Lessons From My Mother

I was separated from my mother at about five years old. It was the most devastating experience in my life and to this day I am still processing it emotionally and working through the resulting traumatized parts of my personality. I am blessed that she still had an occasional presence in my childhood and that we were able to fully reconnect later in life, knowing without a doubt that her love for me is stronger than anything I could ask for. Still, the damage was already done. I had already been removed from the most important person in my life for reasons I was too young to comprehend. The only thing I could do to survive it was internalize the responsibility of staying in the custody of my new caregivers so I wouldn't be displaced again. This meant that I would learn to be afraid of embracing my own autonomy and speaking my truth. I wouldn't understand the power and necessity of boundaries and authenticity for years while seeking protection and love from family, friends, romantic partners; pretty much everyone but myself. This only fostered deep-seated resentment and exhaustion. I would witness the other women and girls in my life retell this same story with their constant masking, self-sacrificing and co-dependancy as they settled on a fraction of the love and life they sought. I have been carrying generations of hefty feelings for not only myself, but every feminine person who impacted my life. While it's socially expected that women and femmes be "emotional" there are still limitations on appropriate ways to express ourselves. Our anger is too loud. Sadness is too heavy. Pain is unattractive. Our ugly, weighty emotions are unladylike to other people and shame is often encouraged to keep us in check. Nature does not share these same principles. Nature is both gentle and ruthless. She is dark caverns and bright snow, rotted wood and blossomed flora. She is raging flames and calm waves, shifty sand and stable mountains. She is the only entity that showed me the shamelessness in being a mess as well as how to come back from it. She has taught me how to be destroyed with grace, and to resurrect myself from the fallout; how to let go and regrow. Most importantly, she has taught me how to advocate for myself when others feel entitled to what I am gifted to share. Nature embodies the duality of life in a way many of us have been conditioned to repress or feel negatively towards, and does so without remorse. She inspires me to be the mother for myself that I needed most in those critical self-developmental moments. I have written a poem to showcase some of the most important lessons I have learned from observing nature from the perspective of a mother talking to a child. This is "Lessons From My Mother":

You will collapse and collide,

Tremble at your fault lines.

You'll form mountains and hills

Where the pressure you've built

From seasons of shame and guilt

Will erupt and in it's wake

Leave everything you've worked

So hard to make

A monument of rubble, bones, ash

To commemorate a fractured past

And those losses won't be your last,

But you can come back from that.

Be reminded by raindrop kisses,

Settle your roots wide and low

For despite the hit and misses,

You have the grace to let go,

Born with everything it takes to regrow.

Careless curiosities can't touch your mysteries,

Don't be unsettled by naive threats;

You have massive and masterless oceans

To hide your secrets within their depths.

When you feel yourself slipping under

Or on the brink of a natural disaster,

Don't bite back your thunder;

The days are flying by faster

So take the time to master

Your stormy weather.

When the weight of it all starts to overwhelm,

Don't be ashamed of raising a little hell

Even when it doesn't necessarily go well,

As you may fall apart in the suspense;

Perilous earthquakes, unforgiving tidal waves,

Self-destruction out of self-defense.

Your continents of dense, rich forests

Can still be swallowed whole

By fiery jaws and smoke

Ignited with words you never spoke

Still lodged in the valleys of your throat.

Don't fret if you start to choke

Or let your stumbling tongue

Keep you from letting them know:

Those afraid to validate your wild rage

And expect you to flourish in a potted cage

Will wade through your waters uninvited

To leave their mark on your caves,

Begging you to let them feel safe

While thinking of you as something to claim

Down to every grain of sand and wooden sliver

Til you drown them in your wide-mouthed rivers

And remind them that it is your choice to be a giver.

Sweet, sentient soul whom the universe loves so,

When you're lost and ready to lose control,

Tempted to lace your heart with glaciers

Or poison the hard-earned fruits of your labor,

Making yourself uninhabitable by nature,

Please open your eyes

And admire your vibrant skies;

Remember you are your own creator,

That this is your body,

And your life, to treat better.

It doesn't always have to be a fight,

Be reminded by the warmth of sunlight,

You have been blessed with the divine birthright

To be your own source of love, healing and light.

The hardest lesson to carry out is letting go

So when in doubt, look inside where you will know,

You have everything it takes to regrow.