Beloved

"Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend once pointed out to me the beauty of the space between trapeze bars, the time when we're transitioning — coming from one thing and going to the next, or waiting, or avoiding. That contested space is rife with growth and light, if we are mindful enough not to be freaked out by it.

Somehow, by some sort of silent mutual decision, my daughter has stopped nursing. 10 months of nursing is a long time for a working mother...we did okay. In the beginning, it was overwhelming, but soon — very soon — after the beginning it was precious. I don't have the words now (I will some day) to describe how beautiful it all was. This ending is new to me, my mind wants to give it a swollen sense of emptiness, and I'm haunted by the fact that it seems that she only just came...why, this time last year I had a full month to go. I was snuggling her from the outside of my belly, and I was wondering what she would be like. And now she's here — chatting and laughing, objecting when I try to wash her face or change her shirt, asking me to hold her hands while she stands up, flirting with strangers — and I sincerely don't know where the time went. What a cliche! All of the grownups said the time would fly, and I resent that it flies...so so quickly. The days and months are long, but then they are gone and I am here, typing this blog downstairs in a dimly lit living room of my house (when did I become grownup enough to own a house?!) while she sleeps upstairs in her bed.

Now, we rock while I give her a bottle and sing to her: "Somewhere there is sunshine/ Somewhere there is day / Somewhere there is Morning Town / Many miles away." Now, after her bottle is done, I turn her and lift her and snuggle her on my shoulder, and she rests her face in my neck, and we rock and rock and rock. She feels almost half my size -- 19 pounds and two feet long. And sometimes when she sleeps like this I walk into the bathroom, lit softly by the nightlight, and look at myself holding this child. I try to see myself as a mother, and I cannot...not quite yet. I know that I am her mother, but I still see a girl in the mirror. And this image of me holding a child seems like when I used to babysit...practicing to be a mother.

I think she knows sometimes that I am still getting used to all of this. She sometimes looks at me quizzically, her brow furrowed, as if to ask, "What part don't you get, Mom?" And if I could respond to her in words she would understand, I would say, "Don't mind me. I'll get it. And I appreciate your patience while I try to wrap my mind around the fact that you are mine, and while I try to accept that you are also so much your own. I'll get it."

This transition from nursing is not a pregnant pause, or a stillness, or even a weightlessness. In some ways it is a kind of vinyasa — moving, breathing, life-giving. And, as with each asana, we must be willing to sit in it and rise out of it with the breath —lightly, letting go, turning inward. I could ache for nursing my child, but I am curious about an alternative. One of my friend points out, it's all nursing...rocking your baby, feeding her, singing to her, watching her eyes grow heavy once you start the words — "Train whistle blowin' / Makes a sleepy noise / Underneath their blankets / Are all the girls and boys" — and watching her then take all of that peacefulness into her own bed and use it to calm herself to sleep. This is the start of her own ability to find peace in her heart, to know what it is when she feels it, to go back there whenever she needs to. I helped her to recognize it, and I will keep helping her to nurture it. And so I will be nursing her forever.

Oh, good...that gives me some time.