moonwork missive: waning crescent 🌘
i went "home" to california for the briefest 3 nights last month, for my grandma's memorial & to see some of my family i hadn't seen in a long time & of course always also some adored leatherdykes. can't ever visit the bay without a little leather ;)
this was my first time since getting pregnant spending more than 1 night away from my toddler & it went so, so well! they were so happy with papa & grandmaman, barely missed me. wonderful!
& then i got back to my baby...much more baby than they were when i left, much clingier & less patient & louder with their needs. & i got back exhausted; impatient; having missed a weekend in travel, which took its toll. it's taken a couple weeks to recalibrate to how much more they need me.
(whenever we cycle back like this, i resent the rupture of my inherent entitlement to connection & collective childrearing by imperialism. my child is correct to need this much touch, closeness, presence, attunement, guidance, responsiveness, tangible material constant care. & i am also correct in my knowing that it was never supposed to be all on me, or even me & one other talented dyke parent, or even us & daycare, or even us & daycare & a grandma, which is so much more than many queer parents have. it was supposed to be us & a whole village, all day every day & every night––the real village, the interdependent web of kin & just beyond kin, rooted in place––not the marketing jargon kind.)
& so finally as this moon grows old & thin, my transitions-challenged & tired neurodivergent soma is re-attuning. today we are practicing clear parental boundaries that the errands for groceries need to get done, followed by purposeful ceding to the child's authority about what happens next. we are practicing rainwalks & onbuhimo high-back-carry chats, making sure our masks are on right before we go into the shops, following the garbage trucks at a respectful distance & talking about how the workers do the work (not the trucks themselves), dropping off the groceries in the stairwell & visiting the excavator during work hours down the block & then going directly into the big bed for naptime on request as soon as we get back home.
if you have a toddler in your life, whether a version of you inside you from when you were small, or a whole entire separate person living in the world, what is one tiny way you can cede to their authority about their own embodiment & needs today?
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