When I was growing up, my siblings and I spent a lot of time outside. We had a swing set that we swung so hard on, the whole structure would rock. There were mums, irises, and day lilies along the back of the house, and steps leading from our back door that were, in my memory, big and wide and perfect for sitting on. As an older kid, I claimed a corner of the yard and planted flowers in front of a beautiful stand of ferns.
I loved the smell of the clean laundry on our clothesline. I was fascinated by the iridescent wings of the Japanese beetles that clung to the clothes and the crisp, starchy feeling of the laundry as it came off the line. For the many sunny days when the clothes dried uninterrupted, there was also the rush of adrenaline from pulling down clothes as the first drops of a rainstorm began to fall.
We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions. – Brené Brown
As meditation has grown to a one- to two-hour part of my waking hours many days, the obvious question is, how do I fit it in?
I’ve had to give up or reduce the time I spend doing three things:
1. Mindless Screen Time
2. Crappy Sleep
3. Pleasure Reading
As you can see, for the most part, there hasn’t been a huge loss.
If you missed it, here’s Part I.
Around the same time that I made the coffee table, I started tackling the fireplace. It was dark and ugly. The brick and tile were dingy. There are differences of opinion about whether or not brick should be painted. I am not in one camp or another. But I knew the brick in my living room needed a facelift, and washing it didn’t help. So I matched our home’s cream-colored trim in masonry paint and had at it.
The night Six was born, I hummed through labor. It was a single note with each contraction, in the same key. I wondered what note it was. Not long before, I’d heard a piece on NPR about the note nature hums in, and it was B flat. Could it be that I was humming with the universe without even knowing it? At some point, I was able to ask the Chaplain, who has perfect pitch, what key I was humming in.
It was B flat. The note that excites alligators. The note that black holes hum (in a very, very low octave).
Six came into the world not long after that, after a brief, intense labor. As he was being born, my first thought was that his nose was enormous.
His face isn’t the only thing that sets him apart from his siblings. His personality is a shower of sparks, a hurricane of energy, deep feeling, and stubborn determination.
As number six, he’s always been surrounded by an entourage. Since he was a baby, his siblings have loved to entertain him because of the faces he makes in response.
He has been spoiled and placated at times, and he manages to squeeze equal amounts of fury and nurturing from everyone in the family.
I’ve lost count of the number of photos I found with him in the hiking backpack, either in the kitchen, or on the trail. 
He was as likely to be on Dad’s back as Mom’s.
He is the kid who from the time he was small, has screamed bloody murder at bath time, but loves water.
He got all the extra cuddles because we thought he’d be our last.
He’s so young that it’s hard to imagine the person he’ll grow up to be. He can be impossible. He shows us his tough side, then melts into tears. I’m often puzzled by how to parent him in a way that leaves us both sane.
He has moments of pure joy. There are the times when he just lets me hold him. And he fights sleep passionately, then powers down on the spot wherever his body finally shuts off.
I want the best for Six, as I do all my kids. He certainly broke the mold when he was born, entering as he did to the hum of the universe. Like his siblings, he is a fighter, a stalwart soldier.
He wants things a certain way and can’t be convinced the way our other kids usually can be to just do what he’s being asked. I’ve been in more fights with him, and let him win more of them, than with any other person (adult or child) in my life.
Six, you confound and challenge us. We love you so much. You are a square peg, and we know those angles are the gifts that make you unique and will make you an amazing grown up.
Photo credits: feature image, Lindsey Crandall Photography. First image in post, my midwife.
On my Netherlands trip, I mentioned that my relationship to pain changed after I had a huge knot in my neck disappear after the psilocybin trip.
I see a few doctors here and there, and they’d given me the gift of names for why I feel so crappy: Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel. Fatigue? Achy joints? Blame one of those pesky autoimmune things you’ve tested positive for.
Before the trip, I was wearing wrist braces to bed every night because of pain in my wrists and hands. It used to make me anxious when I had to launder the braces, that I wouldn’t get them washed, dried, and find them again before bedtime.
They’ve been in one of the four laundry baskets of unfolded laundry in my living room for days now and I’m totally cool with it.
