far away from my beginning I've wandered. My daughter turned 1 yesterday.
The party brought friends from near and far and family members to share our moments. I felt happiness and contentment for the first time in ages as I flitted about the day less concerned about perfection and more concerned about the miracle of childhood. I watched in amazement as she moved about the house inspecting all her visitors and experimented with new tastes and made friends and the curiosity that passed behind her eyes. The friends that have grown with me helped make the day easy. I love my friends dearly for being a part of my family, and for welcoming Anya into their hearts too. The day was spent early with a happy and tired little lady nestled in my lap sucking her thumb, dreaming of the day's strange adventures and treasures.
At 8:33pm on March 15th I snuggled in bed with House on TV and the lights out and kissed my baby girl a Happy Birthday.
16 March 2010
09 March 2010
My Merry-Go-Round
Signs of spring are everywhere. I can smell it in the air...well mostly just sneeze. The icebergs that dominated our landscape these past few months disappear more each day. Some poor bulbs try to poke through the thawing landscape, and mud, dark, brown, wet, mud everywhere. It's refreshing to see the sun, blinding as it may be. O and the beauty of light beyond 6pm delights my sensibilities. Most people call spring the season of hope. Even the Christians with their Easter holiday capitalize on the emotions the spring thaw instills in the people. I use to feel renewed myself, but not so much this year.
Am I better, honestly, I should say mostly. But am I well, not a chance. The fog that tried to choke me for the better part of last year has lifted and I see blue skies. I'm sleeping more hours at a time, but not through the night. I'm restless with random insomnia...looks like a trait my little peanut has inherited as well. We both toss and turn and sit bolt upright at random intervals in the dark. Did we hear something? Do we smell something? What thoughts burst through our slumber so regularly? Whatever causes us to lose precious moments of sleep I despise. Some nights we manage a full 6 to 7 hours...but ahh those nights are rare. Mostly we're on a 4 hour holding pattern, better than every hour on the hour, but still not optimal.
With those blue skies I bear witness to the burning orange of the sun. The fiery ball inferno that blinds and engulfs...not life giving warmth, but rage that stirs beneath, seizing when opportunity arrives. My ocean of clarity is not the calm blue sea but a tumultus anger. Some of it I can justify. We've been on a down trend of luck for some time now. Where's that Harry Potter vial of prized potion? Generally I'm not an angry person. I use to be the epitomy of patience and trust and optimism. I use to love people and conversation and opinions. I use to relish in a good debate and sharing of stories. I'm impatient and short and stabby...my adventurous piscean senses have turned dolphin to shark. I don't like my new world vision. I'm cynical and distrusting. My ability to be open to perspectives diminishes daily. I can't tolerate ignorance, stupidity and lies.
Everywhere I look I see sadness, pain, loss, fear. I see a world out of novels. People...humanity...lost. Sounds a bit dramatic, and I feel obligated to apologize, but I won't. Perhaps the veil is my own devise. Maybe I'm inflicting it upon the world at large. Perhaps I should take note of my female compatriots during the industrial revolution. The soot and dirt that tainted their food, clothing and breath is not so much different that our 0s and 1s encoding the technologial revolution of present.
Where are the neighborhood children playing in the streets and turning the entire neighborhood into a game of tag? Where are the farmers providing local fare at the more affordable prices - when it's cheaper to buy a big mac than a salad there is something seriously wrong with our priorities. Think of those famous works of art from a time not so long ago. It was vogue to have girth because that meant you had money to buy food. And those wane and feeble were the peasant class who barely had bread or porridge to calm their grumbling bellies. Now the overweight and obese are the poor and the super-model thin are the wealthy; the poor can only afford the worst foods and the weathly have nutritionists and organic meals prepared for them. Pfft. When the government feels it's their responsibility to remove freedoms of one to placate another someone hasn't read the constitution. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for safety, but making rules for rules sake and ignoring the more important larger issues at hand has become a staple for our government and takes precious time and attention away from the plagues that sicken our nation every day. The people take itty bitty dislikes and turn them into life or death decisions instead of letting the human race evolve as it has for thousands of years.
