Maeve

Five years ago today, Maeve, the third child I'd grieved and given up hope of having, was born, flashing her Ben-dimple and sucking at her tiny thumb.  For a full year, I could hardly absorb that fact of her.  Never had I basked in a baby's presence like that, with such perspective and gratefulness.  Because we lived in DC for this baby, my mom and Annemarie, Maeve's soon-to-be-godmother, met us at the hospital and stood at my side for her entire birth (while my dad held down the fort with Eden and Silas).

Right after Maeve was born, Annemarie pointed out that she came into the world during the exact hour when summer became fall; she taught me the word liminal, and later wrote this beautiful piece.

maeve magnolia

It seems impossible to say that I had never witnessed a birth before Maeve's on Saturday, but I hadn't.
Birthing is not the same as witnessing. Birthing is work, pain, love, desperation, and focus.  Birthing
is breathing, squeezing a hand, yelling, riding the wave of the contraction, pacing, showering, walking,
balancing on the balance ball, sinking into Greg's chest, swearing never to do this again, hoping, waiting,
enduring. Birthing is becoming- it's both becoming someone and allowing someone to become.

Witnessing is different. Witnessing is standing on sacred ground. It's making the coffee run, grabbing the
camera,  emailing the list, standing still, waiting.  Witnessing is standing in a space so holy that it feels
strange to ask or do anything mundane. Witnessing is silently praying, filling the space of the room that
is about to be full of new life, with blessings, thanksgiving, praise. Witnessing is to be overcome, undone,
by the power of it all.

Sweet Maeve,

I am so honored to have witnessed your arrival into this world.  I'm sure they've already told you, but you
were born in the hour between summer and fall. As that morning dawned, while your Mama was working
so hard, loving you here, birthing you, the word that came to my mind was "liminal."

liminal: 1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process 
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or a threshold.

It means to be in between: and what an in between space that day was! What a lot of waiting and
wondering there have been these past months!  Your family has been in a lot of in between spaces this
year (coasts, houses, friends, seasons.) But now, it is fall and you are HERE! - in all your delicious, perfect, 
teensy glory. I'm so glad you're not in between anymore, but here: to love and be loved.

Welcome dear one! I love you so,
Your fairy Godmama

Annemarie Mott Ewing

Unhurried

I am lying on my old neighbors' front porch across the street from soccer practice. They are not home, and Maeve is playing on their swing, while I fully recline.

Today is the first day of school, the first time I've had all kids at school, for a full day, in 11 years.  So far I have no *feelings* about that; I'm opening an art studio in a week and a half and unpacking a house we just moved into.  There's plenty clamoring for my attention, a bells and whistles parade.  I have no doubt, though, the feelings will come eventually (they always do...).

This afternoon, I had plans to go to the grocery store to restock the house, the drugstore for school binders, and the library with Maeve, while the other two had activities. Instead, I am here lying on this porch couch.

Saturday night running over to the pool, my legs flew out from under me, and I crashed to the concrete, hard.  Hard enough, it turns out, that I fractured my tailbone.

Soooooooooooo, life is running at a different pace than I'd anticipated.

Before I left DC, my mom and I talked over the word "unhurried."  That's her word for the semester. We talked about what it feels like to be unhurried, how it opens us to the present, and what a gift it can be when we can encounter other people without hurry.  Sitting on her couch in summer's sun, I could see it -- living days unhurried.  And then I pictured going home in two days: a house of boxes, a curriculum to write, the start of school, new routines, making lunches, coordinating activities, launching a business -- and I laughed, half out of the panic rising in my chest.   Unhurried readjusted to a shining ideal, and I steeled myself to tackle real life September.

And yet, here I am, slowed down to an almost literal crawl.

I have no idea what we will eat for dinner. We are low on milk and out of butter. We have no meat in the house except for a pack of lil smokies the kids begged for, and little to no produce.  Silas has neither binder nor dividers. And yet, I'm just sitting here, no, to be precise, lying here, at a house that isn't even mine.  I'm achy and uncomfortable, trying to prop myself up on skinned elbows, and angry that it hurts to drive (the reason we pulled over here).  It's beyond frustrating to slam into my own limitations.  But lying here, I'm watching the sun lower. I'm having intermittent conversation with Maeve, who's slowly unraveling the details of her first day at school, and I'm aware of the breeze.  Maybe, somehow, this forced slowing will be an unexpected gift...