Soundtrack and Scenery

The soundtrack and scenery of motherhood is always in our ears, it's all we can see. It will never cease. This morning, I looked around and saw two growing boys. Baseball bats have replaced pacifiers. Equipment bags have replaced the diaper carry-all. Gatorade bottles have replaced sippy cups. And in that never-ending soundtrack, the click-clack of cleats on pavement have replaced the hum of stroller wheels across the park.

The house smells like Irish Spring body wash instead of baby powder. The washing machine churns with endless varieties of sports uniforms instead of onesies. The pitter-patter of tiny feet on tile replaced by the thump of two wrestling boys. Sports Center replaces Baby Einstein. And time marches on.

It can change. All of it can change, except for one thing. Just this one. May it always be, that after every ball hit, after every pitch thrown, after every out made, after every serve returned, after every ace spiked, after every base stolen, after every "A" earned, after every award achieved, after every good deed done, may my boys always look for me. May their eyes continue to search for me in the crowd, where I will always be, so that we can say, in our silent soundtrack that no one else can hear, and so that we can show through our silent exchange that no one else can see,

"Mama, did you see that?"

"Yes baby, I did. And I am so proud."

Self-Evident

When I look around me, I see nothing but riches. And I hold these truths to be self-evident. There is nothing in the world more gratifying than to love and be loved in return. To bear witness to the love you have nourished as it spins into lightness and comfort, like sugar into a cotton candy stick. To be cared for, and cared about, by people who actively welcome you into their hearts, into their spirits, into their family, and call you mother.

To be adored by the ones who call you mama. To be understood by the people who call you daughter. To be mirrored by the one who calls you sister. To be honored by the lives of the ones you call brother.

And to look into the mirror and see reflected, the deeply satisfying place you call home. The place you share with the mate of your soul, wherever he may be.

And there is nothing -- almost nothing -- in the world that can't be soothed by an afternoon of baseball.

It's self-evident. You just have to look.

Thresholds

May 2 is a noteworthy day in my life. It is a day that changed my life forever six years ago: one in which new doors opened and old doors closed. It is nothing short of a threshold.

When I reflect on everything that has happened between May 2 then and now, I stammer for words. There were moments early on -- facing truths that pulverized me like waves too strong to stand in, but yet I kept trying. The undertow getting the best of me, dragging me away from the places at which I started. Sometimes pulling me under when I least expected it. The rush of seawater into my lungs that would leave me coughing for years. The sand disappearing under my feet as the tide washed away, leaving me searching for truth, slipping for balance.

There have been moments of guarded silence and moments of raucous hope. These have been years in which love and fear almost tore me apart -- but didn't. There’s been tiny single-mom apartments and a large family home stuffed full of seven loving souls. There’s a big yard, and first day of school pictures, and potty-training, and sweet 16 parties, and karate classes, and soccer games, and pre-school field trips, and new cars. Countless nights on the deck or by the firepit, drinking wine while my husband smoked a cigar. There’s been long talks with my big kids, the purchase of prom dresses, growing a garden, shoveling snow, building fires in the hearth, family dinners, loads of laundry, emotional battles waged, positions defended, victories, losses, stalemates, white flags, and change. Jobs and projects and income and interviews and background checks and new beginnings.

My family divided as our future multiplied.

Until finally, I landed on my yoga mat yesterday and during our final shivasnaa, the instructor read this passage, and I have to believe he was talking directly to me, although he never could have known, but surely he always has. "How long are you going to hold on to past hurts? For how long will you stand cloaked in your self-righteous suffering when you have the strength to let go? All you have to do is open your hands and lay down your most cherished fears.”

And with that. I did.

Running with Scissors

I remember learning that the root of the word "decision" is "to cut". I checked myself on www.dictionary.com this evening, and my memory is correct. The root is Latin, evolved to Middle French, and then Middle English meaning literally: a cutting off.

Maybe that's why decisions are so hard to make. Maybe that's why it is sometimes so hard to live with our decisions. There is, quite literally, an amputation involved in every decision we make.

I often find it difficult to appreciate the spoils of my decisions, because I spend so much time lamenting the casualities. What a special kind of warfare.

When we were married, my husband recommended that we be always like the blades on a pair of scissors -- forever connected at the center and cutting anything that comes between us. Careful to never harm each other. I suppose I can accept the decisions I make as long I have the balancing strength of both of our tandem blades.

