BUT I AM THE WIZARD!!!

Funny how being a mom changes everything. Oh wait, they tell you that. But what I mean is that it feels as if everything that comes before was a different person, or a different life. It’s hard to connect to that stuff, that brainset. Something that was clear and simple before, is now just simply incomprehensible. I know it’s still there. I still have the knowledge. I still have the ability, but it is as if it is hiding behind a curtain. The baby is playing in front of the curtain, and that distracts me all to hell and I don’t even bother trying to open the curtain. Then, other times, all I want to do is open that curtain, and I’m staring at it filled with need, but the baby is crying, or nursing or needs lunch, or maybe I have to clean up after the baby or feed myself so I don’t collapse—and there is just no way I can get to the curtain to look behind and figure out who the wizard is.

BUT I AM THE WIZARD!!! Oh great and powerful. So easy to forget, so easy to lose focus, to lose confidence in my own wizarding powers-- pick your favorite wizard, Oz, Gandalf, Merlin, Harry Potter-- or I suppose “witchly” powers would be a better term, since wizards have a tendency to be men, and there’s something very important to my own powers about being a woman. So pick your favorite witch, Morgan Le Fay, The Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda, Hermione, the Witches of Eastwick, or of Salem, the girls from that movie, The Craft.

Do you notice that wizards are mostly wise and good, and witches have a tendency to be considered evil and dangerous??? Hmmm. I guess we’re fighting against the fear of women’s power. A woman who wields power like a man is a witch. This isn’t just my college feminism rearing it’s head, here. It’s something I have to deal with as a mother, as a (I can’t believe I refer to myself this way) house wife, a mate.

Here’s what I am fighting against: All my power, all my energy, all my creative and generative fire should be going into my child, home, partner. And this isn’t just from outside sources like society, or tv, or my fiancée, or my mom—no, this expectation is coming from me.

Such a muck my brain is in. I want to create, I want to be strong, I want to be THE WIZARD, but my urge is to be caretaker, to be passive and react to others’ actions (Sean, Gabriel, the washing machine, even the machine of my own body), to be THE MOM.

Truth is it’s scary to step into your own power, to be that selfish, to be that single minded, to put yourself out into the world and say I AM THE WIZARD. The fear stops me. The fear keeps me from making time for myself and my creativity. The overwhelm of all the new responsibilities stops me from taking the first steps to create. The exhaustion of taking care of baby and home allows me an easy way out of the struggle to make something of depth and meaning. The actuality of my day to day life, that speeds from baby nap to feed to baby nap, with me trying to fit all the stuff in, that stops me, too. I want to DO, I want to BE… but at the same time, it’s easier to just be the mom and take care of others instead of myself and my work. I want to, I don’t want. And there are so many convenient excuses.

O, the muck of the twisty brain.