Friday, September 27, 2013

Writing Isaiah: Entry #20


Writing Isaiah 
Entry #20 
September 27th 2013

Sandra Soares 

When you invited me to participate in your "Isaiah" blog I immediate thought of several words: expectations, vulnerability and surrender. I re-read some of your blogs and realized "expectations" had already been addressed. Perhaps all of this has already been said but maybe my thoughts will prompt something else. Over the last two days and the events that have occurred in y life, 'surrender' is resonating loud and clear. When we are pregnant, we surrender our bodies to the life growing inside. We lose control of all manner of things: body functions, emotions, expectations. Once the baby arrives, we surrender even more: time with friends, spouse, self. THe funny thing is, we preach to our kids to have balance in their lives, to take care of themselves, but we don't usually set the example. Surrender is not a bad thing, however. FOr the 2nd time in my life I have to surrender to my body's desire to harbor cancer. I'm surrendering to the processes in place to get rid of that cancer and allowing a whole slew of people to take over my body on my behalf. I am surrendering to what is. That doesn't mean I"m giving in, giving up, quitting. I'm allowing what is, to be. All the things that I have surrendered to in life, have resulted in new and wonderful experiences. WHile surrendering, I had to become a little vulnerable too (also not a bad thing). How do we guide, support, encourage our children to be vulnerable sometimes and to surrender to what is without it seeming weak, but actually quite courageous and strong? THank you for asking me to participate in your Isaiah project. I wish you all the best and love you much. 


Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

I'm going to answer this question <How do we guide, support, encourage our children to be vulnerable sometimes and to surrender to what is without it seeming weak, but actually quite courageous and strong?> quite directly and get into the complexities of surrender and vulnerability--which are about power & powerlessness--in greater detail. 

We guide support and encourage our children to be vulnerable by being vulnerable parents from a place of strength. We also do this by surrounding them with other families, adult leaders and communities that value and positively reinforce vulnerability. Most importantly, when they are vulnerable from a place of strength, we shower them with praise. And if we witness others shaming them for being vulnerable, we find a baseball bat. Just kidding. :-)

Now to surrender & vulnerability...

About four years ago I had a minor outpatient procedure that included being injected with an epidural in the lumbar region of my back. I'd been living with chronic back pain for over 6 months after injuring my spine in a kick boxing injury. When I say "chronic pain" I mean I couldn't walk at a normal pace and eventually couldn't walk at all, couldn't sit without assistance, took pain killers around the clock, and my body was constantly contorted because I favored leaning to the left as a way of keeping pressure off my 3 herneated discs on the right. Giving birth pales in comparison to the pain of that injury and the months I went untreated after the injury. After coming in for yet another morpheine shot after being told I had a muscle injury, a doctor finally thought it a good idea to schedule me for an MRI. I'll never forget the day I got an informed diagnosis. A young, gorgeous, male physician specializing in spine injuries walked into the room, pulled out my X-Ray, said some things about degenerative arthritis and disc misplacement on the spine. He pointed to the black spider webbing on the right side of my lower back and compared it  to the white waves on the left. I cried. I disassociated. And then my mom asked the question: "how long will she be in pain like this?" 

He looked at the floor and responded: "Well she'll have good days and bad days." 

My mom isn't one to mess around when it comes her daughter's health. So she persisted. "Like for the rest of her life?" 

He held quiet for a while. Then looked right at me and said "yeah, for the rest of her life." 

Something inside of me snapped back to the present. I said something along these lines: "Doc, I'm 28 years old and every day I'm in excruciating pain and drugged out of my mind. I can't go on living like this. So tell me why, given what you just said, I shouldn't go home and kill myself today." 

Sandra, what he said next changed my life and my orientation toward healing more than anything I've read in the Bible, more than any sermon I've ever heard, more than any lesson I've learned on the street or from any book. 

"Make your core strong." 

That's what he said. Make your core strong. 

