A Great and Noble Life

Some thoughts to share tonight as I jump peacefully into the year 5770 on the Jewish calendar.

The Lonely Gemini

For years I had a really strong connection to my astrological sign. Being a Gemini explained a lot about me to myself. I really identified with the dual personalities within me. It just made sense. Maybe that's what you do when you're in your teens and twenties - believe deeply in things like astrology, search for meaning and understanding about what feels like the most important person on earth: yourself. Attach yourself to one single thing that makes perfect sense, explains it all.

It just occurred to me that I haven't thought much about being a Gemini lately. It has been a long time since it's been the go-to reliable lens through which I understand myself. Sure, I still find it interesting that I am a Gemini and so is my mother and so is Tikva. Fascinating that the two of them share a birthday, and that I knew from very early on in my pregnancy that they would. But it doesn't really explain very much to me anymore. About myself. About my daughter who is a spirit.

I want to get Tikva's astrological chart read by someone who really knows astrology, because apparently it is pretty extraordinary. All of her planets are in six houses, and these six houses form an hourglass on her chart. There are no planets in the other six houses that form the other hourglass. Sometime during the week when we were sitting shiva after she died, my friend London looked at her chart and to her it all made perfect sense. That Tikva had come and done all she needed to do in a flash. Maybe her astrological chart would explain something that would help me feel a little more settled... about why she had to come and go so fast, about why she chose me for her Mama, about my own meaning to myself.

I am feeling my dual personality a lot lately, and it's taken until tonight for me to connect that with being a Gemini. It doesn't explain everything anymore, but for the first time in a long time, tonight I realize how much I have been feeling the duality. I recognize that there is a lot of contradiction in the mix of emotions running through me lately. And yet there they are, each feeling side by side with its counterpart. The dual personalities of this Gemini.

I've been feeling a lot of conflicting emotions lately...

Too many people read my blog, it makes me not want to write.
What if I stop writing and people stop reading?

I miss my friends, I feel very alone.
I don't want to be around anyone, I just want to be by myself.

I feel energized and inspired to find meaningful work.
I wish I had a trust fund and didn't have to work and could stay home and write and make art.

I am excited to go to nursing school and inspired to become a nurse.
I am terrified about making such a huge change that I know my soul needs so deeply.

I so deeply want to have another baby, I can almost feel what it will be like when I am pregnant again.
I am so scared my colitis will linger and months will go by and then it will be too late.

Maybe I want to start a new blog, breathe new life into my spirit with newness and change. Tell only a few people about it.
Am I ready to move from this space? Am I leaving my Baby Girl behind? Where will I find myself without this community that has held me, especially now that I am so far from home?

My body is healing.
My body is scared.

***

It's strange leaving everyone you know except your husband and daughter and starting a new life in a new place. Strange not knowing when or if you will return to the place you are from. Strange to hear the voices of those who have held you together only through the phone or on email. It's strange relying on your husband and daughter almost exclusively for support, for familiarity, for home. It feels lonely right now. Hard.

It still feels strange that this is my home now, this new place. I know why we came here, and I know it is for good. But I haven't found my place here yet. I haven't found myself here yet. I feel so far from those connections where I will eventually be able to be completely me with new friends. So no matter how I fill my time, no matter how busy a day gets - even when I am inspired and motivated and excited about the steps I am taking to find a meaningful job and get into nursing school - there are those slow-down moments when things get still and quiet and I feel that aloneness and...

***

Flashback. I am 9 or 10 years old and it is very late and I am wide awake, elementary school insomniac, staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, unable and unwilling to go to sleep. Part of me is afraid to fall asleep because what if I don't wake up in the morning? It's not a fear of death exactly, more a fear of being alone.

Alone.

I saw a piece of a movie once when I was about that age, a movie I wasn't supposed to have seen, and the only thing I remember about it is that a woman is accidentally buried alive. Nobody knows she is still alive when they bury her, and when she wakes up she is in a coffin six feet under the earth. Gasp! What could feel scarier than that? What greater loneliness is there?

Alone forever.

When I turned 25, I went skydiving with my sister. We went tandem, each of us attached to an instructor. It was exhilarating and I loved it. Would I ever do it again? Would I ever try it alone, attached to no one? I don't think I ever could. Not because I am afraid that I would forget how to open my parachute, but because then I would be totally alone, in the middle of the air.

Totally alone.

What is that? Where does that fear of aloneness come from? And why does it keep coming up? Is there something I am supposed to learn from all these experiences? Something I am here to overcome?

Alone because my baby died.
Alone because my experience of her loss is completely different than that of my husband.
Alone in my body that is challenging right now.
Alone with the many fears that sometimes overwhelm,
With the millions of little worries that fill my head.

I wrote once that it can feel like a board meeting in my head, with all the voices that fight for the floor.
But it can feel lonely here too, especially when they quiet down a little and I realize it's just me.

Dave would probably say that I am here to understand that I am never truly alone... That I have always been, that I am, that I always will be a part of God, of Source energy, that my essential energy is part of all there is and therefore all there is is a part of me. That doesn't change when you die. That's why he doesn't long for Tikva like I do, because for him she is always here, only without form.

Why is that hard for me to settle on? Why do I still feel alone? Especially if there is always a duality inside me... another side of myself to keep me company.

Like The Wind

RIP, Patrick Swayze

Nothing Is Finished

"Nurture all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. To accept these realities is to accept contentment as the maturation of happiness, and to acknowledge that clarity and grace can be found in genuine unvarnished existence. Filled with subtlety and depth, this way is a river flowing toward and away from you, and always within you."

