my beautiful Bodhi boy

Bodhi will proudly tell you that he is five years old, with a voice loud enough to convey his advanced years to anyone who might be standing nearby. He is a child with an intense approach to life. When his eyes open just before the sunrise and sometimes even before his long lashes have parted their nightly rest, he begins talking- of Scooby Doo, or what he wants for breakfast, what video games he NEEDS to play or if he has to go to school today, which inevitably leads to a download of all the reasons going to school is not fun, from cutting up states, to writing his name, from friends that won’t play with him to friends that won’t leave him alone. I take him in my arms and hold him close for a moment, he doesn’t relax into my arms but struggles to be free again, demanding my help in turning on the TV he knows I won’t turn on or setting up a game on the computer that he knows he can’t play. When his older brother awakens, not of his own choosing, but from the persistent efforts of his younger sibling, he groans, saying “Bodhi will you leave me alone?”. The answer of course is, “NO”. When Bodhi’s will is thwarted he may not be able to find the words to vent his frustration before his body responds, with a hit or a scratch. This action, somewhat outside his volition, often results in a flow of tears and an outpouring of grief, his sensitive heart often hidden beneath his busy persona and intense approach to life.

Comments

wind said…

I love the way you let them shine. You are a gift of a mother.

March 3, 2012 at 10:48 PM

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...

angelbirdflies

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