It was a slow unraveling while inside the tapestry but in reality it was rapid, just a few short months.  Once he moved out I realized I couldn’ t keep up with the chores involved in a wood-heated 5-bedroom farmhouse and maintain my full time job, mothering, and my sanity.  Not to mention the bills would be too much for me to handle now while paying child support to him.

Even though I knew it to be inevitable, it was hard to imagine downsizing.  We had dreamed of buying this gorgeous home on  20 acres, even signed a contract.  I loved the quiet of the country and the space.  We had picked up a new puppy just a week before I asked for a divorce.  I loved running each day on the back roads and watching the kids play for hours in the yard on the trampoline, skidding up and down the long country driveway.  Friends came to play and the children adored their home too.  It was idyllic.  It was part of a larger dream that had crumbled.

Eventually I realized that liberation would rise like a bird in the wake of letting go, and so downsize I did.

I moved with the kids into a small 2-bedroom ranch duplex one block from where I worked.  We were 4 blocks from the elementary school and one block from the daycare they attended afterschool.  No more stoking the woodstove at 5 am and 10 pm to stay warm and survive in the frigid Wisconsin winter, no more hauling kindling from the yard and firewood from the deck in my robe and gloves.  All I had to do was push the button on the thermostat and it was warm.  It made sense.  I could actually afford it, and the lifestyle would be much easier.  Here the kids shared a room and our furniture was sparse, and I slept on a single bed for the first time since college.

On the other side of the house was an aquaintance, a single mom whom I had met months before through work and had coffee with a couple of times while the kids and dogs played.  She was almost ten years younger yet had been raising her daughter on her own for five years already without much support to speak of.  She had fled the city after an abusive relationship, lost a job then found another, and hers was one of the most stressful jobs one could possibly have as a mother, in child protective services.  I admired her strength and tenacity, her faith in herself and her ability to keep going under more stress than I had ever known.  She had already learned how to reach out and ask for help, even from people she hardly knew like myself–it meant survival.  The night I kept her daughter after school last minute when she transported a child to detention far away I was amazed she asked and I was glad to help.  I didn’t know then just how much she would eventually help me, and the many ways her friendship buoyed me in that ocean of uncertainty for months to come.

Within a short time after I moved in we were cooking meals together, having wine on our shared back patio late nights after the kids went to sleep, and I found she had a shoulder I could cry on.  The friendship we formed took the sting out of the loneliness of raising my kids on my own, and if I needed to run to the store or work late, I knew I could count on her.  We laughed until tears streamed down our faces and watched bad reality T.V. together.  We connected in a way I had never experienced before, and within the four short months we lived next to each other I swear she saved me.

Soon she would be married for the first time and so happy.  I watched her realize a dream she had had for so many years and find a man who would erase the bad memories and disappointments of her past relationships, a man whom she could finally trust.  When my kids and I moved away to Ohio we both cried, and I realized for the first time that what we had given each other was a community amongst ourselves when we needed it most .

Now she has a new baby and we talk less on the phone, I know she is enjoying her sleepless nights and her beautiful new family.  But that’s okay with me.  We got through to the other side by holding hands and laughing, emerged anew as sisters who helped each other shine.

What would it taste like?, I asked her with a smile.

It would taste like clouds and sunshine
and mist and M&M’s,
lemonade and cherry with strawberries and whipped cream.
It would taste like flowers and the green of spring–
maybe for you the purple would taste like wine, but not for me–
for me it would taste like grape popsicle.
It would be very filling.  My belly would be full from eating that rainbow.

I wish I could eat a rainbow too, I said.

You can, Mommy! There’s one for you, grab it quick before it flies away!

And so I closed my eyes and reached up,
pulled the rainbow to my lips,
and tasted a miracle.

©Heidi Howes 2012

What would your rainbow taste like?  Let me know in the comments below…

Looking back I see the complex reasons why I wanted to associate with the male persona more, reasons like freedom and    going shirtless in the summertime (though that was forbidden after I was five).  Even as a child, especially as a child, I sensed the limitations and the lack of respect towards mothers held in our society.

