Where Love Takes Root
Finding home in motherhood
The vibrant blue sky is decorated with cotton ball clouds stretching as far as my eye can see. I look upon the highest canopies in the forest around me, their bushy branches of bristles dancing in the breeze like the legs of a centipede. The light is different today: soft, diffused, obscured, and it brings me a respite from the hot and dry air, which is unusually early for this time of year. The sky pulsates as if it were one giant organism, alive and sentient, responding to my awareness that I, too, am a part of it. The wind picks up and rustles the treetops so that the entire forest waves at me in a dance, welcoming me home to the truth that there is nowhere to be but exactly where I am, in this body, in the moment, on this land.
My daughter and I return from our morning dog walk, and I set her down next to a low concrete wall near the front gate of our house. There are always four spotted and striped seashells sitting in a line on the ledge, and Aramara grabs one and hands it to me. For the first time ever, I put this seashell to my ear and listen. The sound of the Ocean sings back to me in a whisper, but even in its quiet voice, it is the unmistakable sound of the tides inhaling and exhaling. I know I am standing at some intersection of discovery that the symbolism of the shell makes abundantly clear. Aramara is named for the Goddess of the Ocean in the language of the Wixárica, an indigenous people of Mexico from the Sierra Madre Occidental. And listening to the constant and insistent voice of the sea inside of one of her children so far from home brings a question to mind:
Do each of us carry home within like a seashell seemingly carries the song of the Ocean inside itself?
Sometimes, I experience moments of profound oneness in my everyday life. Moments that tether me to the earth, making me feel at home and alive. But mostly, I long for elsewhere. I have suffered from this affliction all my life, the tension between my wanderlusty, nostalgia-driven nomadic self and the homemaking, trinket-collecting, earth-longing woman I have always been. At times, I feel so utterly at peace in this strange bubble I live in, tucked up in a pine forest in Mexico's Sierra Madre, partnering, raising a child, and tending to our small patch of earth with gentle hands. And yet, I wrestle with tormented longings that ache inside of me for places I have been before, for friends I don't see regularly, for aspects of my identity that I seem to be estranged from at this moment of isolated, slow living and mothering. I don't have any easy remedies to cure my eternal crisis, but becoming a mother to my little Ocean baby has let my heart take root in a new way and I am allowing myself to make peace with this part of me that may always feel unsettled.
In this little forest home where my daughter was conceived, we plant delicate seeds in the earth with careful hands, and wait patiently to harvest all we have sown in our thoughts, visions and labour. Our dwelling is decorated with objects my partner crafts—dreamcatchers from bent branches, pine bristles painstakingly woven into designs, and feathers from our ducks and chickens dangling in the wind. This week, I made delicious chickpea patties and bone broth; we harvested our first batch of bright green chillies from the garden and celebrated the feast day of St Joseph, the carpenter and patron saint of my little pueblo. This small footprint of my existence would have been barely recognizable to the girl I was in my twenties, backpacking solo across the world, never in a place longer than a couple of months, incapable of choosing one place or one partner to make a life with.
A few weeks ago, over dinner, while my bestie was vacationing in nearby Vallarta, she asked me, "If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?" Honest to God, I couldn't think of a single place. I mean, sure, I want to see my family in India, I'd love to travel in the Scottish highlands again and explore more of Mexico, but that hankering for the road, the longing for strangers and strange places and the limitless potential that comes with being a solo female traveller, doesn't have such a strong hold on me anymore. In many ways, I feel full of the world; now it's time to share it with Aramara.
When I gaze upon Aramara's fan of thick black lashes and see her eyes sparkle with the sugary sweetness of jaggery crystals dissolving on her tongue, I feel at home in this love. When her warm hand searches for me in the night and rests on my face, I feel at home. When she wraps her arms around me so tight that I almost feel the oneness of her inside of my womb again, everything is right in the world again.
There will always be a part of me that longs to feel the Indian sun on my face and the warm steam of my coffee collect on my chin during a winter day in the Albertan prairies. I will always be from many places, yet I am from here as well—this moment, this precious blessing of mothering my wildling in the forest with fierce love. I tend to her roots so that she grows strong like the oak, grounded in what matters and deeply connected to Mother Earth.
Becoming a mother to Aramara has taught me that home is where love takes root, anchoring us to what we belong to like the Ocean’s song hidden in the heart of a seashell.
Hi friends,
This coming Wednesday, April 2nd, I am launching my first paid newsletter. With each letter, I intend to dive deeper into our themes of home, belonging and the road home through journalling prompts, poems, meditations, unpublished stories, audio and video. For only USD 5/mo or USD 50/year you will be in my inner circle, my labour of love and gratitude, and my absolute passion project in life.
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Absolutely love this piece my friend 💞
I love this so much