{A Few} Invisibilities of Motherhood
The thrum of your becoming: you, housed inside.
My unassuming miracle: seen in tiny pulses, eddies and flows of movement dancing
across my torso.
The inaudible announcement of the female body – “Now. Now is the time to open, to
birth this life. Now, mama.”
The breaking, birthing, becoming, swirling, torrential experience of a mother born - as
she births.
The indescribable thrill of holding her tiny body.
The indescribable pain of all that is required, all that has changed and is changing, all
that is no more.
The invisibility in the healing, in the sleepless, the desperate, in the darkness,
the aloneness, the craving, in the too-muchness.
A tentative opening and acceptance of this not-me-now-me – unfurling gravity of
becoming.
Your tiny laughter etched inside, an antidote to all that ails.
The hidden moments, alone: shame and the haunting fear that I am actually
doing it all wrong.
The thread tug you feel when you’ve strayed a bit beyond your comfort, looking back to
locate mama.
The magic number the scale will read when I feel “back to myself” again
The running to-do list in my mind, circling on repeat, revisiting, unrelenting.
Sacred snapshots lined up, a reservoir of memory :
You, just as you are now, immortal in my mind.
You, with wispy, wild hair, big grin, round cheeks and perfect lisp. You, clenching
two match cars, one in each hand. You, calling for me after your nap, your body
finding its well-worn place in my arms: a ghost-sensation I will cling to. You,
running from the next room to place sticky hand on my chest when you hear me
cough. You. All of you, my boy.
You, convinced of your big-girl status at 6. Your new smirks, new hand-on-hip
stance, your love of gift-giving and dance. You, dazzling and bright, asking to be
seen and noticed, you live to perform. You, now, just as you are, my girl. Tangled
hair (battles chosen), mismatched socks, sparkle purse. You, big spirit, big heart.
You. All of you.
A sometimes gentle, sometimes life-threatening tug – from all sides: on time, attention, resources. Consuming all I have to give. Eroding a sense of self, separateness, personhood.
A breath-catching awareness of how dense the tiny nucleus of my life is - here, in this room, two tiny humans tucked in bed: everything. Everything.
Missing myself, even as I am right here. Missing myself. Missing myself.
Resources funneled outward by requirement. Internal world, a drought.
Whisper-to-roar messages entrap me, threatening to define what makes a mother and how she should behave.
White knuckling my way to ground I can stand on,
searching for an earth-trodden place I can recognize as my own.
On the outside: deceptively demure. Yet, a universe unfurls out of your view.
A world of invisibilities, a world unto each mother.