Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘mother’

Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er/Sing From the Womb, 6

Posted in Memoir, tagged , , , on May 23, 2013 | 1 Comment »

This is the sixth in a series of snippets from my memoir, formerly known as Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er.*

The title is now: Sing From the Womb: Leaving Fundamentalism in Search of Voice.

Please let me know what resonates with you.

Sometimes when I had yelled myself to tears, I’d imagine running off to a cottage by the sea, just my pen and I. Because I long for Solitude, to sigh in bliss when it comes to wrap me in a blanket of silence and peaceful irresponsibility. And to be heard. Truly, quietly heard.

And I was faced with these questions: What lay underneath the anger? What wound had becoming a wife and mother uncovered? What darkness lay deep in my body?

And what light lay beyond it?

*The root word for Earth, Matter and Mother is mater.

Read Full Post »

Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er, 2

Posted in Memoir, tagged , , , , on March 25, 2013 | 2 Comments »

This is the second in a series of snippets from my memoir, Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er (a working title). Please let me know what resonates with you.

gypsy dance2

From the Prologue

Why had I forgotten? Why had I left behind the passion, the primal spirituality of the rhythm, the beat, the voice of my gypsy soul?

She is opposite to the woman I was taught to be. In my world any human hunger or need was to be suppressed, but She is hungry for life. She lives in her body.  Listening to the rhythms and voices of the earth and Her heart. Passionate. Sensual. Sexual. Raw. She is the symbol of my real self, the self hidden beneath layers of indoctrination. But She was there quietly harmonizing as I sang, laughing while I danced, and stomping her feet as I swished my skirts. I did not recognize Her but She was there.  But when I became a wife and mother I pushed Her completely underground. I had to. I had to become Mother Mary.

Read Full Post »

Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er, 1

Posted in Memoir, tagged , , , , , on March 1, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

This is the first in a series of snippets from my memoir, Writing Me Back to Mat(t)er (a working title). Please let me know what resonates with you.

gypsy danceFrom the Prologue

…for many women the relentless effort to be good had prevented the development of a more authentic voice.[1]

For centuries, our culture has disdained matter, and so deep and so unconscious is our contempt for the body that we cannot see the rejection of the living body… Mothers and grandmothers for generations have despised their female bodies, their sexuality… The unspeakable black hole that many women face in their dreams is that place of rejection.[2]

 

… mother and gypsy are one…[3]

 

I am Silence I am Song

I am Gypsy I am Ghost

I am Hestia I am Aphrodite

I am Madonna I am Eve

I am Mother I am Me

 

I am three and all I want is a tambourine. I want to make it jingle, I want to make it sing. I see the women twirling and stomping, clicking their castanets, banging and shaking their tambourines, those flamenco dancers. Bright, full skirts and black full hair flare as they spin. Silver in their ears, color at their throats. The music pulses in my stomach in time with my pounding blood. Although tiny, I feel their passion in my body as if I was spinning there beside them. Once home, I can’t contain the fever those women have burned in me. The living room becomes my stage, my heart beat my tambourine.

[1] Belenky, Mary Field. Women’s Ways of Knowing, 209

[2] Woodman, Marion. Leaving My Father’s House, 362

[3] Woodman, 364

Read Full Post »

Wise Women Speak 1.3.13

Posted in Wise Women Speak Project, tagged , , on January 3, 2013 | 2 Comments »

The greatest gift a mother can give her children is her own happiness

j, age 68

(Paraphrased from Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher)

Are you a Wise Woman? Inspired by a recent gathering of Wise Elders where a 75 year-old great-grandmother shared this life wisdom with us younguns: “Remember to Laugh!,” for my 2013 blog project I plan to share the gems of wisdom of older women. Please send me your wisdom (or words you have heard from the older, wiser women in your life).

And how appropriate this project should begin on 1.3.13, 13 being the sacred feminine number; the number of full moons (and menstrual cycles) in the year.

