For Max



I could never have imagined
before you entered the world
the gaping wonder
enormous challenge
and
breathless joy
you have brought into my life.
 The fire of your being
has brought me face to face
with my own rage, grief and shortcomings.
For what is more humbling than 
motherhood?
Who else could have ripped me open and 
revealed to me the depths
of my own soul?
May I go forward through the sticky, raucous halls of
boyhood
in humble awe
of the 
Sacred Charge that has been given to me
in all of its messy glory.
What a gift to be your mama.

Comments

  1. Marie26 March 2021 at 17:26

    Ahhh... Just wonderful... writing...depth... Beautiful! Max is a lucky boy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marie21 April 2021 at 12:13

    I just had to revisit this as it is Max's birthday coming up and it says it all so beautifully!
    Love you so much!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life After Drinking: a story told in many fonts

Image
"Sobriety is where you become who you truly are." Glennon Doyle  Two years ago today I stopped drinking alcohol. I was almost 39 years old and it was the decision that began my journey back to myself. Mine is not a story of 12 steps or one day at a time. I do not have a rock bottom to speak of (or perhaps my rock bottom was not the catalyst). I was ready, that's it. I was SO ready to be done drinking alcohol that I did and I didn't look back.  But it was a journey to get to that point. A long journey full of many stops and starts and shame spirals. I am so grateful for alcohol. It has been one of my greatest teachers. Its tentacles no longer tickle my temptation receptors, but I do see it for the very powerful  substance that it is, and I respect it. Aside from motherhood, nothing else has left me so humbled. Thankfully, motherhood is much more fulfilling than drinking. It was motherhood, ultimately, that led me to hear, with more clarity, the whispering voice of my s...
Read more

Child Led Learning

Image
 It's been over a year since I have written on this blog. My, how time flies, my how things change. A year ago, our son expressed, for the thousandth time, his vehement dislike for Waldorf education (see previous blog for the details). In that speech (which I didnt mention in that blog) he gave me an ultimatum: "Either homeschool me again or send me to public school." Public school was something that we had avoided up until that point and we wanted to keep it that way. My husband did and still does hold judgement around it because his own experience within the system and the fact that his younger brother fell through the cracks of that system. I admit that my anxiety around school shootings and my own opinion about rote learning and the rigid environment made me want something different for Max. Our experience homeschooling during his second grade covid year was lovely and cozy and fortiftying for both of us. Remembering that time, I inspired myself with unschooling insta...
Read more

Home. School? Life.

Image
  "Tips, tricks and techniques are not at the heart of education-fire is...Not merely the facts, not merely the theories, but a deep knowing of what it means to kindle the gift of life in ourselves, in others, and in the world. -Paker J Palmer in "Radical Presence" By Mary Rose O'Reilly "It's time that I have a say in how I am educated and it's NOT Waldorf. Maybe when I was in kindergarten but I'm not a baby anymore and it's bullshit." My nine year old son and I are in the hammock together in our backyard, the hot July sun is pouring through our fruit trees and piercing us through the dappled shade. His blue eyes convey a deep and earnest truth, that school as he has known it has never ever been something that he has enjoyed. It took us three open houses to get him into the the Waldorf kindergarten room when he was five. He hid behind trees on the beautiful, 13 acre campus, sobbing and full of anxiety. When we landed in the classroom, with i...
Read more