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June 23, 2004
“The Marathon Monks” (6-23-04)
“In Japan, the Tendai Buddhist monks run some twenty to fifty miles a day along the snowy slopes of Mount Hiei. They do this for one hundred consecutive days, rising at one-thirty in the morning to begin their route. They carry with them a sword and a rope to remind them to commit suicide if they fail. I imagine they entertain great doubt in the beginning, waking in the night, thinking: “Maybe those corporate suckers back in Tokyo had it right all along.”
“Over a period of seven years, the marathon monks go on ten such hundred-day runs, covering some twenty-two thousand miles in all. At the end of the seven years, they go without food or sleep for nine days. Those who survive the entire ordeal are considered living Buddhas, wise and aware.
“Of course, you cannot join the order if you are a mother.
“You wouldn’t have to.”
That’s from the book The Mother Trip by Ariel Gore. It’s one of my favorite essays. Every time I read it, I’m struck by how true it is, how much motherhood is like a marathon, but one without a finish line or medals.
Does anyone else feel this way? There are so many millions of tasks that go into being a mother, and it’s an impossible race to finish them all. When I’m nursing Lily, I can’t play with Aden. Then I play with Aden, but I don’t have time to pick up the household clutter. If I pick everything up, I fall behind on my computer stuff. If I’m on the computer, I won’t get the garden weeded. If I weed the garden, I’ll never finish painting the kitchen. If I paint the kitchen, I end up ignoring my kids…
So that’s my thought for the day: motherhood is a long, hard, marathon. I’m not complaining or lamenting that I chose to be a mother; I’m just looking at my life for what it is and trying to accept it—that at this point, I can’t do it all, and maybe I’ll never be able to.
My second thought for the day follows fairly logically from the first: mothers work so hard and do so much, and they are AMAZING! It’s easy to look at my mama friends and acknowledge that they are wonderful, strong, and amazing. It’s harder to include myself in that thought, especially on the days when the house is a wreck and I’ve yelled at Aden and there’s not enough money to pay the bills. But if I can just accept my life for what it is, for all of the good and the bad that comes with this motherhood deal, and learn to appreciate what I do a little more, then maybe this life won’t make me feel so crazy. I’m amazing too, right? We all are.
What prompted all of this? I don’t know. I think it’s all the stress, that pesky financial stress that keeps hanging around and making me feel like our life is somehow not right, not good enough. Because if we, if I, were doing a good enough job than we wouldn’t be struggling so much, right? I know that’s not true but sometimes it feels that way when we are dealing with another breakdown of the crappy old truck and a denied insurance claim for our homebirth that will result in medical bills we can’t afford. It’s just an ongoing string of bad luck, but it’s awfully hard not to take it personally.
Derek and I have always felt that having a parent at home with our kids during these early years was important, important enough that we were willing to sacrifice whatever it took. But the reality is, we are sacrificing our butts off, living from paycheck to paycheck, barely making ends meet, depending on monetary gifts from family in order to buy any extra personal items at all, and we are still falling into debt. It’s horrible and I feel almost ashamed to talk about it, except I know we’re not the only ones. If we’re all in the same sinking boat than we might as well acknowledge it.
So I’ve been thinking about finding a way to work from home. I don’t know what I want to do, but I’ve got to find a way to contribute to our finances. I’ve been reading a book that Kim B. from SKT loaned me a long time ago, I forget the title but it’s something about how to stay at home and still make money. Nothing has reached out and grabbed me yet, but there’s got to be something out there—something I like, something that won’t be boring or dreadful, something I won’t resent having to do, something that won’t take away too much of my time but will add just a little extra income to our lives. One idea that keeps popping into my head is my art. Derek has been encouraging me for several years to sell my paintings, and I shy away from the conversation every time. I’m not sure what I’m so scared of. I think I might really love taking commissions and creating paintings of other people’s children. I’ve done enough pictures of Aden that I know I could do it, and I know how meaningful something like that can be, that it’s something that people would be willing to pay me to do… why am I so reluctant? I’m not sure if it’s a fear of failure, of not being able to find the time to do it or to do a good enough job—or is it a fear of opening up something that’s so personal to me, to be judged and critiqued on something that is tied so closely to my heart? Or that if I turn it into a business with all of the pressure and deadlines that involves, I’ll stop enjoying it and I’ll lose more than I gain? Or I’ll discover that I didn’t love it so much or wasn’t so good at it after all? It’s a lot to ponder.
Well, I’ve spent so much time talking about myself and my personal issues and no time talking about Lily and Aden. Suffice it to say that they’re both doing well and there’s nothing too exciting or new to share, or else I would have shared it immediately and forgotten to talk about myself so much! LOL. More about the kids in the next update!
Tara
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