Chicken bath

Chicken Bath

Dear Ian,

This morning I was reading about the Zen of chickens taking a dust bath; how they growl with pleasure quite uncharacteristic of them in daily life. They find some soft, dry dirt and root around until there is a nice hole, where they commence to rolling like fools. For a while, they dig down and rub their entire selves in the dust...head, beak, neck and body....they flop and wiggle to get complete coverage and seem to enjoy themselves mightily. My day starts out nice as I read by the fire I lit this morning. I built it last night knowing how good it would feel to just get up and set it to blaze.

Mariana, Hudson and Kam brought up a load of firewood Saturday for me, and I bask in that memory for  a moment; little feet and boy-arms helping me, and my surrogate daughter sharing a few hours of mayhem and rowdiness all over the house. Acting crazy, then helping me, then acting like raging Indians again....and Mariana on watch to keep them from breaking anything. 

Grace is always sufficient, some say. I think this sentiment is better expressed by my sage son Chris, who noted recently, "She is just figuring it out, like all of us."  He was talking about his sweet sister, Kenzie, but it could be said of Mariana, or Hud, or Kam, or me. I think it does apply to us all. 

I am most definitely still just figuring it out, like everyone else...Sorting through the daily experiences and feelings of being a human being, now in older skin, watching the years tick by and learning to thrive despite the marks left on me. I have buried my parents, several friends and compatriots,  Bailey and Ollie, my marriage......

And I buried you.

I have to pause for a second when I write those two words. 

Breath....... keep writing, Faith.

In spite of these misfortunes, Ian,  despite the ravages of losing you to me here on Earth...I am happy to report to you that I have started to recover. It is as awkward as a chicken rolling in dirt....and by no means finished, but I have even resurrected a desire to have fun. 

I want life again.

I have stirred up some dust and in the process have found gratitude and grace again.

Gratitude, for example, that you stuck so close to me during the early years after transitioning. Nothing ever prepared me-not my studies, not my faith, not my weird curiosity and openness to strange ideas-nothing prepared me for how steadfast and purely miraculous it was to be that you showed yourself, over and over. You found people to use as portals; you found ways to transcend physical law and take care of me. 

No other person in my life has ever loved me in this way. Source had a hand in it, but your fierce love and loyalty was written all over those years, Biggun. I feel oddly smug and proud that I was able to rise up, straighten my back enough to receive the signals..... even through my curtain of pain.

And I am learning to really enjoy my adult Chris and Kenzie. It is a revelation! Yesterday I watched Kenzie as we ate lunch in Menard. 

She had no makeup on and was so beautiful. 

Clearly tired from another all-nighter with Trapper, she never complains. In fact she is the least whiny young Mom I have ever met, and she still seems to really enjoy herself and the boys. I think it is marvelous how she is so determined and yet loving. From her I am learning new ways to be strong.

She connects, allows herself to be emersed, and basks in those boys, even when she is exhausted.

I wish I could gather her up in my arms and make life easier; but that is not my business. My business, I am finally discovering, is to accept her fiercely, love and lift her in prayer privately, and step in when I can, as her sometimes back stage helper. That is all she needs. I see the radiant girl in her more than ever, doing what she has always excelled at......loving her tribe. 

And Chris, oh my Chris. So deep-like a sweet well that no one has reached to the bottom of, and never will. Like a secret garden that I just see in glimpses over a tall fence. Occasionally i get to visit him there, but he does not like Momma-probing; in fact it sends him running away quicker than anything, even when it is just innocent love on my part. When there is a little moment when he lets me in, all the pain of this life dissolves and I see the workings of his good heart and miraculous mind. There is only goodness in him, and I bask in how he is "figuring it all out" himself and I see through his artistic mind and whimsical humor, how he keeps the boy inside him thriving. 

They are different, they are wildly individualistic, adventurous, and unique. Watching them seize life and bask in it is the best gift I have ever been given. I am fed by it.

I am also fed and affirmed in little moments, like when Hudson came back for a fourth goodbye hug and Coy scooted closer to me in his chair,  and with Trapper's slobbery kisses. I feel the truth of it pierce my pain like a happy arrow.

Naturally all along this new way  I feel you, my blue-eyed love ambassador. I felt you this weekend birding and talking to Hudson, and I felt you making a homemade bow and arrow set with him. You were there.

And I want you to know especially, that I feel the gift of perseverance you have taught me these last six years;  aware constantly of the mystery of how you share your energy with me, (from where ever the hell your current incarnation has taken you), and you keep showing up. (I hope someday I get to know how you can do that!)

Until then Ian, 

Carpe Diem. 

Another morning comes 

And I am that chicken taking my own dust bath.

 Someone watching might think it all a weird pursuit from which I take irrational joy. A messy, rowdy, imperfect rolling in the particles of living and learning on this Earth. 

It is not. 

I say to the other chickens, 

                                                                         It is a baptism.

I love you Ian. 

                                                                                                              Mom