So often mothers talk about how having children has so profoundly changed them that you’d think the mere act of squeezing a child out of your Hoo Haw (or having one cut from your womb like a toy truck clipped from it’s cardboard container) is a surefire way to become a better person. This, of course, is not true. If it was there’d be no Dance Mom’s, Teen Mom’s, Casey Anthony’s and whoever the fuck is raising Lil Tay. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of evidence that having children doesn’t make us better people (just tune into any Bravo show for confirmation) but you’d be hard pressed to hear anybody admit that. We’re too busy talking about how they’ve taught us to be more patient, less selfish, to live in the moment. We’re all walking around like Jack Nicholson in Something’s Gotta Give, convinced that our kid makes us want to be a better man. Or mom. Or martyr. Maybe that’s the better word. Martyr. Because we’re all so damn selfless.
(These pictures are from our last days in Portugal as we languidly shuffled our feet through the Minho region, trying to slow time and soak it all in. It was my favorite part of the country, and if I could do it again it’s where I’d spend the month. Rolling wildflower-filled hills, chasms of clear blue rivers and pocket-sized vineyards that dot the landscape as though they were included in the purchase price of each starter home.)
(It was also where we found a straight up magical Airbnb, a converted stable from ten centuries ago in the long shadow of an old church on the edge of Caldelas, a small spa town. We never made it to the spa, or the church, but just hanging around the house felt spiritual and cleansing and calm.)
But back to the journal entry. One of the most profound changes I’ve gone through since becoming a mom is one that I hate, that I’m struggling with on a constant basis, and that, if I’m honest with myself, probably had a lot to do with the decision to take this trip, that this trip probably, embarrassingly, was my own way of rebelling against, and the change is this: Becoming a mom has made me more fearful. Specifically, more fearful of death.
I get the whole idea of needing to protect your child. Sure, it took me by surprise when, the moment Wilder and Nakota showed up, I was suddenly struck with waking “day-mares” featuring horrific ways they might go bye-bye, (for some reason head down in a bucket was popular in those early days, even though I never mopped,) but at least I could understand the evolutionary purpose of such moroseness. What I wasn't prepared for was to suddenly be so freaked out by my own mortality. Especially when prior to their existence I’d barely given it a second thought, except for the occasional stoned meditation on the afterlife or lack there of. Oh, and plane crashes, I was obsessed with those for a while.
But damn, since I’ve added mom to my resume I’ve waded into some scary hypochondriatic territory. I’ll spare you the self-absorbed details, but suffice it to say that four months ago I developed some symptoms that signaled death was imminent (Indigestion) Dr. Google’s diagnosis was swift and unforgiving. (Cancer) In much the same way that, say, when I first found out I was pregnant with twins I was sure one would eat the other in utero because someone has to pay for the sins of the father (or in this case, the sins of the mother, the sins being 20 years of never leaving before the party was over), I was convinced that terminal disease was a fair sentence for a lifetime of coasting by on so much luck.
When I was 20 I had a tumor in my boob removed. It ended up being benign, but I remember thinking that if I had cancer maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I was lacking direction at the time (yeah, just that one time) and I figured maybe that would give me some. I was an okay public speaker, maybe I could go on the high school circuit. Optimism was a forte, maybe I could inspire others to live. Maybe, I could even teach people how to die. Gracefully. It was looking like I wasn’t so good at the game of life. Maybe I could be really awesome at the buzz kill of death.
Ha. What a bunch of bullshit. This time around there was no grace. If I had cancer it was 100% my fault. There would be no pity, only judgey harsh whispers discussing my on again off again smoking habit, my unearned joy de vie, my refusal to entertain realism or consequences. It was hard to look at my children without crying. It was this strange mix of barely being present while simultaneously being hyper aware of the preciousness of the moment. All of this self absorbed hysteria while moms everywhere were actually being diagnosed with cancer that they didn’t cause, didn’t deserve, and were fighting head on with courage, grace and chutzpah.
So I went vegan, dusted off my meditation practice, took long swims and short naps, made lists of how to be better, better at parenting, better at life. How to be the better person that becoming a mother was supposed to magically make me. And I slipped up. And got back on track. And slipped up. And got back on track. When I first seriously started meditating a decade ago I thought that eventually I would be able to sit quietly without any thoughts entering my head. I would get angry at the thoughts because they were a distraction from the main event. Now I realize that the act of bringing the focus back while the brain is being hijacked by grocery shopping lists, Oscar acceptance speeches and Chrissy Teigen’s Twitter feed is where the work of meditating is actually taking place. That’s how you build the muscle, without the monkey brain there would be no meditation. One needs the other. It’s not a passive act. It’s a practice. Not only does it take practice, it is, by definition, practice. And it was then that meditation actually got fun.
And so maybe that’s what life is. Not practice for something yet to come, but an actual, tangible, literal practice. We’ve heard it said a million times, the journey is the destination. And maybe that’s why I go on trips, to remind me of that. Tony Bennet said, Life teaches you how to live, if you live long enough. Fucking Tony Bennet! These lessons are ours for the learning. So I’ll learn them. Again. And again. And again.
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