waiting

something i've learned over the long hard years of darkness i find now behind me is that waiting is not only hard work, but necessary on many more occassions than i previously thought.

dr. estes on commenting on wolf behaviour says,

when a wolf gets scared or wounded, they sit and rock. (plus they touch each other, the members of the pack band together).

she says,

so when you've lost your way, sit with an idea, rock it. back and forth.

i've come to understand this as letting it become. robert johnson says,

solitude is the feminine equivalent of masculine action.

i have, of late, come into possession of a rocking chair. i'm not a shaky leg kind of person. being from so. cal i can feel tremors of people shaking legs (my sister is notorious for this), and it distracts me immensely. so i sometimes even ask them to stop. but it's a habit.

i find myself sitting in this chair, rocking. back and forth. holding my unrealized ideas, sitting up late with a poetry book, rocking, rocking, rocking. holding the idea. being quiet and still (sort of).

the sway of motherhood

my sister calls it.

women get it when they have babies.

she told me when i was a new mother. i find myself swaying to and from a lot these days. moving my ideas with me, back and forth, calling them forth. nurturing them. letting them come in their own time.

my sister was the greatest help when i had just given birth, because she had babies of her own. it was the longest time she'd been apart from her then one year old, the time she came to minister to me in my new motherhood. she has always come from afar and gifted me with her presence.

i can only go to her when i can. not as often or for as long as i'd like, though we'd likely kill each other if we were locked up together too long. such is the nature of sisterhood.

so i'm waiting. always waiting. rocking, swaying. resting, trusting. reaching out and trying not to force my will to reality. to let the unfolding teach me. to watch with open eyes and not miss my daughter's active years, my husband's faithful presence, or my own blossoming.

i picked up a book called the physiology of flowering. i intend to study the process a bit, which has so intrigued me. there is one little leaf which dangles at the end of most leafing brances, the tip leaf, (i do not know the proper name), but all the other leaves have counterparts, either side by side or adjacent. but this tip leaf is alone.

it is no surprise then, that i identify with this leaf. together apart. always rocking, swaying gently in the breeze. and waiting for the time to let go.