To Pieces

When we were little, I remember my dad saying, "I love you to pieces." I didn't really get it at the time. For some reason, it always reminded me of potato sticks (remember that silly snack that came in a can? Messy to beat the band. I could never really get a full mouthful of those things. They just made your hands greasy and litter the front of your shirt with salty debris and potato detritus). Anyway, I can't explain the mental connection between being loved to pieces and potato sticks. Maybe, quite simply, I just found them both to be messy propositions.

Lately, I've been thinking about what holds us together. Isn't it the same thing that breaks us to pieces? Think about it. If we walked around each day, fully aware of all the love that we hold in our hearts, surely we would shatter to pieces. There would just be, no feasible way, that we could function as human beings, if we were cognizant, at all times, of all the emotion glueing us together. The weight of the wonder would surely make us crumble. We would love to pieces.

Maybe we put it at a safe distance. A space that we can tolerate in our ordinary lives. But moments come, when the distance between us and that safe space collide, and the same force that is holding us together is the very force that breaks us apart. All that emotion, brewing, brimming, stirring, and stifled rushes in to raise us and raze us.

Paradoxically, the days when I am standing on the shoulders of giants, are usually the days that bring me to my knees.

Swing for the Fences

I'm pretty high-strung. Baseball is one of the only things that relaxes me. I love it's predictability, it's symmetry, it's order. Three outs, nine innings. Top and bottom. Baseball just makes perfect sense.

The other thing I love about baseball? Baseball deals hope.

Every pitch is an opportunity. Everyone gets a second chance. You just gotta believe. Even the worse curse can be reversed.

I love baseball. l love the hope of opening day. Every pitch is an opportunity. And if you strike out looking, well, guess what? That just means the pitcher was better than you. And that's ok. Because you'll see him again. And you'll get him next time. And if you strike out swinging, well, guess what? That's ok too. It just means you put up a fight -- you went out swinging. And your mama would be proud.

Every pitch is an opportunity. Swing battter batter swing.

The Prince

It doesn't always work out the way we plan. Accept it? I will. Here's why.

For far too long, I have placed too much importance on my professional accomplishments, and was far too driven, madly some may say, to achieve great things -- professionally. A colleague recently referred to me as "unsinkable" and a former employee earmarked me "an ox". Flattering, isn't it? That's certainly the legacy I want to leave on this earth: an unsinkable ox.

But, that's just work. I'm other things too. I'm a mother mostly, a wife, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a faculty member, a 4th grade classroom coordinator, and most recently a Little League caoch. My mother recently asked, "Did you write the book on time management?" I can only answer, "No." Truth be told, I've never actually written a book ... but it's on my list.

You may be familiar with a gentleman named Machiavelli. He wrote a book, a little piece called, The Prince. It is in this book that the phrase "the ends justify the means" is often mis-attributed: if the goal is achieved the measures taken to accomplish it are justified. Victory! But in life is always that simple?

I don't want to resurrect that tireless debate about working mothers versus stay-at-homes mothers. There are circumstances that compel any of us into any variety of choices, decisions, situations, compromises, and ways of being. I work by choice. And, for the longest time, I worked because it satisfied me. It was the thing that made me confident, it was something of which I was proud, it was a place I went to be challenged and enriched. I like to wear high heels, and work accommodates that. Recently though, I've refocused. I will still choose to work and I'll still wear high heels, but work is now nothing more than a means to an end, rather than the end which I am tirelessly trying to achieve.

I choose to work, not because I any longer need it to define me, but because work is the means that allows me to put my children in a great school. Work allows me to help my youngest son practice his lines and be in the audience when he plays God in the school play. Work allows me to be the baseball manager during his first season ever on a Little League team. Work allows me to never miss a basketball game, a tennis practice, a swimming lesson, or a home run. Work allows me to help with homework and read stories at bedtime. I worked this hard for so long, and for too long, I measured my success in the accomplishments I achieved at work. When, all along, it's the accomplishments I was accruing outside of work that demanded an inventory.

So, now, when I leave work, on time, to clock out, I am grateful. I am grateful for all the things that work allows. Work, a means to an end, not an end of the means.

Work allows my family comfort and stability. Work allows my boys to send care packages to troops we have never met, far from home, keeping us safe. Work allows me to buy plane tickets and college textbooks and kitchen utensils for my stepkids. Work allows for trips to San Juan with my husband. Work allows me to be at baby showers for my niece and basic training graduations for my brother. I choose this. I worked hard for this and I am happy to give almost all of it away.

So, yes, I work and I won't ever apologize for it again. I work because I am among the fortunate few that gets to play baseball with God.