Most of all I didn’ t want to have my own children.  No, I wanted to travel the world and follow my own dreams and the message to me in my childhood was loud and clear that children are a burden and they keep you from your dreams.  Children limit you and hold you back and make you incredibly exhausted and disappointed.  No room for dreaming once they come along.

And so I lived for myself, for my own devices, going from thing to thing until one day I was 26 and suddenly I felt THE CLOCK.  Nothing so overwhelming as the urge to have a BABY.  It was a strange occurrence I never could’ve seen coming, until it was there smacking me in the face.  I had found my mate and it was time.

There is so little to prepare us for the complete life-alteration that is parenting.  The journey is mind-blowing to say the least, and sometimes I think so chaotic and insane that only in retrospect can we see how amazing it is.  My children are 8 and 5 respectively now and just as everyone tells you from the minute they are born (and man is it annoying how often people say this) it goes by so quickly, so painfully and heart-wrenchingly quickly.

Because I never rehearsed as a little girl nor dreamed of the children I would one day have, perhaps I bloomed late into my embrace of mothering.  But embrace it I do.

My children are my opus, my everything.  They are my reason for waking and my reason for collapsing.  I want to hold on to every second of their lives and remember, remember, remember.  This moment, gone.  That moment, so sweet.  A series of moments tied together by this rushing river of unbounded love.

How could I know?  Was I so naive to think there was any other miracle meant for me?

So if mothering these two children is the biggest thing–the only thing–I ever do, no matter how imperfectly or awkwardly, if this is my great body of work in this world–I am 100% at peace with that.  If I never write that book or screenplay or finish the album I feel compelled to record, I will be just fine.  If I never see Africa or South America, I will be fine.

Why is it the best thing that ever happened to me?

Little hands.  Sneaking into my bed to sleep next to me.  Laughter.  Screams.  Swinging in sunshine.  Playing for hours.  Pretending.  Seeing for the first time.  I love you, Mommy.  Little feet.  Bathtime.  Learning to read.  Prayers for strangers.    Why Mommy?  When Mommy?  Where Mommy?  Candy. Treasure Hunts.  Legos.  Spontaneous dancing.  Jumping on the bed.  Skipping.  Hopscotch.  Bedtime stories.  Lullabyes.  Backrubs.  Hugs.  Kisses.  Snacks before bed.  Climbing trees.  Sleepovers.  Playdates.  Skipping rocks.  Throwing ball.  Picking up from school.  Walking to the bus.  Waving goodbye.  Running to greet me.  Kisses.  Hugs.  Good morning.  I love you, baby.

As with my journey through Postpartum Depression, my journey through divorce has been hard to talk about, and even harder to contextualize for my friends whose marriages go on while mine ended.  Bring into the equation the juggling of self-care, work, household duties, and 2 children now being managed on my own, there is little if any time to talk about it even if I wanted to.

I remember distinctly the day after the decision had been made.  I walked out into my small town community of about 2000 folks,most of whom knew about my divorce the second I did (as things go in small towns, word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing strategy).  There was a party at the local theater and a couple hundred of our mutual friends and acquaintances were there.  This was the first time I realized that marriage was something that held all of us couples together in a tenuous circle, that the dissolving state of my marriage was somehow,if only very subconsciously, threatening to those who were still maintaining theirs.  I tried to smile and engage and assure my friends that this was the best thing for all of us, because in these awkward social moments we must keep it together.  I spotted a woman who had been a single mother all these years among us very cliqueish couples, and I felt the weight of single motherhood drop like an anchor to the pit of my stomach.  I no longer belonged to the neat and pretty togetherness of marriage and family.  I was alone, de-husbanded, de-familied.  Suddenly the reality of it smacked me in the face and I felt utterly alone.

But at this point I was sure there was no going back,  and so I pushed forward reminding myself that fitting in was not going to bring me peace or happiness or anything.  I held my head high in public, though the inevitable sides were drawn and yes, there were those who shunned me.  I was demonized, gossiped about, judged and questioned.  I felt like I wore a scarlet letter everywhere I went.  Especially when messy decisions were made and life went on.

