Best of Summer: Brooklyn Mama Mindfulness (2018)

It always begins the same way. I wake up with a plan. Perhaps, this is my mistake. After all, is there such a thing as “planning” when you have a toddler? Is there such a thing as “mindfulness”? I didn’t think so.

Not when my daughter ripped off her diaper and ran around the apartment yelling “Elmo! Elmo! Elmoooooo!” I definitely didn’t believe in mindfulness when I found a sock in the toilet, a raw egg from the fridge cracked over my desk and a piece of chewing gum on the back of my pants (that last one was totally my fault). I only first began to believe in mindfulness when I lost my temper at a coffee shop in Windsor Terrace.

Mistake #1 I brought my hungry two and a half year old daughter to a coffee shop in Windsor Terrace, right near a park where we usually like to play. 

Mistake #2 I did not take her to the park where we usually like to play. Instead, I wanted to have a picturesque Brooklyn coffee. 

Mistake #3 I also had not eaten. 

Mistake #4 I had gone to bed too late the night before.

Hunger, sleep deprivation and the need to plan a day can take its toll on any mother. But, there is something about being a hip Brooklyn mama that triggers all kinds of high expectations.

For example, we still want to be cool. We want our kids to grow up in a creative, culturally diverse setting. We want them to know about math, science, writing, and how these subjects often spark a revolution. Many of us believe in the public school system. We believe that these things will set them out on a path to greatness. We believe that Lou Reed, Lena Horne, Joan Rivers, and Jay-Z, all Brooklynites, are part of our children’s genetic makeup. Well, at least their neighborhood makeup. We also want them to have extraordinary upbringings. They should learn how to cross the street, ride their bikes safely along Prospect Park, window shop on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, yet be experimental enough to try brunch with us at the hottest new restaurant in Cobble Hill. And sometimes, when we think about all of these things when we think about how to get from the Carroll Gardens playground to the new bookstore on Smith Street and still get back home in time for lunch, a nap, a snack, and a cuddle…we lose it. We lose our tempers.

This is what happened to me, anyway.

My two and a half-year-old did not want to sit at the café’s quaint table. She did not want to color with the Ziploc bag of broken crayons I had brought along. She did not want to look at pictures on my phone. I knew it was bad when she didn’t even want a vanilla Donut Factory donut. At the last second, when the tantrum was in full view of everyone trying to concentrate on their laptops, as my coffee spilled across the table and onto the floor, when I could feel that the room and everyone in it was holding their breath, I yelled. “Stop it!” I snapped, “just stop it right now!” 

Often, I think that as mothers we hold so much inside of ourselves that when the time comes, and we actually allow ourselves to break, we’re like a steam pipe that releases an explosion of hot air into the atmosphere. Yet, we don’t feel better after the air is released, we feel horrified. It’s like, how could we have lost control? Who do we think we are, human beings!?! If we are mothers who work, our guilt is magnified.

We ask ourselves, how, when we have one free afternoon with our precious child, could we have lost our temper? Some of us have two children, or three. Some of us have nannies and some of us can’t afford the help. Whatever it is we have or don’t have, we are raising little people. People who will one day run for office, or build bridges, little people who will write books and hopefully not include the parts about their mothers bringing them to trendy coffee shops while losing their minds. 

Here’s what happened: I started to cry. Right there, in full view of the laptop convention, I burst into tears. The young girl behind the counter who looked like a 90’s supermodel with a shirt quoting Beyoncé that read, “I Woke Up Like This” bent down to help me clean up the spill. Her youth and beauty made me feel worn out and tired. When she bent over I could see her perfect breasts and thought of my own sagging ones. If her breasts had a voice they would say, “Hi I’m Linda and I’m Shirley, nice to finally meet you!” My breasts seem to say, “I’m Rita and this is Bob now leave me the hell alone.” If my breasts could smoke a pack of Camels, they would. My daughter touched my face with her pudgy hand and whispered, “Sorry Mommy, sorry.” Oof. 

So, yeah…mindfulness. That day my daughter and I skipped our visit to the public library free reading time series. We went home and ate cookies. We played with all of the dolls on the toy shelf and we put magnets on the fridge. We sang songs. We filled the tub with toy ducks. In those moments I realized I was living in the moment. There was no plan, no “oh, we should do this next.” That’s part of mindfulness and maybe that’s the hardest part of it: the ability to let go. Mindfulness is a superpower. It allows us to thrust ourselves into the full living moment without aggression or anger.

Mindfulness is a state of awareness. It is the ability to bring the breath back to the present moment. Having a plan is ok. Often, as a Brooklyn Mama, we need to have a plan. We live in busy, bustling neighborhoods. But, maybe that plan can be more flexible, and if it can’t be maybe our own minds can. 

If I had tuned into myself and been mindful the day of the coffee shop disaster, I would have taken a moment to find my breath.  I would have looked around and seen the situation. Then I would have understood that although I was a part of that situation, I still have the ability to look at the each moment from a third eye perspective. This idea will not stop my daughter from throwing a tantrum. It will not stop people from staring. The coffee is still spilled; the crayons are still broken. But with mindfulness the day is not ruined, instead it is steeped in possibility.

My daughter is throwing a tantrum. She is frustrated. I am exhausted. I feel that exhaustion. It’s ok to feel this way. It’s ok for my daughter to feel this way. Breathe. This is the moment. This is what’s happening in the moment right now. I want to cry. I feel so tired I want to cry. Feel this exhaustion. Breathe. Let’s pack up our things slowly, mindfully. Let’s put our bags back on the stroller. Let’s help the young woman cleaning up our own mess. Let’s do this mindfully. Look, she’s wearing a Beyoncé shirt. Breathe. Look, her breasts are perfect and mine are weary. “Sorry, Mommy, sorry.” I fed you with these breasts and they look like this because of love. My hair is a quiet tornado. I should have brushed it. Breathe. We are here, in Brooklyn, in a coffee shop, at a table, getting ready to go home. We are sleepy, cranky, overstrained, overburdened. We are fully aware. We are absolutely alive.