Out: Isolation, In: Solitude

August 14, 2024 | Bahia Santa Maria

I haven’t gone outside in three days. Mateo is sick again, so much for summer camp. I’m luteal. We decide to go the beach, not our usual beach, a special beach, 30 minutes away. I want the sea to cleanse his sinuses. I need it to cleanse me. Un despojo. It’s only fitting to end up at a beach named after a Saint. Santa Maria Bay is a sight straight out of the Italian novels I’ve been reading. Tiny rocks in the place of the soft sand we are used to. Painfully beautiful. Painful to walk on.

I approach the shoreline, paralyzed. I used to run into the ocean. I grew up in it. The waves seem flirtatious. Quickly they begin to crash, gaining momentum, aggression. Children next to me lay down, face first, surrendering. Allowing themselves to be taken out and returned. Over and over. They laugh and shriek. Their fear is delightful, mine isn’t. I remain firm, stiff. This isn’t me. My feet dig deeper into the rocks, resisting. The pain under my feet intensifies. Finally, I stop hurting myself. I dive in and begin to float, nervously at first. Why am I so scared right now? Why am I crying?

I’m reading The Nightingale and I’m terrified. Is it because the protagonist is a mother? I seem to be overly sensitive to the separation and destruction of families. Are all mothers this fragile? The eradication of an entire generation, a Jewish generation. Is it the British family laughing next to me, on holiday, that remind me of the fallen pilots from the chapter I just finished? I want to know their family history. The boys stare at me while I stare at their grandfather. Is it the video I watched this morning of a father in Palestine who left his apartment to get his twins’ birth certificates and came back to his entire family gone, obliterated. I hear his wails and throw my phone. History is ruthless, reality is no different. Does my bearing witness to pain, both past and present, make any difference? Should I just concern myself with Blake Lively, and being demure? 

Maybe it’s the date. August 14th. Two mothers I know are forever grieving the deaths of their sons, whose birthdays are today. 4 and 23, they’d be. Kai and Lucas. Kai’s mother is my sister, not by blood but by life. Her daughter is my Goddaughter, her mother is my Godmother. I light birthday candles for the boys, at night. They both died four years ago. 2020, the year the world changed and the year before I’d meet myself again, in motherhood, where fear and fearlessness exist at the same time, all the time.

I look at my son, playing in the sand, he is too scared to join me in the ocean. I’m glad. I’m scared of everything I used to love. He is on land, safe. I’m floating, in the deep, and crying. A catamaran is anchored with tourists; they dance and drink and swim. My tears begin to free me. Happiness returns. Life is beautiful.

The last time I came to this beach my son was 6 months old. I mention to Marcello that I can’t believe we’ve lived in Mexico long enough to say that the last time we went somewhere was over two years ago. He mentions something to the effect of time, how it flies. I’m disassociating. For a moment I feel a sense of guilt, as if I haven’t made the most of this paradise. As if I’m wasting it.

Pandemic babies, born in isolation. Pandemic mothers, transformed, and slightly damaged, by it. No one wants to hear it anymore. The world has moved on. I don’t. It’s only been four years. The same amount of time has passed since we lost Lucas and Kai. Nothing will ever be the same, it’s not supposed to be. This is life.

But I made a choice in the ocean. To move out of the isolation. Into safer grounds, into solitude.

Isolation, or the inability to relate to other people or things, is painful. A withdrawal from source, from flow. It’s the reason I’ve refused the women who so graciously extended their arms to me when I arrived, on alert, paranoid. I couldn’t relate, to anyone. I didn’t want to. Sometimes I still don’t. Solitude, on the other hand, is conscious, intentional. It’s a choice, my choice. I’ve come a long way but I’m still in the thick of it. The last time I was here I was 6 months postpartum, now I’m 6 months postoperative.

I know I’m here to heal. I’ve known, but now I accept it. It makes sense now, it feels supportive. I’m not alone, I’m in love. With Marcello, who runs home to me every single day as if we’ve been separated by a war. With our son, who won’t remember these days but will be forever shaped by them. With our life, because Mateo’s nervous system, his first three years, are anchored here, in paradise, just the three of us. He has peace. I’m learning it.