Just For Today

Have you read Pema Chödrön's Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change? I read this book the summer after our second child, Phoebe, was born. I was overcome by the affirmation that there is no certainty in our lives, and everything, like the smell of my breastfeeding babe's breath, the stroke of their blonde peach-fuzz, and contour of their plump cheek, is fleeting. From my perch on the day bed, looking out at the blue bay, beyond the garden, the apple orchard, and the rocky beach, my purpose was clear: to be a good a mother, just for today.

Over a decade later, I am still here. I am grateful for this: to be here, in the flesh, raising them, and witnessing them. Those cheeks are no longer plump against my breast; but they remain soft and supple beside my own when I lay down next to my (now medium-sized) children. Today, I'm less sleep-deprived, but more fatigued. They need my body less, but my faculties more. My hair is grayer, my teeth are re-braced, my skin is less elastic, but I remain steadfast: to be a good mother, just for today.

A few days ago, I was in their closets, once again, folding up clothes one-year-too-small, dividing them into piles: give-away, throw-away, and a third pile to bring down to the basement to place in a box labeled "to keep." This is my box of evidence that my medium-sized children were once size small and size extra-small. The "Little Citizen" tee and purple heart-patched corduroys are artifacts of their childhood, tactile evidence of the memories created within them.

Each year I perform this ritual, I am reminded of the first: kneeling on the nursery floor, 9-months-pregnant, folding washed, never-worn onesies, carefully stacking them in baskets under the newly-put-together changing table. Holding up a onesie in a stream of sunlight, I was struck by the evidence that our baby, size newborn, was, indeed, on their way, and would soon fill this teeny-tiny article of clothing in my hands.

Every weekend night, they used to sleep together, but lately Pip has declined, choosing to sleep, alone, in his room. Each time, Phoebe's heart breaks a little, and so does mine. "Why does he get to choose every time?" Phoebe asks me. "Shouldn't he have to sleep with me sometimes?" No. But I'm not sure how to articulate the pain that comes with the natural cycles of life, or the certainty of change. Like Phoebe, I miss the ritual of lying between them, exhausted from the week behind us, entwined in their warm bodies as I sing softly, full of gratitude. When their lids are heavy, I slip out of bed, pull up the covers, and whisper: "Goodnight, my babies, sleep well. Thank you."

I think of the woman kneeling in her garden. Beneath a halo of worn straw, stibones resting on heels, she pulls up dead plants, and lays them in piles: one for compost and one for chickens. As she works, she thanks the plants for their green beans, especially the ones she picked in the gentle August twilight, in nothing but a bathing-suit, with her salty, hungry children; and the purple eggplants she stole under head lamp, with cold bare feet, at the end of September. She is singing, full of gratitude for her garden. Raking her black-capped fingers through the soil, she infuseses the plot with oxygen before pushing down cloves of garlic from July's harvest. She covers them with soil, a blanket of marsh hay, and whispers: "Goodnight, my babies, sleep well. Thank you."

I have purchased Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change at least ten times, and each time the book comes into my hands, I give it away. Perhaps you have one of these copies, from my hands to yours, or through someone else's? In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes: "This is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage...the more something is shared, the greater its value becomes." The offspring of garlic currently resting in my garden soil continue their ancestral purpose of giving early summer scapes and mid-summer bulbs, and each year, their gifts taste richer. I do my part by tending to their growth, using (and appreciating) their pungent gifts, and giving away bulbs to be planted in friends' gardens. Perhaps you have some growing outside?

While Chödrön encourages us to surrender to, even embrace, the groundlessness of our human situation, Kimmerer shows us how: by celebrating the gifts of the earth: "A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved onward to you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery--as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source."

I think of the apple orchard just beyond the porch, where I was often perched, breastfeeding my babies the summers after they were born. My grandfather planted the orchard in 1950, the same year my mother was born. In my lifetime, the apple trees have given me and my cousins, and now our children, limbs to climb, batches of (bitter) apple sauce, and a hammock to swing in. In 1974, my parents celebrated their wedding in the orchard; thirty years later, we celebrated our own on the same roots. My brother was christened there, days after Hurricane Bob came through taking that year's harvest with him. We gathered, feasted and celebrated under the trees the year after Pip arrived in 2010, the year after Phoebe arrived in 2013, and most recently, the summer my grandmother Rose passed in 2015.

On Thursday, at the Thanksgiving table, I was told that my uncles are planting new apple trees in the orchard. Like my grandfather, my uncles are playing their part, ensuring the gifts of the orchard be passed on to generations to come. They are tending to the well-being of the orchard. Kimmerer writes, "Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to receive, and to reciprocate."

Pip and Phoebe are my greatest gifts. It would be so easy to mourn all that is no longer; it would be so easy to fear what is to come, but I remember the gift of Chödrön's words: “When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for this is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.” I find this freedom when I am witnessing, helping and celebrating the growth in our garden, in our orchard, in our house, and beyond.

I think of the mother on the rocky shore just beyond the orchard. She is relaxed, and present to the waves lapping at her ankles, clouds floating above her head, and hermit crabs making their way across the sand near her babies' toes. She is warm, and smells of sea lavender. Nearly naked, her free spirit dances, in, and around her children, infusing them with joy as they dig holes in the sand and collect gifts from the sea. The older child wades deeper into the water; his mama follows close behind, scooping up the smaller one.

Soon, the woman is treading water. She waits patiently for her babe to let go. It won't be long now; sooner than she hopes, actually. Yes, she will miss this size-small weight; she already misses his. She holds herself and her littlest babe above water while diligently watching her toddler propel his life-jacketed body in circles, nearby. She doesn't speak of what lies beneath them, or just beyond them--they haven't asked yet; but when they do, she will tell them. Until then, she is paying attention, enjoying every moment, grateful to be here, just for today.

When I get disoriented, which I often do, I remember the view of the sea just beyond the garden, the orchard and the rocky beach. I remind myself there is no certainty to be had--not even in the "to keep" box in our basement. The evidence is just the imprints left on our hearts. Kimmerer says it beautifully: "We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back." Like my Uncles and the orchard, the woman in her garden, and the mother on the shore, my responsibility is to tend to these medium-sized beings by giving them all that is necessary to grow into their own versions of caregivers and gift givers. This is how I will be a good mother, just for today.

As always, thank you for reading,
Georgia