Wishing on dandilions
Posted on | May 10, 2007 |
Sometimes, blowing on a dandelion gone to seed, I wish for superhuman capabilities. Then I count my wishes as the tiny seed umbrellas lift on the wind and scatter, and my popsicle juice-faced boy laughs wildly in delight.
I wish I could be okay with just four hours of sleep, instead of the seven I must have to function. I wish I could whirl through household tasks, setting things right, watering plants, doing laundry, and still have time to sink into a corner and read chapter after chapter in a good book.
I wish I could come home after a day of teaching, when I’ve felt every fiber in my being be endlessly tugged and frayed, as though my heart were a rope toy and the children a pack of eager pups, and still have something rich to give. I wish, after a day of reading, reacting, redirecting, reconciling, and reconstructing all the little important fragments that are meaningful to the children I teach, I could regularly have energy left for here: in my studio, after daylight has ebbed away from the walls, and lamplight pools at my desk. Energy to write two thousand words instead of two hundred.
I wish I could feel patience overflowing the bowl of my soul every night when I’m snuggling in the dark with my boy. Patience, as he reaches out his thin soft arms in the dark and wraps them around my neck, fiercely, in a lock hold. Patience as he begs again for one more snuggle, one more hug, one more kiss. Patience as time slips by and I become languorous, my eyes aching, my body sinking into the spinning dark as I sing tuneless melodies into the curve of his small ear. Patience, as I want to be right there and anywhere except there in the same breath.
I wish for more times when, tumbling into the sweet curve of my husband’s body, the prospect of following my tongue and my red-hot whimsy isn’t in a dead heat with every cell in my body screaming or one more hour of sleep.
Becoming a parent brings your life abruptly to full capacity—or full catastrophe—and sometimes both, at the same time. You don’t really get this before becoming a parent, though everyone tries to tell you.
There is no way to understand before you’re in the thick of it, how you’ll simultaneously feel like a circus act and a soothsayer, mumbling, “Isn’t that what mommy said would happen?” when the lightening fast extension of your heart falls headlong over the handlebar of his wagon after he’s pushed it full-tilt into the couch, and then comes to you wailing, his perfect cheek already swelling.
The acrobatics of this kind of love leaves me breathless and aching. Also, often, it leaves me entirely blindsided. My compass spins wildly, truing to an imaginary north. I want so much, yet feel so small and brittle and insufficient as each day splatters at my feet overripe and bruised with too many demands for my time.
Maybe it doesn’t hit everyone this hard.
I wasn’t ready for it, the day the two blue lines showed up, and most days I still feel like an interloper. Arms akimbo, trying to balance my enormous ambition, my longing, my wanderlust, and my fierce sense of self preservation with the endless needs of my sweet boy.
At the playground with Bean, on a day off over my vacation, I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t belong at the green metal picnic table, discussing toddler clothing labels and snack foods. I feel the prickly heat of guilt rising up as I notice a thousand thoughts that have nothing to do with the fact that I’m somebody’s mom, crowding my mind. Pushing him on the swing, my heart swells with complete pride. He’s so adorable, tilting his head back and smearing a perfect grin across the sky—and then seconds later I’m somewhere else entirely: lost in thought.
A part of me understands that this intensity will ebb, or at least alter somewhat, as he grows more independent, but this fact seems so abstract right now when all I long for are six days back to back to sink up to my ankles in fiction.
Each time I pick a dandelion going to seed, I hold my breath, examining the fuzz, planning just how I’ll release my breath so that every seed will detach and float away. I’m good at this, and also good at finding four leaf clovers. I know how lucky I am in my life. I know how good it is, how blessed I am to be a mother. But I also know that most times, when I exhale in a quick burst of air, a few fluffy seed heads will linger like tiny javelins, right close to the stem.
Comments
24 Responses to “Wishing on dandilions”
Leave a Reply
May 10th, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
You pretty much summed up the experience of mothering. The tug sometimes feels like you’re being pulled apart, even when the moment is just so good.
I can tell you it gets easier. I can tell you that as the days flow the beat of your breath will becoming less frantic and more settled. But it takes a while and sometimes it slips back.
Mothering, it’s such delicate and raw work on ones emotions. Be gentle with yourself. You really are made for this gig. Pinky swear!
May 10th, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
This is so utterly real and deliciously well-written. It seems like you’ve perfectly captured the push/pull of motherhood that so many feel, but often don’t give voice to. Beautiful, Christina.
May 10th, 2007 @ 11:17 pm
Thank you for that…. beautiful and wonderful… so thank you.
jen
May 11th, 2007 @ 2:46 am
Oh god, Christina. How you can write! Everything you’ve expressed here, o! a thousand times over. Thank you.
