What are you doing?

On Monday my baby turned one.

He celebrated his first revolution around the sun by hanging out with his Mama.
Everybody who was there when he was born was busy.
I got one text from a good friend. After I posted on facebook I got a few hearty
"Happy Birthday Baz"s in the comments, but altogether it felt like the world did what the world does. It looked at the individual and said, "Yeah, so what?"

Something I never anticipated about becoming a mother is how acutely I feel the loss of the love between people. The community has gone extinct at the time that we need it the most. Perhaps more than anything, that is what this recent election has taught me as well.
We are only looking out for our own interests.
Our mouths shape the words of love and commonality, but when it comes time to make those words take shape with their fingers, the action is left undone and incomplete. The arm falters halfway through the swing, and the ball never leaves the hand. The wrist goes limp. There is no follow through.

I too fall prey to this.
I made declarations that I was going to donate to Planned Parenthood right after the election. I was waiting for my check from Refinery 29 so I didn't feel like I was taking money from the family to do so, but the check has yet to arrive, and so I have yet to give money to anyone.

The plight of the stay at home parent is the feeling that none of the money brought in actually belongs to you. You can use it to buy groceries, pay bills, and treat the baby, but you can't bring yourself to spend it on yourself.
You don't feel like you deserve to.
And charity becomes another luxury, like a haircut, or a new pair of boots, or a couple of fancy cocktails.
Tragedy.

I see the images from Aleppo.
Men carrying babies the same size as my son out of bombed out buildings.
I can't bring myself to read the text beneath the pictures.
I can't know if those babies didn't make it.

And even that fear and shock and horror brings with it horrible waves of guilt.

Who am I?

Why should my child be safe in my arms, in this neighborhood, and those men's children not safe at all?

What makes my life so blessed?

And it isn't.
We're always only five years away from complete disaster
or ultimate glory.
The scale can go either way. And we have much less influence over it than we'd like to think.

The only thing we have control over is how we treat each other, especially when it gets difficult.
I see other people.
People better than me, who have less, or the same, and they donate. They give. They go forth with courage and hope.

I want to be them, but my cautious nature trips me up.
My desire to burrow into the ground and hide from the madness is constantly at war with my guilt that I have that as an option. Again, I have to ask, Who am I?

What does it make me if I wait and wait and wait for things to get better, but this is actually the high point before the fall?

I couldn't sleep last night.

I kept thinking about how powerless I feel. Perhaps that's the biggest fuck you of motherhood of all, that by committing the most radical act of creation, you are accepting the horrible knowledge that you have no control over the events that shape your child. You have no control over the things that happen to him or the injuries and injustices done to him. Even while he still lives in your arms and nurses from you, you are moving, daily, away from the ability to protect him.

Are you protecting him when you send twenty dollars to the ACLU?
Are you protecting him when you vote?
Are you protecting him when you decide to leave the country?
Are you protecting him when you move far away from the city, build a farm, and begin to foster chickens?
What are you doing if you're not protecting him?

If you aren't earning money,
If you aren't taking action,
If you aren't giving to the people meant to protect you,
if you aren't supporting the people you love,
if you aren't doing anything except getting from sunrise to sunrise the best you can and praying that as soon as you can you will be able to do more than you can do now,
What are you doing?