For the next 30 minutes he talked about how traditionally pain management had been conceived of in terms of targeting and relieving the source of pain, in this case my spine, but that in recent research and medical movements, there'd been a shift toward targeting and strengthening the complimentary part(s) of the body, in this case my stomach. He was fully aware that strengthening my stomach in my current state was impossible. I couldn't even sit, never-mind doing a set of sit ups or series of plank holds. So in order to approach core strengthening, they'd have to give me an injection that would enable my mobility to return. 

Back to the beginning of the story. 

There I was, naked from the waist down, splayed out on a medical table, head down, bare ass in the air, surrounded by a team of 4 medical professionals, one who held a video x-ray camera, one who held a light on the target mark for injection, one who held a needle and one who cleansed and wiped my lower right back for the sake of sanitation and preparation. Because I hadn't had the shot yet, I was in excruciating pain. I could see my  spine on a t.v. in front of me, and eventually watched the needle descend into/onto it. But more than anything, all I could feel/think about was how powerless I felt. My naked body in their sight. My broken painful body in their hands. True possibility: a minor miss of the mark and i'm paralyzed for life. Horrible possibility: a big miss and I die. Worst possibility: nothing works and I live in this constant pain forever. Did I mention that my bare ass was in the air? I literally hated absolutely everything about that moment. Too exposed. To vulnerable. Too much surrender. And yet, I felt I had no other choice, nowhere else to be, no one else to turn to if I wanted to live. 

The injection worked. It was a miracle. I was pain free and totally mobile within 48 hours. Then I got busy strengthening my stomach. I worked out like I'd never worked out before. Planks, scissors, crunches, sit ups, hullahoops, side bends, supermans. You name a stomach exercise--I've done it. And you know what? That worked too. Eventually the epidural wore off and because my core was strong, my back no longer "carried" everything, which meant there was significantly less pressure on those discs. That gave them the room and space to (mostly) return to their normal spaces, and boom, my pain went from 8/9 everyday to a 1/2/3 or 0 on any given day. The treatment worked. Strengthening my core worked.      

Very similar dynamics in birth. Much like you've described in your prompt. There is a bodily take-over of sorts. And the contractions build in intensity and painfulness. To the point where "i'd rather die than continue living in this pain" is a serious thought. During the contraction phase it's all about surrendering. Letting the Source have its way with you. Positioning yourself so that you are most effective in allowing that power to use you according to its plans. But then the pushing phase comes and it's different. Your effort becomes paramount, becomes the catalyst, becomes the channel through which the Source finishes its work. At that point it's not surrender;  it's effort, all the effort you've got. (I wrote about this, a bit, already to Nikki Rinckey and Jes Kast-Keat) Both phases take you to the limit. One, surrender, takes you to the limit of what you can endure. Two, effort, takes you to the limit of what you're capable of doing. 

Isn't this some kind of microcosm of life? What's done to us from the outside? What we do to the world from inside? Constant combination of these two things in all of our actions, interactions, reactions and patterns?     

What I have learned, specifically, from the surrender phases of these two bodily processes is how little I trust the outside world. How little I trust God. And most importantly, how much that lack of trust harms me (and others by extension of me). I felt visceral hatred toward those 4 medical techs because they had power over me. I felt significant rage during the contraction phase of labor that I blamed "on the world" because it rendered me more and more powerless as time went on. Something about feeling totally subject to outside power that terrifies and threatens, which for me, in specific, brings out anger, rage, blame, outward hostility and aggression. I think other folks might respond with becoming small, scared, withered up, defeated and resigned. Totally depends on personality. But what seems potentially similar across personality differences is that humans don't respond well to power being wielded over them in ways they cannot control, especially if they are already in pain. I think it pushes back on our much of our biological, social and cultural conditioning. I think we are inherently protective of our vulnerability. Which we should be. Sometimes. 

But not all the time. 

Sometimes moving deeper into our vulnerability, sitting in it, allowing it to overwhelm us, is the key to the Kingdom. I feel this was the case in Gethsemane for Jesus. 

