claiming my own

For you who have formed me into "mother", I am in serious gratitude. For your laughter and eyes and everything in between that makes up the magical concoctions of YOU. I swoon over your stories and play bear hugs with your essence.

Keep teaching me little ones. I am so eager to learn.

The house is quiet this morning as Josh took the children on a secret adventure to the store. I was laying in bed, turning thoughts of motherhood over like the pages of a good book. Holding each thought in hand and moving it forward in anticipation of what is to come, yet holding it tightly with memory of what has been. Somehow sewing this moment into the spirit of the past and the faintness of what is yet to be. Coming into motherhood feels a lot like that to me. It is this territory like none other. A space that constantly requires fullness. I would have never imagined it to be what it is. I am glad I never really tried to imagine it in detail. For me, it just sprang up in my life like a jack-in-the-box. I found myself as "mother" long before I even considered what that meant. But slowly, I raised my own understanding...and with each passing moment, I form a deeper, more personal existence of what it means for ME. Sitting in my women's studies classes in college a few years ago, seeing the world in a new way and finally discovering a language for those values rooted in my core...my mind wasn't focused on what it would be like to mother a child. I might not have recognized myself had you painted a picture of what I would be doing a few years down the road. But yes, perhaps I would. I would take this space and treat it like any other accomplishment and aching I have. I would give it everything I have and I would do everything in my power to make it my own. I would claim motherhood and I would find my voice within it. I would use this space to teach children about equality and tolerance and community and peace and taking care of the great mother earth in all her abundance and beauty. I would do these things, not because I am a woman...not because I HAVE to...but because it is what I want my children to know and it is because I want to be able to look in their eyes and tell them I gave my fullness to showing them these principles.

I have a lot to figure out on this road. I have so much to learn and discover. The complexity of motherhood is constantly amazing me. Sometimes thrilling me, sometimes wearing me out but always making me move forward with my heart wide open...trying to be available for all that love. I hold space today for the mothers. For every "type" of mother there is...for our individual choices and styles...for the work we do inside and out of the home...for the big and small ways we give effort towards the children in this world and the planet we are to leave them with. I hold space for our differences and our similarities and the great truth that there is not one "right" choice. I hold space for choice. I hold space for all the women of this world and for our own unique ways of mothering...not always children but life and community and causes and ideas.

I honor these women. All of them.

happy, beautiful day.