busy springtime growing...

I have been such a busy girl lately, I haven’t even had time or energy to blog. Although I should be working now, I miss the satisfaction of a fine, finished post and I am going to steal away an hour or two to assert myself in cyberspace.

Firstly, I sure am glad I went to meditate when I did in January, because there has been no time for reflection since then. I am in my toughest semester of grad school yet, I took on a part time job of script-reading for a local screenplay contest, (ludicrous sounding thing to actually get paid for I know, but like any job it is time consuming), and I’M MAKING A BABY! Yup, I found out I was pregnant soon after I returned from Vipassana, where I had been, ironically, letting go of my long held desire to have a child because it just wasn’t working out and I thought it was about time to move on with my life. Isn’t that always the way? Of course though we are so thrilled that some little soul decided to come into the world with us as parents. I’m almost at 15 weeks now and our first trimester screening went great so chances are good that we will actually have a baby next October! There is nothing like that reality to light a little fire under your butt. These are busy days!

I feel that I need to admit that I have suspended my meditation practice over the last couple of months of business. Vipassana brings you so into your body, and my body is so nauseous, that I have been avoiding the experience probably at the expense of some peace of mind. That said though, chronic nausea has many of the instructional benefits of meditation! They are as follows: Never get too attached to any plan or expectations you may have for your day, or your meals. Learn to live in the moment and enjoy to the fullest any vestiges of appetite and energy, and know that the moments of agony will, at some point pass. I can do most of my daily activities while steeped in waves of nausea. It doesn’t make it go away to rest or stop working, so I might as well stop judging the discomfort and just keep going. This next may be too visceral for some readers, sorry, but vomiting itself is a deeply humbling experience, it can’t be denied, especially when it happens rather unexpectedly in places like supermarket parking lots. It’s helpful for cultivating a sense of humor and compassion for the suffering of the world. That said, I will be happy when this instructional phase of my pregnancy is over. I hope that I have learned my lessons well! Feel free to tell me, any mamas out there, how coping with your nausea helped prepare you for parenthood. I would like to believe that there is something pertinent to be gained here from the last several months of acquaintance with the porcelain throne.

Life goes on though. I paint and paint for my classes, and read and read scripts to help people turn them into movies that other people would like to see. I walk the dog and clean the house and occasionally muster it up enough to cook dinner. I visit with friends sometimes, and have watched the leaves come back out on the sycamores and the blossoms burst on the orange tree and the lettuce come up in my little garden and the little lizards in my yard emerge from their winter rests. I hope that spring finds you all well, and that this beautiful time of growth fulfills its promise to all of us.