Even in the face of all the hardship that came with choosing the divorce, I continued to remind myself that better things were surely to come for all of us, and that divorce could be a way to truly finding those things we most needed but weren’t able to find within the marriage we had created.  I made my own hope, in my heart, even when faced with excruciating decisions and questions involving the children I love so dearly.

It has been a little over a year since the beginning of my divorce process, and I can say a lot of it was very lonely.  But I have made it and I continue to make it.  I wish I had heard of a Hopeful Divorce then, but it is a brand new course from Hopeful World Publishing, and even though I am already past my first year, every field note I receive in my inbox helps me move forward, stop looking back, and breathe more easily knowing there are friends out there who understand.

So yes, there is hope in divorce.  Lots of hope.  And we are gonna make it okay after all.

Stop already.  Stop thinking you are less than,

stop saying your dreams don’t matter, your desire

will wait.  Stop burying your muse under the mattress.

Stop believing that you are damaged, you can carry

the weight and therefore you should though you long

to be light, to be en-lightened, to walk in sunlight.

Stop making yourself small so others feel okay

in their smallness.  Climb the sycamore tree

in the ravine, take the kids to India, allow yourself

to make love to whomever, whenever, wherever.  Stop listening

to the fears that disquise themselves as wisdom.

Stop keeping your silence when you know what you want

from the world.  If this person won’t listen

stop giving away your time and speak up

until you find the ones who hear you, who

want you to say more.  Stop thinking

that being a mother means you can’t.

Stop limiting, stop regretting, stop wishing.

Stop thinking you are not enough.  Stop already.

You are everything you’ve ever dreamed of.

Girl Walk // All Day from jacob krupnick on Vimeo.

Have you ever lived a period of your life in which you remained trapped in a certain mindframe or paradigm that didn’t serve you?  You were doing everything you were supposed to do yet still you were unhappy?  Do you know how long  it took you to break free?

We can become prisoners of our own reality, prisoners of our own misconceptions about what life is and should be.  We make assumptions and take conventions as truth rather than following our heart’s call to what we truly want.  The heart sings a song and we don’t listen because our mind will not budge from its rulebook.  Our mind says things like I have to work full time, I have to make x amount of $, I have to give my children these things, I have to have this large house, I have to have a car, I have to relinquish my joyous hobby for the day to day grind that sucks my soul…I have to stay here because of family, I have to stay in this marriage for the kids, I don’t have time to eat healthy, workout, declutter, play music, write poetry, laugh, cry, write letters to my best friend…

I remember my mother taking a long time to recover from leaving my father.  She knew it was the best thing to do and it had been a long time coming, but she struggled for years to come to a new place of peace about her decisions.  Then years later, in my own marriage, she told me I didn’t have to be in a situation where I struggled and fought and felt unhappy.  I remember being angry with her because I felt that stepping away from something I should stick with was a ridiculous notion.  Even though it was eating me up.  She could clearly see my unhappiness, which I was unaware of because I had forgotten what my happiness looked like.  Now I see that she was right.  When the pain became too great, I finally made the change I needed to make.  And it was as simple as making a decision.  Unbelievably simple.

When you forget how it feels to be happy or free, you also are unable to envision such a life for yourself.  Without vision, we cannot alter our reality to become what we wish for.

I know many people who are trapped in this kind of mindset.  Again, it is the shoulds which enslave us, or as they say in “The Neverending Story”, it is The Nothing.  It is the numb and stark position of forgetting who we truly are and what our heart truly yearns for.

I suggest we take it by the hand, that Nothing, and let it be our most beloved teacher.  I suggest we stare our unhappiness in the face and smile.  Find your bliss and the Nothing will disappear.  We have forgotten how to feel joy.  When we find it, a revolution ensues.

The longer we stay in our self-made prisons, the harder it is to get free.  But the freedom is all the sweeter, and it can happen whenever you decide to step outside the unlocked gate.

There wasn’t a lot of dancing in my house when I was growing up, although I wouldn’t say there was no dancing.   Music and athletics were my parents’ main inspirations, so I did dance but minimally, and never in a class or in any formal way.  I think some part of me wanted to dance more, but now I long to dance.