Something as ridicuouls as Snuffalupugus being made real because imagination is bad - the bandwagon perception of 20+ years ago - now snuffed out too late - told generations that thought and invention was detrimental to society. We created zombies of ignorance. We let the fairies and invisible creatures of wonder back into our children's lives again. But we also gave them TV and internet and Nintendo. The adventures they have are simulated, shared imaginations. Will we have another Einstein or Ben Franklin or Motzart or Fitzgerald or Michelangelo? Who will fill Baryshnikov's shoes or Sinatra's microphone? The arts are relegated to starving artists - the free thinkers and risk takers cast out of society's mainstream for failing to drone. Theaters and novels are outdated ideas: IMax and Kindle take any adventure away from the human experience.
I caught myself watching Disney's classic Snow White the other night and thinking how they should re-dub the voices for a modern sound. Shame on me. I disgust myself.
I'm entranced by Muse. The music revolutionists of my choice: angry enough, intelligent enough, loud enough, and controversial enough to feed my thoughts.
The healthy institutions of yesterday entrap today. Money: real estate, banks, hedge funds, bonds, oil, natural gas, biofuel, everyone wants a piece. Marriage is disposable...and so are children. I've watched so many of my peers suffer through the challenges of infertility: some with success, some without. Then there are those graced with the gift of parenthood who abandon and murder the helpless humans of tomorrow. Forget about the gangs and pediphiles and drugs that destroy senslessly. Natural disasters cause enough death and suffering, yet the human race still behaves in its primeaval ways. Communities fail their people. No the people fail their communities. Two income households are no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Our nuclear family seems quaint and so American, yet we've lost the bond of family and support of our neighbors. Our grandparents are in homes for the dying. Our children are raised by strangers. Our 24 hour day is spent providing service to the machine rather than enjoying this temporary life. Ugh, Who am I?!
I'm not sure who speaks my voice. My head hurts from fighting myself. I've become someone that I don't know and I'm not sure I like. Out of the fog into the fire.
I don't want my child to lose her hope. I want her to learn to love life and the natural world. I want her to play with her imaginary and real life friends...in person. I want her to learn value and respect and loyalty. I want to feel that she is safe. I need to turn off the news and close the papers with their fascination of the morbid and horror. People need to re-learn respect and selflessness. We seem to have forgotten that we can't take it with us and we need each other. We've lost any sense and form of balance. We've lost the reality of time. We put ourselves here, but do we care enough to save ourselves and each other.
My precious gift is turning 1. I've lost a year of my life, and what should have been one of the best years of my life. At every stage I've looked upon her feeling like this was the best stage of all. I understand why a time comes to pass that we want to have another. The rational side of me says that children are resilient and she will never remember what her mother suffered during those early days; she won't remember my sorrow, my physical ills, or my disillusionment; she won't remember my impatience and confusion. But something deeper makes me think that children aren't as we have convinced ourselves to believe. They are fragile. I'm trying to become the mother I've always wanted to be. Some days I have the strength. I'm looking to breeze to sing me my hope.
Am I better, honestly, I should say mostly. But am I well, not a chance. The fog that tried to choke me for the better part of last year has lifted and I see blue skies. I'm sleeping more hours at a time, but not through the night. I'm restless with random insomnia...looks like a trait my little peanut has inherited as well. We both toss and turn and sit bolt upright at random intervals in the dark. Did we hear something? Do we smell something? What thoughts burst through our slumber so regularly? Whatever causes us to lose precious moments of sleep I despise. Some nights we manage a full 6 to 7 hours...but ahh those nights are rare. Mostly we're on a 4 hour holding pattern, better than every hour on the hour, but still not optimal.
With those blue skies I bear witness to the burning orange of the sun. The fiery ball inferno that blinds and engulfs...not life giving warmth, but rage that stirs beneath, seizing when opportunity arrives. My ocean of clarity is not the calm blue sea but a tumultus anger. Some of it I can justify. We've been on a down trend of luck for some time now. Where's that Harry Potter vial of prized potion? Generally I'm not an angry person. I use to be the epitomy of patience and trust and optimism. I use to love people and conversation and opinions. I use to relish in a good debate and sharing of stories. I'm impatient and short and stabby...my adventurous piscean senses have turned dolphin to shark. I don't like my new world vision. I'm cynical and distrusting. My ability to be open to perspectives diminishes daily. I can't tolerate ignorance, stupidity and lies.
