Another spring

Peach blossoms at the community garden

Every day for the last few weeks, whenever I take walks with Zeke or just look at the cherry tree just outside our back patio, all these thoughts about springtime last year rushes to me. For weeks I've been meaning to write them down, and for weeks I've decided to wait till later, after I'm done writing the literature review for my thesis, after I'm done soaking in my last week at home with Zeke. Well, my birthday has come and gone without me sitting down to write even a basic journal entry (my habit is to do some soul-and-life-stocktaking on March 7 each year), so March 9 2013 is the day I will stop and record some of these things.


Blossoming

My anemones are blooming!

Let's start with that cherry tree. "Oh," I want to tell Zeke - "Oh, if only you could have seen how this tree welcomed your arrival last year!" For a few weeks it was a cloud of white, shedding snowy petals. This winter has been confusing for the poor tree - it started blossoming in the dead of winter, paused to sprout some leaves, and are shedding both profusely right now. But I will always remember that glorious vision of white outside the window of the office (which is now Zeke's room), that beauty that stood with me last winter and spring as I sat at the desk writing papers, browsing, reading, writing, waiting, worrying, hoping. It was a harbinger of warmer weather and the approaching footsteps of new life.

It's startling to know that that time in our lives was just maybe two dozen or so blog posts ago... when suddenly the blur of school work paused for me (but continued at an unrelenting pace for poor Ryan) and I had the luxury to take long, slow walks with aching hips and so much quiet around me, and I would sit in the sun and write letters to "Baby," telling him about the flowers and the trees.

Vulnerable

Zeke during his afternoon nap today

Now I am heading back to that other life of classes and readings and papers and group meetings, and I am eager yet fearful to put that life back on. The past year has been one of the most vulnerable for me. I have always fallen back on work - completing it, and even better, completing it well - to make me feel productive, at peace, filled. This past year has been a slow shedding of that crutch. Mothering is never complete, not easily measurable or quantifiable, and - at least initially - not conducive to a predictable structure and schedule. There are no grades, no accolades, no wages - things that I had unknowingly used for validation and direction.

I have struggled with being a mother and Ryan can tell you about the tears and the fights. Now, to be clear, the struggle is complex and I want to write further about it, but here is where I want to begin: I struggle because I hate not putting myself first.

I read this line in a Lent devotional that we're going through: "All forms of self-concern manifest themselves in a lack of love for others." It hit me like a brick wall because I have been confronted with that reality over and over and over in a year that was set aside for service. I've resented having to clean or feed or engage, and I perpetually approach Ryan and Zeke through the lens of "how can they make my life easier?" But in the rare moments when I was able to ask "how can I love?" I knew that God was showing me the wide path of freedom. He had stripped away the distractions of school and career so that I could examine my naked life and see how swollen up my self was. He's laid bare the raw and ugly desires of my heart. And He is showing me that I can't love my husband and my son the way I so desperately want to unless I pursue Him first.

I still struggle, and I think I may continue to for the rest of my life. I cannot tell a story of how I overcame - not yet, at least. But I want to at least pause today and give thanks for this struggle, for the luxury of this year of vulnerability - not many people are able to stop school or stop having a job after all.

Time

My little plot in the morning sun

Zeke getting excited about pulling down magnolia petals

In spite of the constant struggle, I have also relished not being in school and not having a job (outside of home). I was given a great gift in having full days to grow and change with Zeke- him as a little child, me as a mother - from complete dependence to some semblance of independence. In April I spent half of my days in bed, nursing, drinking gallons of water, dozing, reading, asking Ryan or Ryan's mom or my mom for water. Zeke ate and pooped every two hours, and was almost constantly held. Now I can actually cook meals (though, as mentioned above, no accolades because these are not dinner party dishes), tend to my garden (one of my greatest joys this year), and drive to Target or TJ's with Zeke. Zeke on his part can climb up the stairs for his bath, stand up to be changed, and entertain himself outside eating grass.

This was a year when I had more freedom than I've had since elementary school to enjoy the small everyday pleasures - stepping out to enjoy the morning light on the leaves, looking closely at Zeke's sleeping face and the funny shapes of his mouth, inspecting new buds in the garden, trying out new recipes, picking up books that I've had for years and actually reading them, writing this blog.

Next month this will come to an end, and it will be a difficult transition. Though I'm proud of how I was indeed fully present for this last week with Zeke at home- taking morning naps with him, going for multiple walks a day, playing in the courtyard, talking to him - it was still not enough because I couldn't bottle it up for later. There will be times in the next months when I will look back on this past year longingly, and I will have to remind myself, "there is a time for all things and and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Priceless