*ponders*

*contemplates the nitty gritty, down-to-earth realities of the events of the resurrection*

... *starts typing*

Jena's in a midrash mood!  Stay tuned!

Mother Fast is still going, I promise

I often describe an event earlier in my life as having "taken the wind out of my sails".  It was a heart-breaking incident that caused me to lose all forward momentum in my life and toward a goal.  I redirected my course and found what I needed, more than I had imagined, and for that I'm grateful virtually every day.  Still, I lost propulsion, lost power.

Looking at the past year of my life and the deceleration I've experienced again in areas I'm passionate about, I wonder if things haven't so much "taken the wind out of my sails" as "blown holes" in them.  The storms of life have ripped holes in my sails and made it difficult to make headway and steer where I want to go.   The Mother Fast has been one of the things that has suffered, I'm afraid.  Mothers have been a difficult subject for me for obvious reasons.

I have this stubborn pride thing where I don't like my motives to be... apparent... or guessable.  I don't like to be predictable.  I might fail at it, but I don't like it.  And I really hate it when I think someone might look down on me for it.  So, when I entered a time of Mothering crisis and grief in my personal life, I didn't want anyone to stumble on this venture and go "Stupid girl, she just misses her Mom and she's trying to replace her with Heavenly Mother.  Her personal struggle isn't a good enough reason to try and change the way the Church works!"

Mothers are a big thing for me, you see.  My first one gave me up for reasons unknown to me, except that a divorce was involved.  I was cared for by a foster mother for a short time before I came to my real mother.  And I grew up knowing of a Heavenly Mother, but knowing very little about her... kind of like my birth mother.  I ached for years to become a mother of many myself, and I surrounded myself with fertility and pregnancy and birth in order to be around and serve mothers.  I have mothered countless friends.  Even now, when I look at children and sometimes wonder if I really want to take that challenge on, I mainly question whether I'd really make a good mother, or if I'm too exhausted from caring for adults to have much left to dedicate to children.  Mothering matters to me, tremendously.  I don't want some monstrous, heartless, "well-meaning", self-righteous internet troll to come stamping up to the walls of my Mother shrine and graffitiing it with judgment and a conservative attitude toward upholding the traditions of patriarchy.

So I've hidden in my silence and floundered in the hurricane of my grief and confusion, the chaos that has enveloped my life for the past twelve months.  I've failed to fast so many times out of forgetfulness or neglect or just not feeling up to withholding whatever form of nourishment sustained me.  I've felt like a failure, like I wasn't doing my part in the struggle for equality and balance and hope for a better future.  I've had to be very compassionate with myself.

I'm not saying I'm ready to go roaring in, banners high, sails mended and billowing in the wind.  But I'm here, as battered by the storms as I am.  I still love my Mothers.  I need Mothers in my house, above and below, and I miss them in their absence.  Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be strong enough to fast, again.

Rumor has it women will be praying in General Conference.  That, too, gives me hope. :)

The firsts are almost over

Life has been and continues to be difficult of late.  January and February were very hard, financially.  (Note to self: Don't take an "extravagant" trip to Vegas right before your worst two months of the year.)  I made it through only by the grace of God, angels, and a bare handful of clients.  Now that March is looking up, financially, I am entering the hardest nine weeks of this first year.

By this time a year ago, we knew that Mom was going to go home.  The nine weeks that followed until after her memorial were fraught with mixed emotions, both difficult and precious.  This is the final round of Firsts.  We survived the first holiday season, the first birthdays, the first summer...  It has to get better from there, right?  We'll get used to feeling a little lost without her, used to regretting the conversations we never had, used to overcoming the impulse to cry, and used to wishing she was around.

Often time it feel like I'm chest deep in manure.  I can still breathe and speak and move my arms about; and there's flowers growing all around me, beautiful and brightly colored, with heady perfumes that make me happy and mask the stench of shit.  It makes it easier to endure, gives me reasons to be grateful, even if it doesn't change to the fundamental nature of the situation.  I find myself grieving more than just my mother's death these days.  I grieve many things.  There's a lot to hold space for, and sometimes it doesn't feel like there's enough space to hand space in.