A mother to all

I said I was not going to spend much time editing what I write.  I am not an editor nor versed in the rules of writing.  Doing that interrupts the flow, forcing a contrived, manipulated and, yes, frustrating stream of those things that come from within.

I have now spent a week spiritually intertwined with Boston.  The bombings at the marathon have riveted the nation, the world, with a compulsive need  to understand the how and why.  The emotions of disbelief, horror, sadness, morbid curiosity  and fear have played out and changed moment by moment.  Five days later, the suspects caught (one dead, one in serious condition), the nation is relieved and celebrating.  In the next several weeks and months, the questions will  hopefully be answered through the judicial system and a breath of normalcy should return

My blog is about being a mother.  I believe once a mother (and I do not mean the title of mother bestowed by the action of giving birth, but the imbuing agape love that consumes) Once seized by this love, you become a mother to all.  All actions and thoughts are viewed through the prism of motherhood. My greatest asset is also my greatest cause of despair:  my capacity to love all.  I have  claimed that my death will result from a broken heart mourning the hurts of the world.  My heart rules me in all cases, and not through some intangible emotional space within, but by a tangible muscle that beats, giving me life or death.  I see the faces of those who died, especially the innocent eight year old boy who looked remarkably like my middle son:  beloved, innocent, big huge eyes that highlight a heart of love.  Once the suspects caught, I felt and witnessed the understandable persecution of the two young brothers.  But as a mother, when I look in the eyes of the younger brother, I see a boy that somehow, in someway, became lost to us all.  I listened to his mother speak and my heart ached as a mother:  a son dead and a son in custody: total disbelief that her sons could be capable of such a horrific act.  The denial that the heart must  cling to like receiving oxygen in a time of need. The connection of a mother to her child begins when she first perceives, before medically actuated, that she is part of something, someone who is now a part of her.  It becomes physical, visceral, their life existing through and in each other .  Once a child leaves her body through the beauty of  birth , the physical attachment becomes existential, vital, unbroken.  Our child hurts, we hurt.  Our child is at peace, we settle into that place with them, no matter how many miles of separation.

The pain is there for all the victims, the families' of the victims, and yes, the perpetrators parents.  Heavy is their load.  Love can stop the heart just as quickly as it can resuscitate it.  Your child does a horrible thing.  Once it all sinks in, once the unfathomable becomes reality, her heart will die and lead to her failing this life.  Some feel no compassion for her.  I believe that these people cannot separate their own hurt and anger from the all encompassing feeling of revenge.  It is all about emotions:  life and death.

Tea making

By the time I muster the courage to sit and write, having gone through the usual rituals of tea making,  finding a lighter to light my scented candle, placing my writing box that my husband so lovingly gave me for inspiration (with 2 heath bars placed inside in case I feel the need)  and turning on my electric foot warmer, the flow moves to frustration as I am faced with the daunting task of navigating to my blog page.  I reluctantly approach my computer hoping that maybe, just maybe this one time, my blog will magically appear, open and be ready for poetic verse!  I do possess some mental pen and paper warriors ready and willing to slay any step in joining the troopers of the  modern age. My husband, my children and my friends emphatically (and nauseatingly so) defined for me the tenets of the modern age writer:  blogging.  Oh, for the days of Emily Dickinson when your stories, thoughts, loves and fears were written on scraps of paper and bound together with a coveted piece of purple hair ribbon.  Was it not Emerson who once stated that the most difficult part of writing is placing the bottom on the chair to begin?  I think it is keeping it on the chair.

I am reading a book.  It is entitled You are a Writer, (So start acting as one), by Jeff Goins.  Yes, another excuse to not write just yet.  Actually, the book speaks to me on many levels.  The important mantra I hear echoing  in the first few chapters is "tell your story" not for others and the expectations they may hold, but for yourself.

As I have alluded to before, I have so many stories, so many ideas, so many things to share "out loud" that I can not focus.  I figured if I just start, pen to paper..no, I mean fingers to keys, maybe the stories will swim from my brain through my fingers to the great out there.  Once these words are spoke out loud, they become available for others.  It doesn't matter if others like it, I have stories to tell.

introduction

Yes, I still have not published anything I have written.  I have accumulated more scraps of paper with want to be poems, muses, experiences, lost in places found and unfound.  To be a writer you have to have some sort of organization, right?  Or enough money to have a personal secretary to file, edit, do laundry, grocery shop, cook a dinner under the guidelines of whatever is the diet de jour, answer the 24 hour  mother, daughter, sister, friend hotline and taxi service (which may result in total energy consumption for the day),  bring me green tea and tell me I am great.  Oh, I forgot to have her cook a warm and nourishing breakfast for my brood. She better arrive early.

