I don’t very often resolve to do things for the new year. I try to find the resolve every day and fail and triumph and triumph and fail. The time does fly but sometimes I wonder if that’s just because we forget so quickly so it just seems like it when really a lot of the time it’s kind of slow. Either way, there is the illusion of fast and so fast it is. I was writing the numbers on the wipe off calendar in the little squares inside the bigger squares and it felt like I just did this, writing July and then October and now it’s a new year. I am writing those little numbers so often. Almost every time I have to try hard to remember how many days are in the month. The months fly by forgotten and it still says “Get Asher left-handed kid scissors” at the top […]
under my surface I harbor a great fear like there’s a meteor on its way to earth headed right for our home it shines like it’s beautiful and we reach for so many things that twinkle to destruct so take my hand you’re still the one my soul loves and maybe we need to duck and cover bob and weave but we are underneath it all while meteors fly through the sky and what should we grasp? we don’t know what we’re doing just trenching maybe all of it and then even more ignites beauty and some will destruct but no matter we are cared for at every aching end so take my hand.
{Note: Just Write will take a break next week, December 27 and return on January 3rd} Ryan is way on the other side of the house and I can hear him on the phone. He’s a loud-talker, my husband. He’s right by the boys’ room but they don’t wake easily at all. Mike and Molly is on and Elsie is sleeping, too. We can’t loud-talk near her though, she’s not such a solid sleeper yet. Maybe she won’t ever be, like her mother. There are little piles everywhere. Teacher gifts, bows and wrapping, bags with gifts in them and then the usual suspects, like bills and other grown-up paperwork. Sometimes I look around and wonder who all of this belongs to because I don’t very often feel like a grown up. 36 and a half years have gone by and still I’m a kid. I was driving to another store tonight, looking […]
I woke up out of the habit of a lot of waking up and looked at the clock. 5:48. I rolled over, back to the dream I already can’t remember. Then came the shuffle of Miles’ morning entrance, the way I can feel him there even if I don’t hear him. 5:53. I really thought it had been at least a half an hour since I dozed off again. We last got Elsie back to sleep at 4 something. But 19 minutes after Miles came in, she was crying. I picked her up and she didn’t stop so I sat down with her and we rocked in the squeaking leather chair. Her brother wandered off to watch something on TV but suddenly he was in the next room, trying to get a butter knife out of the drawer. Loud. Clanging. Banging. On a Nutella mission. I couldn’t call out for him to be quiet for the […]
Thousands of thoughts race through my head every day and I’d guess 80% or more have something to do with mothering–what I’m doing, how I’m doing it–critically thinking, judging myself, measuring and sitting certain that I’m coming up short. A lot of those thoughts have been about Miles lately, his difficult adjustment to school and his new way of being as a result. What to do, what not to do, where I’ve gone wrong, where I’m sure to go wrong because I’m only one me and there’s just not enough time to work and work at it. I used to think I’d be able to mother a certain way, imagining all kinds of time to sit and talk and nurture and talk some more. It turns out there’s so very little time for that, at least right now. Ryan is gone this week and my sister brought us homemade chicken noodle soup. So the boys and I, we broke […]
A big part of the reason that I blog is that I feel so un-heard so much of the time. Maybe that’s sad, but it’s just true. Every mother repeats herself far too many times before someone finally listens. It’s just part of the deal. The most lovely Erin said something that runs through my head every day, at least a few times, each day. It went something like this: I could martyr away nine lives and no one would come to even one funeral. The truth is, I martyr a lot. It’s like an old habit. Maybe much like drinking or smoking or eating too much. The pathways in my brain are all stomped down with sighs. I so easily tromp on through the same wooded incline, begging to be seen. So I could go on and on and on right now about how hard the last weeks have been, months really. […]
He comes in the door weighed down by bags. He got the wrong sandwich meat but who cares, he went grocery shopping for me. He’s a trooper of a man, always helping, especially when I just feel awful and don’t know why but can’t help it. My husband. I’m wearing Elsie in the Ergo, with big dark circles under my eyes and I tell him that I think my thyroid must be screwed up. I’m going to get it checked tomorrow. He’s the one that made sure I made the appointment. Now he’s making me lunch. I just vacuumed again so Elsie would fall asleep. What a hilarious routine. Such a cleanly one. Now I sit here and tell you these little things and wonder how our simple stories can be so interesting to each other, so intriguing. They are the glue that holds our cyberspaces together. We see where we overlap and it’s like […]
