a muddy morning

I returned from a run through the heavy gray morning air today, slick with sweat, and was greeted enthusiastically at the door by Gabriel, who led me right back outside. He suggested that we do a little weeding together in the front garden. As we set to work, Gabriel quickly transformed into a superhero named XY who battles a bad guy, Lex Leafer, who is forever making weeds grow where we don't want them to. Each clump of clover pulled became a kind of cosmic victory. And when all the evil weeds were pulled and Lex Leafer was finally vanquished, Gabriel took out his construction vehicles to build a house for the ants.

After a night of rain, the August air was strangely cool and thick. Droplets of water hung to every leaf, and the ground was satisfyingly wet and easy to move with a tiny bulldozer. For a construction site, it was unusually peaceful. I sat beside Gabriel in my sweaty skin, feeling the cool stillness without and within, after my own small storm the night before.

I was hit unexpectedly, after a seemingly inconsequential conversation with Mike about an ill-advised freelance writing possibility, with the same lost, unmoored feeling that has come and gone ever since my new home-focused life began when we moved here three years ago. It has been mostly gone these last few months, so I was especially discouraged to hear myself expressing hopelessness all over again about ever finding my professional feet here. I like being with my children and creating a home. I like to contribute to the wider world in exchange for a paycheck. Both desires feel genuine and legitimate, and yet they inevitably conflict.

I swear there was more nuance to my distraught feelings last night, but I suppose if you had to boil it down to one problem, that would be it. I've been trying to build my freelance writing work in the hopes of - in a small scale kind of way - having it all. (My social work identity is lying in wait, still scanning the horizon, still unable to detect a part-time expression for itself out there). I want the freedom to build an ant house out of mud on a whim with Gabriel. I want quiet and space enough to notice the rain clinging to the leaves overhead. I want to exercise my capabilities and participate in a wider world too - I want to know myself to be competent. I'm trying to invent a flexible life of career-building, bread-making, picture-painting, community-creating. It sounds pretty good, but in practice sometimes I simply feel pulled in too many directions. Stretched into a shapeless form with no assured place in the world.

There are mothers who work full-time who have sent their kids to day care since they were tiny babies, and there are mothers who are home full-time and have put their careers on hold. I know both sorts, and for the most part, they are not a conflicted bunch. They've made a choice about how to do this, and it's not up for re-evaluation. But I seem to be constantly tweaking and planning, sending out feelers, seeing potentialities everywhere, wondering how I could both add more meaningful work and balance all this better. This restlessness could wear a person out.

Good thing we're going on vacation on Saturday, for an entire week with friends in a beautiful place! I won't be blogging for a little while as a result...pictures from Western Massachusetts when we return. Thank you friends, as ever, for walking with me on this whole motherhood journey. The path feels shadowed and muddy today, but as Gabriel demonstrated this morning, if you stop and settle in for a moment, mud can be a lot of fun.