Read Full Post »

A turret and some (alone) time

Posted in Journaling Techniques & Prompts, Living Authentically, Writing & Career, tagged , , , on November 15, 2011 | 12 Comments »

I’m sitting in my new Writer’s Turret, as I am calling it. It’s actually just a small room we recently created by putting up a dividing wall in our son’s large bedroom. It is a north-facing room and I was concerned that I would feel the lack of light. But with my desk directly next to the window, looking out over the porch roof onto our residential street, the result is unexpectedly and pleasantly, well, turret-y. I don’t know why I have always fancied myself writing in a turret, it seems very Jane Austen (that’s probably the wrong author – I am embarrassingly unversed in English Lit) or Shakespeare-ish, I guess. I imagined I could be both artistically tortured and prolific in a turret. And alone.

For me, the image of a turret conquers up feelings – glorious feelings – of solitude. Creative solitude. I dream daily of being alone, just me and my words. Emotions, sensations, experiences – intangibles – forming themselves into words and sentences that I might grasp them, hold them, and understand them as best I can. Of course, I don’t need a turret for this, just a writing implement. But solitude? Now that’s an essential.

In one essay I wrote: “In my early twenties the vision of my future life included only the patter of fingers on the keyboard, not that of tiny feet. My imaginary writer’s turret didn’t come equipped with a safety gate.” In one recent workshop which I facilitated, one woman lamented that mothers cannot be fully creative, not because our brains have atrophied, but because of all the demands placed on us. Sadly, unless we can afford, or would be willing to commit to, full-time child-care and/or house-keeping, a mother does not have the luxury to create at her fullest potential. Even with my children out of the home to their respective educational institutions either 3 or 6 hours a day, I find my ability to write (or study for grad school) hampered. I have tried rising extremely early (4AM) and I loved the mental acuity of that time of day. But by Wednesday evening after all the housework, sibling-refereeing, taxiing, errands, etc. etc. etc., I wasn’t fit to be anyone’s mother or companion, let alone write.

I’m not good at grabbing moments. I’m a slow writer. I ponder each word and then go back and ponder it again. This analyzing (self-criticism?) can make a short blog post last the entire length of a Pre-K session. Suddenly I am having to abandon my treasure-trunk of words, ripping myself away mid-sentence to fly out the door to become Mom again. And take today: I have the flu (or something else icky but not bed-riddening). I am home with no demands for the day because after Pre-K my mother (bless her) is taking my son. But Hubby asked that we use this opportunity to do some important paperwork. So I delayed my writing, but then the phone rang and I sat for almost an hour waiting for him to get off the phone. (You know that infuriating situation when you’re meeting someone who’s late and you don’t know whether to leave because they might come right now… or maybe now…? Waiting for him to get off the phone any moment was like that.)

And so goes my life, it seems. I want to write, I love to write, I need to write, but I don’t write (much). I have responsibilities and always the question: should I be doing this or that? what is more important – the clothes or the blog post? And it is this constant questioning – deciding – that is part of the mental exhaustion (links to a NYT article). I love writing so much that I want to dedicate myself to it fully, not some half-hearted minute or two here and there, and so I don’t commit, because I can’t.

But I must. Because by not writing I am forsaking my own soul. My vision of a writer’s turret was just a symbol of my highest need: To be alone with “pen” in hand, scratching away, whittling words – the only tools I have – to make sense of my self and this world.

My turret is finally here. And today is “I Love to Write Day” and I do. So I am. And I will. Will you?

(And as I finish writing this I see this post on FB from Julia Cameron: “Time is what we all need more of–or do we? Time can be chiseled out of the busiest life by replacing our worrying with doing.” Ah, Synchronicity.)

Prompt: If we believe our visions and imaginings are symbols of deep (or higher) yearnings – from our authentic self – what is your “turret”?

Read Full Post »

We plan. Life laughs.

Posted in Journaling Techniques & Prompts, Life, Home & Community, Thinking Positively, tagged , , , on January 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »

Well, here we are. Five days into 2011 and I am finally getting to my computer. I had big plans. My goals for work, school, housework, and this blog were all spelled out in my January 1 journal entry. I had my running shoes on and I was just waiting for the starting gun, i.e. the roar of the school bus as it carried my eldest child away for 6 beautiful, peaceful hours. But first I had to pull myself out of bed, clothe and feed two bouncy children and get them out the door to drop the youngest off at pre-school. And that’s when my best-laid plans withered like the poor plants on my window sill.

