via www.soulemama.com
This is such a beautiful vignette on mothering... I had to share it again with you here.
Mother Love by Meredith Winn
Mother love: The flurry and chaos; the fluttering of heartbeats like a hundred bird wings.
Sometimes words flow from lips to ears at just the right speed. They hang in the air between us, little sparkles of loveliness. This {what we create here between us} is a sacred space. An anything is possible space. A take on the world space. Sometimes we need to catch these words and thoughts and bits of shinyness mid-air and slap them down on paper. To allow ourselves the beauty of holding them in our hands as the gentle reminders that they are.
You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.
These words are the equivalent of looking into another set of eyes and speaking the truth. From one heart to another. And hoping that the love is received, believed, swallowed whole to remain inside of you … you know, for those days when it’s not so sunny. When you forget the goodness that is around you. For the days that are every day busyness of making lunches and wiping noses and wiping butts. For those days, I want you to remember this sacred space we create and let it live inside of you.
I am the child of many mothers. Women of the neighborhood. My mom’s best friends. The recipe clubs. The book swaps. The mustard yellow kitchen phones with stretched out cords.
I find myself fluctuating between being someone’s child and being mother to my own son.
This middle place is not mid-life. It is merely space in time, a mathematical equation of birth-life-death. We spin in orbit in this middle place. We spin out beyond ourselves, past freedom and invincible youth, but not yet to a place of rest.
I have moments of great strength.
I have hours of great weakness.
He comes home from school with Spanish words for sweet and rude. He comes home with snippets of hair gone from a scissor incident. He comes home. He comes home. He comes home.
I am his home.
I am the enforcer. The bummer of a mom who trims nails and combs out tangles despite the protests. The one who says no more than I would like. I am the provider who enforces clothing and shoes and schooling and bedtimes. What a drag. I am that mom who knows we all have to face things we don’t always want to. I am all that there is, and so I am the bad guy.
He’s holding my hand underwater. His grip is tight and my legs are sore from swimming us out to the center of the pond. He floats and spits and smiles in goggles that are all fogged up. He holds my hand underwater, I turn onto my back under the leafy shade of tree that overhangs the blue green water. He dips his face down under and holds his breath. He watches for fish or turtles or magic or mermaids. I float on my back with my eyes in the trees and my ears echoing the rhythm of the water and breath. We are tethered underwater, unseen, sharing a secret. He in his world, me in mine. One and the same. We float and I smile.
“Are you Wonder Woman?” he asks as I hoist him to my hip. I smile and nod. Yes, I am.
I am the tugboat, the mermaid, the water taxi. I am the shoulder to collect the tears. I am the safety net, the confidant, the one who says yes as much as possible. I am the receiver of whispered secrets shared just before sleep comes. I am the promise keeper. I am the laugh track, the rickshaw, the piggyback ride. I am all these things. I am all there is. And so I am that mom, the good guy.
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Meredith Winn is a sometimes writer and an everyday photographer. Meredith’s creative nonfiction has been published in various magazines including Midwifery Today, Motherverse, Literary Mama, Hip Mama, and a forthcoming issue of Mothering Magazine. Her photography has been on exhibit in TX, VT, and NYC. Meredith is a contributing editor and photographer to Shutter Sisters and is also a contributing photographer for Getty Images. Her photography portfolio can be found online on her website Meredith Winn Photography. She is a somewhat elusive (and sporadic) blogger found at the~spirit~of~the~river. Meredith drinks chai tea, parents mindfully, embraces this human existence, and will always be a camera shy momma.
