A Very Little Cataclysm

Two nights ago, the rain poured down, and my normally-optimistic disposition gave way to all the worries that impending parenthood brings.

Breastfeeding will occupy 25% of my time.

Parenting a toddler requires boundless reserves of wisdom and compassion. You cannot punish a child for doing developmentally appropriate things. And yet you are exhausted, and perhaps impatient, with the repeated struggles.

In the light of day: this is the practice I opted for. This is the ripening of all kinds of karma.

And more to the point: this is a new little person. Who will have their own quirks and foibles and tendencies. Who will quickly outgrow whatever stage they are in, be it voracious breastfeeding or voracious house-trashing.

Not even in adolescence does the body change this quickly. Looking at how the loss of control affects me, at how desperate it makes me, I realize:

We cannot control what the body will do. It naturally swells with baby; it naturally accumulates an impressive layer of fat. One day it will naturally begin to fail; one day it will slowly turn toward death. There is very little you can do about these processes once you are in them.

The only hope for control, the only place where there is perhaps a choice, is in the realm of the mind. We might still panic, or judge, or react in some habitual way, but there is at least the option of recognizing that and attempting to accept the reality of things as they are. There is the possibility of turning the mind towards that which illuminates and calms. There is the possibility of finding some wisdom in the midst of the cataclysm.

Or not, depending on what you think life is all about. For me, I choose for it to have some meaning. No sense in going through all this, and not learning a damn thing.