Super Ma...Stressed out Ma?

Day one, farming with the little one, kind of...
Aya slept through the seeding of nine plug trays of tomatoes today. Not a huge test in my multitasking prowess, warming up slow...Which leads me to the question how can you be a Mom who is not a super mom?  I mean, how can a mama feed the heart and soul of herself, her children, her relationships and her home without being a non stop, multitasking, filled to the brim with never ending tasks kind of Woman?  And what does that in itself do to the heart and soul?

This question comes to me from a few different angles.  I started this post yesterday and laughed at myself this morning as I thought about the couple of lines that I wrote.  So telling of a huge part of me, a piece that wants to push myself to a point of almost breaking, but collecting the all the particles before completely loosing form.  I was almost feeling guilty that day one went so easily, that I didn't have to struggle or reconnoiter over and over. (As if those challenges will be void from this whole experience!)  A strange self torture that, now that I am looking at it head on, is a pretty common theme in my life, my path, but does it have to be? and what would I look like if it didn't?

As far as I can tell, this must have all started when I went on a month long NOLS trip at age 18.  A trip that changed my life forever, brought me back to my true spirit and instilled a lot of amazing self awareness, self confidence and evidently some self masochistic tendencies!  I suppose hiking for days on end in waist deep snow without a bath to wipe away the day can build up some interesting patterning...  The thread of this tendency strikes like a taut string in the evolutionary web of myself and my path the 13 years since that trip. From hiking alone in remote rainforest, through thick mud with too much on my back, crossing rivers up to my waist and forcing myself deeper in, to taking rides from bizarre and potentially detrimental people while hitchhiking solo all over the world.  I used to call it bravery and now, from the perspective of a mother who can picture her own daughters taking such risks, seems nothing short of pure stupidity.  And, at the same time, those experiences make me who I am and I wouldn't give any of them back for the world.  Not for the 30 ornithologists at the end of the trail counting how many species of tropical birds they saw for the Audobon's Christmas bird count or the complete relief of finally getting out of the car with all my parts and my belongings in tact.  The parts I would give up are needing to push to such extremes to know myself fully and how the stress affects my body and more importantly, the people that I love.

The part of my body that I notice being most affected by this lately is my head,  the  migraines every 2-3 days telling me I am not getting enough, most likely at this point, not enough sleep, but also quite possibly nutrition, exercise, deep relaxation and cultivation.  My partner severely broke his leg three weeks before Aya was born.  He has been pretty much laid up since, although, thankfully he is able to be up and about for longer stints lately before his leg gets too swollen to stand.  Regardless, this has left me, the past couple weeks since the amazing grandmothers left, to keep most of our lives in order.  Although this is stressful, and exhausting, at times I feel good about how much I can push myself to do, how many more loads of laundry can I fit in before completely crashing?  Apparently my ego has intentions to push me to a breaking point...strange.

The reason I am actually sharing this somewhat dark side of myself is because the more I think about it and look at it, these tendencies play a pretty large part in a lot of the disfunction within my relationships, both intimate and casual, on and off the farm.  My need to get as much done as possible, no matter what the casualties, I think I need a new way of calculating success...Not by how much, but perhaps just how things are done.   I've heard it so many times before, "its about the process, not the product" but with someone else housing, paying and offering me the opportunity to live through the dream I have been conjuring for so many years, how can I not work my tail off to make the farm as productive as it possibly can be?  Wouldn't I be cheating the spirit which has woven all this together, and the external players which have offered the anchors from which to weave if I didn't?  The balance of this productiveness, beauty and grace is what I wish to explore and what will hopefully come forth partially through the engagement with this blog, any insights gladly accepted!