Saturday 17 March 2012

A Moment of Paradise

As an adult, life sometimes gets too heavy, too busy, running around with too many balls held in the air, trying too hard to achieve the impossible... It gets hard to remember to just sit and enjoy, to lose yourself in the moment...

And sometimes, in between responsibilities, little things sneak up on you, facing you with a different world where the balls are put on the ground without a notice and time seems to freeze...

Sunday morning... The one day a week when I can just sleep in with a pillow over my head, wrapped between crisp bedsheets, knowing I won't have to rush anywhere...

After a Saturday of running around in heavy rain, waking up with a bright ray of sun sneaking between curtains, I become aware of a perfect and soft little body glued next to me and wrapped in my arms... Soft, soft skin, still having the baby chicken smell so specific to little children, mixed with the sweet smell of hair spray... Tiny ponytails gently tickling my face and little strong muscles under my fingers... Without opening my eyes, I just lay there, becoming aware of my daughter's soft breath, and the way her tiny body still feels so much part of my own...

In a year or two, as she will grow from a cheeky little girl into a tiny lady like her older sister, the boundaries between her body and mine will harden and hugging her, with equal as much love, I will know, on some visceral level, that it is a person that belongs to herself... I will search then for the soft shape of her body, but I will be hugging someone that knows who she is and where we stop...

And there is pride in that, to look upon your child becoming more and more an individual. There is pride in watching as their wings grow and they start slowly and surely, navigating their own lives... But next to the pride, there is a touch of loss for all the years and experiences that will not come back...

I watch my oldest daughter, a little lady now, still so sweet and still looking so small and young in her sleep, and my heart fills with love and pride, remembering a time when she was still my baby and her world revolved so much around me... From being a Moon revolving around my Earth as I was spinning around the Sun, she grew into her own planet, still connected, but individual and with an independent orbit around the same Sun... And while it a wonderful experience, as you watch and assist, there is a sadness in knowing that from now on you can't anymore protect as you used to do, in knowing that life will deal blows that you can't anymore take for them and all you can do is to share your own wisdom and a shoulder.

But as those thoughts fly through my head watching her sleeping, the other one, with the little body glued to mine stirs in her sleep... For now, even though she already started on the journey that will make her more and more her own person, she is still my soft little baby... As I hug her, I know that appearances are deceiving, that under the softness of her skin there are strong muscles that can do things I can only dream about, that under the sleeping smile there is a will as strong as mine... I hug her closer and gently her little hands wrap around my neck, two souls wrapped into what feels like one body... Her eyelashes flutter and with a smile, her soft, sleepy voice says: "I love you, mama!"

It is one of those rare moments when as a parent I can let the questions and worries rest, and I can just feel the perfection of the moment, the divine perfection of the two of them, knowing that I had a little part in creating and shaping this two wonderful persons... As I watch them, I feel a deep peace while my heart is close to bursting with so much love, and I whisper, "Thank you for being my children!".

Because in moments like this, I realize once again the incredible blessings my daughters are to me. And the days when I feel my hair growing white with worry for them, the days when I run in circles not sure of what I am doing with them, the days when I feel like hiding in the cupboard  instead of dealing with another temper tantrum, are made worthwhile by moments of paradise like this one when I can just cherish the incredible joy of being a parent...   

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Where am I?

I sit sometimes, in the night shadows, as my children breathe slowly in their sleep, and with peace surrounding me, I feel lost. Not lost from the world, but lost from myself, disconnected for the ancient and pure core that is the Me behind all the smokes and mirrors. So often I play dancing between smoke, between mirrors, hidden behind elaborate masks...

There is the mask of the Mother, the one that freely gives even when there is nothing left to give. The Mother that sacrifices and has all the answers, the one that has to protect and support. The one that gives power and puts wings on someone else dreams. And yet, behind the mask, in the mirror, as the clock strikes midnight, there is just a woman that has no answers, who's wisdom lies scattered, the woman who is unsure and has insecurities.