Feels totally counter intuitive, doesn't it? To be uncomfortable. To be destabilized. To become pliant. To become entirely subject to power/s that can annihilate you or render you unrecognizable (even to yourself). Feels totally counter intuitive vis-a-vis the ideological glorification of pulling one's self up by the boot straps we hear in our American myths, vis-a-vis patriarchy, white supremacy and ableism's emphasis on exerting power and control at all costs as a way of maintaining a "solid and secure" self, vis-a-vis capitalism's certainty that we are only as good as our labor/working agency. It also feels totally counterintuitive to practice intentional vulnerability if you've got subtle or hostile carryover of post-traumatic stress from being (unsuccessfully) vulnerable and punished in the past. 

How often though, have you, have I, have we, has the world, come face to face with what's true, with what is sheer gift, with what is God, when we've done the counter-intuitive thing? You'll never hear me say that intuition isn't worth listening to. Just the opposite. I think cultural conditioning has led many of us to think what's pragmatic or "normal" or comfortable is what's intuitive. In truth I think our intuition is actually what's underneath those things, what's buried in what feels "counter intuitive." I'm talking here about what's spiritual truth, what's ultimately (as in Tillich's notion of the Ultimate) worth it but often hard and risky and full of consequences for the ego/privilege/status-quo.  

There's a difference between being sensitive and being vulnerable. There's a difference between revealing who we are and being vulnerable. There's a difference between being exposed and being vulnerable. Vulnerability has its own energy, it's own strength and attendant nakedness, but I do believe the ultimate test of whether something is true vulnerability (or not) has to do with what comes in the aftermath, what comes when and only when we truly surrender. If, when we are entirely surrendered, there is spiritual gold, new revelation, and a renewed knowledge of and capacity to hold both power and powerlessness, their dance, their life and death and life-after-life dance, and we are moved in that dance to embrace and embody and revere all of life more fully, then surely we've been had by the best vulnerability has to offer. 

Sandra as you face this next round of cancer, this next phase of your spiritual/teaching/mothering/loving life, my prayer is that you are "had" by the best of vulnerability. That is my prayer for Isaiah's birth process too. And I look forward to the day when we are face to face, across couches, in early morning rays of southern California sun light that splash off superman coffee mugs and reflect your beauty back to my eyes. There we will tell our stories about beating cancer (again) and giving birth (again). And there we will take each other in. Power from the outside. Power on the inside. Creature exchange. Incarnate commerce. The luxury of friendship, on going, for years and tears and trials and tests and tragedies and turnings and victories and new values and manifestations of what's sacred, authentic, and enduring. Love eternal. Love with us through it all. Aren't we lucky?  

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Last Month: Day 29


Music & Resurrection
September 25th, 2013
29 days and counting...

"Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on."

--Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821)

When your dad and I got married I walked down the aisle to a song called "Aqua" by Ryuichi Sakamoto. For almost all of my teen years and twenties I never wanted to get married. I think most notions and embodiments of marriage are small, restrictive and largely unconscious. I've been a skeptic of the institution and I still am. We can talk more about that someday, but suffice it to say your dad is the exception to a pretty big "rule" for me. Our marriage is one of the sweetest things that's ever unexpectedly come about in my life. I cannot imagine what my world would be without him. Anyways, I'm telling you this because I want to explain "Aqua." 

Once upon a time I lived in Palo Alto. I worked at a VA hospital there as a chaplain to veterans. I loved loved loved that work and it was brutal spiritually. So much pain of war and unexpressed grief due to the savage emotional conditioning the military does to men. One afternoon driving home from work, after a particularly hard session, on a dual diagnosis unit (for soldiers with me co-occuring mental health and addiction issues), I had on the local classical radio station and heard "Aqua" for the first time. I immediately thought to myself "if I ever get married, I'm walking down the aisle to this song." The thought itself couldn't have been more out of sync with my ideals and lifestyle at the time. But every once in a while the soul is simply prophetic. It was that day. 

