Rolling with the punches
impulsivity, matrescence, and embracing what is
At the end of November one of my dear friends, Michaële—who I’ve talked about more than once in this newsletter and who I interviewed about facilitation a few months back—organized a babymoon day to center and celebrate my lil bump! It was a gesture that touched me deeply, especially on the tail of a season of change and transition that brought a lot of unknowns and stress that didn’t leave much space to savor my pregnancy.
The celebration started with a sound bath at the Integratron and a delicious lunch at La Copine (I highly recommend both!), before she shot photos of me in the desert to capture my changing body and initiation into motherhood.
A topic of conversation that day was mine and Wayne’s decision to go back to New York after only 3 months in California. For some of you, this is brand new news! Yes, we actually packed our bags and headed back to Brooklyn at the top of December.
If you know me and have been following my journey for a while, you know I did a very similar cross country u-turn in 2021.
Years ago, when I was first moving to NY a friend who’d lived here for 20 years said to me, “The City will be the most toxic relationship you’ll ever be in. She’s a beast. She will chew you up and spit you out. You will have your highest highs and your lowest lows and you’ll want to leave time and time again, but she will keep you coming back.”
Essense—if you are reading, you were right 😅
As I talked to Michaële about moving cross country again — this time at 7 months pregnant — my friend said something I didn’t expect.
She said she admired my impulsivity.
Impulsive? Was that really me? I’ve always thought of myself as someone who goes with the flow, sure, but impulsive? I’d like to think I’m at least somewhat measured and able to consider consequences. But the more I sat with the mirror she’d offered, the more clarity it provided.
I thought about some of the biggest decisions in my life—Getting married at 19. Leaving the country. Getting divorced. Moving across the country. Quitting jobs without a plan or the standard ‘6 months of runway’ (a couple of times). Starting my own business. Deciding to try and have a baby. Getting pregnant. Moving cross country…and then back, again— all more or less pretty damn impulsive.
For most people, these are choices that necessitate a lot of planning, consideration and preparation. I won’t go as far as to say that I am thoughtless, in fact, I am a very intentional person—I need to feel rooted in my reasoning before I act; however, I do operate with blind faith that things will work out.
She said she admired my willingness to try and to trust that I’d be able to roll with the punches.
As our conversation continues to marinate, I’m realizing that the idea, “things will work out” is very much connected to being able to adapt, or to “roll with the punches.” Just because things work out, doesn’t mean they go according to plan or are painless. In fact, in most of my experience, “things working out” has looked like me ending up somewhere I didn’t expect—often with a new perspective, appreciation, or experience that I couldn’t have planned for, even if the road to get there was a bumpy one.
Of course I have had moments of wishing I’d considered more of the risks before acting so quickly. I’ve felt like a quitter. I’ve had my tail between my legs looking at the aftermath. But one thing I haven’t had to live with, is the question, “but what if I’d tried?”
My grandfather said to me years ago, “Sometimes you’ve got to make a choice to know what you actually want.” My natural inclination as a do-er makes this is relatively easier task—with the downfall being that sometimes I do before feeling fully. The feelings do eventually come and then they usually inform a next step.
That’s how my brain and body work. Yours might be totally different. We all have our own unique processes for making decisions and moving through this life, each with their own downsides and underbellies. I’m grateful to my friend for helping me see myself more clearly.
I am also super grateful that as the last few months have unfolded I had a partner who was willing to be equally as impulsive as me and that we had enough trust in ourselves and each other to to go on this wild journey and ultimately land on our feet — though still a little wobbly — with time to spare before our little daughter arrives into this world.
So here we are. We moved into our new apartment on December 15th and had a snowy Christmas Eve. We opted to have a very low key holiday given how much movement and transition we’d been through.
I decided to make my grandmother’s lasagna recipe, to help feel anchored to a holiday tradition of my own roots and to feel connected to my family as I navigated all the wavvy feels of leaving them on the other side of the country just a few months after showing up with a plan to raise my baby near them.