There is the mask of the Daughter that tries to be an example, and yet, in the mirror is just a young child, still scared of the dark. And there is the mask of the Woman, powerful and free, secure and passionate. The Woman that can laugh when she feels like crying, the one that offers support to all and has none when she herself needs it.

There is the mask of the Artist who hides behind a lens capturing the glimpse and short lived glimmer of beauty. Again the Artist has all the answers and composure, while inside, way beyond the lens, sometimes wonders what for or if it even matters...

The mask of the Witch, ancient in her wisdom, with a scared child hiding inside knowing that her only wisdom is in knowing those things she does not know.

So many masks, so many mirrors to get lost behind! And sometimes, as the night lengthens deeper and deeper, the masks fall and the mirrors are covered in smoke, leaving just another shadow of the presence. Because the fear is not the real face of that which hides from all, either. And knowing that, I wonder when and how did I get so lost that I can't anymore find Adriana's thread to get out of the labyrinth I willingly stepped in.

Sometimes I catch glimpses of what once was. The freedom, the power, the dreams and the answers, once they were real, they were me. But somewhere along the way, I shed layer upon layer of my self until only shadows were left. And when I found a glimmer of power to see the shadow of my former self, I longed for it enough to try and recreate it. With not enough power to thread back to find the true layers, was easier to knit them as a spider web. Real in itself, they are yet nothing but copies and sometimes they get too heavy to carry around. And then, in the middle of the night, I can put them all in a corner, and curl weeping and screaming, cursing the day I chose the illusion over the wisdom, crying for all that which is forever lost, the innocence, the hopes, the dreams, the trust...

Because maybe more then anything, the child in me, when it gets lost in a world of illusions, wants nothing more then the ability to trust again, herself and others. It all started with trust and it all ended when the trust was broken, and the child in me, longs so much to trust herself again.

And finally, when all the fear and sorrow are spent in bitter tears, when longings are released to the waves of blue rivers, when dreams are fully released in the ether, and hopes mourned in the ever green earth, when the innocence is grieved and fed to the flames, when nothing is left but yet another empty shell, I can stand up, knowing that from no power I find the power to face another day, from weakness I find strength. Because, when the shell is empty of ego, only then, can I see that I am strong only because I am weak, I am powerful only because I have no power, I can laugh because I know how to cry, I can smile only because I have known sorrow, I am beautiful because I have faults... Because only then can I lift myself up, holding heaven and earth, water and fire, being spirit filled with a divine spark... I might still not know where am I, or even what in the world am I doing, but at least then, only then I can admit to myself that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and that frees me to open to another experience and yet another lesson, that frees me to be myself and free...

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Autumn

The summer is gone. Only a shadow remains of the long, sunny, hot days of summer. The vibrant colors of nature are getting less bright, there are clouds floating through the sky... The darkness lengthens it's shadows earlier and there is a chill in the air that was not there couple of weeks before...

The end of summer always brings a feeling of nostalgia in me. Even though so many years have passed since I finished school in my far away mountains, the end of summer still seem to sing the song of the end of holidays... But unlike before, there is no excitement of meeting friends that I missed, there is no wonder to see a new year's surprises...

Nowadays, autumn just brings with it a slowing down of vitality. Where once upon a time it was a season of wine making, of pickles getting made between giggles, now is just a nostalgia which seems to suit my mood. This year I had no energy to truly enjoy summer. With my body rebelling against me, packing the car for a day at the beach seemed more then I was able to do.

This year, the summer passing away to leave space for colder days seems a metaphor of my own health. Gone are the days of singing while cleaning the house, gone are the days of dancing in the car with my children... I seem to have gotten old all of a sudden and even though I know that another summer awaits at the end of the rainbow, I just can't find it in me to be excited about that hope. Because like the weather, I just don't have the energy anymore...

Like nature, I feel the need to lie down and recharge for the future spring, to hide in a cave and sleep until my body, like nature, can come anew... But unlike the nature that quietly goes to sleep, responsibilities hold me tight in an everyday circle of duties.