This awakened in me most after the birth of my son in 2004.  After a good many years of enjoying, abusing, and taking for granted the health and strength of an active body I experienced the stress of pregnancy weight gain, some emotional trauma, and finally an emergency cesarean which left me in an unbearable amount of physical discomfort.

There are women who weather a pregnancy easily and bounce back immediately–and then there are the rest of us.

My body was a house of pain.  I felt as if I’d been split in half.  Split Open, a song I wrote in 2002, seemed to be a prophecy come true.  In my eyes a web of pink scars across my foreign belly and a mutilated midriff remained in place of a once smooth palette.  I couldn’t bend or touch there without a stab of regret and shame.

And then, the most unlikely thing happened.  I signed up for a free jazzercise class.

I know, you are probably all , WTF Heidi!, but they had childcare and they were the only ones in town with that necessity.   I have to tell you that first day sweating it out and shaking it to Britney Spears’ “toxic” I literally broke down and cried with joy.  All the tension and numbness and swelling and hurting down to the nuclei in my cells came pouring out of me in that goddamn step ball change grapevine combo.

You see, my body was a stranger to me.  I couldn’t stand being inside of it, let alone connect with it.  Movement was painful, and to add insult to injury, I was supposed to feel blessed and happy.  I couldn’t feel that if I paid attention to the pain so I tried not to pay attention.  I was disconnected and felt an emptiness in my center that was both physical and emotional.

Jazzercise may seem cheesy to you, but that day it was pure enlightenment.  I felt my body come alive again and with it my soul awoke tiny bits at a time.

This is the gift of dance, that we can live wholly in our bodies and awaken the soul.  Dance heals.  Dance enlightens.  Dance is ecstasy.

I dare you not to be inspired by this:

and this:

Stay tuned while I explore different dance experiences this month, the first of which is pole dancing.  What is your relationship to dance?  How do you practice it and can you share your most memorable dance experience?  Feel free to share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo by cwwycoff1

When he calls, her heart flutters.  And it also sinks.  He swept her away. Away from many things she dares not think of.  And into a whirlpool of other things she dares not mention.

Life has been easier since she stopped talking to him, since it ended.  Her walk is lighter, the days are clearer, and happiness erupts lightly from simple moments.

And yet the urge to hear his voice is overbearing, like the need to smoke a cigarette–nagging, nagging, nagging until you finally relent and take a drag.  When you are jonesing, virtually nothing can stop you from finding your fix.

It’s the heart sinking part she doesn’t pay attention to, though she should. She pushes it aside and answers anyway, just to feel that feeling one more time.  One more hit.  Maybe this time it will be different.

I miss you baby.  Come back to me, he says.  I’ve changed.

You know she’s heard this before.  Too many times to count.  He says he loves her so much it makes him crazy, makes him do stupid things.  Hurtful things.  But only because he loves her that much.  Only because he can’t live without her.

It’s so foggy here.  Let me make it up to you.  Give me ONE MORE CHANCE.

The chances could go on forever.  She feels herself slipping.  Her head gets heavy with her heart, she listens to him talk and feels the arm of their fucked up past pulling her down.  He is a sweet talker, her favorite kind.  Funny and smoothe and sexy.  She is sliding in the gravel of his empty promises.

Her best friend says he doesn’t get to treat you that way. Her sister says he is such a loser, I thought you already moved on, stop talking to him.  Her girlfriend says I’m sick of hearing about it.

Why does the heart sometimes gravitate towards this foggy road?  Why not take the high road, above the mist?

Have you ever experienced this or watched someone go through it?  Let me know in the comments and feel free to share on facebook or twitter.

I want to solve the problem of suffering, and this blog’s unwavering aim is to do just that.  Because yes, bad things happen.  Yes, we suffer. But can we see the beauty in it?  And in doing so, do we not overturn and transform the aforementioned slug of suffering into an awe-inspiring praying mantis?

The discontent I carried for many years has now given way to a newfound freedom and happiness.  Perhaps only temporarily, perhaps because of medical advances, but I will take what I can get!

Quiet desperation is the enemy.   Life is meant to be relished, rejoiced, enjoyed.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What are you planning to do?  Are you beating the suffering, killing the blues? Click the link to see me sing about this