Feel the Love

Blackberries are my favorite fruit. I made four jars of blackberry jam this morning. I made a blackberry pie the other night. They are in season around my birthday, so they are a yearly treat for me. They taste of the end of summer, the sugary heat of June and July is stored in their black bubbly taste. They have a rich taste that lends itself well to jam. So I'm jamming.

Jamming and reading my emails. And I read a beautiful account of a birth attended by one of "our" volunteers doulas. She assisted a mother who labored for many hours, and finally the decision was made to go to surgery. The baby was born, and the mother is recovering well from surgery and is mothering, as we do, to the best of her ability. Her doula was fully present for mother and baby from the beginning of labor, in the labor room, in the operating room, and at home.

If I look at the details of the story, I could probably find places where decisions were made that were not optimum, that may have led to further interventions, where this woman could have avoided surgery. But that's what I love about "my" volunteers and apprentice doulas. They are not working from information, experience, or an agenda. They are the best doulas I know, because they are working from a sense of companionship. They are loving the birthing woman.

I know several artists and musicians. A familiar refrain in the world of creativity is "Ah, if I could draw/see/play as a child does! If I could regain that way of looking at the world, where everything is new and interesting." In the birth world, as well, that sense of innocence, of wonder at birth, is something that we all strive to keep. I remember when I was looking forward to going to my first birth - I would have done anything just to be at that woman's side and accompany her through labor and birth. Not to say that I am not as dedicated to birthing women as I used to be. But I know them better - I've seen more - I don't have that freshness of vision that a "new" doula or a child has.

As doulas, we need to remember to forget ourselves and our knowledge when we are accompanying a woman in labor. Just as I greet the first wild blackberries with joy and appreciation, we should greet every birthing woman with respect and with a sense of her "newness" in the world.Forget about how much or what you know, and remember that it is her journey and you are a guest. Be happy.

Birth Day

I posted a picture on Facebook the other day. The young man is my son’s good friend, and he is visiting us up on the mountain. His mother posted a comment about remembering when he was a baby – as we mothers do. I love watching my sons grow into men, and marvel at the fact that, for me, they retain that quality they always had, that I loved when they were babies and young children, and still love now.

One of my sons turned twenty-five this summer. I remember when I was in labor. We were living in a beautiful farmhouse in Tuscany that belonged to a famous yoga master (I only knew her as my landlord back then, not being initiated into the realms of yoga and the like). I labored and labored, and I remember the farmhand and his wife coming to visit, dressed in their Sunday best. The day before, I had watched him picking apricots in the field below. Their daughter had started labor at the same time as me, had delivered, and was cuddling her baby in bed, so they thought I would have a baby to show off as well. We told them we would let them know when the baby was finally born, which he was in due course.

When I got home with my newborn, the landlady’s daughter came to visit, bearing a huge bunch of blue cornflowers. I can never see cornflowers growing, or apricots being picked, without thinking of those few days of labor and birth. I remember the taste of the rice ice cream I ate while I was laboring.

Apricots, ice cream, flowers, babies, love ... summertime!

