My Mother Comes to Visit

That’s the thing though, where we’re at. Where we feel most of everything--in the space between the vertebrae. (This is a think that’s talked a lot about here: the spine. They love the spine. Or don’t? Need to love it more.) With every new seated practice, a new ailment befalls. 

I wonder If I can make this into a form of meditation. Eyes closed and maybe relaxed jaw and images and words and we don’t have to worry about what’s being said because this isn’t a plot--this is a practice and it’s a shared one. We aren’t linear here and we wouldn’t have that expectation anyway. Don’t set that expectation on me. Don’t you know better? 

Nope. Let’s blame the cold. Or blame me. Or don’t blame at all and accept that sometimes what is just is. 

If this were a walkabout, this would be when I start to get anxious at the sounds of crackling in the woods but there’s no pressure because sometimes writing doesn’t come easy. Sometimes it’s all of the thoughts and none of them and we have to pick and choose what to say, which isn’t the goal or the role of this month. Do I think we’ll make it this whole month? I do. If for nothing else but to get these fingers into the habit of waking up with ideas and thoughts and better words than the ones I default.

I’ve always been a better typer/writer than speaker. When will I be able to speak my words as clearly as I feel when I write them. I want them to come to me in the same flow of typing, or maybe that’s what I have to do to be eloquent, is write the words that I want to be able to speak easily. Speak easy. What’s the password? It’s always “Sunshine.” 

I was thinking about talking about how -- no scratch that -- when I was a kid, my parents stuck me in the mental hospital to convince people that I was crazy, to invalidate the abuse that I was experiencing, and now today, I think i’ve reached a point where I feel like I can finally feel magic and my own insecurities in each hand and tell the difference. 

I know what’s holding me back and I can tell one beast at the end of the leash to calm down, play nice, you’ll get a treat afterward. You won’t be the same after this. You’re going to love the adventure because you already do, or else you wouldn’t even be on this walk right now. 

There’s a part of me that feels like I need to just tend to my home, but I can’t purge the things I want to -- wait, why not? Why can’t I? I can. I’m the mother of this home and I can say what we need to just get rid of. This home is too full of junk that we don’t open up, touch, interact with. We’re surrounded by dead energy and I need more life.

That’s today, mama. We’re gonna go through the house today and purge. Don’t worry, I’m keeping your things but I know you’re coming by today and jeez, don’t I know that my house needs to look a little better before you do. You can talk to me along the way. Yes, you too, Marietta. Susan, I know you don’t care about how my house looks but I gotta say it: I think it’s because you’re white. There’s something about growing up othered for your background and not othered for your brilliance that makes you feel the pressure of having a clean home. 

Today, we don’t worry about word count: today it’s just about clarity and building a practice. Afterall, if we were exercising regularly, we wouldn’t base the efficacy of our practice after how many calories we’d burned. At least, I wouldn’t. I would want to just focus on the fact that I was able to dedicate time to such a thing. 

It is good to dedicate time to things that we know will better ourselves. 

I’m back on my bullshit. It’s not bullshit. I’m back on focusing on my routine. I want to wake up without hitting snooze and I want to wake up early and that’s a cyclical thing. That’s a thing that requires I go to bed early and prioritize my sleep. My sleep hasn’t been flowing as it used to and let’s admit it, it’s because I haven’t been exercising daily the way that I was before. I need to get my muscles moving so that come night time, they’re ready for the rest and my brain can say, “yes, this is when we rest.” As it is, when I am so sedentary, my brain thinks, “Now we are in a different location doing the same thing.” 

Today, we’ll dance. I want to play music and clean off the kitchen table and the doorway in the living room. I’ll find the pictures of my mama, my grandma, of Susan, of Lori, and we can have a little space for the mothering women in my life who’ve worked to show me how to work, how to be kind, how to stop caring what anyone thinks. 

I still care, and I feel myself caring about my house. I don’t think this is just an external want. This isn’t the type of care that’s concerned with what will people say. I can confidently say it’s because I know that I actually care about how good my home feels when it feels better, and I want it to. 

I think of when I came back from New Orleans and I cleared everything out and it felt so much better but how, when it came to maintaining it, no one else helped. 

I know that this is something that I have to do for myself. My daughter doesn’t know better and my partner isn’t bothered in the same way because he’s accustomed to it from his own childhood--and I can at least be glad that my home isn’t that bad. He seems to think that some cleaning, like sweeping or countertops, are things that are extra but they should be part of the daily routine. But I have to help show by again forming and facilitating the daily routine. 

It’s exhausting really. I’m not trying to be negative, but I think I’m realizing that I have to be the one to prioritize the regularity of a routine and I have to do this through my work as well. This is more than a practice. These are the systems in my life that i have to reinforce myself and not put onto others to fulfill because they matter more to me than them. 

Start small. The kitchen table and the doorway first. Small purges. Clear out space. Begin to create with what we know we will want to create with first and then recycle and purge so that we aren’t buried under the trash that fulfills a promise in time. Make the space Now and the things that we need to make things later will always find a way back to me. I can make out of anything. I can get my home in order.