I Am a Burning Man Volunteer, a Yoga Instructor and So Much More

I am not just my son’s mother

I am a mom.

But I am also a writer, world traveler, lover, professional, friend, auntie and so much more.

The mayor of the city where I work has known me for years; first as a reporter covering the city and now as an employee of the city. Whenever he sees me, the first question out of his mouth is not, “How are you doing today?” or “So, are you still writing?” It is and always has been, “So how’s your son doing?” And he is not alone. Many people, professionally and socially, initially inquire about my son before asking anything else about what is happening in my life.

My son is a very likable person. He’s attractive, intelligent, funny and sweet. For his sake, I hope this remains the case as he grows into adulthood. He is just one of those people that everyone enjoys spending time with. He always has been. I would love to take the credit that is often given me, but I feel he was just born this way. His character has definitely been supported by the love and guidance shown to him by me and my husband, our family and all the other significant figures in his life, but even when I was carrying him inside of me, he was gentle. He rarely even kicked.

As such, when people meet us, they sometimes congratulate me, compliment me and tell me what a “great mom” I am because I have a “good kid.” I do not understand how this can be ascertained from a five-minute conversation. I also do not like the universality of labeling someone a “good mom” or a “bad mom.” No one is all one or the other. Just like I shy away from saying someone is a “good person” or a “bad person.” Everyone has their moments. Throughout the course of being a mother to my son, there have been times I was an excellent mother and other times when I was terrible at it.

During toddlerhood, a phase that I often refer to as the “drunken dictator years” because a friend (quite accurately) likened the behavior of toddlers to that of drunken dictators, my kid hating leaving. Anywhere. He did not want to leave the house, and then when we got to where we were going, he did not want to leave there, either. At the mention of departing, my usually placid child would throw a raging temper tantrum. At one birthday party, I had to chase him, running and yelling, through a public aquarium facility just to wrangle him into the car. Anyone witnessing that scene would not have thought me a “great mom” then.

My “good kid” is 12 years old now. He is a soon-to-be teenager and, as such, is experimenting with freedom. About a month ago, my husband and I were awakened at 3 a.m. to a police officer banging on our bedroom window because the doorbell wasn’t enough to wake us. He yelled through the window that he had our son. The shock, fear and WTF that shot through my brain in the 10 seconds it took to get from bed to door to find out what the hell was going on was pure adrenaline. My son was in his room asleep, right?! It turned out he had snuck out to “have privacy” while conducting a video chat with a friend and walked down our street in the middle of the night, so focused on his conversation that he hadn’t realized how far he’d gone. He ended up at a nearby convenience store where the cop was sitting in his vehicle, saw an obviously young person alone, questioned what he was doing, then brought him home.

This event and the handling of it could be a whole other story, but for the sake of this piece I am focusing on how it relates to my mothering as viewed by other entities. The officer that delivered him to our house was surely not thinking he was a “good kid” at that moment, and even now, I hesitate to tell people what happened due to fear of his actions as a reflection on my parenting abilities.

I became a single mom when my first husband died by suicide when our son was 1.5 years old. Suddenly, every aspect of my life, from the outside looking in, was centered on me in relation to my child. I know that people were concerned about me, but in a lot of ways it felt like this stemmed from worries about my ability to parent my son while going through such shock, grief and anger. Subsequently, I cast myself aside for a while and focused all my energy on making sure he was OK. Obviously, this was a vital action, and in many ways saved my life, but I realize now I resented the fact that it was all about him.

I needed to be mothered, too.

Even though I did not spend my youth dreaming of the day I would become a parent, my decision to become a mother was very intentional. I was in love with my first husband and started to imagine life as a family. Certain experiences — both with children and adults — awakened my desire to be a mother to my own child. I enjoyed helping people care for their kids and, as my empathy grew, more adults turned to me in moments of need. The instinct was foreign to me. Previously, my foremost focus was on my education and career, travel and adventure. When my best friend had her baby and we spent time together, I realized how joyful a child could be and began to imagine it for myself. I began to feel the flames of potential motherhood stoked within my heart. So we decided to get pregnant. It happened fairly easily and my son was born under a full moon following a considerable amount of labor. And then he was there and it felt like he always had been.

I was a mother.

Engaging this role represented a fork in the road of my life. I no longer considered moving to the West Coast and creating documentaries, per my graduate education. I shifted my focus to settling down in my hometown on the west coast of Florida to be close to family. We bought a house. I started my own, small video production company and taught classes in my field.

Adventures like festivals or backpacking through Europe, at least for a little while, were things of the past. Not that I had to abandon those trips (and hats off to the people who still do partake in such journeys with their young children), it was just easier not to go there.

However, those experiences, and many, many others, are undeniably a massive part of who I am, still.

Being a mother is just one part of my identity.

About a year after I lost my husband, I decided to make the trek from Florida back to Burning Man. This is an event that requires bringing everything you need in with you for a week of art, music and community in the middle of the Black Rock Desert. No money changes hands, so preparation and supplies are required and communication with the outside world is (or at least used to be) spotty. I needed some time to just let go of everything out there in the desert, and also honor the memory of the annual pilgrimage we used to make there together.

Family watched my son for me while I was gone. But even in that there was definitely judgment. How could a mother leave her two-year-old son to go to a raging party in the middle of nowhere, unreachable, for a week? Who does that? Me, apparently.

During the week I was there, I felt moments of missing my son terribly and considered picking up and leaving. But I pushed myself to just let go and connected with the part of me that I hadn’t listened to during the past several years, which were devoted almost exclusively to the care of my child.

I spent time with old friends and made new ones. None of these people viewed me from the perspective of a mom, which had been my sole identity from the time I knew I was pregnant.

I came back more centered and capable, finally ready to face my new reality in the wake of a great loss.

In order to be a “good mom,” I needed to mother myself.

And I still do.

I must do this to claim the part of my identity often ignored by those who just view me in one capacity. The rest of me. All the things that contribute to the full scope of being the person that wanted a child in the first place.

I am a contributing member of the burn community outside of Burning Man. I am a board member at my synagogue. I walk alone every night. I write.

I have realized it is OK if people from the outside looking in see me primarily as a mother, so long as I retain my sense of self through my other activities and responsibilities.

By doing these things I am setting an example for my son of a person who doesn’t just mother him, but also mothers the rest of us, including me.

I am a volunteer, camping aficionado, foodie, music lover, artist and a certified yoga instructor.

Also, I am a mom.