Some days I make it home just in time to break down.  The darkness and the cold makes it worse, daylight and warmth helps. I have been inadvertently conditioning myself, each night using the same pillow, laying in the same spot on the floor, covered with the same blanket, when I let go.  It actually makes it easier.  It is easier knowing I have a safe spot and it is associated with the release of the sadness. The tears come in waves.  It is a whole body experience, and the calm afterwards is profound, as is the exhaustion.  It is not a choice. I am a passenger in my own body.

Last week Elise noticed my use of this same spot every time.  She told me, “Maya was born in that spot.”  And it came back. I remembered the day, the screams of a different kind, the heat, the love, the boy watching it as much as he could, and my tears then too.  My tears then were of pure joy.  The child whose presence I resisted was finally here, and I had a second chance to parent a girl, Adin had a sister he was so eager to greet, and then Elise’s joy, my dear Elise.  I did not understand then that Maya had to join us, in spite of me and my wants,  and more so, because of me and my needs.  She was in touch with something I cannot fathom, but I can accept now, some deep wisdom I can only watch and honor.

2000

And Maya arrived, and Adin weighed her, and we cleaned her and fed her and loved her and she grew and grew and grew. And fifteen years, where did they go? Fifteen years of love and arguments and joy and smiles and travel and sulking and fun and messes and tears and always love, so much love.

Back to my spot.  My spot on the floor where I can let go. Each time I go there it is another death, a death of a part of me, an innocence and joy that is being chipped away at.  I did not really think I still had any innocence left before this, I was such a realist, so worldly and pragmatic.  But all that is changed now. What lies beneath it is different, still unknown, still a mystery.  And like a sculptor that hews a perfect form from raw stone, I  watch as each day a new shape emerges, only I watch from afar, the watcher and the watched in one.

2001

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