Put Up a Parking Lot

We were surprised to see yellow signs all over our mountain, even in the most hidden and isolated forest. The signs were reminding people that they have to pay for mushrooms or berries picked in the zone. There was a lot of effort, and a lot of money, put into the sign project, and it’s a joke to everyone I’ve spoken to.
Down by the river, as well, a new sign appeared the other day, also yellow, stating that the river is a spot only open to residents of the area.
I know it’s childish of me, but signs like this make me want to pick as many mushrooms and berries as I possibly can, and bring as many of my foreign friends and relatives to have loud parties at the river. We go to the river occasionally – it’s wonderful – there is a narrow waterfall, a cliff to climb, rocks to sunbathe upon, and the supply of skipping stones never seems to decrease.
There is another river, closer to our house, that you get to by going down the path to the left, following the trail past the abandoned villages, until you get to the old midwife’s house, then you keep going down until you hear the river, keep on going, past the fallen tree, until you are in the valley and there is the most beautiful little mountain river, wading size, but with pools you can bathe in if you can stand the cold.
Our guest picked cherries the other day: he found a cherry tree that was full of red cherries. I didn’t have time to make a pie or jam, and no one wanted to eat them so they turned mushy and went into the compost. He was upset at the waste but I showed him the trees all up and down the road, full of cherries. The myrtle berry bushes are full. The raspberries are finished, left to the worms. The blackberries are ripening, but there’s no way I can make jam with all the blackberries on the mountain.
We found some Chanterelles the other day and ate them fried in olive oil. But we haven’t found any Porcini yet, it’s a strange season this year. The old-timers don’t know why – even in their secret spots they are not finding the usual amount. But it’s not because of the signs. Nature has its mysteries that we can’t understand. It may be because of all the spring rain, or the lack of early summer rain, or the heat in June, the cold spell in July … we can put up signs, parking lots, and tollbooths, but no one can tell the mushrooms where to grow.

Crossroads

I remember in grade seven when all the girls were excited about becoming women. I spent grade six in England where the social girl language was probably different, because I don't remember anything being talked about. There must have been some kind of high-pitched squeaks that I didn't recognize, but when I returned to Canada it was palpable. All the cool girls were wearing plastic go-go boots and training bras. I always wondered what the breasts were being trained for, exactly. I tried one and discarded it soon after, relegated to my dresser drawer along with highly scented deodorant, ugly costume jewelry, and pantyhose. We all waited anxiously for our periods to start, and then complained when they did. My body continued to do what bodies do and it grew and formed in most surprising ways. As it happened, I felt my spirit, my character, the definable part of me changing unaccountably. I was not the common-sensical little girl any longer, I was a nonsensical mix of girl, woman, and beast. "And when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid."

The initiation ceremonies of Junior High took me completely by surprise, the couplings and pairings, the whisperings, the poms poms and bottles. I remember a girl asking me "Do you drink?" I looked at her with astonishment - how could a person not drink? Was this another strange attribute of the Blond Westerner?

I turned away from adolescent drama, made my own way through the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll generation, and slowly became accustomed to being a woman. Childbearing and breastfeeding became part of my life, and when my youngest weaned I was sad but content.

Now, all of a sudden, the body is acting up again. I was always rather slim. 52 kilos was how much I weighed. That was part of me, except when I was pregnant (or that time in London when I survived on Guiness and chocolate cookies)... Now, suddenly, my waist has thickened. My hips are wider. The skin all over my body feels softer. Everything is somehow changing, changed. My body feels like it is not mine any more. I am trying hard to accept it. I think I should build up my abs - but I never used to build up my abs! I look at twenty year-olds and wonder - did I ever look like that? I ask my husband if he still loves me.

And I dream of sailing the Atlantic, or cutting loose, leaving the rat race, not doing the dishes....

Life is constant change, constant wonder. I am always at a crossroads. I wonder what I am going to do when I grow up...

Frutti di Bosco

I winter in a cold and unfriendly climate. Some love to ski and skate, and walk the wintry streets. I enjoy a bit of cross-country skiing, but my African infancy taught me the pleasures of a nice hot sun, preferably above body heat. Which pushes me to southern and equatorial climes. But, as I said, I winter in a cold spot and that is where I can make enough money to summer in the sun.

As I work and struggle with the winter, I watch my cold-weather friends and I see there is a definite sense of scarcity. The Rat Race is a northern concept, and the affluence of the northern societies is born from and gives birth to this sense. After all, if there really is enough to go round, we don't have to claim anything as ours. I find myself subscribing to the scarcity theory, when I don't feel I have enough work for a month, I blame my colleagues' greed and worry that I will lose clients to less qualified folk. We all rush around, in the cold, to get and spend more and more, to fill our days with goods and things.

I summer in a paradise, fertile, green, affluent in a different way. We live alongside wild boar, deer, badgers, snakes, scorpions, mice, and all sorts of creepy crawly creatures. Birds sing in the morning and evening. A predatory bird and his family fly and call overhead. We spent the first few years in tents and now have a cozy house that echoes Middle Earth. It is not everyone's idea of a villa in Tuscany.

