By Karyn Robinson

Mom, Mum, Ma, Mama, Mommy, Mummy, Ma, or as my middle son likes to refer to me “the giver of life”…  The yoga mantra of mommy-hood.

How motherhood relates to life, is that like life you are never done, never really off duty, never really far from the essence of being a mother, until the day of course when you are done. Motherhood sneaks into your dreams, your vacations away from your kids, your date nights with your husband. An essential survival skill to motherhood is to know how to put the kids and their issues out of your mind, but they never leave your heart. Even when I die I will still have folks on this planet that knew me as their mother and possibly, as their grandmother. The family is a web and the mother is the silk. She connects all the dots, she weaves the kids, cousins, relatives, friends, community, kids, appointments, life, marriage, together.

I always thought I’d be a mother from when I was young but I never knew why I would be a mother. What did being a mother entail? Why did I want to be a mother?  Why did I want to have multiple children?  Even pregnant with my fourth child I found this question difficult to answer. Maybe it is one of those things you can’t answer, because it just is, it is just my path this go around.

When all four of my children are home together – which is not often of late - THESE are the days as a mother that I cherish. As they grow and move and expand so do we as a family. I was recently asked “what is it that I once richly held close and now is radically empty?”  Deep question I know, you should meet the woman who asked it, Shannon Schneider of movingwiththemuse.com. She is the one who encouraged me when I didn’t think I was young enough, hip enough, or gumby-esk enough to be a yoga teacher. She is the one who reminded me of what I could teach, about embodiment and movement from my experiences as a mother.  What I could offer to those younger, hipper and seemingly more swavay than myself, about their bodies from my 45 year old mother of four body.

My answer to this oh-so-probing question of what was held so close that is now empty, is my sons as boys. Their curls, baths, trucks, legos, slingshots and rubber band guns. Their dirt, loud playfulness, their fears, and fighting, scrabbling, smelly, beautiful, ease-i-ness selves. My value to them by applying tickle cream to scrapes, and when needed, taking them as calmly as possible to the ER for stitches and casts. Finding the popsicles to give them when the sore throats struck, and cool cloths to foreheads to settle fevers. Reading books and books and books, Winnie the Pooh, Goodnight Moon, Dr. Seuss, Star Wars, Narnia, Lord of the Rings. Combing their locks and washing out the dirt between their toes, cutting their nails. Cheering and encouraging them on oh so many, many soccer fields, baseball fields, and piano recitals. Picking them up from wherever, whenever to appointments, school, dates, friend’s houses. Their simple complexity of being boys.  Being asked for advice, help with applications, studying for tests making science fair projects, and filling out the forms and forms and yet more forms. Friends, first loves, drivers license exams, college dorm shopping, and now…….well not too much really.

Now, once, twice, three times a year if I’m lucky I get to wash my oldest son’s uniforms, fold his clothes, make his favorite meals and host a party with all his buddies in between his deployments in the Navy. Maybe six times a year I get to make my middle son’s favorite meals, chat on the phone but more on Facebook, offer advice with direction and goals, classes and jobs. With the last one who is still at home, but hardly ever home, who is deep in the  throngs of being 18, we are mostly struggling through the emancipation process, curfews, grades, SATs, and college prep. The occasional twenty bucks here, $100 there. Not exactly priceless moments. I am now the mother to young men, no longer boys.  To be continued..........