Feb 14, 2013
12:33 p.m.

I'm sitting here at Zoka, alone and sipping a steamy Americano.  I ordered it 'for here.'  I don't remember the last time I ordered something to stay.

I woke this morning anxious, or perhaps excited?  It's true that the highly-anxious personality often has a hard time distinguishing anxiety from excitement, since they are essentially the same physiological sensation.  I nearly cancelled my plans for this moment.  There has been a lot invested in this moment, a personal journey of epic proportions to my small existence. I've hired my friend Niki to watch Bowie for several hours a month, and not so I could go to an appointment or do anything required of me. I hired her entirely to get away from being a Mom for a small while.

First, there is the initial idea that it would be nice to run errands alone again, to perhaps go on a photograph walk or visit the sea shore.  There is the emotional struggle of wondering how deserving I really am of those hours.  Working through that took a few weeks.

Second, there's the progress of thinking a thought to vocalizing a thought.  There's telling Joel and then working through his thoughts (always supportive) but the logistics, the money, the implications.

Third, there's the finding of someone you trust.  Or should I hire a professional?

Fourth:  There's the agreement of scheduling with this person and the waiting for the days to arrive.

Then it's time.  Just another day for Bowie, but one I've been planning for nigh on 6 weeks, and one I wanted to back out of at least 15 times.   There's the self-doubt, the "I'm fine today; I don't really need this."

But here I am at Zoka, feeling so impossibly fulfilled that I'm sure to be leaking light!  I can suddenly feel the goodwill and love of people; I can see atoms connected and agreeing on origin and meaning.  I realize that unless I had a moment to sit quietly in uninterrupted thought to ponder this feeling  I would have missed out on this new phrase I keep hearing from inside of me:

I love being Bowie's mother.

The truth is, I've had small moments of this revelation this week while hanging out with her, stroking her head of new hair, kissing her soft neck.  But I don't think I allowed it a full confession.  And I may never have had - if I'd not given the thought the space and solitude to emerge.

All this makes me wonder how many revelations, meditations, and epiphanies are missed because we do not pursue solitude or make room for contemplation. I needed to step back from Bowie to really see her.  And I have to say, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so beautiful.

I've often felt more in love with Joel when I'm thinking of him from afar or praising him to others.  The distance creates clarity.  And I can clearly see this love that permeates my life, connects me to my kin.

So I hired Niki.  There's a lot I want to do with that time.  I want to shop, take pictures, exercise, meet Joel for lunch...but today it just made sense to write.  I just wanted to reflect on this most beautiful fulfillment given to me in a small coffee shop not 200 feet from Bowie and Niki playing in my house.  I want to let this moment pervade my mind, to let this happiness truly happen to me.  To not criticize it or truncate it with the knowledge that it too will pass.

When Joel leaves, even for one night, I get the smallest taste of how different my life could have been.  I realize how incredibly hard it is to fall asleep without him snoring next to me, and while that other life would have certainly been full of its own treasures, I know more and more that a life without Joel - well, I'll have none of it.

I am usually the one travelling away from home, and in that circumstance, I think it's easier to be distracted from how much you miss your lover.  When you are the one left behind, new mysteries of self-independence await.  All at once, you realize how simultaneously capable and incapacitated you are without your partner.   When I hadn't heard from Joel for the entire day, the self-pity began to gnaw at my pregnant heart (for those of you who are interested, pregnancy actually re-situates the heart chakra, exposing your vulnerabilities to everyone you meet.  It's not just the hormones that make pregnant women emotional, but the energy shift).  

"Why isn't he calling me?  Worse yet, this means he's not even thinking of me.  Why doesn't he read my to-do lists?  Why doesn't he bring me flowers, why do I always have to buy them for myself?"

After a few hours of this, I stopped.  Something inside me saved me and I determined to remember Joel's needs above my own.  Considering what I really wanted was for him to refresh his soul, how could I begrudge a day where I am not his first thought; a day where work doesn't consume all of his words; a day where his very best friend - the forest - nurtures him back to himself.  A day where his huge hands don't have to carry all three of us.  

I began to feel a slowly increasing empowerment, for it was in this realization that I found my hands big enough, strong enough to hold us.  And then I remembered that on his walk home from a 11-hour work day Friday, he picked me a small cherry blossom.  Marriage is very rarely about grand gestures; it is more the desire to share beauty in small ways throughout your days.  I don't want him to think of me as something to do, a relationship to upkeep, a woman to romance.  Instead, I want him to romance himself and in so doing, truly make me swoon.  Who knows if he picked that blossom because he was overwhelmed with appreciation for me.  Perhaps he picked it because its beauty struck him, and if beauty reminds him of me - I am romanced to my very core.