Give Me Love

Such a gorgeous boy -- love this kid!

No one gives me love quite like the babies, and that was particularly true today. I got to hold the little guy pictured here at Colectivo today, and eventually, he fell asleep in my arms.

Later in the day, I went to a guided meditation class called the inward journey. I was hoping to release some of the anger that I have been feeling (and spewing) for the last couple of weeks.

What came to me instead was an insight into where the anger was coming from -- even better! -- because that means I can address the source.

The first image that came to me was the little guy pictured here. And then in my mind's eye I saw my daughter at his age, and I felt this overwhelming helplessness about my inability to keep her safe.

I suffered from postpartum depression with baby #2, and I knew that I had a lot of regret about what I missed. I've already done a bunch of healing around that.

But this new insight helped me see why I was flying into a rage when her brother hurt her or I thought what he was doing might hurt her -- and it was this powerlessness I felt when she was so small and I was so tapped out.

On the way home, I heard this song by George Harrison. It's a beauty, and it totally works to mark this day:

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
Heart and soul

Om m m m m m m m m m m m m m
M m m my lord. ..

Please take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
Heart and soul

Om m m m m m m m m m m m m m
M m m my lord. ..

Please take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you

Yes, please do!

Unsteady

This little guy is just five weeks old!

Today I had the delicious pleasure of visiting a lovely friend who recently had a baby and getting to snuggle with him for an hour or so.

There's just something about a newborn that's so magical -- and when I heard this song in the car on the way home -- I realized it was apropos of the little helpless creatures:

Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady
Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady

I was only too happy to hold onto him, as are his mama and papa. And although I cried as I talked to my friend about the part of my life when I thought I was going to get a do-over and then didn't, I mostly just felt really happy for her that she got to have the child she wanted.

My friend articulated the kind of man she sees for me, and she painted a beautiful picture of what would will be a very full life with another amazing human being. She also pointed out that this work I am doing on myself would've been impossible in a relationship, and I know she's right.

I have to admit I've felt a little precarious myself this week, what with my big job interview:

Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady
Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady

But I've also felt held by so many wonderful friends, colleagues and family members who are actively supporting me, not to mention the larger force for good.

As I said in yesterday's post, there is still sadness for me about the New Englander when I hear/read lyrics like this:

But if you love me, don't let go
If you love me, don't let go

But I know that he did what he could and that what he could do wasn't all that I wanted or needed.

I also know that the man who is gonna love me and not let me go is out there, and before too long he will:

Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady
Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady

And until that time comes, I've got friendship, family and faith to do it:

Hold, hold on, hold onto me
'Cause I'm a little unsteady
A little unsteady

(You're) Having My Baby

Some of my family's youngest at the cabin!

While up at the cabin with family, we were talking about a relative who is my age and recently had a baby.

My Mom asked me if I can imagine having a baby now, and I told her I really couldn't. She pointed out that a few years ago I had really wanted another one.

It's true. I really did. It felt so important to me at the time, for several reasons:

1) Being a Mama is something I've wanted for most of my life, and I've always pictured myself with more than two kids.

2) A pretty severe postpartum depression kept me from really getting to enjoy my daughter when she was a baby, and I love babies! So that's never really seemed fair.

3) When I fell in love with The New Englander, and he was so good with my kids, and he really saw me as a mother, I wanted desperately to have his baby -- to have this sweet song (which I have to admit I'm only familiar with because of Glee) -- be our reality:

Havin' my baby
What a lovely way of sayin'
How much you love me
Havin' my baby
What a lovely way of sayin'
What you're thinkin' of me
I can see it, face is glowin'
I can see in your eyes
I'm happy you know it

That you're havin' my baby

You're the woman I love
And I love what it's doin' to ya

Havin' my baby

You're a woman in love
And I love what's goin' through ya

Yes, I was a woman in love, but no baby for me. And now that I'm on the other side, of that need, and that relationship, I'm grateful that I didn't go down that road. It leaves me free to focus on my beautiful teen and tween, and to reinvent myself in terms of my career.

It also leaves me free to fall in love with someone else without another babydaddy in the picture -- at least without one that has any kind of romantic hold on me.

And for that, I'm both grateful and pregnant with possibility!

Baby Love

My five month old baby love...

Yesterday I got to see not one but two of my baby loves:

Ooh baby love, my baby love

I need you, oh how I need you

But all you do is treat me bad

Break my heart and leave me sad

Tell me, what did I do wrong

To make you stay away so long

'Cause baby love, my baby love

Been missing ya, miss kissing ya

Instead of breaking up

Let's do some kissing and making up

Don't throw our love away

In my arms, why don't you stay?

Need ya, need ya

Baby love, ooh, baby love

Baby love, my baby love

Why must we seperate, my love

All of my whole life through

I never loved no one but you

Why you do me like you do?

I get this need

Ooh, ooh, need to hold you

And my just turned one year old baby love!

Once again, my love

Feel your warm embrace, my love

Don't throw our love away

Please don't do me this way

Not happy like I used to be

Loneliness has got the best of me

My love, my baby love

I need you, oh how I need you

Why you do me like you do

After I've been true to you

So deep in love with you

Baby, baby, ooh till it's hurtin' me

Till it's hurtin' me

Ooh, baby love

Don't throw our love away

Don't throw our love away

And of course, as if all that baby love wasn't enough to fill my heart to the brim, I got to hang out with each baby love's Mom, both of whom are wonderful friends.

Plus I got to talk to my babies on the phone from their Dad's house.

So, this Valentine's weekend, it may be cold outside, but my heart is warm and toasty, even without a man...

You Should Know Where I'm Coming From

Happiness is a babe on my chest

This song is really beautiful, and I'm using it to mark this day both because so many aspects of it have been beautiful, and because I can still completely relate to the longing I hear in her lovely voice:

What if I said I'd break your heart?
What if I said I have problems that made me, me?
What if I knew I would just rip your mind apart
Would you let me out?
Maybe you can stop before you start

Maybe you can see that I just may be too crazy to love
If I told you solitude fits me like a glove
Would you let me out?

You ought to know where I'm coming from
How I was alone when I burned my home
And all of the pieces were torn and thrown
You should know where I'm coming from

The lighting was so magical at Quarry Ridge today after work!

These photos tell the story of some of the beautiful moments of my day -- coffee with a close friend and her baby snuggling on my chest -- mountain biking (complete with brand new trails and an on-site mechanic when I was having some troubles mid course) after work with the sun just beginning to set... I also applied for a new job that I have a really good feeling about and had an excellent practice this morning and TRX workout at noon in which I felt strong and capable (a nice contrast from how I felt this weekend).

I'd never heard of Banks before today, nor heard her, but I really love her sound. And I love how she finds a way to express what I so acutely felt before I started my healing journey:

What if I said I was just too young?
What if I said I was built on bricks of carelessness and crumbs
What if I said I'd be gone before I could come
Would you let me out?

The truth, I reckon, is that the only person who can let you out is you --- at least the only person who can let you out permanently. Don't get me wrong, it helps -- really helps -- to be loved:

Your sought out ways
My own, my own
But you turn me away from my low blows
Boy, you should've known

But no one else can do our healing work for us. And that means that even with support, it can feel like a lonely process sometimes...

Darkness Between the Fireflies

This little beauty was my first thought this am

When I woke up early this morning, for the first time since, hmmm, a long time, my first thought/image was not of my New Englander.

It was, instead, of my friend's beautiful newborn, whom I had the pleasure of holding for nearly three hours yesterday. What a lovely image, and I had no trouble going back to sleep, which was a welcome change.

I did dream about him though, when I went back to sleep. I dreamt that he wouldn't kiss me, and didn't want to have sex. I can count on one hand the number of times that actually happened in the time we were together -- mostly the physical part of our relationship was really satisfying. I keep having dreams with a similar theme, though, where for one reason or another, the sex isn't working. I know there is a message for me in this, I'm just not sure what it is yet.

When my alarm went off later in the morning, rousing me for my yoga practice, it is was this song that came through my ipod:

I woke up before you in the total darkness
Early morning
I could hear the wind in the trees
I was looking for the light to bring you out
From the shadows
Redefine you now for only me

Wow. That's powerful. And it gets better:

And honey i'm sure
That you've been in love before
Plenty of men have held high places in your eyes
And jealousy has got no use for me
The past is beautiful
Like the darkness between the fireflies

I think I might make this my theme song for the moment. I love the image of the past being like the darkness between the fireflies. I tend to both think about and feel darkness as negative, but this is a great reframing.

I think I might be moving into a space where I'm more willing to see my last relationship as a place for learning. This morning in savasana I was able to clearly see my part in our parting, and recognize that the fear of abandonment, the fear of unworthiness, the fear of not being loved -- that's my work. I wanted to find a way for him not to abandon me so I wouldn't have to feel the other hard stuff, when all the time, what I didn't realize is that I need to bring worthiness and knowledge that I am love and am loved to the relationship, not use the relationship to get it. That's powerful learning.

I was driving faster through the appalachians
I could see the world go out below me in the sun
You should know by now
That someone's always been there
Long before you
You're never going to be the only one

And honey i'm sure
That you've been in love before
Plenty of men have held high places in your eyes
But jealousy has got no use for me
The past is beautiful
Like the darkness between the fireflies
Beautiful like the darkness between the fireflies

I'm working on seeing the past as beautiful. All of it. Even the part that didn't work out like I wanted it too. And that makes the present a whole lot more pleasant too...

Running Against the Wind

One of my dinner guests -- love that baby time!

I had tentative plans to run with a friend this morning, but when I didn't hear back from her, I decided to sleep in. As a result, my whole day happened later than normal: Breakfast at 10am, long run at 1pm, lunch at 4:30, dinner at 8pm. Sometimes it feels good to do that.

I must've needed the sleep, because I finally started tackling some of the things I've been meaning to do around the house, which felt good.

I had to sort of force myself both to do my long run and to do my yoga practice, but both ended up feeling really good. Slacker kept quitting on my phone while I was running, which was super annoying, but luckily my internal jukebox was cranking them out.

I ran from my house to picnic point and back, which I haven't done in a while, but at 7.5 miles, it's just a little bit farther than the run I have been doing from the Capitol to Picnic Point and back. When I turned off the trail that goes to the Point, I started running against the wind, and Bob Seger wasted no time getting started with playing this song in my head:

It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights
There in the darkness with the radio playlng low
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
Till there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove

And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

Against the wind
We were runnin' against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin'
Against the wind

I found myself wondering if running against the wind is meant to indicate not going with the flow/being out of sync, or if it just means sometimes you're going to find yourself in a position against the wind, and when you do, it's best to keep running:

And the years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searchin'
Searchin' for shelter again and again
Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind

Well those drifters days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out

Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
I'm older now but still running
Against the wind
Well I'm older now and still running
Against the wind

I don't know for sure how Bob meant it, but I know that I too am older now, and I'm still running. And yeah, sometimes that means running against the wind, literally and figuratively...

Hit Me Baby One More Time

Sweet baby Hazel

This song is another in the list of 66 songs that changed everything that I listened to the other day, and so it kinda makes sense that it was on repeat today when I was hanging out with my friend's baby:

Oh, baby, baby
Oh, baby, baby

Oh, baby, baby, how was I supposed to know
That something wasn't right here
Oh, baby, baby, I shouldn't have let you go
And now you're out of sight, yeah

Of course, this song is about the other kind of baby, but methinks they're related:

Show me how you want it to be
Tell me, baby, 'cause I need to know now
Oh, because

My loneliness is killin' me
(And I)
I must confess I still believe
(Still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me, baby, one more time

Because it was the same loneliness I felt when I lost my man that strengthened my desire to have another baby. I wanted that closeness. That feeling of belonging. Of Oneness.