Almost 5 years later, there I was, arm in arm with your grandmother, walking down the aisle to meet JR at the altar of First Congregational Church of Battle Creek as Tom Ryberg played that melody I had saved for "such a moment as this." I don't think there's a single song on this earth that better captures my spirit, the essence of who I am, better than that song. 

I'm telling you this because one thing I've learned over the years is that there are songs that capture people. Capture moments. Capture seasons. Capture relationships. And those songs are like sacraments. Or envelopes. You can tap into them, open them, and be transported back to sacred memories. Or they can put you in touch with certain people who are no longer with you. This is the work of resurrection, which I'll hopefully teach you a lot more about in the course of your lifetime (seeing that I'm a minister of Christ's church and all).

When I was 13 one of your grandfathers, William Aurthur McGaughy, died of pancreatic cancer. It was my first brush up with death. It was also the year 1994 and the AIDS epidemic came into pop culture's wide spread attention because an oscar winning movie came on the screen starring Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks called "Philadelphia." My dad, your grandpa, was dying in front of my eyes. And that movie dealt with death in a beautifully sophisticated way. Watching it enabled me, at the age of 13, to figure out that I could never figure out what was happening to our family. And that was okay. One of the closing scenes of that movie is kind of like a highlight reel of Tom Hank's character's life including his childhood, adolescence, family relations and lover relationship with a man played by Antonio Banderas. The song in the background, titled after the movie "Philadelphia" is sung by Neil Young. There were years and years and years when I would wrap myself up in my dad's robe (because it retained his smell) and listen to that song over and over and over because it was the only way I could connect, in the midst of adolescent life, to the truth of what I had lost and what I believed: "sometimes I think that I know what loves all about and when I see the light, I know I'll be alright." When I need your grandfather's spirit with me, I still go back to that song. 

There are sacred songs, sacred texts, sacred objects and symbols in the life of every person and every family. I want this writing to give you access to some of ours. So if you ever need to tap into "us," you can. Your dad's song is "Stand" by Sylvester Stone. Again, mine is "Aqua" by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Our love songs, the spirit of our love, can be heard in the following (all played at our wedding): Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire," Stevie Wonder's "Ribbon in the Sky" and Keith Washington's "Kissing You." Aurora's songs are "Psalm 23" by Bobby McFerrin, "You'll be Blessed" by Elton John, "Dear God" by Smokie Norful and "Good Night Sleep Tight" by Linda Rondstat. Grandma is a cellar of songs in a body. Here are hers: "Gabriel's Oboe" from the Mission Soundtrack, "I Love The Lord" by Whitney Houston, "Bring Many Names" a hymn by Brian Wren, and everything by Yo Yo Ma. These are a good start. I'll try to find out more about Grandpa Joe, Grandma Vivian, and Aunt Susan. 

Not really sure how I got on the tangent of music and resurrection this morning. But with 29 days until your delivery, this is what I've got to offer. Can't wait to hold you, little one. 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Bodies & Cusps

Yesterday I stood staring 
out the window of my dining room 
where a perfect view can be had of 
my across-the-street neighbor's house.

There
congregated six young bodies
underneath a basketball hoop
in a driveway, doing what young bodies do--
everything. 

Kids of working class mommies and daddies
and single mommies and dudes & butches who drop in 
and immigrant families trying to stay hidden
one young body fat
one young body disabled
four bodies brown
two bodies female--
all the bodies more than these things visible
or perhaps not even the things I project as visible--  
all in a city that pictures itself 
white and man and rich and free and "right"
all these young queer/ed bodies 
all moving
all monitoring
all making their way in and around and with each other.  

One body crying against the fence
one body throwing its hips and hair 
one body dominating the court
multiple bodies aimless in themselves 
and curious about the others--
languages acquired
sensibilities secured 
feedback loops tested and thrown away. 

