Ceding control

Preparing for Kai's surgery is throwing me back in time to the month before he was born. We were in Boulder and I had the luxury of time to read books about natural childbirth, to enroll in prenatal yoga classes and to fully visualize his birth. There was no doubt in my mind that he would be delivered naturally and without the help of medications, so I completely ignored the discussion of epidurals during our birthing classes. Lo and behold, everything turned out differently than planned (of course!). Because he was breech and I was a "high risk" pregnancy (given my age), Kai was born by c-section in a rather cold, flourescent lit room and I was drugged up in lala land. The polar opposite of my birthing book-inspired fantasies! We didn't even bother with the cd I'd carefully compiled for the occasion. In the end, what mattered was that Kai had all of his fingers and toes. And given the dizzying intensity of the weeks and months that followed, the specifics of his birth seemed rather unimportant.

So, here I am again planning everything and making sure that I'm not forgetting anything. At the same time, I know that no matter how much you plan, things often turn out differently anyway.

On her radio show "On Being" for Mother's Day, Krista Tippett had a wonderful interview with the Jewish-Buddhist psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein about raising children in a complex world. Boorstein described parenting as the "greatest loss of control." Parenting awakens us to our own vulnerability. Acceptance of this reality has the potential of nourishing our inner life.

Towards the end of the interview, Boorstein led a metta meditation. May you feel safe, may you feel content, may you strong, may you live with ease.

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/what-we-nurture/video_lovingkindness-meditation.shtml

She ended with a lovely poem by Pablo Neruda "Keeping Quiet"

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.