I only have two hands.

One time I asked my son why he didn`t play with two children at once at daycare and he explained that he only had two hands. This comment instantly made me understand that, just like in adulthood, playing with other kids takes attention. It`s by no means a mindless activity.

A friend directed me to the blog One Continuous Mistake, with the tag line, Zen and Parenting. It`s written by partners Tracy and Koun Franz. Koun is a Soto Zen Priest and Tracy is a writer and teacher. They co-write a beautiful blog about their experiences raising two young children. Instantly, I felt a kind of kinship with their writing and one of my favourite posts so far is Two Hands Mama. Their deceptively simple, reflective and well written posts document their spiritual journey towards mindfulness in parenting.

Blogging has been a forum for me to understand more deeply my and others experiences and reactions to parenting. Writing through the regret for things I wish I hadn`t said to my kids and the regrets for not doing more for them has helped me listen more astutely ànd in different ways than I am used to to all the words that come out of their mouths. It has been an attempt, however faltering, to transform regret into understanding and acceptance.

My kids, tracking my every move as they do, reflect back things I don`t want to know about myself as they slowly reveal to me their own growth-spurting selves. All hands on deck.

Comments

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still. We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue. Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision. They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped. Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

the words fell out

Despite being an introvert, I do often process big life events (and many many small ones) out loud by verbally hashing out my thoughts with whoever will put up with me. But this morning when I woke up to the big red blotch on the U.S. map...all my /the words fell out. They fell out unsaid, unformed. Got to work and probably , in another time, would have annoyed my co-workers, dominating the conversation with my verbal extrusions, but not today. I just mutely stared across at them and nodded. My dad came for lunch. Normally, we relish a good political diatribe, especially when we feel sure of our perspective, but this time, all I could do was munch on fries and marvel at all the unarticulated thoughts that I was not even bothering to retrieve. The silence inside me was noticeable. Social media was awash with reactions and I just looked away. I couldn't bear to read one word about it. I was not receptive to any reactions, accusations, reflections, words...

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Growing Versions

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