Love makes a garden grow

This post is dedicated to my Uncle Bob. At our annual Ekblad gathering this summer, we sat in my parents’ living room chatting. “I know you’re happy, he acknowledged,” referring to Dae-Han and Sofia, “but I miss your writing. I always appreciate your insights.”

Uncle Bob’s comment both tickled me and acted as the impetus to carve out time to do some writing. So thank you, Uncle Bob, for your appreciation and your words of admiration. I think I was in need of both.

On a walk with my mom and Josi this summer, Josi noted the way her creativity felt lost in the corporate world and what a university advisor suggested she do to reignite it.

Creativity. The word pulsed in my brain the rest of our walk, a heartbeat in my mind’s eye. The three of us had divided ourselves between pushing a stroller, pulling a wagon, and carrying the toddler who refused both modes of transportation.

During this summer of mothering a 17-month old at 43 years old, I am wondering about my own creative outlets. Part of me wants to be engaging in more creativity for myself, the other part of me says to accept that scrolling Instagram and getting in a 30-minute workout during nap time is the most I can reasonably muster.

Creativity right now … it’s devising a dish that has enough fiber. but not too much fiber. that is absent of refined sugar. and that doesn’t have dairy because maybe Sofia has a little sensitivity and now also does not have gluten because that could be a digestive trigger too it seems this week??

Does this count as creativity? Because these moments in motherhood are sucking the creative juices from my body with a fat straw and a strong draw. I don’t even like the structure of these sentences that I am trying to creatively craft, but I think, this might be as good as it gets right now.

They say postpartum can last two years — that it takes your brain that many rotations around the sun to regain it’s footing from the dizzying days of tracking ounces of milk and number of wet diapers and trying to game the newborn, infant, toddler sleep cycles.

Last night Sofia was still up after 11 pm. Well, she’d been down from 8:30 - 9:00 pm, but she’d woken up screaming with terrible tummy pains. Once we’d done everything we could to help her sort herself, she laid in bed between Dae-Han and I repeating “Bia Bia Bia Bia Bia” ad infinitum. She added different cadences and I have to conclude that she’s more creative than I am right now.

Fitness is supposed to be good for not just our bodies, not just our mental health, but also our brains. So I am going to take a brain break from writing right now and turn on Caroline Girvan’s YouTube channel and at least feel good about the grit my legs and arms have left.

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I’m back. And while I was sweating my heart out, I was thinking of women I see around me, mumming and writing cookbooks like Alison Roman

or friends I have that had tiny babies and got their MD

or finished PhD’s.

Friends that have multiple children, thriving businesses, like real estate and talk therapy, and continue to do projects like remodel cabins.

I haven’t read a page of one book yet this summer. I attempted to renew my education license (which does not expire until next year anyway) and got through one one-hour video over the course of two days by putting it on double speed. Then gave up because Sofia kept waking up from her naps just as I would push play on the next video.

This feels hard some days, the lack of space for myself. I mean, at some point almost every day it feels hard.

And yet what has felt alive in me since Sofia was born is that more than losing myself in motherhood, I have found myself.

I find this truth marvelous. I think motherhood swallows many of us whole, at least for a period. And it does suck the marrow from my bones some days. But then somehow, it fills in again.

I think women are magic. and mystical.

“I don’t know how you …” we often say to each other. I don’t know how either, but we do.

We nest

and nurture

and provide

and guide

and excavate to our depths to find patience when we are overstimulated and exhausted

and we love so hard.

And because of Sofia I have discovered all of this exists within me.

She’s four days shy of 18-months now.

How. How how how how how did it happen so quickly.

On day 2 of her life she swiped away a midwife’s hand who was trying to help me breastfeed. Yes, she’s had opinions from the very start, and every day since then she’s simply become more of herself.

The other day she stood up in her chair at the dinner table. Dae-Han and I both echoed each other: “On your butt, Sofia.”

So she sat on her butt … by turning herself around and plopping her cute little tush on the table.

Today she decided that shorts should not cover that little petutie but instead should go on her head. Absolutely that’s the only place for the shorts to go, she insisted, as she continued to stretch a pair around her forehead, shoving my hand away if I tried to show her otherwise.

I simultaneously marvel and sigh at her will each day.

But I would not want her to be any other way in this world. Of course I want her to know that “we don’t always get our way” and no, you cannot hit when you are angry, and yes, sharing our toys is important because it is kind and in this world you can be most anything so always be kind.

But I do not want to tame her. Stay wild, Sofia. Do not let anyone try to dampen your spirit. Keep it strong and free.

Perhaps one of the best ways to help maintain her curious, wilded spirit is in nature, or a bit further outside of a city.

We relish spending time with our families in summer, so we do not often get time as a family of three. This summer, though, we had a two-night retreat at The Fallows. This artist studio turned family cabin is run by my friend Bri and a friend of hers. Located on a lake in Crosby, Minnesota, it offered Sofia a place to sway with us in the shallow beach and plunk rocks in the water for endless minutes.

Losing myself in moments with her is a meditation in mindfulness.

One day in Seoul, before summer began, I sat with Sofia and my friend Lisa at the grassy space outside our door coined Bubble Park for the structure in the center. Sofia put in and took out skinny sticks in an empty water bottle for nearly two hours.

Simplicity. Strip away the need for constant productivity, the desire to always “consume” something — a podcast, an audiobook, something new from Amazon — and see how simple moments can fill us up.

I think this is how I have found myself more than lost myself in motherhood. Sofia is my favorite teacher.

She’s my favorite teacher. And right now I am back in our Seoul apartment looking at one of her books on the living room floor entitled, Love Makes a Garden Grow. This is what Sofia has done, grow the love in our family garden.

She’s shown Dae-Han and I how big our love can be. She watered the flowers of laughter and joy in Minnesota and California this summer.

She makes life bloom.

Thank you again, Uncle Bob, for the push to write again. Taking time to tap out some words was kind of like weeding the garden. I feel … kind of spruced up and fresher now.