what you can never learn from masters
A baby died yesterday. Full term and born still to a family I don't know. But his aunt wrote to say I want to capture this day for them, this day of birth, and mark it. Can you go into your backyard with your camera, right now?
So I did. Even though I've been ignoring my own reckoning, my own lost child. Even though I've felt deaf to the kind of grace and presence that followed me for a time.
Liam's tree was not planted for him but declared itself to be his, a lovely, perfect young maple that catches the light at that time of day and at this time of year, a crown of sun. The day after he was gone I looked out our door and saw it, a gift. I'd never noticed it before but there it was staring back at me. Breathing, smiling, witnessing. I press my hand to its trunk and it hums, still. Everyone who comes to our house, children especially, gravitates toward it. Bodies duck under and climb and run around it and when they do, the tree swells with happiness.
Come this way, the tree whispered to me as I stood on the deck with my camera. You may not feel inspired but I do. All you need to do is translate.
At the moment yesterday's baby was lifted from his mama's belly, there was that familiar crown of light. It got me thinking about regrowth, and defiance, and how we're all meant to find each other, even in ways we don't understand.
I saw souls who set course to grow under our shelter. I saw that while the non-negotiable terms of that growth can break us, the choice of those souls to begin with seeks to inform us.
I thought about the ways that each of us are beautiful, no matter how small and no matter our means or our ends.
I thought of the shadows we cast on each other. And how light's really not much of anything without shadow.
I thought about how shaggy and wild our lawn is. And how I like it that way.
I thought about how living things reach up to light and refreshment, and how we're all stretching, cupping, hungry.
I thought about how we all must become something else.
I thought about small things that land in finite places, within lives or bodies that can only take them so far. But look how they try. Look how they want to be seen.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 in spirit-baby motherhood
Reader Comments (67)
the small things that want to be seen. i think that li'l spider i just ceremonially removed to the outdoors wanted to be seen. i hope so.
i feel your breath and heart beat.
a swirly...dizzy.. heart full feeling.
he helps you discover magic around you.
to be light and air
to be rooted in earth.
and it's so beautiful, in all the ways he can show you, and teach you. and keep you...
living in the moment.
xoxox
I thought about small things that land in finite places, within lives or bodies that can only take them so far. But look how they try. Look how they want to be seen.
YES. Oh how yes.
of course they are.
he is there. they are there.
your heart is there.
xoxo
I wish I could express the words ...
thinking of you and your liam boy alot these days. much love.
love, lindsay
It never ceases to amaze me, every time I remember that this moment - this one - is the happiest, most euphoric, brightest moment for some. And yet for others it's a sad time, a desperate time, a time that will launch whole blogs and journals and conversations dedicated solely to grief and what it means to remember life.
And also, oh crap. Another one of us.
"I thought about how we all must become something else." indeed.
YES. But somehow, that doesn't make the darkness any easier to take...but it does seem to make the light that much sweeter if you're able to notice, doesn't it? Still. Not. Fair.
And so are children.
My love to you and to that family.
this helped...
They do try. They really do. So beautiful. Thank you.
Even in the shadows we are not alone. Thank you for being here and for giving me the courage to be for someone else.
Gorgeous pictures and beautiful, wise words...and floods of tears here - but good tears, the kind that bring some peace. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
~Niki
I know you only from your writings, but you radiate grace.
I didn't lose a child, but I have a kid with what seems like a never ending amount of things wrong. It's painful. I grieve. Reading your blog helps me grieve better. Thank you for that.
You stun me, as does a life that can hold this much loss, and still this much soul beauty.
your thoughts are very, very profound, and so moving.