I’m vacuuming while wearing Elsie in the Ergo and I’m loudly answering the boys. They are at the table, practicing rainbows with color crayons. ROY G BIV, I say. And then I realize they have no idea what I’m saying. So I just say, Start with red. What’s next? Asher asks. ORANGE. I am a multi-tasking superhero mother-woman. Or so you would think, if you didn’t know that I am only vacuuming because it makes Elsie fall asleep so I’m just vrooming that thing around everything that’s all over the floors so I’m not really getting anything clean. Everything is done just sort of these days and I’m perfectly fine with that. Most of the time. The vacuum juts out in front of us and Elsie quickly starts the deep breathing of sleep. I hold one hand to her back just to feel even closer to her and I move the vacuum around […]
I told you, you can have all of mine until I’m emptied out just a shell of me on the floor someone else will pick me up fill me up empty themselves to a puddle on the floor and so it goes 6…7? billion people on the planet what else are we to do but fill each other up off the floor He said, this morning you have such a great capacity for this kind of thing and you know what? I do. I have learned to love because of people like you and there is nothing I’d rather do. I will fight with you and for you when you can’t and I will bury my face in my life while you do the same in yours, moment by exuisitely painful and beautiful moment. I will sit with my knees bent and burning into the ground and pour out fear and turn it into […]
I have three different glasses of water on my desk. Two green glasses and one orange. I don’t know how that happened. I was trying to fill in the November calendar on the wall and be sure to fill in the google calendar at the same time so that it will send me reminders to my phone. I need reminders because this week the kids in kindergarten are wearing a certain color each day and I even have to put that on the calendar because I am always always That Mom that forgets. Like last week, Asher went to his preschool Halloween party with no costume. Then I felt awful. He didn’t seem to mind though. They got to see a fire truck that day anyway. Another day I’m supposed to remember to bring a cucumber because they’re making pickles and then another day it’s Asher’s day to bring the snack. Then […]
He’s off to school so there is less battle to do. Lately, there’s been so much resistance, a different kind of over-tired and angry boy. I start to get worried, that maybe I don’t know how to help him through this stage or the next or the next. I pick up yesterday’s jeans, the ones he was supposed to put down the chute, and I reach into a small pocket. One rock. One penny. The jeans go down the chute. The treasures go on his dresser. Time is just a blur of squares on the calendar and nonsense numbers on a clock, swallowed by exhaustion and so many thoughts about these three little people I love so much. Nothing is clear. It’s funny how a mother can love the business of sacrificial living while still coming face to face with an end of herself that feels like a scream caught in a dry […]
He forgot that he thinks he’s too big, he held my hand all the way to the cafeteria. Two friends at the table were crying hard and another was so brave, he said he was left all alone once and didn’t even cry. Miles didn’t say a word to that but his eyes said his wheels were turning. It was time to line up and head to class and so I bent to hug him and bit back tears and he made his MOOOOM face and bit back a smile. I didn’t make it back to the van, sob-walking and then sob-driving. I was left all alone and I did cry. ::: Back at home I fed Elsie and her blue eyes looked up at me and Asher whispered questions. Nanny came to be with Elsie and I took Asher to an appointment and we drove by brother’s school together, waving and […]
I wake up thinking about another creative endeavor. I think this makes 5 Big Things I dream to do in the world. Number one is mothering, creating humans that live like this. Then the others, they are all of the other artist parts of me, reaching out and begging to explore the story of this life. I wake up with that new idea and then I feel the tap tap tap of the start to the day and I’m on my feet with breakfast and answering questions and rubbing away the sleep from all of our eyes. I’m reaching all around. We talk about finding balance and she has none and neither do I. We talk about accepting that in motherhood and then I think it’s impossible to accept that all at once. The only way to do acceptance is in moments. The balance is not in the big picture. It is in […]
Elsie is sleeping and so I changed the laundry and I started dinner and I swept the floor. I hurried. I should be paying bills now, or calling in a prescription or sweeping the floor, again. There is so much dog hair when it’s this hot. But I needed to come here, to just sit with my fingers tapping with words that are going in no particular direction or maybe in many directions. We (the parents)are in the trenches, friends. We just are. We’re fighting a battle and I’m doing that thing where I over-think it hoping that I can miraculously come up with an answer that would fix the pain for Elsie. But I can’t. The reality is that she’s a newborn and she won’t always be one and her little gut will mature. (Yes, I do realize I keep saying that over and over, almost every time I post something. Maybe […]