Puffy-eyed, make-up challenged, and with my mop of hair mashed under my winter hat I said good morning to the too-awake teacher. As I hugged my son goodbye I heard her say, “Did you know you were scheduled to be parent helper this week?” I looked up to see which unprepared mother she was addressing and realized with horror it was me. “And you’re responsible for snack too.”

If I were in a cartoon I would have shook my head to clear my ears because surely I had not heard this correctly. I wasn’t scheduled again until spring. “No, Mrs. Young, it’s right here on the calendar that we gave you at the beginning of the semester. Young. See?”

So, after rushing off to get my eldest to school and then back home to raid the cupboard for a toddler-approved snack (for 15), gulp some coffee, and attempt to do something with my hair, I returned to pre-school, tail between legs, to observe dinosaur vs. race car war games, baby dress-up, circle time, and the nightmare of 15 four-year olds attempting to self-attire in snow-suit, coat, hat, glove and boots. Trying to find the positive in my sabotaged morning, all I came up with was, “One down, only two more mornings to go.”

Then I got sick. It felt like someone was smashing the back of my eyeball with a rock. I woke coughing in the night and my sinuses were goose-stepping behind my face. Then the kids got sick. Croupy coughs echoed around the house. I was going to have to call pre-school and tell them I couldn’t help. I felt guilty. But on a positive note it would be a nice, quiet day reading in bed while the kids lounged around recuperating.

Ha!

While I attempted to breathe through my nose they threw off their croup and began bouncing on the sofa, calling for drinks and snacks, pummeling each other, and asking why we can’t go out for lunch. After I croaked my way through two story books, I decided it was movie time. So, here I am. Finally in bed and all is quiet.

I had planned that my first post of the year would one of new positive thoughts for a new year – a fresh start. But life has a way of letting us know we have to roll with whatever is sent our way, be it involuntary volunteering, the croup, or a blizzard on your wedding day. I am searching for the positive in this delayed start to my new work/writing year… and it is that I got to read to my kids by the fire and I have the chance to write about my silly “misfortunes” while in my jammies and eating Christmas chocolate. The early evening sun is pouring through my window onto my bed. I would have been battling my way through the grocery store aisles on my “planned” day. I have to learn to slow down and take each moment as a blessing. It may not be the moment I had planned for but it is still a moment I have been given to be made the best of and thankful for.

Prompt: The positive in my latest “negative” is…

____

Please visit my Examiner.com page for articles on Journaling for Kids, Organization and almost everything in between.
Private coaching - Customized to help you re-INK your own life – available in person or via email.

Read Full Post »

Recycling my babble for Earth Day

Posted in Writing & Career, tagged , , on April 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

In honor of Earth Day I am going to do some recycling. Not my #2 plastics – I do that everyday (unless there’s too much gooey peanut butter stuck and then the jar sits on my counter “soaking” for a few weeks until I get sick of it and just chuck it. So sue me.) -  no, I’m going to recycle some blog posts.

While going through my almost two-year old blog to attach links to my new Amazon Bookstore (which you should check out, not just because it’s purple and pink and pretty, but because I have recommended some damn good books) I discovered some yummy stuff. Not to brag, but there are some treats buried in this ‘ere blog. For example, have you read of my soap-opera-worthy The Tale of Two Couples (parts 1 – 7) or Can’t I poop in peace? ?

Before I got all focused on this blog, I was more of a random mommy-whiner-writer blogger and some of my posts were actually almost funny. I kind of miss that; I miss the scatterbrain approach to blogging. But I am trying to earn a living here now, so no more funny business.

But I am still a mom, I have another life, and I don’t just sit around reading and writing about journaling all the time. So, just like the Austrians who hang their duvets out the window to freshen up, for the next little while I will be digging out some of the old stuff for an airing (that and I’m bit tired from all the deadlines I had this month – all of which I met, thank you).

