I have my cross country skis riding between the seats; a car seat flanks each side in the back seat. They are empty, because I am going skiing at Maasto Hiito. Kombucha Tea bottles, assorted food fodder, and ice coat the floor of my Dodge. I'm a single mother always on the move, and it is way to friggin cold to clean out the car. My friend and I are meeting at the trailhead, cars thrumming in the 2 degree air temperature. The snow is coming down so hard, that you cannot see the road in front or to the side. Wind whipping hard, so that the tops of snowbanks are whisked off and across the road, further limiting vision.
We meet at the trailhead, and the snow actually lets up almost completely. The wind is whipping and the windchill is certainly 20 below zero. Once we are in the woods, the towering birches and maples and hill sides protect us in their insultated snowy womb. I am so blessed and thankful that we made it out skiing this day. . We ski over a bridge, made of railroad ties. I know this only because I've seen the bridge when there wasn't snow. The river still flows, but winds its way around squatting, snow covered rocks, and threads its way under ice patches. It will be completly frozen soon.
Papery barked birches stretch leafless upwards with snow encrusted branches, while white gloved maples hang robed arms overhead.
I hear the swish of my pants, and the slight squeek of snow under my skiis. We talk for a while, venting about stresses, and admiring the beauty of this still cold day.
My body heats up quickly, steaming under my clothes, despite the subzero temperatures. We become quiet. We don't need to talk anymore. It is just us, lost in our own thoughts and the solitude that winter brings.
After skiing we get some sushi and take that with us for a beer. Ski gear still on, I enter the welcoming warmth of the bar. I stay around for awhile. This is the only bar I frequent, and for good reason. I always know somebody, and if not I can read my book or just lose myself and enjoy the fact that I am alone. Or I can always meet somebody new and interesting.
Satisfied and saturated with bliss and warmth, I pick up my boys and we head home.
Curling clouds of smoke churn behind cars, and seem to bounce off of the frozen ground and the negative 5 degree air. I see the hill across the canal, driving my crappy Dodge. It isn't even mine, but I am grateful to have this car to use, even if the locks keep freezing and I can't use one of the doors and the muffler is so bad you can hear me from half a mile away.
I danced to Erik Koskinen last night. I haven't seen him in years. I danced and danced until they stopped. I feel healed and whole when I am dancing and groovin.
When I left the Range Snowmobile Club the night sky was so clear, and I saw several meteors flying like ignited flint sparks against the inky blackness stretching on forever over the white moonlit snow.. Negative 12 degrees and 2:30 AM. Drank some Old Mil, since it seemed appropriate to being in the Snowmobile club and at 1.50 a can who can argue. The music was done and I headed home. Happy and light.
I love the snow, as long as I'm not getting stuck in it and my car runs.
Free, flowing, and open. Man, I really wonder sometimes about this life and its veil of tears. If there is reincarnation, I sure hope that I get to complete my cycle in this plane of existence in this lifetime. I really don't want to go through all these twists and turns again in another life.
My path is my path, and I embrace it. A short time ago, I felt like if a black hole opened up in front of me I would have jumped right in to stop the pain I was in. I have never felt so devasted in my life. I have never felt so much pain.
I have been on a path of healing over this past year, well really my whole life if I look at it. But specifically this past year has been amazing. And my shift in consciousness and my shift in percpective is allowing me to really heal and not remain static and stuck. I am not going to lay in a corner and snivel and cry. Okay, well maybe once in a while, but then I am going to get up and keep moving.
So many gifts are coming to me. I feel empowered. I feel centered and grounded. I feel laughter, and smiles. I feel energized at work and I love the constant contact with people. I know I am going to be just fine. And I am excited to be me, Jess, powerful and amazing. Me and my boys.
I don't regret one moment of my life and the things I have been through and done. It has all lead me to where I am now. And I feel like I have learned so much and become an amazing woman on the journey. And of course I have my beautiful boys, and that is something I would never give up. Even though somedays I think they make me insane!
All my healing and newfound revelations don't mean that I am not sad. It does not mean that things aren't hard. But I am okay. I am going to be fine. I am going to be better then fine.
A roll of hemp and scattered beads and seashells ring my cross-legged position on the floor, and I can imagine my face peaceful in concentration. I have one beautiful shell, when laid on a surface on its flat part, the shell resembles a volcano, a circular opening on the top. Stripes of blue and gray reach from the rim of the volcano to the base. It is perfect for the center piece of my necklace. I feel beauty as I focus on my task in the red glow of the lamp, my dog sleeping peacefully on the blanket next to my jar of shells, her legs splayed hapazardly about her.
I am figuring out how to hang the shell and what sort of knots and pattern I would like to use. I feel relaxed, and wish that more often I was able to do this. Music is playing, husband is out with friends, and my boys are recharging their bodies and minds for another busy day of play and work tomorrow. I so rarely get to do things for myself without interuptions, my strings attached to children, husband, and my own stubborn mind. Alexi Murdoch is singing, "don't forget to breath".I breath with the music. I love being creative and using my hands, my mind focused on a task, my true self feeling itself open and flow, untethered by any worldly nuisances. I used to create in this way so often, before I became a mother. Most of my creativity these days seems to fall into the catagories of stratagies to get a picky eater to eat, making playdough, creating sand castles, creative ways to keep two boys from beating the snot out of each other. I will have time again for more of my artistic endeavors, I know this. My boys are so young still.
