A Birth Story

In 1980,  I lived in an old farmhouse in rural Virginia where I gave birth to my one and only child,  a home birth with a midwife.  The legend of that night contained many strange occurrences:  it was mid-summer and unusually cold.  I had a craving for steak prior to labor.   At 8 centimeters I seemed to get 'stuck' and entered what I can only say was a kind of true transitional zone where I distinctly remember standing by and looking out the bedroom window and feeling like the world was collapsing. 

Pushing through those last centimeters and birth was no doubt the most intense experience of my life.  I often think of it as a primary life metaphor;  feeling the fear of passage, while coming to know that I am stronger and more resilient than I could ever imagine.  Despite it's many sad lessons such as post-partum depression, and the implications for my then husband and son,  the seed of that knowing served me in subsequent challenges, always in a similar way.  It's when I close in on the goal that I tend to collapse.

I found this out in my first marathon,  trying to cross the 18, then 20 mile threshold, when my body felt like giving out.  I remembered it at my last one in DC,  when I was sure I would never make it to the phalanx of marines at the finish line.  In graduate school,  I was a few months shy of completing when my emotional state crumbled.  And in my career,  I point to many a moment when prior to a breakthrough I felt the end was near.

I am going through such a passage now,  before the move.  I have deliberately kept it stirring in my inner cauldron,  watching what has surfaced,  which fears and anxieties belong to me and which ones I inherited from my mother.  Never underestimate the power of ancestral beliefs and emotional patterns to influence us in the present-  it doesn't matter if your loved ones are in this world or not.  The beliefs operate in you like unconscious scripts.  So in this manner I am finding my fear of pressures, chaos, bailing out, in short- disastrous failure and not reaching my goal, poking holes in my otherwise enthusiastic anticipation of what this move is all about.

This is a dark place.  But I am not in fear this time.  I have those memories of finish lines crossed,  degrees hard-earned,  career moving forward and the many client success stories to tell me, my path is working.  I have my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter all well and wonderful.  I am a healthy elder, ready to embark on the next leg of my journey,  and what I am birthing will be AWESOME!

It's important that we embrace the hard parts of our path,  and understand that EVERYTHING coming up in us is our teaching and guide.  Our wise minds understand how fearful we can become and push us closer into that fire, because the Beneficent Ones wait for us deep in that cauldron of change.  When we can encourage our Selves, like any good Midwife,  by facilitating the Process,  we will move through.  Will we also learn the lessons, and recognize what we needed to leave behind?

I leave my fear of not belonging;  I leave my fear of ending up like my mother,  stuck in a life plan with a life partner that kept her in emotional bondage and sapped her physical strength, of the 'inevitability' of all genetic tendencies to map who and what I am.  I claim the benefits of my dedication to my 'work'- and as I come to crowning I anticipate what is coming as a Beacon,  an Oasis, a Magic Garden where ideas of Beauty and Belonging will grow. 

Sunday Long Run: Checking in with La Mer

I forgot the temps dropped overnight:  by the time I saw morning light,  we were in the 60's, but a clear sky allowed the sun to brighten and warm the air through a chilly breeze.  I drove and staged just east at the new Publix, so I could pick up a few things after,  and ran down Sheridan to pick up the the road to Dania Beach blvd and the long lazy stretch to the beach.  It was just cool enough - but not too chilly for me,  as I tried to get a gait going,  still stiff from Saturday's nice Griffin loop. 

Traffic was light,  and my half-asleep head meandered around the landscape,  the hedgerows along the waterway,  a 'dragon-boat 'with crew heading south as the light sparkled off the intercoastal,  making a pit-stop at Dania Beach before picking it up again down Surf Road.
I'm having nostalgia attacks on these runs-  how many more times on THIS route,  seeing THESE little landmarks I have come to know and cherish all these years living here?  I'm sacrificing many little treasures, as we all must when we move- or change....we all lay down what has become so familiar,  knowing we are picking up new, hidden treasures which wait for us in our new 'place' - whether a home or in our awareness and understanding.

So beneath the nostalgia of losses was excitement, anticipation...the road is leading me....to what?  I have an idea- but there are many new runs in front of me - still to the beach- following meandering side streets -except it won't be my cherished Griffin loop or Dania Beach runs any more. 

There was a charity walk at North Park.  Despite the people traffic, I had an amazing rhythm going as I headed into my last pit-stop and took in the ocean....

watching the quiet colors of morning bleed into air and water while the palms swung in the breeze.   Hollywood gave me my career, my home and a place to help my parents exit this world.  I've packed and sorted the million little items of my life into their boxes and wait now to land in the next place....I inhabit this transitional zone like the beach itself, eroding my old dreams,  disappointments and losses into the wide mouth of the crashing surf, taking it all away to churn up again - with new dreams and ambitions- some place else. 

As I headed back west to the car,  I had more energy and speed than I've felt for some months!  Was I catalyzed by the changes?  Did my feet know more than my head,  pointing themselves with confidence ever forward?  Leaving things,  no matter how hard, will always comes with sadness.  But what I've gained has served me well:  after all,  it was here I became a runner!