Even after all these years I still feel like a mother in training.
I look at the things that signify motherhood and feel a deep yearning to be more.
At the heart of that longing is a sense that beyond school lunches and car pools is a vast realm of mothering that needs my attention.
The truth is that everything seems so much easier when children are small. From the moment they take their first breath, and you gaze in wonder at their being, a simple love story begins. There are those quiet moments in the silence of the night, when the two of you share that timeless connection as you nourish their small bodies with your own. There are days when their unfolding physical mastery of this world gives more joy then can be imagined. And even when you stay up all night with a feverish child, motherhood feels like an easy thing to do...
(Then they get older!)
As our children begin to shift from that universal place of dependancy to individual knowingness, they take on a life of their own. It takes more than a loving hand to comfort them, and an admonishment will no longer suffice when they push the limits you have marked. They are interesting, opinionated... magnificant.
They see all of you.
They see that beyond your all powerful archetypal role as mother, you are also flawed and human. As they grow up, so in their eyes you grow real and being real makes mothering more interesting. More rewarding.
If you are really lucky they begin to teach you new ways of being and you will find that in time you begin to grow and grow and grow!
So today on Mothering Sunday I give thanks to my mother and my children for showing me the way.
I look at the things that signify motherhood and feel a deep yearning to be more.
At the heart of that longing is a sense that beyond school lunches and car pools is a vast realm of mothering that needs my attention.
The truth is that everything seems so much easier when children are small. From the moment they take their first breath, and you gaze in wonder at their being, a simple love story begins. There are those quiet moments in the silence of the night, when the two of you share that timeless connection as you nourish their small bodies with your own. There are days when their unfolding physical mastery of this world gives more joy then can be imagined. And even when you stay up all night with a feverish child, motherhood feels like an easy thing to do...
(Then they get older!)
As our children begin to shift from that universal place of dependancy to individual knowingness, they take on a life of their own. It takes more than a loving hand to comfort them, and an admonishment will no longer suffice when they push the limits you have marked. They are interesting, opinionated... magnificant.
They see all of you.
They see that beyond your all powerful archetypal role as mother, you are also flawed and human. As they grow up, so in their eyes you grow real and being real makes mothering more interesting. More rewarding.
If you are really lucky they begin to teach you new ways of being and you will find that in time you begin to grow and grow and grow!
So today on Mothering Sunday I give thanks to my mother and my children for showing me the way.
