everyday life

Motherhood is is both enormous and tiny. It is made up of emotions so unwieldy that I can’t put them into words, and of moments so small I would miss them if I blinked (and I’ve surely missed millions). Sometimes the feelings are so giant I feel swollen with them, taut, tight, very much like I was in the last trimester of pregnancy. Sometimes the minutiae is so small that it seems impossible to hang any meaning onto it, and every time I am surprised when somehow, the hook actually holds.

For me, motherhood is more than one facet of the human experience.

It is the prism through which all of life is seen.

In my struggle to make sense of the moments of emotion so overwhelming I feel as though I’m jumping off a tall pier into the ocean, or ducking through the heavy downpour of a waterfall, I turn to the page.  I read the words of others and I write and write and write, circling the same topics, over and over again.  I cannot fit my arms around the enormity of it, no matter how I try.  And as soon as I think I have, it expands, changes shape.  Motherhood is a balloon expanding all the time and floating upward; I watch it above me, face tipped up, standing in the shadow it casts.

For the tiny, the minute, I don’t have to look any further than right here. The moments flutter like magnolia petals around my feet, stunning, short-lived, and quickly turning to brown mush. When I write about them I’m trying to memorialize them in their pink beauty, their spring perfume wafting off of them in waves.  Motherhood is running into Michaels in a suit on the way to a meeting to grab a gingerbread house kit so that your daughter can make it that afternoon.  It is  sleeping on the top bunk on robot sheets because the resident of the bottom bunk was having a bad dream.  It is muting your conference call to advise on a homework question about fractions.  It is rushing home from visiting your mother in the hospital to have your daughter confront you about not spending enough time with her.  It is losing track of time while writing your son a birthday letter and then hurrying to a meeting with red eyes and the sheepish look of someone who’s clearly been crying.  It is missing your children with a visceral ache while they are at school and then, within five minutes of their reentry to the house, snapping at them to “keep it down!” with a surge of aggravation.

Big and small. Tiny and huge. Overwhelming and underwhelming. Tears and laughter. All of these tensions, some of them cliches, exist in every single day for me.

Some parts of this post were originally written four years ago.

This, right here: my favorite moment of the winter break.  On the last weekend, Grace made a scavenger hunt for Matt and me, which took us all over the house with clues that each mentioned a cherished memory of our time off.  These included the snow fort she and Whit had built, Old Sturbridge Village, skating outdoors during a cold snap, dinner with our dear family friends, and the New Year’s dinner that the four of us had and the board games we played after.

The scavenger hunt culminated here, with this big snowman and words of thanks, on our bed.  I sat down and folded Grace in my arms, eyes swimming with tears.

Thank you, I whispered into her ear.  Sometimes her creativity and generosity take my breath away, as does her visible gratitude for this life of hers (and of ours).

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that scavenger hunt or that snowman.  What it reminds me is that children do not need grand plans to create special memories.  Yes, maybe I’m contradicting myself, since I know I recently vowed to help my children see the world.  But maybe these two things can coexist.  And, dare I say it, I think this snowman and this series of reminders of how important little experiences can be actually means more to me than do large adventures.  As I said in August, I am rarely prouder of my children than when they enjoy small moments.

This is an absolute priority for me as a parent: protecting Grace and Whit’s propensity towards wonder and their predilection to be overjoyed by small things.  Grace’s scavenger hunt reminded me of this, and of what I believe children need and want above all else: our attention.  Attention, which is, after all, love incarnate.  What we pay attention to blooms.  Being with them, in the moments big and small, that’s what matters. That’s why the snowman exists: because in those ordinary experiences – sledding, building a fort, sitting around a dinner table, laughing at a board game – I was truly there.

I know this, but I needed the reminder.

The truth is I need to refocus on this.  I’m embracing what Rachel May Stafford advocates in Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters.  On Ali Edwards’ blog I read about Rachel’s suggestion to publicly declare the intention to be more Hands Free, so I am doing that now: I must rededicate myself to the practice of being present with my children.  I must put down my iphone.  I must trust that my work and personal email will wait.  I must remember the critical, essential importance of just being with Grace and Whit.

I must remember the snowman.  I apparently could do it over winter break.  Now I need to keep doing it.