Wu wei.

Wu wei.

Today I caught myself feeling a little left behind. Left behind myself, or my potential, or what I used to be, or my something else? I'm not really sure. I wave through moods like this periodically, and could probably compile dozens of partially-written blog posts where I give up after the first few paragraphs after I realize that I have no idea what I'm writing or even what I'm feeling. But it's almost like I felt (feel?) simultaneously trapped and freed, inhibited and empowered by being a mother, and that, my friends, is crazy crazy head space.

I don't know yet how to ascribe the effect motherhood has had on my brain or my soul. I am in no major way the person I was 2 years or so ago. But little remainders here and there of a former girl insist to me one of two conflicting things. The first is that I am the same old, same old, just now arguably improved with lactation and a little person following me around and a little squishier in the middle. The second? I will never be the same again. I pretty much always lean towards the second.

When Ollie was a newborn, some (then-childless) friends of ours asked us "so what else is new," and I was amazed. Not because I might have felt inferior, or bogged down, or out of touch, but because it had not once occurred to me to devote an ounce of my energy elsewhere than on my sweet child and family. Why would I want anything else to be "new" or "up"?

However, I do struggle with frequent yearnings for authenticity, but at the same time catch myself because I can't imagine anything more authentic, more meaningful, more powerful than being a mother. When Ollie was a day old, Sasha described nursing a child as "doing not-doing" and I think of that often. Obviously it's easier to relate to those hour long nursing sessions in the early weeks, but I can definitely apply it to myself now. I don't get to have brilliant conversations with brilliant (well, grown-up) minds all day long anymore. I don't get to shut out the world so that I can focus on some creative pursuit - writing, music, doodling, daydreaming. I can't believe that I don't doodle anymore, for the love of pete! But my time spent with Ollie seems to undulate between really active and conscious parenting, and then those times where you just are there. Whether it's holding him, sitting with him while he insists on trying to get the square peg in the round hole (actually, these days it's the hexagon shaped block into the hexagon shaped hole but just not lined up right), nursing him, or lying next to him while he naps- it's just kind of sitting around and waiting. Doing nothing, so to speak. But the great thing is that it's work. The work of the mother. This taoist sort of not-doing, the wu-wei, is the kind of important work that moves mountains, or at the very least, rears children.

It all kinds of leads me back to my darkest moments this week, my biggest struggles, my weakest parenting, my crappy performance review. Patience. I found myself raising my voice several times this week, all for stupid things, and to no end. You can't yell at a 1 year old! You can't reason with him! It's so much easier to get behind the wu wei doing-not-doing when you can cuddle up with a wrinkly little newborn for hours on end. It's a totally different but just as important deal when they're actually little people doing things and saying things and throwing fits. Not-doing right now calls on the vast depths of patience, and I'm not very good at it. What's amusing is that the two people I'm closest to these days not counting Erik (oh, and Ollie) - Sarah and Nelwyn - both have recently commented that they think I'm really patient. I'm not sure if I'm off-gassing some sort of faux-patience or that maybe by the time they get to me, it's just some incarnation of exhaustion and defeat. But that said, patience is definitely the one thing I keep coming back to time and time again with parenting.

And back to my point. My recent philosophical or nostalgic or whatever stirrings and the week's struggles with patience have crashed into each other full speed and I felt it just now driving home from book club in the 80 degree night with the windows down and Air playing loudly on the radio. And the strange part? I'm just kind of at peace.

I recently saw a grandmother at the park, who is presumably the caregiver for her grandkids while the parents work. I remembered planning on having my parents watch Ollie (for free!) while I went back to work, and realized that holy hell would that not have worked out. To say this is the hardest job I've ever had would be a gross understatement. My days are emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and (most of all) physically draining. And you know what? To kiss my sad, wakened-up baby's head and eyes and cheeks and neck as I carry him to bed in the middle of the night, and then to curl up next to him, wide awake and all not-doing-y, and watch him sleep? Magic. I'm recharged.