In November 1998 I had two pieces published in a small book put out by a writers group I was a part of. One has the same name as this post. Since joining OS exactly a week ago, I have been thinking in possible posts, leaving myself email messages with ideas. Today I knew it was time to meditate again on who I am in the same manner I did 12 years ago. I have just spent the last hour doing this. What I'm posting here is first the piece I wrote in 98, followed by the one I wrote this evening. Therefore it is very long but hopefully worth a few minutes time.
1998
"My name is Heidi Beth. My favorite color is purple and I like green too. I like to sing 'cause it stirs my soul and it's fun. I like to draw flowers and gentle designs with the thin felt tip pens my dad gave me four years ago. My hair is brown and curly. My eyes are green and I'm pretty short. This was all given to me. But I like to draw with colors and I try to be kind.
I learned how to waitress the day after I turned seventeen and I still do it. I wrote a story about a monster named “Hugo” when I was six. That's “Huge O” I yelled at my dad when he read it wrong. I don't know what it's like to have brothers and sisters even though my parents wanted this for all of us. I'd sometimes curl up in my bedroom closet, try hard to figure out the beige telephone, and fall asleep mid-investigation, sometimes lonely, sometimes tired.
I like to climb trees, to get way up in the branches and look at the patterns in wood, watch the sky through the leaves and forget about the ground. Birds didn't come to the trees when I was up in them. I won't watch scary movies and I cry in all human directions. I like the soft sound of a pick pulling single strings of an acoustic guitar.
When I was little I thought there'd be these lines I'd cross when I belonged, grew up, succeeded...and now I see life as a dance, round and round to this beautiful music. I have to be quiet to hear it, and to feel the swan like motion. I'm hard on myself when I mess up, and I spend too much energy censoring myself according to what I think other people think of me. Always I look back and see that I only knew the skin of reality, even in my own motivations. I keep trying to learn and get more grown up. I like to take naps in the afternoon in winter. What's your name?"
2010
My name is Heidi Beth. Every day I struggle to get out of bed. I love my life but sometimes it is painfully rich. A friend gave me an affirmation to help with this. "I pray for the willingness to accept the prosperity in my life." When I say it, I relax. I am shy and quiet but not according to anyone who spends a few hours with me. I found my voice 12 years ago because I have always been so comforted by people who reached out to me, the quiet girl. I wanted to do the same. I am a mother and a wife, happy with both roles, aware of my shortcomings in being either, showing up regardless because I believe in commitment.
I carried both boys like basket balls, deceiving and surprising those who saw me form the back first. This was true all the way to delivery. I didn't enjoy being pregnant. I didn't enjoy delivery.
I enjoyed meeting my first child, holding him before anoyone else, helping him nurse before he was weighed, before I knew if I was nursing a son or daughter. I even enjoyed the warm stream of should have been expected newborn pee streaming down my shrunken middle because it made us all laugh through our joyful tears. I enjoyed my fascinatingly small childs wide open eyes, taking in his new home, our world. Already he was busy!
I was quietly amazed upon meeting our second son, also in my arms before anywhere else, born 3 years later, just he and I and 3 midwives in a white painted hospital room at the top of a mountain. He was careful from minute one, obviously deeply thoughtful, investigating the nursing process the way one tastes wine, deliberately checking the different aspects of the product presented. Then he fell asleep in my arms for an hour. Blessed sunrise!
I am a good friend now, having learned to be considerate for real. I love when my house is full of people who mostly don't know each other then do two hours later because we've been deeply engaged in a discussion of life, the universe and everything, laughing and nearly crying. I especially like when grown ups drum together. I like the lost and found look in the eyes of that one person who is transported for the first time by the heartbeat beneath their fingers. When I draw designs now, my son gets his spiral and pens, sits close by keeping an eye on my work. He creates worlds based on my patterns but completely his own. I love to listen to my children's laughter. I love listening to your children's laughter too.
I have begun to find my voice again, and an element of life separate from mother and dear though never far away from them. When I write now, often the universe hands me a particular moment in time, especially when Carlos Nakai plays beside me. I try to ride my bike a little every day, even 10 minutes will hand me back my heart, opened again having been reminded of wonder through wind on my skin, wind that makes a rushing sound as I smoothly cut through space, crows above, the smell of exhaust mixed with fresh mowed grass, groups of slowly sauntering youth navigating fragile friendships, darting squirells and looking eye to eye with others who are biking or walking on my random route. I miss all of this from the drivers seat of our minivan.
I am nearly 40. I wouldn't change a thing.