By the time you get this, it is quite possible that I will have vibrated into a higher plane of existence.  I would imagine that my body would still be in this plane, but there’s a chance I will have achieved such a state of enlightenment that you might notice a golden glow around me, emanating peace, compassion, unlimited understanding, loving kindness and deep serenity.

My meditation app says I’ve completed 990 sessions since I began my subscription.  Ten more guided meditations to go, the counter will turn to 1000, and anything could happen.  

I’ve been something of a meditator for most of my adult life.  I’ve had different ways of doing it — through journaling, sitting quietly in the dark, experimenting with different guided meditation series.  But a few years ago, seeking more expertise than my seat-of-the-pants spiritual practice could offer, I subscribed to this app.  I’ve loved it.  I’ve practiced just about daily ever since.  In that time, I can observe the changes in me….a little less reactionary, a little more contended, a little more detached, a lot less worried.

I’m keeping that in mind on Friday afternoon.  I told Bob he could take the afternoon off.  The heat was unbearable, and he didn’t need to be slaving over washing dishes in the cafe.  Saoirse and I drove to the farm and cafe together.  Our hope was to finish up early and go for a swim at the pond.  She handled the farm chores and packing orders while I finished prepping for Saturday.   But what I’d expected to be a light afternoon turned into the opposite.  Tasks kept piling up as sweat dripped down my back.  Before we knew it, it was six o’clock, and I was still cleaning up the cafe kitchen.  I looked up at the clock and winced.  I was dead on my feet, my hopes for an afternoon swim were dashed, and when we got home, I’d be faced with cooking dinner before I could crawl into bed.

Then it occurred to me:  Bob and Ula were both home for the afternoon.   

“I hope they started dinner,” I say aloud to Saoirse as she unpacks the produce for Saturday morning.

“You think they’d do that?” She asks.

“Maybe I should remind them,” I say, pulling out my phone to text Bob.

Leaving in 5 minutes, I text.  Can you get supper going?

I see the dot-dot-dot of nervous ellipses for quite some time.  Finally I get a ping. 

Remind me-He responds.  Burgers?

I roll my eyes.  Each week I take out a selection of cuts and put them in a bowl in the refrigerator to thaw.  I can’t remember what’s in there off the top of my head, but I know there is a selection of things.   I think there may be pork chops.  I definitely know there are no burger options.  We ate the burgers two nights before.  How has he forgotten that?

Pork chops, I respond.

I look up at Saoirse.  “Oookkkkaaaayyyyy,” I sigh.  “They haven’t started dinner.”

She says nothing.  

“How could that have caught them by surprise?”  I ponder aloud as we head to the car.

“Are you angry?”  She asks.

I gaze out at the splashes of sunlight across the mountains as we drive home, taking in the daisies along the roadside, the hayfields getting their first cutting.  I breathe deeply.  Detach.  Let it go.

“Nope!”  I chirp.  “I’m not angry.  I meditate!”

She chortles. 

But I’m pretty dang hungry.  And hot. 

We pull in and I walk past my desk.  Papers are scattered across it, the bills are piling up, payroll is due in two days.  I’ve been doing the cash flow dance this week, staggering bill payments against accounts receivable as they come in.  I push it out of my mind.  I look over at the chair in the corner of my study where I sit to do my morning meditations.  It’s piled with laundry.  Push it out of my mind.  I step around a heap of the girls’ shoes as I walk toward the kitchen.   Push it out of my mind.  From the kitchen I can see a landslide of clothing, books, purses, digital devices and other detritus slumping down the stair steps to the girl’s loft.  I guess it was too hot to pick anything up.  I notice the blanket on the couch is in a heap.  Someone got to enjoy an afternoon nap, at least.  Push it all out of my mind.  Okay.  Maybe not out of my mind.  But I pretend not to notice it, at least.  The dogs still haven’t been taken out for their afternoon walk, and Bob reports there were no pork chops thawing in the fridge.  So, rather than taking out something else to cook, he has identified a few slivers of leftover pork chops from last week.  He is heating those, along with a slice of cabbage and some leftover cabbage and apples he found in the fridge.  It’s not a bad dinner if one is really in the mood for cabbage.  But I’m not sure that’s going to satisfy everyone’s hunger.  I look at the kitchen table, scattered with crumbs and plates from whatever last meal they enjoyed.  Why should I even care about supper?  I ask myself.  It’s not like there’s a place to sit and eat it anyhow. 

I’m not angry, I’m not angry, I’m not angry, I say to myself.  

Detach.  Let it go.  It’s not important.  

I slip out the back door to walk the dogs.  Ula rushes to join me.  She has been working on an air brushing project all afternoon.  She wants to tell me all about it.  

I’m not able to listen.  I throw the frisbee for the dog a few times, then walk away from her,  and go inside to use the bathroom.

We’re out of toilet paper.  

I was certain I’d asked Bob to pick up toilet paper just a week before.  How did that entire pack of toilet paper disappear?  I realize one of the girls must have taken it upstairs to their bathroom, leaving us with nothing.  

I go into the bedroom to pull up the blinds and open the windows and start the fan to cool the room down.  Bob and I decided to splurge on a new fan for us this week, because I was complaining that the old one wasn’t working properly.  When I go to turn on the fan, I realize that I’m facing the same old fan, just cleaned up. 

I’m not angry I’m not angry I’m not angry…..

I’M ANGRY.

