Integration

At the end of each of my Kripalu yoga classes this week, each teacher encouraged people to stay for the full shavasana, and to stay beyond that for a silent meditation. They talked about “integration,” about allowing the benefits of the yoga practice to integrate fully into the mind, body and spirit and, in so doing, to allow those parts of one’s self to become more integrated with each other. But when I tried to rest and be still, my mind was at its most active. One teacher asked, over and over again, “What has changed? What is true?” He asked it after each short series of poses, as if some transformation could come from a couple of downward dogs--some sort of truth or new observation. I thought it was kind of funny, but I also found myself wondering about an answer. What has changed? What is true?

I was encouraged to enjoy my breath, enjoy the quiet time that I was given for myself, and I did, but I did so with a divided mind. Part of me was glad and relieved to be with my dear friend Char on a yoga retreat. Part of me was still home reveling in the joys of this recent holiday. Running off to Kripalu as I had, cut it short in a way I hadn’t imagined. Seated on my yoga mat, again and again, I circled around trying to find an entry point into what I could write about this December, this Christmas, the end of this year. As much as I tried to settle into the present moment of my days there, and to stay disconnected from the internet, news, superficial voices, work, I still kept thinking about finding time to write, as that has become my best form of integration--my best way to process what is going on in my life and put myself at ease. “Writing is the process of figuring out what it is that you have to say,” wrote one of my college professors, and so it is true for me. What is it I want to say? What do I want to preserve for Quinn? What has changed? What is true?

Last year as Christmas approached I wondered whether or not I wanted to tell Quinn about Santa Claus. She had a loose idea of what Santa was all about and we kept it kind of loose. This year, her sense of Santa was much better defined and she had specific questions she wanted answers to, primarily: “How will he fit in our chimney?” This is especially challenging since our “chimney” is really a stove pipe, and "magic" proved my only answer. We read The Polar Express and went, with friends, on the Polar Express train in Burlington. Quinn seemed confused, if not skeptical, much of the way, and she wanted nothing to do with the “elves” who were all dressed in red calling out her name and yelling hello as we “arrived” at “the North Pole.” What kept her going through it all was her single-minded desire to get a silver bell from Santa, just as the boy had in the story. That and she said she was going to steal his hat. She trudged around in her boots and pajamas, waiting patiently for the whole affair to play out and she was rewarded at the end by seeing “the real Santa” and getting her silver bell. 

At home, as Christmas approached, I found Santa incredibly useful as well. All I had to do, when Quinn's behavior started to spin a bit toward out-of-control, was ask, “Naughty or nice? Which list are you going to be on?” She snapped back to nice without much hesitation and I found myself hoping that Santa would last for many years to come. 

On Christmas Eve we hosted the extended Jackson clan for dinner and had a lovely time. Sam’s dad wearing Quinn’s Mardi Gras beads, Quinn and Olivier playing together happily, Alden’s brother and sister-in-law visiting from England, Sam and his siblings all in one place for the first time in a long time, and the lasagna not too dry. When Quinn resisted going to bed, I told her the rules of Christmas Eve, that Santa can’t come until you’re asleep. “That’s okay,” she said, in the midst of the party, “he can just come to me last.” I thought I had her, but didn’t. “What if he doesn’t have any presents left?” She had still another answer: “Oh, Santa would just make more, Mom, that’s what he does!” Eventually  the house started to quiet down and Quinn’s exhaustion caught up with her. I read Twas the Night Before Christmas and kissed her goodnight and then didn’t see her again until 6:30 Christmas morning when she appeared urgently at the side of my bed. “Mom! I think Santa was here! I think I saw some presents when I went to make the coffee!”

The rest of the day was perfect and joyful. We opened presents, slowly--Quinn’s pace, not mine. We played with new blocks, shoveled the rain-heavy snow off the back porch with her new “shobel,” and Quinn did “some work” at her beautiful new roll-top desk from Nonna and Papa. The hat Santa left behind for her might have been her favorite thing…she laughed out loud when she found it by his note, and she wore it with a bit of proud mischief all day.

It was a lazy morning and soon it was afternoon and we all went to Josh and G’s this time for Christmas dinner. At eight months pregnant, cooking a lamb feast for seventeen in her tiny kitchen, Geraldine earned my genuine admiration. We all had another lovely evening, with a successful Secret Santa experiment in which no one, miraculously, was left out. 

When we eventually made it home, Quinn was full of gratitude for her day. She thanked me for all of her presents and I reminded her most of them were from Santa, but she seemed to need to express her thanks somehow. She loved Christmas this year and therefore so did I. 

The next day Becs and the nephews headed south and we three were left to what now felt like an empty house. It was almost noon and we were all exhausted so we hurried up to the big bed with Quinn’s now most-treasured blanket--her big fleece owl blanket, made for her and sent in time for Christmas by Julie and Eloise in Wyoming. We rested warmly and happily with nothing else that needed to be done. We closed our eyes, took deep breaths, let our minds and bodies relax in the comfort of each other. We were, I realize now, integrating...allowing the feelings of love and joy and gratitude to wash over us. That is a worthwhile practice. 