How do we gain a sense of self? 
How do we become who we are?

Bodies colliding. 

Observing this cusp 
between elementary and adolescence
playing itself out across the street 
fills me with terror
as I too stand in a cusp, 
mine between reckless young adult 
and newly responsible mom. 

I see my own body over there, years ago
completely ignorant to the consequences of risk,
naively thinking it was invincible, hard, 
beyond the porosity of skin and precarities of the human heart.
The things of my skin and heart
that are broken beyond repair
scream out to them: 
BE CAREFUL WITH EACH OTHER, IT'S NOT SAFE OUT THERE. 

I see my children's bodies over there, years from now
tender, fragile, totally vulnerable   
trying to find their way, their means and ends, 
among the other fleshy creatures they encounter 
who too are tender, fragile, and totally vulnerable. 
The parts of me that are faithless, 
narrow and myopic beyond repair
scream out to (future) them: 
I'LL NEVER LET YOU GO! IT'S NOT SAFE OUT THERE. 

How we knock up against each other 
and signify to each other 
and compel and disgust 
and normalize and stigmatize each other
our bodies these vessels and receptacles, 
full of meat and tendons, 
bravery and bullshit,
how we do it,
day after day 
season after season
year after year, 
how we do it, 
when it hurts so bad 
and pleases so mighty, 
how we do it, 
when there's too much to lose
and more than enough to gain 
is simply beyond me. 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Equinox Gratitude

My mother's spirit is here with me in the kitchen
as Whitney Houston's "I Love The Lord" blares
five feet from where I chop zucchini and carrots 
for an Italian sausage soup about to be shared 
with my spiritual sisters on this Equinox.  
My daughter is having pancakes out of my sight
in the company of friends who take pictures of her 
picking her nose and send them by text. It's hilarious. 
My spouse is pounding the key board 
downtown in his stark office that in no way reflects
all the grunt, sacrifice, and effort he pours into this city. 
My body is full, aching and intense from carrying a pregnancy
that made itself known on Valentines Day. 
"Love child" in deed. Ever since. Coming forth soon (God willing). 

The sounds and smells and sensations 
of this house
are the sacraments of my life. 

I am/we are this music. 
I am/we are this food. 
I am/we are this seasonal change.
I am/we are this laughter.
I am/we are this social justice. 
I am/we are this third trimester. 

I am/we are this love. This God. This gratitude ongoing. 

Friday, September 20, 2013

Writing Isaiah Entry #19


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing Isaiah 
Entry #19 
September 16th 2013

Lyssa Howley

I must admit when you asked me to think of a prompt for your pregnancy blog I was both honored, that you believe I could inspire something creative and beautiful out of you, and bewildered because I'm not a parent, because I anxiously await the day I become a mother both with hopefulness and fear. There are a million things I could ask you about parenting Aurora and Isaiah. In fact, there are a million things I want to ask you. But something much more painful and "fleshy" resides with me right now. Co-existing with a sibling can be one of the most life-giving and life-sucking experiences. As an older sister, I carry a deep love for my mini-me, who is nothing like me. Who inspires constant joy and a constant sense of helplessness. Adding another being into the mix will surely bring both joy and helplessness, love and pain to Aurora in the years to come. My question lies in here, somewhere. What truths do you already hold about this whole sibling dynamic? What are your hopes, fears, nuggets of wisdom, and elements of unknown around this new relationship--Aurora as an older sister, Isaiah as a younger brother?

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

So, Lyssa, honey, I know nothing. Seriously. I've never had a sibling. Not in the traditional sense, anyways. I have a half brother and half sister, biologically. But I didn't meet them until I was 30. That's late. And the man who raised me until I was 13 had a daughter and son, who came for visits sometimes, but we weren't "related." You know? Feels almost impossible for me to answer this question you've posed given my sheer ignorance, my lack of experience, the absence of context that I bring to this topic. 

Almost impossible. 