Conversations in the grocery aisle

August 10, 2009

As I am trying to find the toothbrush for which I have a coupon while trying to think over, Mama, Mama, I want the Dora toothpaste! Mama, I want this one. Oooo, watermelon, I don’t have watermelon toothpaste. Mama, I need this… what is it?, an old lady approaches me. I think she’s going to comment on how cute my kids are or congratulate me on my ability to grab falling tubes while simultaneously remove brightly colored, cartooned products from my children’s itchy fingers. Instead she asks me if I know where to find the baby wipes. I tell her the next aisle over. She then proceeds to tell me why she is looking for baby wipes. No, not grandbabies coming to visit. No, not a baby shower. She likes to use them herself, she has Irritable Bowel Syndrome, you know.

Thanks for sharing.

A few aisles on, I run into an acquaintance, an older man I knew from my former job. We say hello and howdy-do and he asks me what I’m doing. I point to my cart crammed with two impatient children and far too much food and reply, Doing the mom thing.

He smiles indulgently and says, I meant, what are you doing with your time?

Oh, yea, nothing, nothing at all. Now, where are those bon-bons?


Tweet This Blog Post!

P.S. Please visit my Examiner.com page for articles on Journaling for Kids, Organization, and almost everything in between.

Read Full Post »

Gratitude, even while leaning over the bowl

Posted in Journaling Techniques & Prompts, Thinking Positively, tagged , , , on February 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I believe in gratitude. I try to be thankful for everything, to find something to be thankful for even in the midst of a blitz of ugh. I won’t deny this is very hard for me. I love to complain. Love it! Too cold, too humid, too hungry, too tired, too poor, too, too, too. But I am practicing gratitude and practicing finding the positive. I’ll get good at it yet!

Being thankful for what you have now instead of being focused on what you haven’t got is a very healthy mindset. Being grateful for everyday’s little blessings does not mean you can’t dream of bigger and better, it just means being content in this moment, now. After all, our life is ultimately made up of minutes. What you do, think, and say during the minutes is your life. Constantly wishing for something else makes a mockery of what you have now. Thankfulness for what you have now opens the door for more to be thankful for in the future. Contentment in the moment brings happiness in the long run.

The last two days has found me holding one or other of my children while their poor little bodies convulsed to void themselves of illness. This has meant two days when I couldn’t be at my computer rambling away as usual. I had to pull my mommy-nurse hat firmly down over my ears and set to comforting my weakened children. I tried not to think about the two looming article deadlines or the last minute marketing I could/should be doing for a workshop starting this week. I tried to immerse myself in housework that I never have (never allow myself) time to take care of. I tried to live in the moment even while mopping vomit off Little Lady’s chin.

It was hard. My work kept sneaking up and taunting me. And I had moments of frustration when I tried to sit at my computer while Elmo occupied my offspring in the other room, only to be called upon for more water or a tissue.

But then I realized something. I am so blessed! I can be home with my children. I am not letting anyone down at the office or using sick days that I might need for myself at a later date. I am not shorting us a paycheck and I am not subjecting anyone else to my children’s germs. How wonderful that I can be here to hold a coughing child and bring him hot milk.

I am so grateful that Hubby and I made the decision to stick to our guns and pursue what matters to us. It was incredibly important to me to be here to see our children off to school in the morning, to be here when they come home in the afternoon, and to eat dinner together at night. Yes, my dream to write and teach writing was an extremely high priority also, but the fact that these priorities merge almost seamlessly is an amazing blessing.

I acknowledge – and do not in anyway demean – that others would not choose the same route as me. Their dream, their priorities, lie on a different path. I do not for one moment intend to imply that those mothers (or fathers) who have chosen, or have no choice but to work outside of the home, care one inkling less for their children. My point is this, and only this: Be thankful for your every moment, even when you spend a morning washing sick-bed sheets when you would much rather be wringing out words and phrases. Being thankful can change your attitude from frustrated to fulfilled.

Prompt: Even if you are not particularly content in your current situation, what ARE you thankful for?

Tweet This Blog Post!

Read Full Post »

Saying goodbye

Posted in Life, Home & Community, tagged , on October 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Today I took down the crib that cradled my two children through nights and naps from infancy into their toddler years.

And today I cried.

It’s not that I want another baby. It’s not that I’m attached to the 3rd-hand crib or the space it was taking up in the kids’ room. It isn’t even because I jammed my finger while trying to wrestle the thing apart (which I didn’t, but surely would have if I hadn’t enlisted my husband to pry its bolts and screws from their nooks and crannies). No, I cried because… well, I don’t know exactly.