Today, on this last day of 2014, as I look forward to the arrival of friends and family to celebrate the arrival of a new year, I know I will carry this question with me into the months ahead: What is true? This year, the magic of Christmas was true. My love of family and friends was true. And my complete joy in sharing Quinn’s journey was my greatest truth of all. 

When I walked the halls at Kripalu, or sat in the dining hall with hundreds of other people during silent breakfast, I kept thinking that what has changed for me in this life, in these past four years, is that my locus of “home” is no longer centered entirely within myself. I feel most centered, most at home in the part of my existence that is connected to the small powerful being who squealed MOM! from the front porch yesterday afternoon knowing I had returned home and was inside waiting for her on the other side of the door.

“If I know what love is, it is because of you.” 

-Herman Hesse

Big Questions

It was a crystal clear kind of day today. Cold air. Bright blue sky. It was early, and we had just finished breakfast when Quinn said she wanted to go sledding. We had our first sledding adventure of the year just last night. All three of us in our green plastic sled, legs hanging over the sides. It had snowed all day and the road had just enough cover. We whizzed down the quarter-mile hill in the dark twice before she was ready to go in. This morning she couldn’t wait to get out there again, and while we waited for Sam to get dressed and come out, Quinn and I went to the shed to grab the sled, and we took a run in the backyard. Walking back up among the snow-heavy spruces, sun sparkling off the snow all around, the blue sky above, Quinn asked, “Mom, why do some people die?” 

Before I had an answer fully formed, I heard myself trying to make it seem normal. “Well, everyone dies eventually.” She stopped walking and looked up at me. “Everyone dies?” she asked. I continued to try to make it seem normal, “Yeah, everyone does eventually, but you don’t have to worry about it. You’re not going to die for a really long time.”

Just last night she asked me "Do I have to get married?" I told her not unless she wants to. "I want to marry you," she told me, and of course I promised I would. Less than twenty-four hours later, I promised her she would live for a really long time, knowing that however long it is, it will never be long enough. Sam stepped out on the porch and she ran up to tell him about our new sled run below the woodshed. Her question had been answered and put away.

Quinn’s bedtime routine is a long one. After we each read her a book, or a few chapters from a longer one, she wants “a few minutes of snuggles.” Sometimes either of us will do, but more often than not, she wants snuggles from me. And most nights I’m thrilled to have the job, but when she makes it impossible to leave it can get frustrating. Sam and I try to take turns reading the first book so we can also take turns with the “few minutes of snuggles” that sometimes take half an hour. But lately, when he’s up there for the final phase, she will send him down to ask me if I’ll come up one more time. 

Tonight Sam came downstairs and stood behind me, reading over my shoulder for a moment. I looked at him. “Please don’t tell me you’re here to ask me if I want to go back up because…” He interrupted me, “I am...I am because she is asking why everyone has to die.”

When I returned to her room she reached out for me from her bed. She pulled at my flannel shirt and told me to just wear my tank top. “I want to snuggle you on your bare arms,” she told me. I laid down next to her and she squirmed trying to find the right spot. She wasn’t settled until she laid down fully on my chest, the way she would sleep as a baby. I could hear her voice cracking as she formed the question, “why does everyone have to die?” 

I tried again to make it seem normal. “It’s just part of life,” I told her. “Think of a flower. It is bright and beautiful in the summer, and then it dies before winter. The same is true for the leaves on the trees. And the grass. And the bugs in the grass. The same is true for everything that’s alive.” She lifted her head to look at my face, with still more panic written on hers. “Everything dies?!” She couldn’t believe the news kept getting worse. “Well the good news,” I told her, “is that people live for a really long time…” 

Even as I said it, I wondered when I would have to first explain the death of a young person in her life. For my mom, with me, it was the fourth grade. Carol Hanford, my classmate and neighbor, died from a brain tumor. And I flashed to my mother too, and offered her a silent apology: I’m sorry, Mum, I know forty-six years isn’t “a really long time.” 

Just when I thought I might have made Quinn feel safe, telling her she wouldn't die anytime soon, she jumped up and started to cry. “I don’t like it!” she yelped, “I don’t like it!” She flopped back down on the bed next to me. She curled up her body against my body, laid her head on the bend of my arm, stretched her limbs out next to mine. Today, on this beautiful, sun-filled, early winter day, this day that ended with a full moon lighting up our snowy woods, my four year old learned she would not live forever...and neither would anyone else she loves. 

She was quiet for a moment. "I think we need to put some colored lights on the Christmas tree outside," she told me. "Okay," I said; "I love you." She fell asleep then, hopefully thinking of colored lights, and how much I love her.