I can, though, offer my hope, which is, in essense, born of the absence of siblings in my life. So maybe I do have a context. But it seems like my thoughts are more projections of what can be based on my experience of what has not been. That may or may not make sense to you. Let me be more concrete. I've watched other families all my life. Families that had multiple parents, multiple children, big ole families, the kind where kids had each other as much as they had their parents. And I watched with absolute fascination. Like a total outsider, taken with something foreign, strange, alluring. As a kid I felt so alone most of the time. My mom's presence was the one and only constant, but even in that relationship there were differences that couldn't be bridged--mostly the age difference, but there were others. When I watched siblings, I saw something that I projected "less aloneness" onto. I imagined that those sisters or brothers or sister/brother combos had a love in each other's company that rendered them less alone. And honestly I suspect that I was right in some cases. When I look at J.R. and his sister Susan, I know without a doubt that their relationship makes both of their lives better, more full of love. When I think of how my friend Ian and his brother Pat connected with each other as little one's living in the shadows of parental alcoholism, I know their sibling relationship literally saved them. When my girl Anna talks about the protection she feels toward her sister Emily, I know there is sacred union between them. All this to say: when I was projecting less aloneness onto the various pairs under my observation, I was probably right if their relationships played out like any of the ones I just mentioned.   

But I've also been in the pastoring/counseling business long enough to know that sibling relationships don't always feel like gold. In fact, some feel like shit, from day one forward. That's what I hear anyways. Siblings can fight all their lives. They can betray each other. They can come undone under sibling rivalry, jealousy and the need to be #1 in the sight of their parents. It's pretty relevant, to me anyways, that the first story of murder in the Bible happens brother to brother. The question "Am I my brother's keeper?" resounds as the ultimate indictment of patriarchal, competitive masculinity in the site of God. But I've seen/heard/known some serious unrest between sisters too. 

So, yes, I carry large fear that something will trigger them into hatred of each other. But fear rarely serves me. Instead I find myself concentrating on/questioning/pondering/curious about how and why sibling relations can turn out so differently? 

Like, why do some siblings connect and deepen their love throughout life? Why do some have a prickly orientation toward one another that just grows worse with each passing year? And all those in between, the more nuanced sibling relationships that contain love, hatred, camaraderie, jealousy, indifference, grief--why do those function the way they do? Since I try to not be compartmentalized in my thinking, it's at this point that I'll admit I think multiple factors influence this stuff: biology, culture, parental expectations, the role of emotion in family systems, religion, class, gender, the list goes on and on. And I wonder given all those different factors, that are each quite complex in their own right, how a parent can influence siblings for the good. I think parents do have some power in this regard. Not all power, but definitely enough to take that power seriously. So the question for me, today, is how I might use my parental power to interact with Aurora and Isaiah, individually and as a pair, in ways that bring about meaning, connection, intimacy and love between them. 

I find behaviorist psychology a rather mixed bag, honestly. But I am a firm believer in the power of reinforcing/rewarding positive behavior and ignoring/punishing bad behavior as a way of conditioning future behavior. I know "good and bad behavior" are subjective and this stuff gets much more complicated as life goes on. But right now, it doesn't feel so complicated to me. Like, things that put Aurora in danger are bad. I make sure to say "no" or to block her from moving in directions of harm. Good things look like exploration, creativity, safe risk, connection with others. I make sure to say "thank you" or "what an amazing thing you just did!" when Aurora does good stuff. One thing I plan to do very early on is reward any/all of what Aurora does to show affection to her little brother. When she exhibits care for him, I plan to shower her with praise and affirmation. When Isaiah gets old enough to do the same toward her, I will, again, very intentionally try to reward that good behavior. Like wise, when they interact in ways that are harmful, I will either ignore it (if it feels like attention-seeking behavior) or verbally put a stop to it. It's not rocket science and even typing this feels overly simplistic. And it won't always work. But that's one of my approaches. 

