/reader

A song I’m loving:

When I was pregnant, I’d sing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac to my daughter all the time. In the shower, in the car, while doing dishes, “well I’ve been afraid of changing…” would pour out of me and into her. The song became part of her experience of growing. It became part of my experience of growing her.

Once, about a year ago, I started singing the song while we were on my bed, moving through a giant stack of books. Reading together is her favorite thing; mine, too. Her eyes welled up as I sang and she kept doing the sign for “more”, tapping her tiny fingers together repeatedly. More mama, more, more. I kept singing, her misty blues staring widely at me, as though we were communicating some secret code woven between us. I’ve thought about it often since.

A few nights ago, she was really struggling to go to bed. I eventually went into her room, picked her up, and started singing Landslide while I swayed with her in my arms. Her soft blonde hair immediately melted into my shoulder, her warm cheek curled into the nook of my neck. My eyes welled up and suddenly I was singing to her through tears, tears that seemed to keep coming. She didn’t mind — I think she somehow knew why it all felt so tender. I think us being in the tenderness together has, more often than not, been everything we both needed. When I put her down, she quickly went to sleep. I’ve been thinking about it since.

I think about all the hours I spent singing to the growing being in my body, the daughter I hadn’t met yet, knowing before even knowing her that it would mean something.

I often wondered if my birth mother ever sang to me, even though she never planned on keeping me. I wondered if singing to me would have created too much intimacy and thus too much heartbreak for her. I wondered if singing to me could have been a way of her weaving a piece of herself into me, a piece I’d carry long after she left. Sometimes, when I sang Landslide to my growing daughter, I wondered if that song had been sung to me while I was growing. Or maybe I just wish it had been. I wish I knew whether I heard any songs at all while my heart was taking shape inside a stranger’s body. Why did I choose that song, for no reason other than the felt sense that it was what I was meant to be singing to her? But each time I sang it — and every time I sing it to her now — some untapped part of me feels cared for as I care for her. Some quiet ache of mine is also getting soothed. I am singing to her and I am singing to me. I am lulling each of our hearts at once. That’s why it makes me cry.

Some things stay forever tender. I am reminded so often that some of my aches will never fully go away. They will get tugged at and resurfaced throughout my life, in different seasons, in expected and unexpected ways. I spent so much of my life desperate for the pain I carried to suddenly disappear. I spent so much time in therapy trying to fix it, cure it, turn it into something else, deny it, become bigger than it, conquer it, contain it, control it, erode it. I thought eliminating it was the goal.

I know now that the grief I carry might always linger in some form. So now, when I sing Landslide to my daughter and feel tears forming in my eyes, I don’t try to force them back. I know they need to be let out, to be felt, to be integrated into an experience of deep love, to be met with presence. I practice saying, “here it is. How cam I tend to it?” I practice leaning in, rather than forcing out. I practice listening to the wisdom it has for me, the sensations it’s asking me to feel. I practice.

I know there will be times where a part of me needs to be sung to in the ways I sing to her. I know there will be times I need to ask for more hugs, for an extra chat with a friend, for time alone to be with what’s swirling. I know I’ll need to carve out space to feel the sadness of what I missed, of what I still sometimes miss and wonder about. I know I need to meet the bubbling grief with curiosity, with the welcoming warmth of a mother. And somehow, all of this feels much easier, much more gentle, much more doable than battling the desperation for all the hurt to go away.

May the grief that arises in unexpected ways become a place to practice love.
May the nourishment we pour into others somehow also pour into ourselves.
May we acknowledge what’s within us, whether ache or complete awe.
May we no longer force away the parts of ourselves asking for tenderness.
May our capacity to be with what’s real become wider and wider, ever-expanding.
May our willingness to tend to the grief make room for so much more joy.
May we remember there is always, always, always space for both.

As always, thank you for being here.

△ On nurturing capacious hearts

△ Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

△ The roaring

△ ‘All I’ve learned, I’ve learned because the abyss swallowed me’

△ My growing collection of Nicole Lavelle stickers

△ Hala Alyan in the LA Times

△ Changing your heart towards pain

△ Revisiting this exploration of our roles in change

△ Being her mom.

With care,
Lisa

Human Stuff from Lisa Olivera is generously kept going by readers. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber. So glad you’re here.

 

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Daybreak Walk @ Cove Island Park. Time Series. 49° F. 3:54, 5:03 & 6:07 am. Mother’s Day, May 12, 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. For more pictures of this morning’s walk, go here.

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