This morning a wet and gusty current covered the sun with clouds and the snow with rain. A week of January Spring, they say, for us to expect. Most kids are home, helping me with arranging archives or making pizza in my place. I use to love these moments, especially when someone cooks for me.

When You Can’t Get Bored

During my career time, back in the late century, as a mother of two (daughters), I did not fathom how exactly would things work for a mother of four. With two grannies and paid house helpers taking care of my babies and domestic business, I took advantage of the privilege of following my career and partnering in my husband’s undomestic businesses. Had no chance to get bored.

Some times envying a “stressless” mother of ten for “just staying” at home. Until twins arrived, businesses changed, grannies and helpers departed and I had to quit my hat. It was about time for me to “just stay” at home and take care of the kids. A housewife! Bored? Not even if I’d wished to…

Entering Maintenance Mode

Can I call this progress? Yes, I can. Because social stress, career walk, mean rivalries or more generous competitions, all of these kept me in a shiny box where an early idealist enthusiasm gradually deprecated into proud ambition. Escaping from that box, I found myself modestly contained in a new house full of children, my children! Though laboring and demanding, this novel kind of stress proved sweeter and — most importantly — worth dealing with. Until your physical body shows signs of wearing down…

Doing my homeworks, as I always did before taking a major decision, I realized that I must escape once again. Not from a collective, in a definitive manner, but from mothering 24/7, in a transient manner. Any good mother becomes a better one when knowing how, and when, to pick her metime, to regenerate her powers. My garden came to be my hiding place. Spending enough time in solitude is fine for reconnecting with the soul in prayer or meditation. When I was looking back, it hurt; when looking forward, it blurred; when looking inside, it illuminated my eyes. And I’ve asked myself: “Where is he? Why am I alone here in the garden?”

Finding him between a chair and a notebook, where I have left him, and asking him what is on his mind, hearing simple words such as “you” and “sex” in numerous phrases got me thinking. Shall I regard his daydreams as a marital obligation? Shall I repeat the mothering attitude of modelling the characters of my children when approaching him? Well, more precisely, shall I do this indefinitely? What if it turns out to feel as a chore for me (the way mothering did) and a scare for him (the way I’ve heard and learned from other married couples)?

Going back in my garden of meditation, it dawned on me: musing him will amuse me, making him happy will cheer my soul, giving him some will bring back more to me. The revelation was in this elementary fact: when you kindly give from your heart, the joy will return in unforeseen forms of delight. Don’t expect for anything. Just give, dear! Which I did.

I still wonder if it was (is) courage or carelessness. But wondering too much brings the head (as in mind) in a topic of the heart. This is why I use Google Calendar to schedule my hours for ‘wondering’ and tell myself to live the day and enjoy the moments when I get it (the moment).

Hit ESC, Think JOY

Posing nude in front of his camera (oh my, what a humiliation) has proved to strengthen my self-respect, to help me understand that I’m not defined by a job title, by a hat and some slick dresses, by jewels and traditional pretense or prejudice. A joyful heart and ease of mind would define me, while a sad and worrisome soul would have defined the non-me. Otherwise said, if I’m sad then I don’t exist. I have to be happy for me to be me.

Almost eight years after deciding to be me, I have accidentally Googled “Libra woman personality” only to find out why I love posing nude much more than playing in porn fantasies, but also why am I not afraid to completely open myself in front of the camera once in a while, then pretend that it wasn’t me. Pure coincidence!

To see more coincidences, visit my DorisDawn.com, Southern Charms, CougarBunnies.com and – last but not least – MakeLoveNotPorn.tv hiding places. See? There’s always more than one garden to escape to. 🙂