Seven Things

I don't usually do things like this but Syd asked me to and well, Syd is serious and funny and spiritual and smart and I feel honored that he asked me to so here are seven things about me.

1. I am fifty-seven years old. I will be fifty-eight this year. Somehow this seems impossible. But without reaching this age, I would not have known what it was like to be a grandmother which is an unimaginable joy.

2. The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was meeting the man I am married to. He is the reason I'm still around and if there is joy in my life, it is because he has made a safe place for me to live so that I can breathe and appreciate what I have.

3. I have so much. I have four children who are all grown-up and they are as different as apples, oranges, and the moon and the stars. They have been my most profound teachers. Their births (which were all at home except for the first one) taught me more than I could have learned in a million life-times of studying philosophy, religion, and poetry. I had no idea what love was until I held their newborn bodies and looked into their ancient eyes.

4. My biggest regrets include not having had a real father and not always being as good a mother as my children deserved. I think that any and all regrets I may have stem from these two things in one way or another.

5. I believe passionately in home birth and home death whenever possible. I believe these two passages are sacred and holy rites and that in giving them up to the "experts" we have lost more than we can imagine.

6. I believe that creation is perhaps what we were put here for. I am not quite sure what that means but in it I include creating love, babies, art, gardens, soup, bread, music and order. And friendships. Bonds. Piling rocks in pleasing arrangements. Bridges that span great distances and tiny ones, whether of concrete, steel, wood or words.

7. I wish I were a better person.