Everywhere I look I see sadness, pain, loss, fear. I see a world out of novels. People...humanity...lost. Sounds a bit dramatic, and I feel obligated to apologize, but I won't. Perhaps the veil is my own devise. Maybe I'm inflicting it upon the world at large. Perhaps I should take note of my female compatriots during the industrial revolution. The soot and dirt that tainted their food, clothing and breath is not so much different that our 0s and 1s encoding the technologial revolution of present.
Where are the neighborhood children playing in the streets and turning the entire neighborhood into a game of tag? Where are the farmers providing local fare at the more affordable prices - when it's cheaper to buy a big mac than a salad there is something seriously wrong with our priorities. Think of those famous works of art from a time not so long ago. It was vogue to have girth because that meant you had money to buy food. And those wane and feeble were the peasant class who barely had bread or porridge to calm their grumbling bellies. Now the overweight and obese are the poor and the super-model thin are the wealthy; the poor can only afford the worst foods and the weathly have nutritionists and organic meals prepared for them. Pfft. When the government feels it's their responsibility to remove freedoms of one to placate another someone hasn't read the constitution. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for safety, but making rules for rules sake and ignoring the more important larger issues at hand has become a staple for our government and takes precious time and attention away from the plagues that sicken our nation every day. The people take itty bitty dislikes and turn them into life or death decisions instead of letting the human race evolve as it has for thousands of years.
Something as ridicuouls as Snuffalupugus being made real because imagination is bad - the bandwagon perception of 20+ years ago - now snuffed out too late - told generations that thought and invention was detrimental to society. We created zombies of ignorance. We let the fairies and invisible creatures of wonder back into our children's lives again. But we also gave them TV and internet and Nintendo. The adventures they have are simulated, shared imaginations. Will we have another Einstein or Ben Franklin or Motzart or Fitzgerald or Michelangelo? Who will fill Baryshnikov's shoes or Sinatra's microphone? The arts are relegated to starving artists - the free thinkers and risk takers cast out of society's mainstream for failing to drone. Theaters and novels are outdated ideas: IMax and Kindle take any adventure away from the human experience.
I caught myself watching Disney's classic Snow White the other night and thinking how they should re-dub the voices for a modern sound. Shame on me. I disgust myself.
I'm entranced by Muse. The music revolutionists of my choice: angry enough, intelligent enough, loud enough, and controversial enough to feed my thoughts.
The healthy institutions of yesterday entrap today. Money: real estate, banks, hedge funds, bonds, oil, natural gas, biofuel, everyone wants a piece. Marriage is disposable...and so are children. I've watched so many of my peers suffer through the challenges of infertility: some with success, some without. Then there are those graced with the gift of parenthood who abandon and murder the helpless humans of tomorrow. Forget about the gangs and pediphiles and drugs that destroy senslessly. Natural disasters cause enough death and suffering, yet the human race still behaves in its primeaval ways. Communities fail their people. No the people fail their communities. Two income households are no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Our nuclear family seems quaint and so American, yet we've lost the bond of family and support of our neighbors. Our grandparents are in homes for the dying. Our children are raised by strangers. Our 24 hour day is spent providing service to the machine rather than enjoying this temporary life. Ugh, Who am I?!
I'm not sure who speaks my voice. My head hurts from fighting myself. I've become someone that I don't know and I'm not sure I like. Out of the fog into the fire.
I don't want my child to lose her hope. I want her to learn to love life and the natural world. I want her to play with her imaginary and real life friends...in person. I want her to learn value and respect and loyalty. I want to feel that she is safe. I need to turn off the news and close the papers with their fascination of the morbid and horror. People need to re-learn respect and selflessness. We seem to have forgotten that we can't take it with us and we need each other. We've lost any sense and form of balance. We've lost the reality of time. We put ourselves here, but do we care enough to save ourselves and each other.
My precious gift is turning 1. I've lost a year of my life, and what should have been one of the best years of my life. At every stage I've looked upon her feeling like this was the best stage of all. I understand why a time comes to pass that we want to have another. The rational side of me says that children are resilient and she will never remember what her mother suffered during those early days; she won't remember my sorrow, my physical ills, or my disillusionment; she won't remember my impatience and confusion. But something deeper makes me think that children aren't as we have convinced ourselves to believe. They are fragile. I'm trying to become the mother I've always wanted to be. Some days I have the strength. I'm looking to breeze to sing me my hope.
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