I went to the local butcher and felt a bit like an imposter while the much more seasoned mamas and grandmas moved toward the counter, effortlessly. Exactly sure of what they wanted and how they wanted it cut, not afraid to tell the man behind the counter to cut the pieces of muscle smaller, “like this!” a woman pinched her thumb and forefinger together to show the exact size she wanted the beef.
I felt nervous to step forward, to take up space. I even suggested to Wayne that perhaps we could just skip the ribs and grab some sweet Italian sausage from the grocery down the street, “it’s so much less crowded,” I pleaded.
He urged me to stay put. To move up, claim my place in line.
Sooner than I expected one of the men made eye contact with me. It was my turn.
“Do you have boneless ribs?”
“Boneless? No.”
I felt exposed.
“Erm, okay. I’ll take 2 lbs of the pork ribs please.”
He pulled them out and asked me where to cut.
This time I used my forefinger and thumb to show him precisely how much I wanted. He asked if I wanted to keep them all together or if I wanted them individually cut.
“Individual,” I said, trying to sound as sure as the woman who’d asked him to cut her meat smaller just moments earlier, even though in that split second I had no clue if I needed them individual or not.
We paid. We stepped onto the sidewalk, sun in our faces, arms weighed down with grocery bags.
“You survived!” celebrated Wayne.
I felt like I had undergone some kind of initiation—into the neighborhood, into tradition, into motherhood, even—and I was beaming.
As I sit here now, a week into 2025, the year my daughter will be born, I am thinking about a tradition I’ve had for at least the last 5 years: choosing a word (or phrase) of the year.
I like this a bit more than a resolution because it isn’t centered around achievement or productivity — though it still often leads to positive momentum. I like to think of it more like a guiding force in the background of my life for the months ahead.
I let the phrase or word emerge. Once I set it, I let it go. It’s not something I return to frequently, but I do find when I look back on the year it usually showed up in ways big and small.
Last year’s phrase was GO FOR IT — and boy, oh boy did I. And to think I was surprised to be described as impulsive! 😅
As I prepare for my own matrescence—the massive whole life shift that is becoming a mother in all its bliss, pain, awkwardness, and the like—the phrase that is emerging is EMBRACE THE PRESENT.
Whether reading a book about the death of Maiden and birth of Mother, or talking to women who have recently (and not so recently!) passed through the threshold, the biggest takeaway so far is: prepare for things to go not as planned, starting with the birth of your child.
I am reminded of the Zen practice of not resisting what is—the general idea being if you are sick, it is no help to sit there wishing you weren’t—a pattern that inevitably creates more suffering in the long haul.
I am trying to bring this practice with me as my body changes, as I plan, gather, and prepare for a homebirth that certainly won’t unfold exactly as I have it written in my birth plan, as I stand on the edge of transition from someone’s child to someone’s mother, I am calling in a full body embrace of what is, with all it’s mess, unpredictability, confusion, dullness, ecstasy, wonder, heartbreak, and “WTF” moments (as I am told there will be many).
We’re about to see just how well I can roll with the punches. It sounds like my next great adventure!
In my very Jasmine-way, I have an itch to create my own little community of expecting moms and moms, who might be interested in getting together (virtually…to start) to connect about the bright spots and the shadows, and to dedicate time to writing about this whole wild journey, together.
This is a fresh seed in the research phase, so if you are a mom or you know a mom who might like a space like that, will you fill out this brief survey so I can figure out if this is something people I know are craving and how to best serve our need?
“The luminous, mycelial tethers between us, our fundamental connection to one another, the raft through the sorrow, the holding through the grief joy is, reminds us, again and again, that we belong not to an institution or a party or a state or a market, but to each other. Needfully so.”
― Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays
Wishing you a pockets of peace as we greet 2025, and all that it will bring and already has. If you decide to choose a word of the year, I’d love to hear it in the comments or send me note.
With love & in gratitude,
Jasmine
1+ for Integratron and La Copine! Loved this piece. I am so excited for your life to change in all the best (and hardest) ways. You got this.