I brought in the year by attending one of my best friend's births. That was pretty great. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and wonder, how did my life get so cool? How is it that I'm standing here right now, witnessing one of the most miraculous miracles ever (the birth of a child) and this physician just put a warm wash cloth on a woman's perineum because I kindly suggested it? What? Did I ever think this would be my life? No, not really. Although, I had a dream about birth in my college dorm room.
As a child I had a vision of what I wanted to do with my life. I was crying and felt alone. I have no recollection of why. I was on the toilet, sitting. I thought I would be really good at holding people while they cry. I thought it should be a job. Being with people and holding them when they cry. It's all the same really...
Note to any high schoolers who might be reading this: Don't burn your journals. Don't burn the love letters. Keep them in a box forever. I wrote a poem about a Hemlock tree in the 4th grade, (the one at GRP in the back field) and I would kill to have that poem back. I just know it was amazing. I'll never be able to read that poem, but I remember how it felt. Keep that shit in a box!
You never know when a woolly adelgid is going to change the story, and you'll wish you had that poem.
Highlights of the year:
On February 1st, 2015 a bobcat walked through my handsome fiance and my yard. Our "yard" is more like, the woods. We live in a timber framed cabin our landlord built off wood from the land. I was making chai when it happened. The beautiful creature locked eyes with us and moved on. She walked right by our porch. The chai was really tasty.
On August 1st, 2015 Christopher and I got married. Then we went to Costa Rica and I saw three kinds of monkeys: white-faced monkey, howler monkey and spider monkey. It rained a lot in the afternoons. We like rain.
I attended more births in one year as a doula than ever and I'm tired, but happy.
I have become known, despite my great resistance to success, for my craniosacral and massage work and my craniosacral work with infants. People have also brought their older children to me, and I love it. While I have regretted going to Goddard College on many occasions, on some days I realize that I'm living my thesis. It was titled, "Perinatal Relational Holding Environments and their Long-term Impact on Development." I'm still curious about all that. The more I know the less I feel I really know about it. I'm surprised a lot, and humbled.
Living with my beloved, Christopher, in this small cabin is challenging only in the best of ways. However, it's difficult to really even say those words because it is 10,000,000 less challenging than every other relationship I have had with men whom I have loved. In that sense, it's really a piece of cake. We both know ourselves. We're not afraid to communicate even when it's sucky and hard and vulnerable. We believe in love. It makes all the difference in the world. Plus, he makes the most perfect chicken in the entire world, and so many other things, but he can't make a good hot chocolate or cookies to save his life. (He'll really hate that I wrote this.) We balance one another, most of the time.
Many people have warned me how all your stuff comes up when you get married and how marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do. I haven't found that to be our story. It's simpler than that. It's not complicated and heavy - although sometimes I wish he didn't complain so much. I'm sure he feels the same way about me. He's mostly like a refreshing mountain stream that is constantly running through my life. Christopher.
Most of my 20s felt like a trainwreck of rainbows, spiritual communities and soulmates gone awry, roadkill, desperation, spreadsheets and too much nutritional yeast and veganaise. I'm so happy to start a new chapter.
Two weeks ago Christopher made me part with my old futon bed that saw me through the past 8 years or so. There's nothing like marrying a dapperly dressed man from New York to make you realize what a hippie you are.
We put it on the side of the road and within minutes a man with one leg stopped, picked the thing up completely on his own (I am not exaggerating in the slightest) and threw it in the back of his SUV. He was pretty amazing. It'll be a couch in his shop.
It was a "Toubab Krewe futon." You see, it simply lived in the old Montford home (73 Cumberland, represent!) that I moved into when I was 20. Toubab lived there before us, before they got "famous." Everyone else had a bed already but I didn't, so I took the one that was left there. Prior to that I was borrowing someone else's futon. Why buy a new bed when there was a perfectly good free one that smelled ok? There were a few red wine stains that accumulated over the years amongst other things.
I would have nothing but futons in my home if left to my own devices. Christopher hates futons. I would also have nothing but hand made ceramic dish ware. He isn't too hot on that, unless it's "hip ceramics." What the hell does that mean? Please, just give me some old time Appalachian pottery and some Japanese futons and call it a day already! Done! We're compromising.
To futons!
No comments:
Post a Comment