I am remembering when Engelbert and I were making a lot of hemp necklaces. We lived in Denver. One day on an impulse we took all of our necklaces to the 10th Street Mall, a long string of stores, bars, restaurants, and clubs up and down the middle of downtown. We spread out a blanket and our wares and sat back enjoying our grassy spot and the sun. Some grungy folks, old hippies with their teenage children, were selling some jewlry down the street.
We felt so clever and content with ourselves when two police officers, driving mopeds with blinking blue lights speared on posts on the backs, arrived, and dismounted, white helmets under their arms, threatening uniformed stance. I have always felt threatened by the police. They examined our work and looked us up and down. One of them told us that it is illegal to sell anything on the mall without a permit. We claimed ignorance, and it was true, we were ignorant of the law. We were only having fun and trying to make some extra money. They fined us anyways. I believe it was a hundred dollar fine. I felt mostly embarassed and sheepish afterwards; I haven't actually shared the story with many friends, because I felt so foolish.
Now, making my necklace I remember the whole incident with a smile, and laugh at ourselves, young and dreaming. I still am dreaming and I don't really intend to stop. At least in Costa Rica you don't need a permit to sell your handiwork. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a necklace to finish.
Big Guy is our new dog. He pretty much adopted my husband. He clearly was somebody's dog, but he attached himself to my husband and we have been unsuccessful at finding his owner. He jumped right in our car when my husband opened the door, waited for him outside work. He wanted my husband.
Big Guy has been with us for two weeks. Well he is old and is definetly chocolate lab, perhaps with saint bernard because his head is massive and is shaped like one. He is so very sweet and good natured. He stays right by the house most of the time, in fact he favorite spot is the upstairs porch we he spends almost his entire day.
He ran off last Friday and we found him that evening down the road outside somebodys gate.
Now he took off again yesterday morning. My husband has been looking for him for hours today. He is like 5 miles from here in Jaco.People have seen him. He is driving around and people everywhere keep saying they just saw him. I hope he comes back with him. It is dark and rainy and hard to see anything. I can't believe he made it all the way over there. Somebody might keep him, I don't know.
Well, my husband just got home without him. :( Some family has been feeding him I guess and he was scared and ran off because there were other guys with my husband. My husband followed him for a long time, but he kept running. He doesn't really know his name is Big Guy yet and he is old.
Hopefully tomorrow we can find him again. We know where he has been hanging out at least. Maybe he is meant to wander.
I lay in my hammock, on the second story porch, swaying in a breeze that leaves my exposed arms and feet feeling almost cold. It is 80 degrees but raining and misty. I can see the beaded curtain of rain drops dripping from the edge of the roof, and beyond them millions of rain drops spatter the surrounding trees and landscape; beyond my yard and the highway with its drone of approaching cars like small vacuums trundling past, is a huge hill, steep and tall and lush with greenness. Behind my house rises another steep hill full of palm trees, bamboo trees, teak, and others that I cannot name but are so lucious and green in this rainy season that they put light in your eyes. A few small parrots perch far up in a dead trees branches, enjoying the afternoon shower.
Cameron, my youngest, is curled up on top of my chest, having nursed off into peaceful oblivion. His breath puffs against me and his energy merges with mine. I feel us, twined together, joined in one blissful throb, melting into the sound of the rain dancing on the leaves of the mango tree soaring above our heads, the whiz and splash of cars passing, and the casual call of a bird nearby. It is so intense and I feel our love and our energy expanding and merging with the surrounding trees and growing upwards over the earth and through the universe.
The cradle of the hammock's cotten strings suspend me in the middle of all this, and I almost stop breathing. It feels like I merged with Divine Love. With God.
There are moments in one's life as a parent, that somehow make the realization that you are actually a parent, click. Sure, you know you gave birth to this beautiful person (or people), but in the dreamy state of motherhood (or fatherhood) you just stumble along, when suddenly you have one of those moments when you realize with a thunderous, astonishing crack of awareness, that you are in fact a mother.
There are many intermittent moments like this, poignant and remarkable; they are just little things that pull you out of the breakneck pace life seems to set for us. Sometimes it is the first smile, or other milestones. Or very often, when those little monsters are sleeping like angels.
But my favorite, and those most amazing, are the more simple ones.
Last night, I had mine as I opened up my refridgerator, and I had to move the Hotwheels out of the way to get out the pasta salad. I actually moved the neat little row of cars, all facing front and center, to the side, eased the bowl of salad past them, and shut the door. It was as I was setting the bowl on the counter that I really thought about it. Wow, toys in my fridge is just a normal occurance. So normal, that I didn't really think about it at all, just moved them aside.
Wow, I really do have children, and how amazing they are. How amazing is it that I am a mother and I have Hotwheels in my refriderator, legos piled in the corner, and a stock of bandaids on hand for boo-boos. Kalani likes to have cold hotwheels. And why shouldn't he?
If you have time, watch this. It is so beautiful. I don't know how anybody can think breastfeeding is weird, or disgusting, or how someone can be uncomfortable with it. It is so amazing.
thankful
good
awake
creative
confused
enthralled
content