peevish mama

I want to be able to do what Doctor Dash is doing in this photo.  He’s just relaxing, chilling out – two deep breaths away from a little meditation – five deep breaths away from falling asleep.  His ability to unplug and shutdown is enviable.

I can’t take a nap.  I can’t even fall asleep at night unless I read myself to sleep – the words need to be blurring together and the whole bending the page, putting the book on the night stand, turning off the light motion needs to be quick and seamless.   If it isn’t, I need to read a few more pages and try it again.  I know, it sounds a little crazy. 

In yoga the first time I heard about the monkey mind, I had a huge “aha” moment.  The monkey mind.  I recognized myself completely.  It’s when you can’t quiet the chatter and your mind jumps from thought to thought, like monkeys from branch to branch – wild and unruly, wily and rude.  The minute I lie back in savasna after yoga practice, my mind starts to wander . . . what are the kids doing?  what do I feel like eating when I get out of here?  how long has the dirty laundry been moldering in the chute? what’s up with the medium size ants invading our house this spring?  can my yoga teacher tell my mind is racing?  why does Posh Spice have such a skeletal scowl on her face all the time?  Is it because she’s starving?  What’s with Tom and Katie taking them under their wing?  Are they trying to convert them to Scientology?  What’s up with those freaky Scientologists?  FUCK!!!!  WHAT AM I DOING????  

Savasna – corpse pose.  It’s an opportunity for total and complete relaxation and surrender and although I need this sooooo badly, I’m a total and complete spaz.  I’m the furthest thing from a corpse.  Quite the contrary, I’m like a girl on ecstasy at a rave, but the rave is in my head, and it’s a rave for monkeys and I cannot, for the life of me, just notice them and then let them go and get back to the sensation of the sound of my breath, the blood pulsing through my veins, my muscles melting into the floor.  No, I bounce over to monkeys, chewing gum really hard with a huge grin on my face, my feet doing complicated little made-up hip hop moves, and join in their reindeer games. But the monkeys are very naughty and distracting, and ultimately, they’re monkeys, so let’s face it, they’re not that interesting.  So then I feel bad and I try to get back to savasna, and then one more monkey stretches his hairy hand toward me, and I grab it . . . and savasna is suddenly over.

And it’s not only that I want to be able to meditate or fall asleep.  I want to be able to BE IN THE MOMENT.  This chaotic, frenetic, exhausting time with my young family is so fleeting, that I’m afraid I’m going to miss it.  It’s like sand slipping through my fingers, but I’m so tired and frayed that I just open my fingers wider, letting it go go go . . . 

Little kids keep you very busy - busy with your hands: getting milk, wiping noses and bottoms, checking backpacks, making lunches, reading books, changing diapers, picking up toys, tying shoes, opening yogurts, washing blueberries, hoisting into swings, catching at the bottom of slides. Meaningful labor, but labor nevertheless.  The problem is that while your body is in motion, most of the time your mind is, well, how to put it delicately, not necessarily working to full capacity.  You don’t have the time or the quiet to concentrate on anything.  My kids are as bright and interesting as the next, but they’re children and so even though my mouth may be explaining the order of the seasons for the twelfth time, my mind is elsewhere (sometimes thinking those absurd thoughts I discussed in my first entry).  And I don’t want to be elsewhere.  I want to be here, with them, completely present.  Because soon enough, my three guys will be elsewhere and I’ll be longing for the days when all they wanted was ME, when all they needed to be happy was my attention and affection.  

Mother guilt – could there be a bigger cliché?

It’s paradoxical – the fact that the key to plugging in and being present is to unplug, stop thinking, let it all wash over you.  I should become a Buddhist.  That’s really what I’m talking about here.  Or I could have a stroke.  I read about this neuroscientist from Harvard in the NY Times who had a stroke and found nirvana – her left brain was damaged to such a degree that she lost her powers of analysis, speech and judgement, leaving her open to this sensation that everything was unified and blissful and part of a shimmering connected whole.  Oh my God.  That’s great.  For her.  

You know, I’ve always called my children monkeys, as in “Hop in monkeys,” “Into your pj’s monkeys,” etc.  I considered switching to squirrels once when Saint James became obsessed with them, but it never stuck.  Little kids are just simian – from birth, with their little clutching fingers and later – well, they don’t call them monkey bars for nothing.  

So maybe if the monkeys that are distracting me and taking up all my time and making me play and dance and rub my temples are MY monkeys, then it will all shake out in the end.  In the mean time, I’m going to read a book to Supergirl and I’m going to try to pay attention (reading aloud, like driving, can be accomplished using a mere sliver of your faculties) and I’m going to try not to think about the monkey we saw at the zoo who looked exactly like Kris Kristofferson.                                                                                                     Artist Heather Gorham