If I were a superhero, my name would be Scarlet and my super power would be procrastination.
Scarlet as in "I'll think about that tomorrow...Tomorrow is another day." Because I am not your everyday, run of the mill procrastinator. No, when I delay action, when I put off to tomorrow what can be done today, I do not deal in half measures. I once gave out Christmas gifts on Valentine's Day. My dilly-dallying is of epic proportions.
All of this is to distract and entertain you so you don't mind that I am not making my Mother's Day post until Wednesday!
In a post that included an excerpt from the original Proclamation of Mother's Day by Julia Ward Howe, Lawyer Mama invited us to write about our "Dreams of a Mother" for MOMocrats. When I heard Melissa Block's report on the earthquake in China, I knew what I wanted to write about, but have only just put it in words:
My "Dream of a Mother"
I have heard it said that to become a parent is to live the rest of your life with your heart outside your body. I looked up the exact quotation, and it is attributed to Elizabeth Stone: "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." How many of us knew that was the reality of the decision we were making? I didn't. I had no idea how much I would love my little guy, or what I would be willing to do for his happiness or protection. Or how much MORE I would feel the push to change the world, because I can't bear to think of him becoming an adult in a place that I have not improved just a little. I want to STOP the backsliding in civil rights here in the US. I want him to be an adult in a world where, if we have not conquered hunger, we at least are treating is as an important challenge to overcome. I've always been an idealist, with lofty dreams for mankind, but now it actually HURTS to think I might leave him with a world where apathy or laziness or hatred prevent our progress toward utopia.
Driving in the car, listening to Melissa Block describe in a broken voice how the little bodies of children at the elementary school were laid out in the rain, uncovered, so parents could come and identify their own dead children, I put myself in that situation. I pictured the small neat building, imagined where they would set up the temporary morgue. I saw the crowd; the other parents we run into at assemblies and PTA meetings. The tears of some who held their live children close while feeling guilty for their happy relief. Who would be wailing? Who would be stoic and silent? What would I do? I heard this poem by W.H. Auden in my head:
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
For me, that is the nightmare-dream of a mother - to know that no matter how hard you've worked to keep your own identity, your individual interests and skills, your career, ultimately, your heart is walking around outside of your body, for the world to mess with.
To end on an up note (albeit one that still brings tears to my eyes), another song comes to mind when I think about motherhood. This one is for my nephew, my oldest godson. It was the first time I held him, felt the blood connection with the next generation, that I threw out my birth control pills and said, "OK, Knightly, let's have a baby!" (The first part, literally. The second part, metaphorically. He was actually 15 states away on that day.)
I made a song mix for my godson, because as a baby he really liked music. "Forever Young," sung by Rod Stewart, was on the tape. This Dream, of this Mother, is:
When you finally fly away I'll be hoping that I served you well