May 11th, 2007 @ 6:27 am
you are exactly who should be, right at this moment. there is a wonderful book called The Power of Now that reminds us to not judge ourselves, and to just be. everything you say here is exactly right and very natural.
May 11th, 2007 @ 7:17 am
Perfect post for Mother’s Day weekend! EVERY mother feels this way! Wonderful and insightful writing. Thank you!
May 11th, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
Geez woman! The way you put things into words … Last night, for the second time in my life, those 2 lines (my test has pink ones, not blue) showed up and I giggled and hugged and kissed my husband, and in the same breath of all the excitement I thought - am I ready for this … again???
I think I am - especially when I see MY sweet-faced boy and realize that the kisses and snuggles and new words are worth much more than the fat ankles, 1 month of bed rest (always in a hurry, that little man), and sleepless nights that were endured.
May 11th, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
One of your best posts ever- loved it
May 11th, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
Thank you for posting exactly how this wife, mom of two, and full time high school teacher feels. These past five weeks have been so hard. My dh broke his right leg in four places and I am weary, crabby, and used up. Thanks for sharing, I don’t feel so alone.
May 11th, 2007 @ 4:10 pm
I love reading your blog… watching the ease with which you express your emotions. You make me want to be a better writer…
May 11th, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
It seems as if we must be so many different selves and there often isn’t what we need to feel satisfied left over. I hate how I feel selfish when I want to write instead of grade, how I want to read instead of spend time with my fiance, and soon when I want to escape into the wide world and children keep me back. It’s a balancing act, and I admire how you push on.
May 11th, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
i feel the same as you!
no one tells you how hard it really is, but if they did the population would wean significantly…
it’s a cross between loving them so fiercely and wanting to run, but you can’t.
so different from when you could.
but their love is like no other!
May 11th, 2007 @ 8:59 pm
Wow, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. Its like you are inside my head expressing exactly how I feel. Glad to know I am not alone, and hope you also know that you arent either.
Beautiful post, Christina.
May 11th, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
The intensity of feeling for our children is still there even when they are fully grown and my eldest is 38 now! You have put into words how we mothers feel.
Have a lovely day for Mothers Day, but of course everyday has special moments as well as the jarring of reality that puts our feet firmly on the ground.
May 12th, 2007 @ 12:15 am
An absolute KEEPER of a post. This is it, EXACTLY. Thank you for giving voice to it so eloquently. I wish I could write half as deeply these days!
Gorgeous post.
May 12th, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Oh, Christina, bravo. You have remarkably put into words the very essence of motherhood. At least from my perspective. It’s comforting to know I am not the only one who feels this way, who struggles with the push and pull. As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
May 12th, 2007 @ 11:10 pm
Amazing - just amazing, the way you share your heart. This belongs in an anthology on motherhood somewhere, because I’ve read several, in this waiting time before my own descends, and none of them touch yours with same eloquence and unrelenting honesty.
All I know to tell you is that it’s not forever - this time where the need is so overwhelming - and to hang on.
Sending you much love.
May 13th, 2007 @ 3:02 am
Happy Mother’s Day, Christina.
May 13th, 2007 @ 3:26 am
Also, as the clock shifts:
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!
May 13th, 2007 @ 3:31 am
PS: Clearly, my computer and I are in a little disagreement about how many times to post is too many!
May 13th, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
First time I visit your blog. I really felt moved by your words in this post and I just had to tell you. (I rarely comment on these things normally!)
Hmm I just realized that my nickname (Maskros) actually means Dandelion in Swedish. Isn’t that quite the coincidence?
May 13th, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
Delurking to say, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to one of the most present Mommy’s I’ve ever come across. Hope your day was wonderful.
May 17th, 2007 @ 9:01 am
Beautifully written and bittersweet; so rich with the details and feeling of a person so alive and curious and self-aware. What is this struggle, this yin and yang of wanting to give everything and be one with our children/job/marriage and our very real need to be individuals, an own self, creative and growing? It is too much some days, I am with you on that as my little Petunia paws at my arm, climbs onto my lap and reaches for the keyboard, bucking and grabbing at coffee, my hair, yanking on my nose and clothes and finally giving me her nuk as a peace offering, but never setting for very long. And what I want is to write and release and create, swim and read and sleep; to plug myself in like a depleted battery so that I can be everything to myself and my family. Here is to the moms and teachers and givers, who do and want and need and will find a way, a balance or counter balance, to fill themselves with energy, inspiration and simple and wonderful contentment!
July 24th, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
I love your blog and I love your writing. You are an inspiration to me. I hope you don’t mind but I linked an expert from this post to my blog and credited you and would like to link your blog to mine–if you don’t mind.