LIFE MAMA

I love when misunderstandings are a giant gift.

One sunny afternoon, at a mountain-top picnic, lying on her back with a daughter on either side, writer Rachel Stafford recalls one of her daughter’s saying, “This is the life, mama.” What she heard was: “This is the LIFE MAMA!”

Every now and then, there are phrases so powerful, they leap off the page. And then, for me, they bounce around in my consciousness like a bunny that’s just learned to hop. THIS one is still bouncing.

LIFE, as in the Source, the Pulsating Energy of Being, the Embodiment of Presence, the Yeah Baby MOJO. And MAMA, as in Powerful Goddess of Adventure, Mother of Earth Wisdom, Matriarch of LOVE.

I wondered am I a LIFE MAMA?

And kind of excited, I thought yes, yes I think I am.

Not all the time to be sure. I am frequently the… Do the dishes, Clean your room, We need to leave NOW, You need to listen to me the FIRST time… mom.

But I can honestly say I am also the… Dance party, Spontaneous ice cream outing, Full volume music jam session, Drawing party, Anything-you-want-to-do-day-off school… mom.

But, being a LIFE MAMA for me, is not about parenting.

It’s about far more than what I do with our boys. It’s about being a vital vibrant energy in the bigger picture. I cannot be this for anyone if I don’t do it it myself.

It’s like flight attendants say before takeoff: “Make sure to put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you”.

Joy is emotional oxygen.

Sometimes I fake it. You know, put on that exaggerated nodding smile that’s kind of thin and can turn quickly into something quite different. I put it on as like a pompom hat or a red striped scarf. Like some kind of happiness fashion accessory.

Sometimes, that’s all we can manage. Life throws a series of curveballs from the basement flooding to a parent getting sick. Sometimes our emotional space gets consumed, against our best intentions, with worry and grief.

Humor is a great sign to me that I’m emotionally oxygenated.

If I can find humor in the everyday madness, I know I’m doing okay.

Last week, with an aching body and stressed mind, I went to the gym. Nothing was all that funny until… the instructor, Liz, who is known for having hard-core classes said at the beginning of class to get towels.

We would be doing Turkish Gettups between sets.

Perhaps you know what this is. I did not.

Obviously I got that it was a new to me form of physical strength building torture. But, all I could picture was all of us playing with different head-dressing options using the gym towels. It seriously amused me.

So much so that I sad something very pithy, which no one really acknowledged. After the first completely unbearable first round of them, I got why. No head dresses. Just an impossibly strenuous full-body vertical-to-horizontal exercise.

Not until halfway through class and mid-way through the second of them did I get it wasn’t about a wardrobe gettup, as in check out the girl’s gettup, but rather a Turkish get-up, as in off the floor which a big fat weight in your hand.

I laughed out loud.

I love misunderstandings wherein I prove to be an idiot.

It’s incredibly liberating. Especially when it’s something so ridiculously obvious. It lowers the personal achievement bar back down to realistic.

AND, it reminds me not to take to everything SO seriously.

Because there’s a Turkish gettup inside every get-up if we’re willing to look. Every day offers some version of fabulous absurdity. And some sign of renewed hope, like the patch of purple crocuses that have sprung up in our front yard.

A LIFE MAMA tries to carpe every diem.

A literal translation of carpe diem would be to carpo, meaning pick or pluck and diem, meaning day. As in, pluck the day, because it is ripe for enjoyment.

Such a great visual of this expression.

Pluck the day.

Like a child ripping wildflowers from a field of hundreds. Pluck the day, your day, out of the ether from which it arrives and run wild through the field of time.