Last weekend, I auditioned for the Twin Cities Listen to Your Mother Show. It is a nation-wide series of performances dedicated to “giving motherhood a microphone.” For my audition, I read a story about my challenging mornings with my daughter, about navigating my way through tantrums and sass, all the while wondering if I will ever figure this whole parenting thing out.
My piece was not selected.
And it hurt. A lot more than I thought it would.
This was my voice, my words, my child, my experience, my anxiety, my humor, my uncertainty, myself put into the world, and ultimately not chosen.
Enter self-doubt and the nagging ego. Did I edit the piece too much? Did I talk too fast? Was I not funny enough? Or was my essay just silly? Too cliché? Too prosaic? Not rehearsed enough? Is my writing not as good as I thought it was? Even Ms. Left Brain Buddha has trouble silencing the inner critic.
Trust me when I tell you I am NOT a crier, but I even cried.
I wondered if I should even post this piece today, because it probably reads like a self-indulgent pity party, or a desperate plea for reassurance {it’s not!}. I mean, this is certainly a first-world problem. It’s not newsworthy. Can you imagine the headline?
Generally Happy Suburban Mother Not Cast In Local Production, Now Dealing With Emotions All Humans ExperienceI know writing involves rejection. I know life involves rejection. I know someday I’ll realize how all this has made me a better person and helped me grow … or something like that.
I already know I am glad I auditioned.
My audition reminded me what it’s like to stand in front of others and read my words aloud.
It reminded me what my students go through when giving presentations to their peers in class. Or when I grade their essays and provide feedback on their words.
I’m reminded how my children feel when they’re left out of a group or they don’t get invited to a party.
Rejection always hurts. But I’m pretty sure it helps us become more compassionate people.
Maybe that headline isn’t so crazy after all. Through reading the words of another person, whether they’re struggling with rejection or navigating the trials of parenting, we see our common humanity, our common journey. In fact I’m pretty sure that is what this whole writing-and-blogging thing is all about, discovering the universal in our personal stories.
And since this particular story won’t be featured in the show this year, I am sharing it with you here. It is a substantially revised version of a post I shared with you last November. I like the piece and I am proud of it.
And, finally, please know, as the voice behind this blog and as a human being, I am so grateful that you read and share my stories, that you share your words with me, and that you are part of this community. If I didn’t want my words to reach and inspire others, I’d write them in my journal. I will continue to put my voice into the world, and I am truly thankful to you for listening.
Someday, I want to write a profound meditation on pilgrimage, on our spiritual journeys and our changing relationships with mystery as we go through the various stages of our lives.
But I haven’t had a lot of time for profound thought lately. What I really want to ponder today is why so many mornings I drop my children off at school, then return to my car, slide down in my seat as I turn the key in the ignition, glance over at the clock to realize that it’s not even 7am yet, and emit a long, sighing, “FFF-uuuu-ddgge.” Only … I don’t say fudge.
Because the few brief hours I have been awake have NOT been smooth sailing. Instead, some mornings I’ve surfed the stormy waters of sibling arguments, homework meltdowns, and lost backpacks, and drifted right into sassy attitude land.
One morning it all began with my request for my daughter to put her shoes and socks on. But that day, that was equivalent to RUINING MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE. And once she gets upset about something, she’s the Energizer Bunny: she keeps going and going. She progressed to yelling, throwing her socks, and responding to my {mostly} calm reminders of the consequences for such behavior with “Fine. Okay. I LIKE consequences,” all done with a shake of the head and an intonation that suggest she is actually a thirteen-year-old trapped inside a seven-year-old’s body.
This particular outburst ended with, “When we get home from school, I am kicking myself OUT of this family, and going to a HOTEL!”
I had to turn around so she didn’t see my smile. This just sounded so damn funny. I guess she’s been thinking about pilgrimage, too.
She had a plan. She would take her piggy bank {which probably contains about $1.63}. She would ride her bike. Or run. Or catch a bus picking up other kids. She would spend the night eating candy in her hotel room.
But she would be leaving, because WE ALL MAKE HER MAD. We’re NOISY and BOSSY and SHE JUST CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE.
It’s times like this when I feel like I am on a pilgrimage. I’ve left my homeland to travel to a new world: motherhood.
Parenting has in fact involved many voyages as I try to plot my course through new stages with my children. Sometimes I just feel lost. Do I visit Attachment Parenting? Free Range Parenting? Helicopter Parenting? Unparenting? There are so many options on the itinerary, so many travel guides in the bookstore, how do we know where to go? Sometimes I feel like all the other parents speak the language, and I am still working on mastering basic vocabulary. I have so many questions!
How do we know what is normal? Is “YOU are the meanest mommy EVER, in the HISTORY of mommies!” a customary greeting in this land? If so, I totally hope they have that on a mug in the gift shop.
How do I deal with the culture shock? The natives here dip their apples in ketchup. They apparently cannot consume, in the same bowl, identical brands of cereal originating from two different boxes. And they can hold their breath for freakishly long amounts of time.
I’m not quite sure I understand the currency exchange rates – really, only one minute of time-out for each year of age?
And, oh, the exhaustion! The sleep-deprivation, the jet-lag, the endless nights of coast-to-coast red-eyes! Could I possibly upgrade from coach to first class?
What am I supposed to do when we hit detours? Am I supposed to empathize with my daughter’s feelings of frustration over wearing socks in December? Am I supposed to get all authoritarian and tell her she can NEVER talk to me like that? Or do I just ignore her outbursts? Most importantly, how do I prevent a return voyage aboard the S.S. Irrational Tantrum?
Motherhood is full immersion into this new world, stepping through the looking-glass into Alice’s wonderland where the laws of logic have turned topsy-turvy. I think we can agree that children have a logic entirely their own. My own attempts to reason with my children could be reduced to perplexing Zen koans. Try this one to attain enlightenment:
“If a mother delivers a reasoned and logical plea for appropriate behavior to a three-year-old, does she make a sound?”
A pilgrimage is usually a long-distance journey, and I know parenting is too. We have more milestones to reach, and more tantrums and attitudes to endure. I will do what parents and pilgrims have likely done for centuries: I’ll ask my fellow travellers for advice, and I will seek to reconcile with the inhabitants of this strange land. And if all else fails, I’ll consult my GPS.
But even with all the exhaustion and frustration, travel is also inspiring, life-changing, even sacred. And the motherhood itinerary is not solely comprised of rides on sinking ships that encourage under-the-breath f-bombs. There are moments of love and light, our flights of fancy. The wandering of a pilgrim, or the searching of a mother, is not merely “travel” – it is an act of devotion. Perhaps this IS my meditation on a spiritual journey after all.
For by the end of this particularly challenging day, my daughter had forgotten her plans for her hotel-bound sojourn, even though the morning had felt like civil war. Reunited after our day apart, we had our reconciliation (though certainly not our first, or, I’m quite certain, our last). But the ship had momentarily been righted.
In the course of one day, we can go from threats to dissolve the union to conciliatory I love yous. Motherhood is our pilgrimage through thousands of these journeys, beginning anew each and every day. As we continue to map out the terrain, this strange new land eventually starts to feel like home. But we’ll never know all the answers or solve all the mysteries, and that’s probably the whole point of a pilgrimage: to live the questions along the way. That’s probably the only sacred destination we will reach.
Just be careful if you ask your children to put on their socks and shoes before you leave.
*****
Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Top photo credit: marc falardeau via photopin cc
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