Renunciation 2

"Dying to one's life as it was." I came across this definition of "renunciation" while watching a PBS special on the life of the Buddha. It immediately resonated. Ah! That's it exactly. This is the process I'm undergoing as a new mom.

l

Death of any kind is unnerving, to say the least, even one that results in enlightenment or transformation. I know from experience that this process of renunciation/transformation/resurrection would be much easier if I totally surrendered to it. But I keep holding out: there must be a way to hold onto the me I once knew--my routines, my creativity, so much of my self-care, alone time, even my very thinking patterns--mustn't there? It's proving fruitless. As I continue to cling to my past, I'm only causing myself more (psychic) suffering.

So it's time to figure out how to create the necessary conditions for "letting go." I recall a beautiful letting-go poem by e.e. cummings, one I memorized many years back:

let it go-the smashed word broken
open vow or the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
lllllgo

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
lllllto go

let all go-the
big small
middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
lllllsso comes love

Okay, so I’ve got to trust that when I let go, love is there to catch me. This sounds really good, but, honestly, I'm still left resentful that I have to give up so much of what makes me "me" to be a mom.

Then I remember the work I did with a terrific therapist in Arlington, MA. Although Suzanne happened to be a practicing Buddhist, our work together consisted of doing something traditional Buddhism would not condone: we created overarching "frameworks" or constructed narratives that I could fall back on when I felt myself entering unknown territory in my life. For instance, she'd often remind me of the mythology of entering the underworld. It's a given: one can't see for a while. It takes time for one's eyes to adjust in the dark. It's also a given that as I keep walking I will indeed begin to see what needs to be seen. And not only that. I'll also be given necessary aid along the way. A helping hand from a stranger. Direction from a snake that, at first, appears to be an inert gray stick. Eventually, I will emerge up into the light, transformed, wiser for the journey and the trusting and the reliance on the natural order.
l

I've decided to contact Suzanne again and ask her to help me create another useful narrative to help me chart this uncharted new- and single-mom territory that is putting my very fibre to the test. I'm hoping that her support, along with prayer and talking with lots of other parents about their experience, will ready me for complete surrender into motherhood.

lo

Perhaps I will soon get to the jumping-off point where I can say, wholeheartedly: "Yes" to this too, O Life, O Love, O Great and Blessed Unknown. Let my surrender into motherhood change and transform me as You would have me changed and transformed for the sake of service and the sake of Joy.

l

Then again, maybe I'm making things way too complicated. Maybe all I need to do is go out and corral a big stable of able babysitters and then shell out the money to insure a set number of "Lisa" hours each week. I'll try both tacks and see what happens.