Another Friday

Time leaks and folds in on itself and repeats, repeats, repeats. And yet, every day, every moment is new. How can this be? Life and time are both endlessly repetitive and somehow always new? Motherhood has amplified this for me. Another diaper, another diaper, and if I don’t pay attention it’s the same diaper each time. But if I do pay attention? If I slow down. Each moment forever new. It’s a beautiful both/and - motherhood. It’s mundane and full on magic. It repeats over and over again and somehow never. It’s old and yet always, always new.

Today is another Friday. If I am not careful it can feel exactly like yesterday and the day before that and the Friday before today. All melding into one endlessly repeating day. If I am not careful. But if I slow down, pay attention, breath…each moment is so breathtakingly new. Each smile this child gives, each laugh, each experience, even each diaper. It is so easy to forget this in the busyness and rushing and exhaustion of parenting. It’s a level of sleep deprivation I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies and yet it’s wholly and totally worth it for this little wild soul. So it’s hard to fight the urge to dismiss each moment as a repetition, when both brain, body and soul are slogging on without sleep. But I think for me, right now, this is the practice. This is the work. Or rather, if I do it right, the play.

So a gentle wish for all of us today, especially mothers everywhere. May we be well rested. May we all find the magic in the mundane. May we remember as many times as we need to, that today, this moment, is the first like it. And may we lean into the relationships and people who help us remember this. I leave you with a photo of the emerging crocuses and pussy willow. Emerging new. But still the same. And never the same. Both/and. On and on.

Purple crocuses in the rain

Spring pussy willows in the rain