A moment or two, but maybe now the moment is gone. What do I want words to do? To capture a moment, or two, like this one, when the sun is now shining away the snow and my girls are sleeping upstairs. I think! Emptiness seems to be the way of life now. To empty the anger and longing over and over again. To empty and empty until hollowness resounds with surrender and surrender becomes real and the monotony isn’t really the thing, it’s the hollowness resounding with the everydayness of things. The idea of a country, of a religion or a dogma, all of these slip away when you try to stand on them. Then what remains? What foothold is there for an idea of God? Who can give me the answers to my questions about why we die? What happens when we die? Why we live? What is this happening that I call life and why am I so small and what matters? Questions so many people have asked so many times before. Questions that are the toe holds of intricate philosophies I no longer have the energy or time to study or wrap my mind around. Not when my body wraps around my smallest while I breastfeed her, or my arms wrap around my oldest as she screams her way through another tantrum. Empty again, it is so much easier than hanging on. It is so much easier than holding in. Dissolve. Empty. Cut loose. Surrender.
A Mother’s Philosophy
Published by Motherlife
I'm Sarah--mother of two daughters, 10 and 8, born in Oregon, raised in Eastern Washington, played basketball and learned a little Japanese language at the University of San Francisco, volunteered as a youth minister in Adderbury, England, farmed on Lopez Island (where I met my husband from Nebraska), farmed some more in central Ohio for Dominican Sisters, graduated from OSU's college of food, ag and environmental sciences and moved to Michigan. I bake sourdough bread and pizza, like to run into neighbors outside on a regular basis, only knit if the weather is cold, and love the feel of my heart beat and the burn of my lungs after paddle boarding in a lake or working outside, especially after turning the compost pile. My husband is a researcher and instructor at a state university, and we often dream about sailing with friends. Maybe I'll start making Christmas presents early this year, but probably not. View all posts by Motherlife
Motherlife 
Sarah – I got an email telling me you liked a sermon post, which linked to this blog, which led me here. I’m so glad it did. Thank you for this piece. I’ll be sure to pass it along to Abbie. It reminds me of a line from Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” The hollowness, emptiness, of it being the place where the music happens. Abbie and I picked out that phrase when we had our stillborn daughter Belle, but thanks for pointing out how it also happens among those lively-born. Carry on, friend.
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