Week 3: Strength in the Water

Geoff started back at work this week. Our sons were on Spring Break. I felt equipped by the stern lecture from my mother, "You have strong genes. We came to this country with nothing. Imagine me with a newborn and a ten-month old, I had to be at the hospital every fourth night and work all night-- and your Dad was at sea." I thought of this scenario a lot this week-- my mother in the late sixties, new to this country, trying to juggle med school and motherhood. Thinking of this makes me feel a bit like a ninny-- I chose this path, we chose this spacing, and I have four healthy and wonderful children. I should be grateful-- and I really am.

But it wouldn't be an honest account if I didn't say that this week has felt like treading water-- a boy on the third floor needing assistance on the potty, Calliope rooting and fussing in the sling, and Clara standing at my sewing machine plucking pins from their cushion, and another boy trying to explain a complex plot in one of his drawings and would I please draw some speed lines from this guy to his ship. Trying to catch a breath in between, staying afloat while the needs and demands swirl and bob around me.

Trying to figure out what it means when folks are offering help, how to say what would be helpful (or what wouldn't be helpful for that matter.) Help to Geoff sometimes looks different than help to me. I am learning to steer myself toward my safe harbors-- visits from friends who help me to breathe and laugh, going outside to begin to see Spring, this book on the life of St. Francis, which I lifted from my parents house. Trying not to sweat the laundry situation, the veil of dust.