Re-Group

It’s quiet today, inside and out. My kids feel it, sitting in front of the fire in our tiny living room, waiting. For what? Maybe I’m the one waiting and I see it in them. We’re sifting through science project ideas, watching the rain fall and generally holding on to the restfulness of the day. But I have this wistful turmoil within, this sense of things quieting just long enough for me to begin again. But not to begin the same story. 

Is this how a plant “feels” before breaking the surface of soil? If so, this is not the first emergence in my soul. What is it? Where will it lead? It’s time to re-group, to renew, to re-know and re-establish beyond what was sure even just last month. There is something unique about divorce and parenting, going back to school and meeting newness everywhere.

The hands that held my children, the hands that began in a marriage, are chopped off by divorce. But the hands that hold them beyond all loss, those are the hands now growing, that learn to re-know them as children of life and not so much of a marriage. This has been going on for years now and it progresses beautifully as I find myself beyond the identity I had before. Even when that marriage is thoroughly over, this growth of the hands, of the heart that holds them flourishes and grows beyond every accomplishment, beyond the ideas of who they are or will be. Or who I thought I was. Or. It’s about parenting as one who facilitates without capturing, accomodates and guides. But we get to, all 4 of us, re-learn our relating and our growing as we are changed by life. Who is “mama” as a student? Who is “daughter” as a wise soul weathering some big changes? Who is “son” who now needs dad far more than ever and how does he hold his mom? If I hold to them as the child of once upon a time and then, they have no one solid to be with, no one here but a prop clinging to an idea…as they grow beyond.

But…that’s not the story here because for some reason life won’t let me fade to blank.  I have to sometimes go to ground, hide away and find a place to re-work the hands that hold even the idea of myself, not just who I am as a mom or…or…

Not much of a post today but it’s life. And it’s pausing pregnant promise beyond the toil, the stretch to reach with new hands. And rest with heart learning life anew.