Practice makes…more practice

Never perfect, never done

Photo by Miikka Luotio on Unsplash

Call me naïve, but I really did spend most of my life thinking there was some future in which I would be done with all this learning. Not book learning. I’m good with that. Give me new and interesting information all day long. But the emotional learning, hopefully leading to more alignment with myself and my beliefs, both in my parenting and my relationship to my family of origin? I truly believed at some point I would have put in the work, making these foundational aspects of my life…easy.

In reality, self-driving cars scare the crap out of me, but in my hopeful imagination the central relationships of my life would, once I had achieved a certain level of mastery, drive themselves.

Writing this down, it’s so obviously delusional, a wish born out of having to work very hard just to *have* these foundational relationships at all, much less have them be healthy and safe. Maybe most people have to work as hard for these things, but part of me– the adolescent part who’s still pretty angry about having to fix so much she didn’t break– assumes they don’t. That if I could somehow crack the code on whatever *those* people have, or are, or do, I could become one of them. Then, magically, all of this seemingly basic stuff about being human would cease to always require more of me– more learning, more capacity, more understanding, just…more.

I’m sure you can imagine where I’m going with this, which is that I was utterly and completely wrong. Not about there likely being people who don’t find parenting and family a minefield, but that *I* was ever going to be done figuring out how to navigate it. Whoever may have had a say in the matter (my soul, God, my ancestors, some trickster spirit that just wanted to see what would happen) didn’t sign me up for that life. They signed me up to be an endless student.

Let me not refuse responsibility for my own choices, however. I’ve made them every step of the way, and they’ve cumulatively afforded me a beautiful life. Not easy, but beautiful. Full of wonderful kids, good friends, and an ever-expanding love for my family of origin, the last of which I never, ever expected.

There aren’t many of us left at this point in the family I was born into. Just my mother, my brother, and me. But we’re family, finally, in the way I’d always hoped we could be, supporting, admiring, and loving each other as well as we can. And I don’t think I’m wrong in saying I’ve played a big part in helping us get there. Like any good gardener, I kept showing up and turning the compost– of our history and personalities, strengths and failings, so much back-breaking, emotionally exhausting work, prompting both of them to do their own work in response– until the soil of us became nourishing and alive.

So, I shouldn’t be surprised, having prepared the ground, that new and unexpected life would show up asking to be tended. Like dandelions pushing out of cracks in the pavement, grabbing any bit of fertile soil they can, life mysteriously asserts itself when and where you least expect it.

Last Thursday, to stop beating around the metaphorical bush, my niece flew into Ithaca at midnight with multiple suitcases and, unexpectedly, a cat in a carrier over her shoulder. Her arrival was fourteen hours later than she was originally scheduled to appear due to having missed her original flight. Those fourteen unforeseen hours reminded me of waiting to go into labor– being forced to cede control to something much larger and more powerful, knowing it would change me irrevocably.

She arrived, finally, because she’s moving in with me to finish high school and get her life back on track.

My niece, we’ll call her P, has been having a rough go of it for a while now. But things really went off the rails a year ago when her mom unexpectedly and dramatically died, just as she and my brother, P’s step-father, were in the midst of a divorce. At the end of this tumultuous year, P couldn’t stay where she was and needed a safe place to land. Without hesitation or prompting, much to my surprise, I offered to be that place.

Whatever their failings (or not), my parents raised me to share what I have. So, I’m learning, slowly, how to do that, with mindfulness for the needs of my nervous system. Practice, practice, practice.

My brother would say P doesn’t just need a safe place right now, but “a mother.” I think, with all due respect to his history with her, that’s a load of crap. We barely know each other, P and I, having met less than a handful of times over the years as a result of decades-long emotional and geographic distance between my brother and I. Still, I can tell already that what she needs is practical and emotional guidance, an open-hearted, listening ear, and some steady, consistent love. None of which are dependent on anyone’s gender or genitals.

We live in patriarchy, however, where women primarily offer that kind of care, so here we are.

So far, the complicating factors in all this aren’t anything my niece brings to the table. She’s lovely. Emotionally young, maybe, and a little clueless about how things actually work, but what 18-year old isn’t? Any complications are entirely mine.

I’ve said, and will say again, if I’d understood what having children at all would require of me, I’d never have done it. I wouldn’t have believed myself capable– of the endless labor, but also the necessary psychological and spiritual work to develop emotional skills I had no example or template for. It’s been 23 years now of faith and practice. Practice, practice, and more practice.

Then there’s my family history, growing up at the vanguard of cross-racial adoption in the United States. (P, and both her older sisters, are originally from Kenya.) It’s taken many decades for my mother, brother, and me to learn how to be a loving family. We didn’t love each other well for most of it. Deeply, perhaps, but not well. As a result, and in the face of what I perceived as my parent’s failings raising all of us, I swore I’d never adopt. It seemed like nothing but a recipe for a well-intentioned disaster.

I’m not adopting P, it’s true. At best, I’m fostering her for a few years until she’s ready to strike out on her own. But the questions remain, regardless. How do I love and nurture someone who is likely nothing like me? How do I listen and see them truly, recognize their gifts and challenges, without projecting myself onto them? How do I hold my center, staying clear on my needs, values, and what I know deep in my bones, while also staying open to challenge and transformation?

And perhaps most important, because if my parents truly failed at anything, it was this: How do I stay humble yet unashamed about all I don’t know and ask for help when I need it?

Maybe these are always the questions at the heart of intimate connection. Maybe these are questions that serve any of us trying to reach across divides to find love, or simply common cause with each other.

I don’t know (so much!). But my instincts tell me these are the questions I need to be asking myself with P, and any answers I find will then reverberate out into how I move through the world. Maybe those answers are what the world needs from me.

Meanwhile, everything’s still on fire. I don’t want to fall prey to the (very White, very privileged) assumption that me doing my best to practice my integrity and love my people well is enough to douse the flames. Systemic change is needed– economically, legally, politically, socially. That change will require collective action, and my obligation to participate doesn’t go away because I chose to take on an enormous familial project.

Wow, does my plate feel full to overflowing, though.

I don’t have any plans to change my publication schedule in the face of all this. It matters too much to me– the conversation, and the learning that the writing requires of me (practice, practice, practice!). But a single body can only do so much. So, if I’m not here, as I wasn’t again last week, I’m probably busy dousing a fire somewhere.

I’m going to try and find some mercy for myself when that happens. I hope you’ll find some mercy for me, too.

I suspect we could all use more mercy these days.

XO, Asha

P.S. Hey! I wasn’t here last week, but I *did* have some (gasp!) fiction that I wrote published in Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe. Check it!

The Heart-Centered Writing Intensive: Class Writing