Of the trees...

I had a little time to write today (yay, naps!):

It was while doing a tree pose in yoga today that I realized why my son's name was the right one.

I am exhausted, ground down by week upon week of interrupted sleep and the general muted nature of my mommy life. It is a good life, but a little bit dreary now and then, without the highs and lows and goals and productivity that a childless life has. This general "blahness" of motherhood creeps up on me, and leads sometimes to desperate attempts to get out and engage with something, anyone. Postpartum yoga is one of my usual escapes.

My postpartum class is great. Only in Berkely could you find a class like this, with the right mix of kharma and dharma and good old fashioned pain. On days when Silas follows the prescribed rhythm of baby-mommy yoga, baby massage, baby-please-sleep-or-go-play-with-the-helpers-so-mommy-can-get-a-real-
workout yoga, I find that I return from the class invigorated and with more abdominal muscles regained.

Of all the yoga poses, I especially love to stand in tree. One leg bent up and resting solid against thigh, heel drilling into the mat, back reed straight and arms reaching towards the sky, I feel powerful and calm. If I breath well and keep my feet grounded and my eyes ahead, I can usually keep from falling over for a couple of minutes. But then, like a frigid breeze, some thought will invariably come into me head..."did I put that load of diapers on the rinse cycle before we left", woooosh...knocked over. Try again. Breath, breath, regain the pose, focus ont he wall, "oh, crap, I have to remember to return those books to the library before his nap." And whoosh, down again.

This morning the instructor's voice broke in to my own, telling us to be like the tree, "rooted strongly in the ground and lightly swaying with the wind." The lightbulb going on in my head was so real that I swear I heard a "click."

We tell everyone we named our son Silas because "it was the only name in the baby book that we ever both liked", chuckle, chuckle, shrug, shrug. "Oh, and it has it's root in the Greek silvus - of the trees." How nice. Nat's a scientist, I'm an environmental educator, our son has a fitting name for Mr. Nature Baby. But for us, the tree part was more than that. Trees offer solace and strength. We go to the trees when we need a break, some insight, some oxygen. But, I realized today, metaphorically the tree holds the answers to the sort of life I'd like my son to live. To be rooted, solid and trusting (and trustworthy), held strong and able to draw from a network of family and faith in himself and the world, while knowing how to sway with the breeze, to rustle with the rain, to constantly grow outward and upward while retaining his core.

Silas. At five months he is a solid little fellow. A sitter,watcher and chewer. Eleven plus pounds at birth and nearly thirty now, he is larger than most of his compatriots by almost double. I joke that he's been in a race with an invisible opponent his whole sweet life. But, not so secretly, I am amazed at his ability to grow. Like the lucky sapling who landed in the best spot ion the forest floor, shooting up faster than every other seed to to catch the sun , Silas excels at turning all that we give him into flesh and activity. We are his forest, he is our tree. Solidly rooted, lightly swaying.