FEAR, PASSION, DETACHMENT

It’s 12:21am on Wednesday February 5th and I am 29 weeks and 3 days pregnant. I can hear the freezing rain falling outside, and my imagination runs wild. Many of my fears have visited me this evening as I prepared for a warning that power may be cut again tomorrow due to frozen boughs and downed power lines. I drove in the snowy aftermath of Monday’s storm as the sun headed over the mountains, headed towards the store as soon as power was cut. My first instinct was to fill the bathtub, and get more water. I remember Sandy well. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the wellbeing of my baby.

So now even though my eyes are heavy with fatigue, I am awake writing. What else do I want to say? I feel incredibly vulnerable, sensitive, porous. I am afraid of many things, and yet I know that whatever happens, I will get through it. I know that no matter what happens, I will get stronger, more resilient. Dear God please protect us, send me your grace, your love, guide your way. Angels, show me the best route to take as I navigate this new time in my life, this ending, this beginning.

I don’t know what is coming. I pray that you will spare me as much hardship and heartache as possible. I am seeing that gratitude, patience and acceptance are some of my most powerful allies, guarding against sadness, hopelessness and despair. I must keep writing in my gratitude journal, and training my mind to be happy, even when Isaac is not here. This too shall pass. There will come a time when we will all be together, either on the road or in a house or who knows where. Until then, this is my life, and it is magnificent in all its manifestations.

Isaac writes to me about his love for our boy and I am overcome with emotion. The baby moves at night and in the mornings, and Isaac is with him, even though he’s in a plane over Canada, a truck in Arizona or a tour bus in Austin. I know we will be together, somehow, that the dreams we have are possible because we dream them together.

“This much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness. No matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities that itself creates new potential.’

“I’ve learned from the Bhagavad Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of whatever I do. Because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control. But your commitment is yours to make and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment from where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world and you share your actions and take full responsibility for them but then you have detachment.’

“That combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me to take on the next challenge. Because I don’t cripple myself. I don’t tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden one another with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.”

– Vandana Shiva