Motherhood is Movement

Last week, as the repetitive mundane aspects of motherhood started to get me down and I was stressed out about our upcoming Retreat (as always, the stress was silly - it turned out beautifully and gave me a huge boost and I'll blog about it soon), I got the idea for a poem.

I don't really write poetry - except for my dad's birthday when he craves poems with all his heart. Poetry takes time for quiet thinking - something I don't seem to have that often. But I do love how writing poetry helps you think about things on a different level.

Anyway, here's the poem I came up with. I thought I'd share it for Mother's Day in honor of my own amazing mother whose constant movement was the fabric of my growing-up years.

Motherhood is movement.

It's up and down movement as we pick up
babies and socks and crayons and cheerios,
run stuff and people upstairs and down,
sit down and jump up ten times during dinner,
get up five times at night to solve nightmares and hunger and sickness

It's sideways movement as we go
from helping with homework to stirring the dinner,
from reading stories on the couch to doing crafts at the table,
from school to the store to soccer to scouts to dance

It's circular, repetitive movement as we
do the same dishes and clean up the same messes
make the same favorite foods and read the same books
answer the same questions and mediate the same spats

Sometimes we wonder
Are we getting anywhere with all this movement?
Is there any forward movement involved
in the up-and-down, the side-to-side, the circular?

The up-and-down, back-and-forth, repetitive motion
of a river
wears off sharp edges
creates paths
exposes
soothes
gives life

The up-and-down, back-and-forth, repetitive motion of motherhood
refines us
as it wears off our rough spots
creates us
as it exposes our strengths and weaknesses
soothes us
as we surrender to its rhythms
gives us life
as we give life to others
and propels us ever forward
on the hilly, zig-zag path
towards the people we're meant to be