The journey back to my Self is soil lined carefully, optimistically within the walls of a raw wound. The touch of Earth trapped underneath fingernails waiting to be washed again, and again, and again. Dirt. Caught in between my gums and my teeth, a softness, and sweetness, and inevitable bitterness of consuming the inedible. The journey back to Self is Dirt. A scent evoking the power of life, both in its ability to create and sustain. A familiar taste, unusual sensation, intimate proximity to the essence of the mother’s experience.  

The journey to Self is a symptom of survival and a grappling with what has not. An incision in the uterus, one on the abdomen. Hair loss, clogged ducts, a release of flesh and blood. Gravel and mud outline my scars, as I am embedded outside of a life that was and within a life anew. Balancing the darkness, pure glee rises among the cackling sounds of a baby learning to laugh for the very first time. Nestled between endless hums and sighs while her eyes drift off before my own, I create pockets of forced productivity among the disentanglement of an identity far away. My journey’s light is fueled by her eyes and simultaneously tested by a relationship unraveled. An imaginary ring returned for a veil lifted. A love made up of loose threads no longer braided slipping from my palm to my fingertips to miles away. Waves of grief, sparked by discarded scripts of what was supposed to be, how it was supposed to turn out. 

I can choose which pebble or stone to toss into the water, but I can not control the ripples or the waves. The yearning to be understood or desired refuses to yield. A tendency to discard myself in the hopes of the ends justifying the means refuses to prosper. Do ends ever really justify the means? How present can I truly be in this new world where responsibility to protect my daughter, my spirit as her mother, overreach my innate need to simply sit under the sun. Who can I be, what can I be, how can I be, what am I doing wrong? Am I the stone and those around me are caught in my ripples, or am I the ripple of their toss? 

Lord, provide me the guidance and the wisdom, the discernment to know when to push, pull, advocate- and when to turn to dust, water, pollen carried in the wind. To breathe, and accept, and trust that all this is in your hands. That all of our hands are a part of your plan, and it will all be how it is supposed to be. God, lift this anxiety from my chest, this pressure, desire to control and allow me to be receptive to trust. I am grateful to be here, typing on these keys. It’s been so long. I want to write for me. To heal, to play with language as I’ve done. To no longer see writing as an estranged friend. To feel the dirt in between my toes and the smell of mud in the evening rain.