But here I learn about scarcity. I reflect on my life as a farmer, when we were raising children, poultry, grapes, and grains. Feeding our family from the earth was our priority, and we managed to do it with a great sense of satisfaction. Here in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain top, I can wander down the road and pick wild berries, or not, as the whim suits. There are mushrooms growing in the woods, some will kill me, others are delicacies. An egg is produced every so often from one of my hens. Nature doesn't care if I eat or not. There is definitely enough to go round, but we humans continue to build mazes and fences to feed our rats. Let them free!

Sailing

There is a Muslim saying, "Pray to Allah, but tie your camel to a tree". There's a longer Jewish story about a fisherman who is having trouble in a storm and his boat is being blown towards a rocky shore. His advice is "Pray to God, but row away from the shore".

My oldest son is sailing across the Atlantic this summer. My friends and relatives have asked me if I am afraid for him. My answer is, well, actually, no. I know he is afloat in a 40 foot boat, bobbing on top of many thousands of feet of water. Rogue waves, storms, whales, and possibly even sea monsters do exist and are a threat. But his safety and well-being are not in my hands. I know he and his crew mates are conscientious and skilled. Beyond that, well, pray. Or at least have faith. Or just have a pragmatic or fatalistic view of the world. But the worst thing to do is either to live in fear, or to attempt to wrap yourself and your family in bubble wrap so as to avoid the rocky shore. At the same time, of course I am afraid. I would like my sons to stay at home and ... sit in the living room?

Of course, our fear and worry for our children starts when they are still in the womb. We try to eat well, to avoid dangerous substances. We wonder if they will be okay, even if we have an argument or become sad. Then during the labor and birth we try to have as gentle and positive an experience as possible, in the hopes that this will reflect on the small human's life.

Fear during birth has been discussed through history and is still a controversial subject. Unfortunately, it can be a pivot upon which a woman may make choices that can be dangerous for her and her baby. Of course, most of us, if we are told the baby may die if we do not do such-and-such, will agree to whatever it is immediately, in order to save the baby's life. Unfortunately, I have seen this type of prediction based upon bad science, or fatigue, or simply impatience, and I have seen women make choices based upon fear that they later regret.

The presence of a doula dilutes this feeling of anxiety and fear. We can radiate a sense of calm, that even when the most unexpected and difficult events take place, will allow everyone to do their work in a sensible and honorable fashion. We do not suggest that fearful predictions are wrong, but when a doula-assisted birth is going smoothly, and the woman and her partner are confident that the process is normal, then fear-based predictions are out of place. The medical staff will enter the room and recognize a normal, active process. The room is full of calm, concentration, activity, emotion, but the dominant feeling will not be one of fear.

So, my advice: keep your faith, but hire a doula!

Snakes from a Copter

When we first saw our place it was just a spot of orange in a sea of green, with an amazing view - on top of the world. The orange was a little bit of the roof of the barn, and the house was completely covered by greenery.

Our youngest was only two years old and as we were clambering down from the road, someone stopped and said "Be careful of snakes." Well, of course we knew about snakes, having farmed in Italy for many years. We taught our children about vipers and were careful to keep the grass short around the house.

But what we didn't know was that here in Lunigiana, vipers have been "seeded" from helicopters, by those who want to save the lives of predatory birds. So they sent sacks of young vipers up in copters, and the sacks were thrown into the hills, releasing the babes into the woods.

So we do in fact have a large population of poisonous snakes to deal with, and whether or not the buzzards and kites I have seen above our house are grateful, who knows. It does seem strange, though, that the lives of birds would be considered more carefully than the lives of humans.

City people can often be very sentimental about Mother Nature. But nature isn't gentle - she is strong and can be cruel. The subtle opening of a flower and the pounding of a hailstorm, a giant tsunami, and a baby sparrow, are all part of nature's variations. Who are we to interfere? And especially at the expense of our own kind.