Musings in Motherhood: Part II
A mother is a philosopher, a healer, and a scientist, as Sara Ruddick beautifully theorized; mothers are constantly sending questions to the universe, developing an ever-growing patience to observe, and decide the criteria for their truth, adequacy and relevance of proposed answers. She cares about the findings that she makes. A mother and a child shapeshift each other’s “qualities of the intellect and soul.”
There is a book that Salva loves lately. In this book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” there’s an extract that describes how I feel about time these days.
And [he] sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot.”
One just has to be silent, observe, wait, and examine more closely…maybe, one will find something wild about oneself.
There’s an urge, so deeply ingrained in me, to lay bare Salva’s heart to the mysterious and profound act of walking barefoot, of listening to Guanacaste tree seeds that resemble maracas, to succumb to the deafening cicada’s song they celebrate in unison after spending 17 years underground, and to the excitement of going wild raspberry picking. I want him to surrender, like me, to the healing powers of the tropical, to the fresh fragrance of the earth when it has just rained, and to the smell of guava jelly in the making as it saturates the house with soft pink aromas.
Every afternoon, the rain erases our chalk prints. Salva and I keep choosing a different path of stones to walk and to color with stripes, spots, and patterns, almost like a prosthetic exercise.
Nearby, where the ginger is planted, is the site we chose for the inflatable pool. I look at its sign consisting of an arrow looking upward and a horizontal line marking the maximum level of the water. To me, it reads as a reminder of not to overflow. The rainy season has made of it an ecosystem full of tiny frogs, adventurous ant trails, and snails. It became time to end the pool’s season, but it made me dwell at length about cohabitation. I exchanged a dialogue with a dear friend the other day about the worms we both had noticed these days that have us looking with peruse.
We put away the pool. Despite the brown scar, the grass is healing quickly, and just like with a human scar, cicatrization happens in a concentric manner towards the inside.
I am loving the taste of being here, of our raw words and coffee afternoons, made with the grains grown in this land carrying the same salt that flows in my blood, tears, and sweat. Stillness is the precipice where we are noticing the form of that which changes—gradation—as one thing turns into another.
A lack of stillness turned Salva into what he self-denominated as the Cactus Kid (like the character in a poem he likes), after he eagerly touched a cactus leaving a world of silky, thin, and almost invisible thorns in his tiny fingertips, which were brushed away with an old toothbrush.
I am grateful for the swing we undusted, what would my father imagine that 16 years later Salva would make good use of it too? When I die, I think I hope to be under tropical rain. I just feel so much a part of it, of the peace I feel when I put my head on the pillow and listen to the rainstorm between 3 and 4 PM, or when I look beyond the horizon through each drop dividing into droplets. It reminds me of Rilke’s question, “I have been circling for a thousand years, and still I do not know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a continuing great song?”
I found all the Duplo Lego pieces intentionally tossed outside from the concrete steps. “Salva, this is not how we do things…” WHAM! My whole right leg, all the way to the hip, fell into a hole almost breaking my ankle. The water collection grilles were unsteady, perhaps they were confused, it is true I am mere water. It is also true that at times I feel I am drowning.
Salva came running looking worried, he had read the moment, “Don’t cry mom. Don’t, don’t cry. I love you. I am sorry.” Once I could recollect myself, I explained it wasn’t his fault, I just needed for him to cooperate. He is learning about the power of words and I couldn’t help not to grin to myself. He offered me a hand as I limped back inside.
Text and Photography by Andrea González Maroto