Another approach to parenting that I find super helpful is one that puts relational modeling at the core of teaching power. Like I really really believe that we learn how to do relationships by watching/experiencing how our care givers are in relationship with themselves, with us and how they are in relationship with others. In essence, I think Aurora and Isaiah will learn a lot about how to be in relationship with each other by watching how J.R. and I are in relationships of various kinds. How we treat others. How we allow others to treat us. How we treat each other. How we treat them, again, individually and as a pair. This will all go a long long way in conditioning their behavior. So obviously relationships of integrity, honesty, authenticity, peace and love are what I want to cultivate in their presence. 

The family I married into is a total bonus when it comes to relational modeling. Sometimes I wish people could see the J.R. I see, not just the public J.R. He is unbelievable with his mother and sister. I think he's grown into this loving capacity over time, as he'll be the first to tell you that he's made some mistakes with family in the past. But now, my God. There's nothing he won't do for his family. He shows up. He spends time. He shows interest. He says kind things and laughs over shared family humor. He gives loving touch. He comes to their aid in times of loss or crisis. He does annoying tasks to help out around the house. He consults their wisdom. He shares his stories with them. It's beautiful. And it's something that I am learning from because I had very little in the way of family or extended family growing up. Our kids will be better for what he brings in the way of family knowledge. I think I offer them incredible resources/tools/experience when it comes to family by choice and relationships with larger community. But J.R. is the expert when it comes to the blood line. I'm so glad we are a team because both are important. I am especially grateful that Aurora and Isaiah will grow up seeing J.R. and Aunt Susan interact with each other. Their sibling relationship inspires me. I hope it inspires my kids too. 

Now, to be concrete about my hope. I hope they love each other fiercely. I hope they find refuge in each other's presence. I hope they come to know their similarities and differences as siblings in ways that make them attentive to the similarities and differences of all people--and that attentiveness makes them appreciative and celebratory of what humans share and the diversity that characterizes our species. I hope they watch each other struggle and mess up and learn compassion, patience, tenderness and forgiveness in those moments. I hope they teach each other how to care deeply and how to let go of what you cannot control. I hope they push each other, hard, to become the best they can be because they have a shared sense of pride about who they are and where/who they come from. I hope they render each other less alone. I do. But more than anything I hope they find in each other's company, a portion of the living God, that can only be manifest in those who call themselves kin.     

I'd really love to hear "how to raise good siblings" advice from those of you out there who have experience to share. Especially you, Lyssa. Something tells me I have a lot to learn from you, big sister extraordinaire. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

A Letter to My Firstborn 6 Weeks Before the Due Date of Baby Number Two


Dear Aurora: 

I hail from Queerville. 
Well, that's not true. But I like to claim it.
I wasn't lucky enough to be born in Castro or Greenwich;
I actually hail from second generation middle class white Los Angeles suburbia.
Queerville saved me. Actually Queerville brought you into being,
which was a part of my saving, but more on that at another time. 

What I'm trying to say is that 
anything I've done right and anything about me that's wise 
came from an accumulated clear-as-a-bell smartness 
belonging to the queers, the gays and lesbians, the bold bi's,
those who cross and switch and twerk and flame, 
the tender and fierce transfolks, the awesome androgynes,
the polys and kink-inclined. All of them--

they taught me true love, Aurora. It's that simple.

And because they taught me true love, I am now struggling 
(in a way that's not foreign to being human)
with what I know versus what I feel. 
Queers also taught me that knowing and feeling aren't separate,
so in a sense, this struggle is quite faithful. So I must listen to it.
Listen, like radically, listen. 

They taught me that there is always enough love
and any perceived deficit 
is probably some kind of trauma-induced pain that needs working. 
They taught me that, yes, there are limits on/to love, but not deficits 
and learning the difference between limits and deficits 
is how you heal that trauma induced pain. 