Twice I have endured the morphing of my body into an unwieldy monstrosity. Twice I have labored and summoned strength and stamina I could never have imagined for myself. I have brought into this world two babies, two beautiful, smart babies.

I have been splattered and spit up on. Puked on and peed on. I have been sucked on and slept on. I have picked up, mopped up, and been fed up. I have cried, I have laughed, I have felt pride, and I have felt guilt. I have yelled and I have hugged. I have felt alone and I have craved to be alone. I have wanted my life back yet never want to go back to life before I met my children.

I love my children but I know I don’t want any more. I am ready to get myself back, to begin the life I have wanted for myself but have had to put on hold. With one child in kindergarten and one ready to take on the world in his new 2-year-old shoes, I am beginning to get a glimpse of that life.

So why the tears?

Maybe I was crying for the babies I will never hold to my breast again. For the times I gently placed them, limp with sleep, into that crib, their soft breath whispering through milky lips. For the first time I found them standing, holding the crib bar for support, triumph beaming on their face.

Or maybe I was crying for the future toward which they are headed now that they sleep snug and secure in their big girl and boy beds? For the patter of feet down the hallway or the thumps down the stairs. For the curly-topped head that seems each day to have grown a little closer to my waist. Or the slammed doors and stands of defiance that mark another step toward independence.

I can’t answer the question with one definitive answer because I don’t think there is one. Taking apart and stacking in the hallway the biggest physical aspect of my children’s babyhood is an obvious metaphor. What is not so obvious is the part of me I was dismantling along side it.

Read Full Post »

Squeezing me in between

Posted in Living Authentically, Writing & Career, tagged , , on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

The honeymoon’s over.

Me and this blog, we don’t talk so much anymore.

My life has radically changed from when I was a stay-at-home, wannabe writer. Even though the last of those days are barely a month gone, I have already made them into golden nuggets. I catch myself thinking, remember when I could put Tater down for a nap while Little Lady was at summer camp, and I could sit and think and write? Of course, my memory has blotted out the crazed insanity of the hour prior to getting her out the door.

The first morning I put Little Lady on the school bus was the also the first day I put on some make up and clocked into my new 22-hour a week life. Four hours a day… oh, poor me, right? But listen, here’s the reality of how four hours of work morphs into a whole day:

7AM – 8:30AM: Kids up, breakfasted, dressed; make lunches; squeeze in a couple of chores

8:30: Walk to bus stop; wave off Little Lady

8:40: Walk or drive to work; grab a coffee if time

9:00: Kiss Tater Tot goodbye downstairs in toddler room; walk upstairs to office or return home to do laundry, dishes or bills, or run into town to grocery shop

11:00: Return to work

3:30: Leave work

3:45: Meet bus

4:00-4:15: Disperse snacks, check backpack, go through mail

4:15-5:00: Workout while watching Oprah (who am I kidding? I’m mostly just standing in front of the TV, doing the occasional leg lift to justify watching TV for a few moments.)

5:00-6:00: Prepare and eat dinner

6:00-7:00: Clean up dinner and kids

7:00 – 7:30: Put kids in bed, read story, sing song, say good night, go downstairs, come back upstairs, put Tater back in bed, kiss goodnight, go downstairs, come back upstairs, put Tater back in bed, kiss goodnight, walk downstairs… (this can go on for 5 minutes or, like last night, 1/2 hour).

7:30 – : At this point I collapse on the couch and try to push my brain into writing mode, usually unsuccessfully, until I can keep my eyes open no longer.

Needless to say, I left out of the schedule the 6 circles I make around the house looking for the left shoe, or the 7 minutes I spend debating with Little Lady whether she should eat the soggy cereal of which she gave herself too big a helping, or the 11 minutes I am chasing a giggling Tater trying to grab his soupy diaper.

And there you have it – Monday to Friday, 7AM-10:30PM, poof!

I ask you, where’s the me in there? Where are the great tomes I’m meant to bring forth?

I know this is a time of transition and I will eventually settle into my new life. I plan to take three mornings for myself – schedule in my writing. No housework. No errands. No excuses.

NO excuses.

Think I can do it?

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: