Mothers Day Post

Mother Nuthatch

All My Mothers

The other evening, a friend who I don't know very well, but like very much, because he always has good energy and a kindness about him, said to me “ those people on facebook, they don't know you are miserable, they only see your uplifting happy posts”> I told him, that that's because I AM happy, so very happy. I struggle, but a m not miserable at all. I could tell he had trouble processing this, but seemed to believe me. It's true. I've never been happier in all my life. Darkness is there to meet and spiral up into the light.

The past few years have been the most difficult and painful in my life. Painful, physically as well as emotionally. Today, as I sit here with my whole body inflamed in pain and on drugs just to keep me from going full on into Anaphylaxis and dying, I am a bit melancholy perhaps. Just yesterday I was healing, growing strong and moving forward. I had one taste of the wrong thing with corn syrup in it. I should have known better. I'll be set back a week or so at most, but will move forth from here. Seven months ago, I couldn't have said that. I was well on my way to a spiraling downward. That is when I realized that this was one fight I wouldn't win by fighting. Only surrender could give me hope, so for the first time in my life, I surrendered, white flag on a stick & all and began my journey to healing.

The issue I deal with stems from emotional trauma and MSG. It went quickly from just avoiding Asian foods to full on autoimmune crap out where my body recognized many normal healthy foods as well as GMO grown foods as the enemy. It's all too boring to explain, but bottom line is that once I put up that white flag and backed off to eating as purely as possible, I got the chance to live. Not just survive, but live. When friends say “why can't you eat THAT?” with a tone that says “you are fucking nuts”, it is painful. It tells me that I don't have their support. Most friends support me wholly. They know me and have seen me rise above, again and again. I'm not at the social gatherings for the food, I'm there for the folks. I will be able to eat many of those foods again someday because of that whit flag, but if I never can that's ok too.

What's gotten me through thus far has been friends, family and a sense of community that rocks the foothills. Music, joy and the children always have a part and yes, God, The Mother, The Father, The Universe, what I call and know as God, everything, all, the one who speaks to me and quiets my soul to listen. The one who blows moonlight into my ears to light my way to hear truth, speak the beauty and darkness that I see.

Today, with my body inflamed, I rejoice in the food I grow in my garden, the food that will feed my soul as well as my body. I rejoice at the pain that teaches me how beautiful life is. I rejoice at every breath that I no longer take for granted. The beauty of spring abounds, so there again I can only rejoice. The Nuthatches nesting in the hole in the ailing tree that I so very much relate to, the Lupine, the intrepid indecisive storm that says it is truly spring. Today, although I refuse being defined by my struggle, this pain I embrace with gratitude and claim adherence to the body that shelters me because that is what was asked of me when I cried out to God to make this body work.

If you think that you make no difference moving through your days in this life, you are wrong. You don't have to try to make a difference. We are all connected and because you are you, moving through life honestly, you have touched many lives. Sometimes it is just some little thing you say or do, just being you that changes a life drastically. One never knows, but my life has been affected drastically by friends, family, community and just random people I've met and in this life will probably never see again. Thank you for being you, any time you choose to, and by doing so, encouraging me, and so many others.

I am ever thankful to my Mother for teaching me how to survive, my Grandmothers for teaching me how to live,  my daughter for teaching me how to discern between the two, my daughter in law who shows me life from a new view and my Granddaughters who carry it all forth. My gratefulness extends for miles to the women in my life. All of them who continuously hold me up while I attempt to balance , fall, balance again in the teeter totter of living.

Weather or not a woman has born children, we are all Mothers. We nurture and love in a way that only women can. All my women friends are Mothers, sisters, and daughters in my life. So to all of you I say Happy Mothers Day, with love and just enough light to spiral out of the darkness.