Richard Powell

(Thank you, Laurie)

On Hope and Love

I try not to censor myself here, and after my post yesterday, I worried at what I had put forward of myself, because in this blogosphere, all we know of each other is what we read in that moment. Sometimes I just write what I'm feeling in the moment, and then afterwards I feel differently. Sometimes I wonder what my voice sounds like to others. For those who might be worried about me after my most recent posts, and those who aren't...

I still have hope. A great deal of it.
And a great deal of love.
They are what Tikva taught me so deeply,
And I do her no service by forgetting that or wallowing in any kind of abyss since her loss.

That is what has always drawn me to the red tail hawk, the feeling of infinite possibility, of lightness on the wind, of flight.

I love life. I cherish it.
I believe in goodness and light and hope and love.
I haven't stopped believing in them, not even in my darker days, and I won't.
It's just not my nature.
It's not my choice.

Life has great meaning, even during the darkest moments.
Especially during those moments...
I feel like I am coming out of the last few days even more sure of that.

I smile when I think of my daughters,
The one who radiates aliveness before me and challenges my being to the core,
And the one who lives in the incredibly delicious air I breathed when I opened the front door this morning and saw a flock of small birds scatter to the trees.

I plan to keep smiling...
Even if there are also tears.

Taking Space

I need to retreat again from this blog world.
I need to intentionally create space between my spirit and body
And all the pain and suffering that is around me.
I need to stop myself from hearing when more babies die,
When someone else gets cancer,
Etc...
For the same reason I don't read the paper or watch the news,
Because I am just too emotionally sensitive and raw.

I'm not sure exactly what that means for my own blog,
But I know it means I will be staying away from reading other blogs.
It doesn't mean I don't care.
It just means I need space.

I'm going to open the door,
Step outside,
Look at the morning sunlight on the trees,
Listen to the cicadas,
And breathe in the fresh air around me.

That's what my body and spirit need most.

Deflated and Aching

Two days ago I tweaked my lower back trying to rotate our mattress with Dave.
I collapsed on the bed in pain and just started weeping,
Dave's warm healing touch on my sacrum.

Last night I went to bed with a migraine
That lingered still this morning when I awoke,
For no good reason, at 5:20 AM.

I can't quite reinflate after learning about Jet's passing yesterday,
And I am still weeping,
Completely at a loss and with more questions than answers.

How can you regain any shred of hope, of trust, of faith in life
After losing all three of your children,
One at a time?

How do you go on without feeling completely beat down,
Overlooked,
Smacked in the face repeatedly by life?

Life feels completely overwhelming right now
And I am ready to resign from the role of grownup
And return to more carefree days.

Unfortunately no more "grown-up" grownup is showing up to fill my shoes,
To coddle me and take care of me and relieve me of all worry and responsibility...
So I'm in this role whether I like it or not.

Baby don't worry about a thing... Every little thing is gonna be alright.

Is it?
Is it really?
It's not alright for Jet's parents today.
I don't know when it will be.
I am completely at a loss,
Finding myself wanting to take all their pain away,
Knowing that I can't.

This morning I had a text message and photo on my phone
Announcing the birth of a healthy baby girl yesterday,
The first child of an old friend I met during college and have seen a few times since.
The contrast was striking.
I was speechless.
A healthy baby girl
Born on the same day another baby died.
How do you integrate all of that,
Consolidate these two pieces of news together?
Or is that not the point?

How do you trust each person's journey,
Trust that it is exactly as it is supposed to be?

See what I mean about more questions than answers?

Last night I lit Tikva's candle, read Mirne's blog, and then just looked at the photos of Tikva on my own blog.
My child...

I asked Tikva to hold me tight, to send her love and comfort my way, to welcome Jet to the realm of baby spirits.
And I thought about my Baby Girl, and it all just came back up for me in such a huge way
After learning about Jet yesterday.

It came back up just how unfair it is to lose a child.
It came back up just how hard it is to rekindle hope after having it trampled on.
It came back up just how small Tikva was when she died.
It came back up that my child was born incredibly sick,
That I buried her over a year ago.
It came back up that my second child - my child - is gone,
That she always will be.

The way in which this community has come together for Mirne and Craig,
The way in which we are sorting through this together...
It sustains me, keeps me from falling completely apart permanently.
And it puts me in a place where I find myself at least weekly since losing Tikva,
Where I realize just how vast this community of babylost parents is...
Just how frequently it grows,
Just how often and how many babies die each day.
It's the two sides of one coin thing - appreciating that I am not alone here
While resenting the universe because I am not.

I am going to be home a lot the next three days
As Gypsy Rose is at the mechanic's finally getting repaired.
Somehow I need to keep myself from being at the computer constantly.
Perhaps I'll take a few naps,
Send out more resumes for job openings,
Make a collage.

I am impatient for the colitis to clear up from my body,
Aware that stress and overwhelm don't really help.
I am ready to be off the medication
Which I am sure is contributing to the headaches I've had lately.

I am ready for my body to feel better,
For my heart to hurt a little less,
For my spirit to feel more buoyant,
For life to settle down and feel less overwhelming.

As Dave would say, May it be!

When I think about the places in my body where I feel pain lately,
I connect with my first, second and sixth chakras.
First, my sacrum... where I ground myself with the earth.
Second, my abdomen... my emotional center.
Sixth, my third eye... my deepest intuitive self.
I'm not exactly sure what it all means,
Except that these are places into which I can breath deeply,
Where the healing is going on at the deepest level.

Trust my journey...even when it feels mysterious and unruly.