Finding Light
There was a corner in my house that I came to dread nearing, where our daughter’s diaper changing table was set up. It was at the opposite end in our bedroom, where on the other side was the big window facing the endless mountains and winding roads, which got us sold on this house as a newly married couple. The starry lights on the mountains at night had once brought me so much warmth when I was waking up three times at night to feed Ellie as a newborn. However when I had to change the diaper on our one-year old who was showing me in every way her increased mobility, I lost sight of the mountains and lights outside, and found myself roaring and sobbing uncontrollably.
Following my breakdowns at the diaper changing table, I often got into an intense period of depression. I would cut out any possible connection with my husband. I felt like living with a stranger who happened to be the father of my child, and the only reason for him to be there was for me to have someone to call out for in case of an emergency, such as a fire, a burglary, or me passing out from exhaustion. Every night when I laid down next to Ellie as she fell asleep, I caressed her chubby hands and feet, which felt so soft and treasurable, yet I hated my life as a mother. Being a mother pulled me immensely close to the small human being that I brought to life, but desperately far away from the person that I once thought was the reason that I chose to become a mother.
When my in-laws came to visit, I felt completely out of place in my own house. I have had an escape fantasy for a while, where I would get away from everyone I knew and spend time with myself, only myself. When I was taking a shower one day watching the water drop on my forehead, I remembered the place I went a few times for zen meditation. I signed up for a retreat immediately after I got out of the shower. What fit my escape fantasy better than a silent zen retreat?
On the night before I left, I made sure to clip Ellie’s nails after she fell asleep, thinking probably no one other than the mother would remember to do it before her nails grew too long. Like usual, I snuck into the dark bedroom, and positioned my phone against my knees as I kneeled next to her to have some light. I bent down, and my back was quickly aching to remind me of the uncomfortable position my body was in. If only my husband could hold the phone light for me, but the act of asking was yet another layer of work that I didn’t want to take on. After a sigh I powered through the nail spa session in the uncomfortable position, and I was pleased that I got it done before I left.
After one day of sitting, sensations started to light up. At first they showed up as little sparkles around the tip of my nose and upper lip, then I found that they rhymed with my heart beat. The rest of the body was slowly waking up. There was a tightness around my chest that had been there for a while, but in zazen, it went on and off, bright and dim, like the candle in the center of the room.
I was able to feel my body as a transient being, just like the nature outside the zendo, the creek streaming by, the wind breezing, the leaves fluttering, and the birds chirping. All beings were equal and I was no different. We were all mirrors with reflections. The ringing of the bell was my favorite, as it was the best reminder to me how my body reacted to external stimulations. The sound waves of the bell traveled through air to my body and I could viscerally feel the physical response my body had towards it. I received the bell ringing, and I could feel the act of receiving.
In our numerous difficult conversations after Ellie was born, my husband kept asking me why I was feeling all the sadness and depression. I didn’t know where to start, and as soon as I opened my mouth there came the attacks, the accusations, the projection of my resentment for the unfairness women and mothers had to face towards him, a single being sitting there, asking if there was anything he could do to help. And then came his revelation of how he had felt the same way all along, that I was cold and uncompassionate towards him, just like how I felt being all alone in raising Ellie. One time I told him as I walked away, “I regret opening up with you tonight”, and he said, “same here”. As much as it hurt me to be reminded that we said those words to each other, they also made sense to me now. We were just reflections of each other.
On the second day of the retreat, worries trickled in. I had images of me changing Ellie’s diaper again. The lovely sensations I felt during zazen the day before were still all there, but they were gone as soon as I got off the cushion. How was I to transition back to my real life? Was this zen retreat just all in a bubbly dream?
The next day during the one-on-one session with the teacher, she said she totally understood my struggles since she was a mother herself. She knew how hard it was. And then she said, “prioritize taking care of yourself”. Those words! I had heard them a thousand times in the past year that got me nowhere. Hearing it again from a zen master, I came head on with the fact that there was simply no way out of the struggles of motherhood. Mothers, suck it up.
Was I going back home to have yet another emotionally exhausting conversation with my husband about how to share childcare and housework duties? Was I to keep asking more and more from him, even though I knew I would never get everything I wanted? Then what was the point of still trying?
Then came the bell, the powerful ringing, that always brought me back to the sensations in my body. Yes, RECEIVE! The love and the support I needed was already there, and I just needed to receive it, like how my body received the ringing of the bell.
All of a sudden, I remembered how many times he had asked me to join him on the couch to watch something together, texted me in the middle of the workday to meet and go out for a walk, and put his head over my shoulder while I was holding on to the last minutes before bed to finish up some work. If only I had received it!
On the night when I gave up putting Ellie to sleep and stormed out of the bedroom, I ended up screaming and throwing pillows at the wall. I remembered him getting up from the couch immediately as I walked out of the bedroom and asking “want me to take over?”, over which I walked by and completely ignored. Not only did he take over, I also remembered hearing him singing loudly to Ellie in order to cover my screaming next door. If only I had paused for a moment to receive.
He had opened his arms, and I needed to receive his embrace. Sometimes the receiving felt awkward and even uncomfortable. But what was comfortable and what was uncomfortable after all? The sensation from my back, which I used to call backache, was there one second and not there the next. I needed to receive so I could give, as a wife and a mother. My husband and Ellie are distinctly different individuals standing on their two feet, but undenaibly connected with me deep down. The interdependence among us, and the independence of each of our own selves, are both there, solidly grounded, waiting for me to discover. That would be how I could find my balance again. I was in tears at this point, and my body was actively receiving the universe around me, the breathing of the person next to me, the squeaking of the wooden floor outside the zendo, and the chiming of the hanging bell in the wind. Receiving would be my practice off the cushion.
My husband drove with Ellie to pick me up at the end of the retreat. On the drive home, I sat next to her and leaned my head towards her, rubbing my forehead against hers. She held my face with her little hands and pulled me towards her. With her big clear eyes wide open, she said mama mama mama. She grabbed my ears and turned my head around and examined, as if to check for indentations. I was indulging myself with her touch and love, so much so that, according to my husband, I missed the scene of two naked lovers making out in the middle of the road. Really, what would you expect outside a zen center?
On the same day, I noticed her nails were long again. After she went to sleep at night, I took out her nail clipper and asked my husband to hold the phone light and join me in the silent nail cutting ritual. We snuck in our dark bedroom together, both kneeling down around her little feet, with him holding the phone light, and me carefully cutting the toe nails. He looked carefully at her nails and said, “why does her big toe nail look like a curved wide monitor screen?” I tried not to laugh too loud. He was not just helping me. It was a privilege for him too, to be there to hold the phone for me, to admire our daughter’s ridiculously wide big toe nail, and to make the whole experience beautiful. We became one of the lights on the mountains.
-Siqi Li
Siqi Li was born in China and moved to the US when she was 19. She is now a physicist living in Hawaii studying particle accelerators. Outside the lab, she enjoys making art (you can find her on instagram @siqili.art), writing, and yoga.