This morning, I read a blog that a local online, upscale "coupon" website posted because it deemed it a worthy and an insightful read for its large upper middle class audience.The blogger's topic is how to live a successful and happy life. Sounds worth the read, huh?  Who of us does not like this sort of self help gibberish and non-gibberish?  Sitting in my robe at 5:30 am, sipping coffee and looking like most women of my age at this time of day, I am in need of an injection of anything stimulating to mind and body. Maybe this read would be it! The skinny, perfectly coiffured blonde, immaculately dressed, flawless figured and sparkly toothed woman was deemed by this website worthy to counsel in the ways of happiness and hardships. Ok?  As I read on I did indeed infuse myself with a sort of incredulous adrenaline that caused me to go so far as put my coffee cup down in fear of losing it on the floor. I read of this woman's description of hardship, her greatest hardship: a breakup that left her heart "smashed into smithereens"and that her happiness arrived by marrying the man of her dreams. This story sounds vaguely familiar:  maybe the beloved Cinderella story? On I reluctantly read.  Then, the punch to the gut: the beauty offered my robe clad greying self advice on the ups and downs of life and how to achieve happiness from her vantage point of being on the cusp of 30. 30 mind you!  As if all those years of struggling to  find her dream man (that offers her champagne in Paris.  Not a lie, it is written in the blog), dressing nicely and always wearing sunscreen to protect agains those nasty little wrinkles of the unavoidable aging process, are the tenets she and all in her circle should live by. She writes as if she, by being on the verge of a middle ager, is a respected shaman full of wisdom and insight. Her tenets  assumably  are written from a place deep (OK, not really that deep),  filled with conviction that offers a break in the tumultuous clouds of life and offers a warm beach and sun to bask in. Is this young (yes very young) woman's advice really the picture of an authentic life?  Is this about how to achieve the happy life, through the ideal man, the trips abroad, the right clothes, and please for God's sake don't forget your sunscreen! Is this the image that I want my teenage daughter to aspire to?  Get real!  I look at her body and ask myself, "has she gone through pregnancy and childbirth? Has she experienced the loss of a child, spent time in a third world country, or even under the bridges of our town?  Has she read any works by Cora Ten Boom or read Ann Frank?" Any more modern work by our women heroes like Sonia Sotomayor or Becca Stevens, just to name of few of thousands!   If in fact she has had children,  she has had the luxury to work out (probably with a trainer ), drink expensive veggie smoothies or maybe she has an app to keep her in a tip top 1200 calorie a day body.   If she does not like to exercise, she has a primo plastic surgeon.  I take great umbrage with the mention of working hard to avoid those pesky wrinkles brought on with aging and not using sunscreen.Please.  Don't offend those of us who have wrinkles. What is wrong with those wrinkles that beautify the feminine experience? Under those crevices lay sage wisdom. Each turn and indention hold stories and experiences that reside in the precious minutes of an ordinary, everyday woman's life. It is in the reflection of wrinkles  that women, young and old,  should gaze and  learn about a life lived.  I have always wondered why the song The Story by Brandi Carlile has always resonated with me, especially these lines:

"all of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am...

So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am."

maybe it is the truth that screams out of verse.

If for no other motivation then the myopic view of how to live a fulfilled life from the vantage point of a barbie like 30 year old privileged blogger, it is time to share what is behind the lines on my face, the stories I have to tell,  the experiences of tragedy, sorrow, pure joy and happiness I have experienced. I am real.  I am not poised as a writer. Grammar and I never got along.  But experience is what I have to share.  Some stories may seem trite, some may resonate in some corner of a cell somewhere. I have cultivated some wisdom from my past, through (no, sorry blogger, not through my use of daily sunscreen), trial and great error (mixed with a few successes).  And, yes, I have the right to own some of my tenets. I also know that I have not arrived in some fantasy self actualized mecca of wonderment.  I am a traveler on a very rutty pothole ladened road with views of vistas and wonder. I have experience on this road, however. I am a woman over  50.