So for years I've been learning and swimming in and sometimes resisting 
the spaces betweeen my perceived deficits and truthful limits. 
In all honesty, I think I'm doing pretty good these days, at the age of 32. 
Anything the queers taught me about love, you, Aurora, have solidified,
albeit unknowingly, with the grace of your presence in my life. 
Mothering is just a doubling down on any lesson of love you've learned 
prior to the occassion of becoming a parent. 

All this to say: I've learned and I've become better. Thank God. 
But right now, staring into the future, there is something calling out to me
to be rigorously honest about how perceived deficits/limits 
are fuzzing like some impossibly gorgeous horizon 
induced by a sunset that you just don't want to quit.  

You see: you and I have about 6 weeks left together. 
Your brother, Isaiah, is supposed to be born on October 24th
and while every ounce of me can't wait to behold him,
every ounce of me is also grieving the loss of me and you. 
Not that we are going anywhere, but a glacial shift is about to happen between us.
There is always always always loss in change. 
And you're too young to get what this change will entail for us.
I feel kinda guilty about that,
but more than anything I feel responsible 
for our collective grief--yours and mine--
in an anticipatory way. 

I am so fucking in love with you. 
What your little life does to me in indescribable. 
What I see in your eyes
What I hear in your babble
What I feel in holding your toddler body
What I sense in witnessing your becoming--
I am so fucking in love with you. 

Part of me is reluctant to share that love. 
There I said it. 

There's a part of me that still believes,
somewhere down deep, 
even though the queers taught me different,
and i "know" different,
that I only have so much room
and only have so many resources
and only have so much time
and only have so many ways
to love
and that when Isaiah arrives 
some of what's available in me will go to him
and you will be left wanting--
the thought of which makes me spiritually sick
and sorrowful in my guts.   

Is this some capitalist-imperialist ideology in me?
Or as the spiritualists would say: "deficit model thinking"? 

For a long time I thought it would be just me and you. 
Just me and you and you and me. 
Maybe it's because I (mostly) grew up with a single  mom
and learned to trust life in that dyad. Or maybe it's because 
I never thought I'd settle into a romantic relationship secure enough
to also contain parenting alongside romance and knew knew knew
I couldn't parent more than one by myself. But up until J.R. arrived
and then Isaiah came along, I thought it'd be momma and kid, only. 

I was prepared for that. I'm not prepared for this. 

I'm not prepared to share my heart with any other little being than you. 
I want to give you everything I have. 
I don't want to have to choose between you and anything else, ever. 
I don't want to be split. 
I want ultimate harmony with you, 
a circadian dance where your needs, the legit ones,
are met by the innate supply G-d has implanted in mommies
for the eternal supply of offspring. 
I'm not prepared for this. 

This morning you woke up late. 
I brought you into bed with me, 
so you could drink your bottle and I could give snuggles
all at the same time. 
Just lingering in that moment, 
feeling the fleeting seconds go by--
will we have this kind of time in 3 months from now?-- 
was enough to bring me to tears. 
And so I stayed. 5 minutes turned to 10.
10 minutes to 20. 20 to 45. 
I was late for work and couldn't care less. 
And then, then I had to write. 
Because even though you will only be this little for so long
and even though I will only have one child for so long
there is nothing that can take my written words away. 
 
When you are older
and I am gone
or I'm still here but you are curious about what it used to be like,
I want you to read this and know-- 
that in the last weeks before Isaiah was born
you were in my constant thoughts
and i was summoning every lesson from Queerville 
that I could possibly summon
because I need to believe, now more than ever, 
that love will make room, will expand, will multiply,
will unlock places in me that i never even knew existed. 
Because I've never ever ever loved anything the way I love you
and I want every single thing that I do, 
including giving birth to and raising another child,
to make my love of you more palpable, more felt, more real. 

The queers have never lied, never led me astray. 
If you understand, years from now, from the context of our relationship,
or in the Spirit of this writing, the difference between limits and deficits,
and most importantly about the power of love 
to create more of itself from itself,
please be sure to give credit where credit is due. 
That is all I ask. 

Love, 
Momma