Once again, I find myself thinking of, feeling for, wishing for my children. I speak to this feeling on this dark night as we move toward Scorpio New Moon. There is a time and a place for such a subject, and here we are, now.

It’s not their fault that they are who they are (ie, my children). They didn’t ask to be born, nor did they ask for the storm I called into being partway through their childhoods.

It’s true, I confess, at my behest a tempest tore through the fabric of my family, sundered children from ancestors. To become a better mother, I chose to face my demons.

I knew not what I did; I was not ready; they were not ready.

They raged like escaping a cage, or Pandora’s box. And lock, stock and shock, I was overwhelmed, underwater, lost in an inundation of pain, an avalanche of tears, a phantasmagoria of multidimensional experiences. I saw my schizophrenic brother in the hospital, and I knew that could be me.

I was careful, I channeled my crazy into songs, stories, poems, drawings, tears, personal growth study and creative conversation.

Still, it had to have been hard to be my kids. I feel for them. Not that it was so easy to be me, but it was their needs I most longed to meet, and I grieved as I washed away on waves of creation.

The Artist’s Child

The artist’s child sits
staring at Mother’s
canvas, growing
magical brushwork
effortlessly flowing.

“O Mummy, will i?
can i ever? who
will i be?”

she whispers
but Mummy does not hear
Mummy is in her creation
and nothing can reach her.

The child is alone yet
somehow filled
its body is lit
from within in
pinpoints of diamond light
the night full of stars
is inside

knowing something yet
pierced by mystery
he longs and sighs
and waits to grow up.

I stopped being a ‘good mother’ when I said yes to the past and demon Memory clattered into my world like a rattle of skeletons.

They had to know. The skeletons were always there, hiding behind smiles and normal, loaves of homemade bread, hand-sewn jeans with heart patches on the knees, cunning preserves and careful focus on life that revolved around children, devoted solely to meeting their needs, talking about their needs, befriending only mothers with kids the same age needs.

I bit the dark all for my own, it slipped through in late night whispered fights.

Yes, I speak of forbidden things. I am driven to grow, to become my best self that my chldren may benefit from my existence. They, in the abstract, continue as my prime motivator. It is the way of life, to seek evolution, improved survival, for following generation.

I am no longer one who may step aside to provide for the needs of offspring, and since the storm rose, I have had to bid them bye bye and hope that I have given them strength and pride to weather it well.

Alas, I failed to factor in their indifference to my existence and disinterest in my offerings. Even so, complaint is unfair for I directly offer naught, nor have I discerned their desires besides imaginally. I must needs plead Mars in Gemini, compelled to bleat from its Midheaven pulpit mea culpa, mea explica, mea blah blah.

None of this is their fault, yet still, I must speak of forbidden things. Hidden shards and shavings of blame chew like broken glass and must be consumed most discerningly.

Pluck out such sharp splinters, my children; in the name of the love I bear Life itself, I invite you to hold your own hearts blameless and innocent of shame. I am deeply and growingly grateful for the privilege of serving Life through mothering. I take it not for granted, nor do I hold you to account. 

Your births, childhoods and continued existence, as yourselves and as my children, have cost me dear. Still I asked for you, and I welcome cost and consequence, and so you owe me nothing.

I am a free will parent. I honour my children’s choices insofar as having a relationship with me as mother or individual is concerned. I write about them in this blog only because they are the living embodiments of the precious babies I bore, and this preciousness has abated not in the slightest from the moment of their births. I can’t not feel them, speak to them in my heart, be pressed upon inwardly by their existence on a near-steady basis.

Is that creepy? I try not to be, but this is who I am. I speak to my children, the ones I am Mother to, and to whom I owe the best job of parenting possible, without identifying them, for their identity is nobody’s business. They are an archetype, the paintings of my babies, innocent receptacles for my love.

I have studied parenting from all directions, and my urgency to become a more effective parent has guided my choices, yet I have had blind spots. I continue to. I live in a strobe world of swiftly alternating clarity and confusion, and when confused, I make errors. Now, I often choose inaction when confused, prefering non-consequence (or consequence for lack of action) to inflicting harm.

O yes, I am a harmo-phobic. In particular, pricked perhaps by evolution’s fork, I dread hurting my children.

I have slowly withdrawn from their sphere over the years, preferring they toughen, grow strong outside the sticky web of me than that I harm them in any way. Yet my withdrawal risks its own harm.

I wonder whether I’m even capable of not harming them with my spider mother weirdness. I wonder whether it would be better to swallow such words, contain my refrain. And often I do, but to maintain silence for too long causes its own strain on my brain.

I am okay they’re living their own lives. I speak not, nor imply, criticism of their absence from my world, for I have faith in their choices, feel deep trust for evolution’s guiding force.

“Time is my friend, I have plenty of it”. This feeling may be deceiving; it is certainly soporific and so I remain passive for years.

With passiveness comes fear of action. When decision time arrives, I dither. I do not reach, I absent myself not understanding that maybe my absence is hurtful. I forget how to make connection in order to keep family alive.

Family is what this is all about. Species survival, genetic survival, is about family. I bear a history, a lineage, and it seeks to be inherited, and the ones who must be the inheritors are those who bear my genetic material. I am driven by the forces of evolution to pass on the memetic imprints which I participate in developing.

My creativity is lunar, with Leo Moon; this means, I express my maternal self, my Mom-personality, creatively, as an artist. This is not very personal for children–it can not have been easy to be my kid–see poem above.

Christmas is coming, and this year I do not plan to spend christmas with them. I was there last year, but not the year before. I need to give them breaks from me. But I also confess to fear of reaching out, fear that contributes to the falseness I feel in my face when I am face to face with them.

I do not fear them.

They are wonderful, good hearted, alive people. They are everything I wanted them to become, and they are that because I saw them, I knew them, I welcomed them in. Their pain may look at me with hardness, but behind the surface, they are still who I know them to be. I knew what I was doing and I am not surprised by who they have become.

Here is my fear: I fear them not liking me.

How can our genetic lines survive if our children do not like us?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under about me, poems and lyrics, truth and strangeness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.