I storm back into the kitchen. “WHERE THE HELL IS THE NEW FAN?”  

Bob looks up from the skillet where he is reheating those few bites of pork chop.  “I gave it to the girls,” he says.  “I got our fan to work.  They needed a fan.”

Nine hundred ninety meditations are not really helping me right now. 

I shouldn’t be angry.  I live with people that I love.  They are GOOD people.  They are AMAZING human beings. 

Nine hundred ninety meditations are suddenly flushed down the toilet.  

I cannot ignore my anger any longer.  

“Why do I feel like I’m the one who is ultimately responsible for EVERYTHING!!??”  I scream up to the rafters.   “Dinner should not have taken anyone by surprise!  We eat it every night!  And the dogs need to be walked!  THESE ARE NOT SECRETS I WAS KEEPING FROM YOU ALL!!  And you girls make your own money!  Buy your own damned fan!” The girls poke their heads over the railing  from their loft.  One of them runs the new fan down the stairs, dodging the avalanche of clothing and pocketbooks and shoes, sets it down in the kitchen, then races back up. 

I remember when the girls were babies.  Customers used to coo and smile at them, then tell me, “take lots of pictures.  Because before you know it, it will all be behind you, and you’re going to find out how much you miss it.”

But that’s not how I feel right now.  I like to think I’ve been a good mother, but  I was ecstatic when each girl weaned, when she learned to use the toilet, to dress herself, to buckle herself into a carseat.   My operating theory was that, if I really immersed myself into this mommy thing – stayed home with them, cooked all their meals for them, home schooled them, then maybe I’d have none of those pining regrets when they grew up.

So far, that’s about right.  I have happy memories of home schooling and all that we did.  But  I don’t long to shuttle them over to the kitchen table for their lessons.  I enjoy who my daughters have become, with very little remorse about letting go of who they were.

But I’m  becoming, too, dammit.  There are parts of me that I put to sleep when I became a grown-up — things I wanted to know, experiences I wanted to have, activities that I enjoyed that had nothing to do with a farm, or running a business, or the career of a writer, or the raising of children.  And they’re waking up now.  And it means I don’t always want to be in service in my previously established roles. 

I feel like I’m shedding this nurturing mommy role like a snake sheds it’s skin.  And on this particular very very very hot Friday afternoon, I AM SO VERY VERY VERY ANGRY!

I am angry that I am responsible for knowing what’s for dinner. 

I am angry that I am responsible for paying for the toilet paper.

I am angry that I am responsible for paying for the new fan.

I am angry that I am the one who is supposed to know who needs to go to the dentist, and who needs to go to the doctor.

I am angry that I have to figure out when and how the house will be cleaned.

I am angry that I need to keep track of when the brooder needs to get cleaned, when the farm inventory needs to be re-counted and condensed, when animals will go to the butcher and when they’ll come back from the butcher, when there will be enough cash in the bank account to pay the next bill, what the cafe special is going to be next week, what products need to be re-stocked in the honor store, and who is working on what days and in what locations.

Suddenly I recall a book I’d read by Dr. Christiane Northrup* back in 2018, where she examined the critical role that righteous anger plays in our overall health.  She draws on the research of Dr. Mario Martinez, founder of the Biocognitive Science Institute, who points out that Tibetan monks have an unusually high rate of diabetes, in spite of their healthful eating habits.  Martinez suggests that the development of diabetes might be connected with their belief systems of forgiveness and loving-kindness.  Martinez, Northrup and others argue that sending loving kindness — without first feeling your anger – can literally (in the case of diabetes) “sugarcoat the anger,” leading to deeper illness.  “Our immune systems won’t let us get away with bypassing our more ‘difficult’ emotions if we want to remain healthy,’ Northrup writes (p.55).  

Meditation helps.  But sometimes there’s nothing that will launch the journey to deep transformation and better health like a good ol’ cleansing temper tantrum.

So I allow myself to unleash.  

Then I quietly eat my few bites of pork chop, a slice of cabbage, thank Bob for making a delicious dinner, and slip out of the room. 

The anger leaves my body.  But not before it clears a path that allows me to reflect.  As I age, I seem to want to shed my role as the nurturer, as the person around whom everyone and everything in the family and farm pivots.  I don’t want to let go of everything.  But I definitely want to let go of some things. 

And I don’t know how to do it.  

I think the typical American family narrative is that the kids live at home until the age of 18, then they go off to school, where they start to learn to do their own laundry and maybe cook a few things for themselves.  Eventually they leave college, set up their own living circumstances and that’s that.

Bob and I have rejected all of that.  We’ve encouraged our children to live at home while they work on the farm and go to college.  If our family can continue to live together, or in close proximity, there are more resources to allow for easier workloads, time off for adventures, and overall less stress and more joy.  And there’s no college debt, either.

But transitioning from parent to housemate is it’s own journey.  

And transitioning from MOM to ME, from the person who is in control of everything to the person who just needs to be in control of herself — is also a journey — for me, for my husband as well as for my children.  

And this past week, I guess anger was part of that transition.  

But the next morning, we found our way back to hugs and laughter.  

And I notice that the stairs are cleaned off, and there’s a brand new package of toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom, and each night this week someone has been asking about helping out with dinner.  And the chair where I like to sit and do my morning meditations is clear, ready for me to resume my soul’s journey to vibrate into whatever will be my next dimension.

Northrup, M.D., Christian.  Dodging Energy Vampires.  2018.  Hay House. New York.

 

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