Would that I could go back and sit with myself in the here and now of then and when when me was more we, the we of three still living under the same roof with me. It’s what you write yourself in the here and now of a random post you find from 14 years ago that has nothing in it since it somehow got partially edited and then posted weirdly with no title. I likely had a change of heart or change of opinion and, gasp, sputter, choke, grew a bit beyond what was my known norm at the time and then got distracted while weighing the changes and managed to save a post with only one sentence referencing something no longer relevant. But somehow I grasp what’s most relevant at this time for me.
I really don’t gasp, sputter or choke over change within myself but I’ve heard some folks don’t trust people who change while those same folks also manage to shake their heads at the ones they wish would change but are certain never will, in fact, change. See the irony there? Or maybe it’s more willful self-ignorance. In any case, in this day and age, and specifically at this time in my life, I am no longer living with my three glorious children, but am sitting in the house my daughter has moved from as she sits at the NICU ward with her 2nd child, my grandson, and the shapeshifting effects on my soul catch my mouth in a smile here as my sweet Bella (tabby cat supreme) brings me her offerings of fetch.
Life is like this run-on paragraph with run-on sentences that eventually end so another might begin. And Bella continues to gnaw on her toy so I toss it for her to sprint mightily after it. And off she goes in a leap, landing on the hardwood floors that creak and groan, whispering, too. They have some things to reveal, like the times we tip-toed up the stairs, trying not to waken precious Erica, my first grandchild. Their creaks now seem to chuckle at the latest shift as my face seems not to be its age and precious James awaits my grateful, expectant gaze and my appetite for fooling around with words and rhymes leaves me a bit befuddled as to how it all manages to mostly work out, the words, the changes, shifts so transmogrifying and seemingly epic. Two new lives and the most recent one evoking a caravan of family including pets and kitchen items for the extended stay. It must be, has to be, I know it’s that we’re magical. All humans are meant to be magical.
And I sit with the magic of being human and loving three humans who came from my body and the two humans who came from the body of one who came from my body and the weave of it falls gently on my soul as I sit with who I’m becoming as one birthing and birthed by that same birthing. Motherhood puts some revelations on hold, some secrets await more timely knowing. It’s not the best timing for the score to reveal itself when grandbabies come calling from the great fields of incarnations repeating spirit’s call to love. Why did I get here now? Would that I could have had a 3 to 5 year stretch of time in a hermetically sealed mansion wherein time is not and I could step there for a 5 minute, in real time, moment of knowing and then crashing, then smashing, then wailing and wailing through months of healing. So much reeling and trying to refuse the obvious, but never able to refuse the truth long held. And while the mansion never manifested for my more convenient time of healing, I am healing as I watch my daughter welcome the souls who’ve gratefully found her mama heart ready in her new home, shaped and shaping herself as a me that is we encompassing all our hearts, stepping in and out of fate’s weave, dancing changes and constancy alike, alive and afire with all the desires humans grow.
Would that I could sit in my home with the me that was of that particular we and know, for only five more minutes perhaps, just what beauty graced my days, the beauty I avoided within myself for fear I might cause tragedy. As my unawareness hid the tragedies visited on my nonconsensual little girl self who assumed all family issues came from her inherently blameworthy self. Childhood rape literally hurts your brain so badly you nurture within yourself this promise to never let anything happen to those who love you and you somehow believe that, because you loved your parents, the bad things happened to you. And anything they did was actually your own fault. And suddenly when you’re in a phase of your now well-advanced adulthood your body hurls memories at you and you’re faced with things long stored and accidentally ignored.
You were raped as a little girl for years, and you know it, as flashes of memory confirm, but you cannot prove it just yet. And you realize you parented in so much love, you were being a miracle every single day and didn’t know it. And now you know it and you want to go back in time and hold your face and say, “I love you. You are beautiful here and now and always will be. And you can open your heart and your eyes even wider to your babies because you will not cause all the bad things. Shit just happens sometimes and you don’t need to be afraid for the people who love you whom you love, too. Just breathe. And keep being your amazing, miraculous self.” You want to tell yourself: “You heard tragic music in the background from time to time because your inner buried lil girl self had things to tell you. And the presence of precious little beings born from your body has opened the door for her to speak. Don’t worry so. One day, you’ll know. For now, just trust yourself.” And I want to hear the floors creak ‘neath my feet and be in the body of my mama self then and know that, though the days are numbered there with the me that is a we unique, the me that is still a we decades down the trail will be more me than I ever thought I could be because the creaking of floors and the score a body keeps eventually turns the key in the lock to set you free. And the music sings of ancient mystery, unity and love’s eternal tapestry.
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