I am laying in the bathtub, late afternoon western setting sun sliding through the window onto my face and chest. My partner, bless him, convinced Ruby to go with him to the market to get strawberries, so she momentarily relinquished her grip on my energy-body, and I got some time alone. I’m freshly home after being at two different caregiving jobs, a total of just six hours of work, but for some reason, I am drained. Perhaps it’s that Ruby comes with me, making it double care-giving duty. Perhaps it’s being pre-menstrual. Perhaps it’s going too many days without making art. I don’t know, but I’m in the tub, and it’s very nice here.
It’s very nice, and it gives me a chance to feel how nice it is to be so tired. To be tired when the burdens have ceased knocking for a moment is a luscious thing. To bask in being tired. I want to celebrate this new feeling of just enjoying it, enjoying the amount of work I have, enjoying that I’ve settled into my new home, that there are rhythms and patterns of ways of being that seem pretty healthy going on. I have a line on repeat in my head, which is my sign that something that wants to be written is coming through. I dry my hands on the towel on the floor and grab my notebook and a marker, and write: “I feel myself settling in to this incredible sweetness, this bon vivant, this joyous humming rainbow. It’s quiet. It’s humble. It’s settling in to the means and embracing that The Good Life is here, right now, all day. All day, m’lord, all day. My guidance reminds me of the millions of reasons caregiving is good for me — getting me up and out of bed. Getting me interacting. Shining. Lights on. good morning.”
I feel sated with the writing, and knowing my bath won’t feel fully completely luscious if I haven’t read a bit of “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer before my sweet family comes home, I set my notebook down and reach for the book. There’s just a luscious page and a half before my phone buzzes, letting me know Cooper and Ruby are on their way. But it’s enough. There’s a bit in there about Skywoman, who in native Great Lakes peoples’ oral tradition, is the creatress of the world that we’ve come to know. She falls from the sky, holding a pouch of seeds, lands on a turtle’s back, and plants what we’ve come to know as Creation. Robin is calling her an immigrant. From some page flipping, I see that Robin does some moving around, herself feeling like an immigrant at times.
I see how, as a woman with my own body, and as a human with the capacity to bring seeds and nurture them, I can arrive as an immigrant, and I can create a world within a world. I’ve been struggling to feel truly home here in this new-to-me town of Arcata, but to see that Skywoman did it, and planted it and made it a place she felt luscious….to bask in the fact that I’ve brought Ruby with me and she is of me, she helps to make the place more like me, more hospitable to me, more of a joy for me, and together we plant seeds, sunflowers, marigolds, we can help at our friend’s farm, we can add to the world that we’ve found, add ourselves to it, create from our own bodies and plant bodies and give and pour. It’s not an “arrive-and-that’s-it” kinda deal. It’s hands in the soil. It’s the power to spark and nurture life. Holy holy holy.
I set the book down and simply bask in my body. My womanly body, hips and curves and tummy and breasts. I bask in my ability to make a place more heavenly. I feel all aglow with it. I think about how my work as a caregiver is me giving this gift as a service, using my capacity to nurture to receive funds to keep us in this cozy home, close to our friends, close to the ocean, the forest, the farm, the store. I fold laundry and I hold hands and I cook and I help into the shower. I wipe toes dry. And I feel like a goddess.
The other night I watched a film by a woman I know called “The Goddess Project”, recently released on youtube, and found myself intellectually agreeing with, but not really feeling in my body the bit about divine feminine. But here, in the bathtub, after a day of deeply caring for others, I’ve found it.
I am sated in this golden goddess sunshine glow when Cooper and Ruby come home, and into the bathroom, with kisses and excitement to give me gifts. A bar of chocolate and a box of strawberries. Hallelujah.
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