Mind Body Mama: Practice

The other night, I ran Small a shallow bath so she could soak some of the filth off quickly before bed. I had my back turned to her when she asked, “Mama, can I have a meditation now?” I was taken aback, but I said, “Of course, Small, you can mediate any time you want.”

Small drew her thin legs up under herself criss-cross applesauce style. She bowed her head, and I was surprised to see how long her supple spine is now as it curled forward over the Buddha belly of childhood that she still carries. Six is such a tender mix of baby and girl: Small’s length and grace hint at the teenager, even the woman, that she will soon become, while her sticky hair, round cheeks and pudgy belly echo the sweet baby she was such a short time ago. Her left hand rested in her lap, palm up; her right hand nested in it and her thumbs touched gently, as we practice. As soon as she closed her eyes her breathing slowed and the room felt charged by her sudden, steady focus.

I’ll admit I was mesmerized. I had been walking out of the room to fold laundry when she caught me by this pose and I stood in the door, staring.

Small opened her eyes and looked up at me. “It’s easier to meditate when you’re not looking at me,” she said pointedly. I apologized and made to leave but she said, “No, it’s OK, I was done.” I asked her what made her think to mediate just then, and she said it was the warm water, it felt so good. “I don’t like to mediate at the dojo,” she said distastefully. “The floor is too hard!” And then, the bath, with all its silliness and ritual.

I’ve so long wondered if I was at all succeeding in showing Small the spiritual heart of my life. It is true that she gestated at the karate school, kicking me from the inside as my classmates kicked me on the outside. She was born in November and at Solstice I wore her on my chest as we punched a thousand times in the candle-lit darkness. We kept a Boppy at the dojo and I would lay her into it as if it were a throne so she could lay back and watch me prepare for my brown belt test. She was so small, to nestle into that pillow, and she gazed up at me with such enormous eyes. This year she became a Power Girl and began studying the art herself, with a lot of playfulness and exuberance and affection for her teachers.

But how could I know if she saw the heart of the practice, the stillness and compassion and peace that lies at the center of the work? How could I know if she would share the strength that I’ve drawn from sitting on that hard floor, or others like it, for twenty one years? We are not Christian. We do not pray. We do not name our practice as being connected to some movement bigger than ourselves—Buddhism, Islam, Judaism. We just breathe, and love each other, and hope that will be enough. And in the hardest times—birth, death—the practice of presence proves itself.

But I am a worrier, so I worried that I would not know how to convey the experience of calm and inner resources that comes from having a personal spiritual practice. Most of all I worried that Small’s daily life with me would be such an anti-thesis of mindfulness—To do lists! Timers! Schedules! Plans!— that she’d never know to go to that simple present breath to find peace.

Small is so much wiser than I am. I worry no more.