I'm happy to report that I've come to find out I can have that feeling without a man or a baby, because both the man and the baby are just means of accessing something that is actually within me: my being, my light.

I'm reading a book right now called Perfect Love: Imperfect Relationships, and the author does a brilliant job of laying out all the ways we try to get the love we are looking from other people -- what he calls horizontally -- when what we really need is to get it vertically -- by connecting with our own true nature. For me it's a real relief, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

My now two-week old commitment to the Ashtanga path of 6-day per week practice is already having a profound impact on my life. I've got a ways to go, but I'm doing so much better at focusing on myself and my own healing. And it feels like it's working. And I'm lucky, because I do get to hang out with a super cute baby every once in a while and have her nap on my chest as she did today, which is one of my very favorite feelings in the world.

But I no longer feel like I need to have another one of my own. I feel like I don't know what direction my life is going to go in -- I don't know what's next for me on my career path, I don't know who my new man will be, and I don't know if I'll ever have more kids -- either my own bio, adopted, or step. I don't know.

But I know the what the path I'm on looks like. I know that it involves going to an Alanon meeting on Father's Day when my father ignores what I've written to him in his Father's Day card. I know it involves a commitment to being as present and as loving as I can be for my kids. I know it means practicing Ashtanga six days per week, including tomorrow, even though I'm pretty sore after all the yoga I did this weekend. I know it involves daily meditation, even if it's only for five minutes some days. And I know it means staying really fit, biking most places I go, and being able to head out the door for a run that lasts an hour or more without being sore afterward. I know it means caring for my beautiful home for which I am profoundly grateful. And I know it means using both music and writing to make sense of my life.

So even if there are a lot of pretty big unknowns, there's a lot I do know, and it's everything I need to know right now...

Church (Part of Someone)

Mentally and physically exhausted at the end of the day today -- having run 7.5 miles, practiced some yoga, taught an Ashtanga class, and spent 5 hours working on a consulting project -- I settled in for a little Hulu plus viewing on my laptop.

I ended up watching a particularly moving episode of Parenthood, dealing as it did with tough issues like separation and divorce, questions of faith, babies, promises, and family.

Especially poignant for me was this song, circa 1970 (when my mother was pregnant with me), which played close to the end of the episode:

You see, it's my thing
To be part of someone
As a true friend is part of me
You know that there's so much
Oh, little girl, we've got to tell each other
About the whole world
And most especially one another, oh yeah, all right
And you know, and you know?

And it's hard, yes it is
It's hard, yes it is
And I wonder
I wonder could it be a dream?
And you know that the self made man, babe
Is truly shallow
He knows he's no one
But who he wants to be
So while you still sing, baby
You got to tell me, baby
Is it your thing to be part of anyone?
Anyone, anyone

Often when I was a kid, I didn't feel part of anyone. I wanted to -- I think we all at least start out in this world craving that feeling -- but most of the time I didn't. Over time, I stopped believing that it was possible for me, and instead, lived life from the relative safety of staying in my head. If it's not my thing to truly be part of anyone, my subconscious seemed to reason, I can't be hurt if I'm not.

And it worked pretty well for a lot of years, but then my son was born, and my world was blown wide open: If this is what it feels like to be part of someone, this is exactly what I want for myself!

Yes, the love I felt (and still feel) for that baby (and the one that followed three years later) have been the catalysts I needed to do the very difficult work of coming back into my body, of healing, of reuniting my head and my heart, and of saying yes to being part of someone.

Children are such an incredible gift. It's true that parenting them isn't always easy:

And it's hard, yes it is
It's hard, yes it is

But I've never doubted for a second that it's worth it. Without my kids, I can't imagine that I'd have made as much progress with reconciling all the various parts of myself. And that might've meant missing out on the feeling I have today, that I'm part of someone, and creating a home where I believe my children feel they are part of someone too. I can't ask for anything more than that, except maybe a partner to share it with...