Crack It Open, Mother Bird

Ya, so. The whole thing with the mastitis. I'm convinced this part of me that needs to give is massively frustrated. My kids are grownish -- certainly at the stage where they don't allow a lot of overt mothering. Especially Scorpio II, who needs it badly, and will absolutely not admit that she needs it. But I feel it every day, how much she needs me and won't let me give to her. Scorpio I, a little better. He will accept some mothering, if I use the correct strategy. But then again, I am trying to launch him off on his own (he is 22, after all), and don't want to over do it. Plus, too much mommy behavior and he gets self-conscious, needs to assert his maturity. This is all "normal" and fine. But I feel their pull, perpetually, and the sadness of their leaving, like the bottom dropping out, at least in some manner, from the nest of my heart.

Metal Ox, he won't accept a lot of nurturing, either. I mean, he's a metal ox. He thinks he's got it all under control. He won't even let me rub his feet. The most I can do is take him soup -- which he says he doesn't need but I bring anyway --tell him he's a sweetheart and a big strong magnificent. Still, I always wish I could give him more.

My mom and grandpa. Too far away. Can't live in my home town, no I can't. Deadly depressing. Send them love through the air. Go when I can.

Everyone Else. The walls of the world are cracking. Too much violence, lies, poverty, slavery. Or is it consiousness trying to emerge? Either way, there is still the suffering, which seems, at these extremes, grossly unnecessary. One feels wildly impotent, to use exactly the wrong word for a discussion of breast frustration and cracking walls. It's not penetration of the problem that's called for -- it's a cradling, a warmth. So much need, and here I am making fancy airplanes for rich people. Facilitating all sorts of crushing nitrogen debt.

And the doves! They launched their first round of fledglings, then came back and laid a second clutch of eggs. Then, the day after I found out that the actual lumps in my breast are from all appearances benign, the parent doves were gone! As if they'd left the night before, abandoning their two perfect white eggs, snowy little breasts of things, in their nest on my window sill. Why? Has one of them been killed? Did the eggs die? This is so sad! Should I have brought them in and tried to incubate them?

So really, I do think that my desire to give has finally outstripped my ability to thoroughly that my breasts simply swelled up with the imperative. Add to this what I discovered about Xanax: it suppresses dopamine; dopamine suppresses prolactin. Guess what too much prolactin in a breast with no baby can do? So, though my taking of the Xanax was certainly not a daily thing (and yes, it was prescribed to me by my doc!), it's possible that this was a contributing factor! The combination of too much prolactin and too few roads to the expression of my motherly and human urges to give, and WHAM! Clogged milk ducts. Fever, swelling, pain.

This is not to say that I'm Ms. All-Giving-Mother-Earth-Woman. I'm not. I often want to be given to, as well. But lately I've been thinking that even some of that is its opposite. Or, feeling better cared for of late, I can see through to the other, deeper thing, maybe?

Still, I'm convinced that the solution is not to shut down, but to open up even further. Just keep opening up. Letting love replace fear. Sitting in the stillness. Believing that really helps everyone else. Does it? It's hard. The world is either crumbling or hatching. We'll see what emerges.