The Memories we store in the walls

(A letter to my future self)

Dear Self, 

I am writing this letter to you, somewhere in the future. Hopefully by now, you are settled in a home, maybe the house of our dreams, or just in a place that helps us feel like things are settled and we have a solid place to call home…

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If you are new to my publication, Welcome! I’m intrigued to meet you. 

My name is Misha, and I’m here on a need-to-write basis and post my writings twice weekly, once for free subscribers and once for paid.   

This publication is a mixed genre experience, I write essays, creative non-fiction, poetry, and life musings. I also have a podcast, mostly for my paid subscribers, but I open one episode monthly for everyone. 

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If you’d like to peek around- try reading some of my favorites:

THE MAN OF MY DREAMS- (creative memoir)

THE PERFECT LOVE- (poetry)

THE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER, AND ACTOR- (essay)

I am hoping and dreaming about all of this now, and I hope that you are hoping and dreaming much bigger dreams than the (almost 5 lunar months postpartum me.) 

The first year feels like the most sacred time for a new mother and her baby. I am thankful I can be here to reflect this to you, as life may have moved on as it does, with the business of all that surrounds you.

She is beautiful. Her tiny body is lying in the bed that both my mom and dad, although separately,  slept in when they stayed in this apartment during my first 3 months postpartum. I moved with her downstairs because the 5 kitties that Saiya gave birth to are adorable, but wild and playful at night. They storm our room like an electric current and roam free. I am watching her through the baby monitor, typing as fast as I can.

We have made the impossible happen and left the U.S. and Mexico with very little in our bags. We came to Europe, celebrated and cherished our beautiful wedding, honeymooned in Turkey, and moved into the Romanian country house for the beginning of my pregnancy. We decided to move to Spain to give birth to our baby. I didn’t know where we would find ourselves, but I knew that a version of me that existed, like you, would know. 

We are in Marbella Spain, and there was a slim chance we would have been able to find our birthing home, but together and with divine intervention, and a little timeline jumping,  we made it happen within a week. Many times now I have said that if we weren’t supposed to be here, we would have never been allowed in by my grandmother-land herself so easily.  

We found ourselves in the perfect setup for welcoming our baby and the many people who rolled through from month 8 of my pregnancy till now.

We are moving from the home our daughter chose to come into. We will be out of here in a matter of days, so I feel compelled to give gratitude for the moments that flew by. The eyes of our ceilings looked down and saw everything moving in slow motion as we said goodbye to the last chapter of our lives without children. The nights where the house was still but I sat bouncing my baby at 3 am, then 5, then 7 am, till all hours, until there was sleep all around. The house saw the ceremonies we held for the baby to come earth side, as we wrote her small notes and placed them under the candles in the fireplace. The ears of our walls listened to every moan and groan, contraction, and cry. It heard the moments when my breath panted from despair and sometimes I felt like all was lost. It listened to the newborn screams of our daughter while the soothing shushes came from all of the members of our small tribe. We all enjoyed laughing at dinner as my family cooked and sat together at the dinner table to share nightly meals. I hope this house will always remember the mimicking of our voices as Saiya let out her meows only to become a choir of 5 kittens and now their meows act as an ode to motherhood. I feel like it’s a perfect metaphor for all that we’ve left inside and taken with us.

I have found various emotions flooding me with every turn. When I first arrived here. I saw a mountain peak and the ocean off in the distance. I knew that both masses needed to exist for my daughter to enter. The mountains and the sea were present as I looked over the balcony into the unknown of how our lives would change. The Spanish sunsets glistened over the horizon and the idea of us being new parents both excited and terrified us. We had a full house to enjoy as my pregnancy came to a close. As my belly swelled, the house became full of family and friends who came to help us during the first few months. Then suddenly, as all good things must end, the windy staircase that once connected the village of help now stayed open for me and my daughter to climb down into our temporary bed. 

In those short six months, so much has occurred. 

Sometimes you need to empty the emotions before going from one place to another.  I have yet to feel at home here in Spain, but I sense a new opening. I allow myself to move into a new discomfort. One that took my ancestors generations to undo. To migrate to a new place, and for me, it is new and old, this is where my family originally was. Maybe the unringing of these wet emotions comes from the people before me who had left Spain for Mexico. New and old feelings surface now that I’m changing the trajectory of my family’s lives.

I know that the shift is temporary and things always fall into a similar pattern, the familiar pieces unpack and home starts to look like home once more. Within a few months, we will move again, this feeling was once welcomed and sought after; but now with a baby, the drifting doesn’t sit as it used to.  We no longer have the freedom to roam without limitations and the anchors we plant into where we wish to be need to be firm enough to thrive as a family. I crave stability now more than ever before. I hope to take part in the community of our choosing.  I wish for peace and tranquility during the moves. And I hope you know, future self, that I mean that, I mean it so much so, that it creates a massive opening and we find our home together, here in Spain. 

I know you will.

A small prayer to seal this letter-

I call upon the great forces of the universe. The energies that are so much bigger than me. I ask for a smooth hand to move from one place to the next. For soft transitions and a gentle road paved for us to flow through. Help us to find grace in every moment and to cherish all that we have had and all that will be. Allow us to have gratitude and to share that gratitude as we continue to meet life's next chapters. Allow home to follow us into every dwelling we enter. 

As above so below- So it is. 

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p.p.s. Outside of writing, I like to help people heal and find a way back to themselves.

Check out my small business  www.ritualcomun.com to learn more.