I sit out in the sun with my boys and I love the sun and my boys so much and wasps start to dive-bomb us. We run in the house. They are playing so well together with coins and coins and more coins, pushing them across the hardwood floors, there are coins everywhere, scattered. When they’re done I ask them to pick up the coins and they listen the very first time. Then they get distracted and leave half the coins and I’m standing and saying it again like a record broken. I get up the gumption to take them to the park and not far into the sliding and swinging I can tell my biggest boy isn’t feeling well. We go home. I worry. I get out a snack, some veggies and dip and they eat them and I let myself think for a moment Look. I have boys that eat veggies. […]
notes to my children: Don’t forget to feel and then move on if things don’t go the way you thought they should go. Sometimes what you want isn’t even what you wanted anyway. Open doors for girls. Or better yet, open doors for anyone and everyone coming through. Please. Your brother will be your best friend, if you let him. Don’t pass up chances to go to far-away places even if it doesn’t seem like the right time. Marry someone who likes so many of the very same things that you like. Please. You need to trust your heart-gut, it speaks to you. It is a true voice that can keep you safe from danger and lead you to great things. You were made for those great things, like laughing or changing your corner of the world. There are dreams in your heart and you’ll surely forget them sometimes so circle back and uncover […]
I hear her over there and she’s saying, Well I saw that he commented on her statusand she’s not my friendbut likeI could see the updateso that’s how I knew about the job change.They stir the whipped cream through their coffeeand keep going, about updatesand the way they know things that way.I’ve been feeling scared to say hello to another stranger,she’s reading a Donald Miller book in a chair nearby.I figure we’re both probably going to hear him tonight.The conversation that’s still going makes me want to say hello to a stranger in person.So we talk a momentand we find out we know some of the same people.Her smile is the light up the room kindand I’m glad I asked about her bookand if she’s going tonight because she is.So we talk about what it is we love about Miller books.Right there in persontwo strangers connecting without a blinking cursoror a keyboardI had […]
I’m sitting here with some acoustic folk. Not folk as in people, but with folk music, and I’m wondering about the lady that’s crying in the next room with her friend, the one who is raising her crinkly brown napkin to the corners of her eyes to dab and sniff. I can see her because of the french doors and their glass panes, ten of them. I wonder why she’s crying but I’m not going to listen. I could take off my headphones and listen, but I want to honor her story, her sense that it’s hers and only shared with a friend, in their own space, in the coffee shop they share with me. A place that feels very safe. And I wonder why so few people actually check on crying strangers when they’re not with a friend, and if they do, is it because they really care or because they’re curious […]
I pass him on my way in and he’s intent on his anger. He brushes by me repeating, I hate this I hate this I hate this. We share a moment of his pain on the sidewalk and I’m rattled by the heat of rage rising up the skin of his neck. I come in to the warmth of the smell of coffee and sugar. I sit down and breathe and I think Oh humanity. ~~~It’s a blind date, I think. His leg pumps up and down with his nerves while he lifts his mug. He says something she seems to be confused by and so she says something about his priorities. It’s a joke, but he swallows the lump in his throat while the heat rises to his face and his leg bounces faster with his fake laugh. There’s an awkward silence and then she asks how big his family is. They […]
He stands at the counter next to my table, he’s ordering and telling the people around him that he hasn’t been here since it was Richardsons. No one seems to know what he means. Including me. Time marches on. So do I. But he takes a call amidst the backdrop of coffeehouse noise, shouts to the caller the funeral arrangements, thanking for condolences. There will be a private burial, he chokes. And my heart hurts. The plates are clanking, the aromas strong. He’s thinking of another time and another place, a person he lost from back when this was Richardsons. A young couple with a fuss about where to sit, a sneer, a silent scold. Then they sit and they eat with no words, just resistance. They weren’t here when this was Richardsons. The mail carrier stops for his short break checks email, sips hot cocoa and chats with regulars. He keeps […]
