I have been thinking a lot lately about stories. The ones I have told about myself. The ones I have told about my children. I feel as though I've started on a great undoing, but so far I've done nothing but begin to work a knot of string that surrounds a package. I think the package is multi-layered, well-wrapped, with all kinds of tape and styrofoam peanuts and god knows what kind of old shredded newspaper that protects the contents. At this point I have no idea what's even inside, as I've only become aware that there is an inside, that I am not the outer wrapping, or the package itself. This might sound like a ridiculous, overdue venture for a 43 year old, but there it is. And the biggest undoing I am concentrating on right now has to do with a part of myself that I've only known for just under a decade, and yet there are stories surrounding this part of me that got started back when I was a little girl. This is the story of me as a Mother.

For example, for the first time ever, I am posing questions to myself that I never even knew that I wondered about. I thought the answer already existed in me, like the color of my eyes. Questions like, Do you like being a mother? Are you glad you have so many children? And things like that. The dare is to answer without fear that the world will come crashing down and a bolt of lightning will strike my most beloved children if I answer, Only sometimes. The dare is to not get stuck in thinking that Only sometimes is any truer than a resounding Yes or a firm No. The dare is to recognize that all of the answers are allowed to live in me because I am multi-faceted and my soul knows a thousand languages and despite what I have believed about myself for so long, not every part of me is cut out to do this business of Mothering, after all.

One night I sat for four hours with a patient who had severe OCD. It was if there was no room left in her mind for any thoughts other than her compulsions. Lights on and off, on and off. Table moved forward, then back. Drinks requested, then put away. repetitive questions about her care. What time is my medicine? My snack? My medicine? She had a strength in name recollection and mastered mine quickly, and addressed me by name every few minutes with her next polite request. I found myself humbled by the severity of her illness. And as always, there was some fragment that I could relate to so personally that I thought, There but for the grace of God go I. In stark relief, one more damn good reason not to be ruled by one's obsessions, even the small ones. "Remember to leave room for so much else," I told myself sitting in that small hospital room. Not that she had had a choice, I realize that, but still she can be my teacher. Remember.

I have been dreaming again. It's like I have found a new, yet familiar world. A bit like a lost limb, reattached. One of the dreams seems essential. I am somewhere public, like outside of a subway station in Cambridge. There is music playing, and the weather is pleasant. I feel the music start to fill me, and automatically my fingers are drumming and feet tapping. But there is more, my body wants more as it always does. I begin to make little, tiny dancing movements, the kind no one really notices. Even that is not enough, so I begin to bust it out a little. So what, it's something I have done before, danced in public. But soon, the motions intensify beyond even what I have danced before. And the thoughts in my head? "I AM FREE." "THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM." While I might have experienced "freedom" while dancing before, this blows those experiences clear out of the water. When I leap, I really leave the ground. I embody less gravity. I can spin and leap and twirl and twist. And in a completely innocent, ecstatic way, I don't care at all who sees me. "I don't care," I am thinking. "Now I know who I really am." I am not sure I have ever felt so right in myself.

While it's sort of a big bummer to wake up from such a dream, and realize that yes, gravity does have a pull on me after all, and I still have the 43 year old out-of-shape and inflexible body that I did the day before I dreamed, it has changed my life in little inexplicable ways. For one thing, I have been dancing more in the hallways at work, in the hospital. When no one else is around. Like going down to another unit to get some antibiotics, and I'm walking past the empty wheelchairs lined up in a row for the next busy day tomorrow, and then suddenly I'm stretching it out, doing some loopy arm motions and a big old ballet leap. And the crazy thing is how good it feels. Because even without the strength and grace of my dream, it rekindles the same feelings: "This is me. This is who I really am."