Becoming Mulchy

"I've become more mulchy" I exclaimed to my husband this morning over my chai.
Seems an odd word to come to mind "mulchy. But, it kind of fits somehow.

The other day I took my girls to the Saturday market in town.
Matilda spied another little girl about her age and they spontaneously started playing hide and seek around the stalls.
Her mother smiled at me. "Look, how they can just be best friends without even knowing each others names"!
The mum ( about twenty five, trendy, bleached hair) and I chatted for a while laughing over the eccentricities of children... and how to get our girls to sit down for five minutes so we can pull a brush through their hair before they run off. She said she used to use roly poly olie as a bribe now she just puts it on first:)

And as I went on my way I noticed something reflecting in the glass window of the shop front ahead of me.
I saw that I was smiling as I walked.
It caught me off guard. My heart panged.

I've become "mulchy". Like the leaves. As I get older, I feel my inner eccentric old lady make herself at home more and more in my beingness. I smile as I walk, I talk freely, I am myself and I am at home. I think less and less of what I wear and I don't cross examine my thoughts before I speak. "Will I sound silly, does it come off as strange, what will this lead to."

I used to worry about the children's behaviour too. They are really good girls anyway but I think it was instilled in me, the judgements of others since being pregnant with my first daughter at 18.
I had pink hair at the time which didn't help with the responses toward me. People made up their minds before even knowing my name, and their ideas certainly didn't include wanting to be friends.

Strangers would tell me off in the street for small things like carrying my baby with only socks and no shoes on a summer day.
I felt worthless, something to be picked over. Little, by little, piece by piece, torn from my value. The truth of me was a shame. I listened. I believed it.

I became protective over my perceived abilities as a mother. I closed off more and more. Retreated behind a painted shell of conformity. And for quite a long while, it even felt more comfortable. A suitable arrangement. I wouldn't ever get hurt, cause I would never open up, give myself away to intimacy, let go and fall into the mulch of the world, beauty, mess, joy, hurt and all.

Now if the girls fuss a little I think mmmmm, maybe they're giving that young mum over their with three boisterous little ones and an armful of shopping a bit of relief, like she's not the only one that has a bad day. I'm very protective about young mothers that I see. And I never, ever judge by appearances, I know the harm that can do.
The coldness of people is brought out into relief when you dress or look differently. I have lived on both sides.

So the mulch part?

I'm not trembling, lonely
upon the branch anymore, neither tender and green
nor brittle and faded.
I've fallen.
I'm on the ground, in the mulch, ready to be open and brave to what comes. Becoming mulch, the earth, hoping, just that I might, in time to come, give a little back to the tree that taught me how to let go and just be.