By Maria Padhila
Each month at the New Moon, I put a different pendant on my silver chain to bring in that Moon’s energy. This past New Moon, I put three charms on the chain: an ouroboros, a milagro of a woman’s form, and a puffy silver heart, that last item from the handfuls of costume jewelry I got from Isaac’s grandmother. She bought jewelry everywhere she traveled; much of it she would sell and then donate the profits to her favorite charities, but she was also never without perfectly coordinated accessories, and her granddaughters, in-laws and great-granddaughters benefited from that.
When I run, the three clink and jingle together. I sound like my old cat with his collar full of tags — he was a big, mean marmalade and very proud of his bling. I put three on there because one is not enough. There was so much happening between New Moons — the eclipse that kicked it off, the Full Moon eclipse, the transit of Venus, planets changing signs, planets going in and out of retrograde — I’m fairly much beside myself. The confusion and exhaustion has me in a constant struggle to not give in.
If I were ‘only’ a mother with a job and a husband, I would still be on the edge of being overwhelmed. Why not? Most of the women I know who are ‘only’ doing that are. But I make the mistake of thinking, of creating, and worst of all, of having more love. Isaac, with resigned humor and a slight bitterness, points to an easy solution — give up the boyfriend. But he knows that would hurt me, and he loves me, and that means he doesn’t want me to hurt. It is a little bitter, the places we get ourselves into.
Today I’ve cheated a little bit and driven to a park a little ways up the trail where I usually run while my daughter is in her hours-long dance classes. I just couldn’t stand running out as far as I had time to go — about 40 minutes — and then having to turn around and come back. I needed to see what was down the line on that trail.
I’m finally at the place again, after all the lying around and not being able to run, where five miles feels normal again, a baseline. It’s not making a lot of difference to my body yet, though it feels good to be sore in the way you get when you’re training. I need to lose eight pounds, and Chris needs to gain eight. With his disability, it is a constant struggle to keep him calibrated. It’s the kind of thing people don’t see unless they know him very well. I wish I could give him my weight.