March 31

We don’t see the accumulation of the need to rest and rejuvenate the way we see piles of laundry. We may feel the need to do nothing, but so often it gets put off as the reward that will follow finishing the visible piles of somethings. The problem is that the visible piles never really go away. Being more concerned about my health led me to spend more time sitting quietly and doing nothing than I usually do. It was lovely. I don’t know if it made a difference for my spine. My fingers are still tingly, probably because I’m paying attention more often and possibly manifesting the symptoms I’m scared about, and possibly because I’m tightening my neck and arm structure out of fear. I have been meditating and praying more, with the idea of allowing God in the same way I might allow my neck to be free and easy (and remind myself of this every two seconds). It is really about allowing the fact that I can’t control everything and should stop trying. I don’t know the answer to anything. I do know I noticed a difference with my connection with Sarah. Overall we had one of the most harmonious weeks we have had in ages. 

It has been a strange balance to have more times of peace than usual coupled with more times of fearing that I will die imminently (no evidence for this at all, I am just skilled at panicking). I have moments where I am scared and convinced of dire things. Then I wave it away because frankly I just don’t have time for that right now! There are things to do! There is food to make and laundry to do.

Last weekend we had Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop visiting. It was a lovely visit with more overall ease in the Sarah department than we sometimes have had. Mom-Mom noted an increase in Sarah’s imaginative play.

Sarah now likes to be called Mouse. This is probably a combination of the mouse in the books such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff and the mouse in A Visitor For Bear by Bonny Becker. If you haven’t read the latter and if you have young kids or like kid’s books, I highly recommend it. There is a line, “There was the mouse! Small, and gray, and bright eyed” that gets repeated often. Sarah and I changed it to, “There was the mouse! Small, and snailed, and bright eyed” when she was wearing her beloved snail shorts. 

At the end of gymnastics yesterday, Sarah told me she was exhausted. We had fun saying and spelling “exhausted mouse.” Earlier in the week while Sarah waited for her swim lesson we decorated my face with stickers. Both of these moments involved such sweet, connected space with Sarah and easy joy in my heart. They felt like flashbacks to our earlier Sarah-Rise days. It feels good to be having more of these moments again, mainly because I’m showing up for them. The key now is to remember that showing up for them takes hours of sitting in stillness and inviting ease, safety, flow, and peace. It really does. It is so easy to think I can maintain the peace without the preparation, but I don’t think I can. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a busy day of doing nothing and I must get started.