keeping the habit

It's almost 10:00 on a Tuesday night. My day began and ended with stress. Not with typical raising a family stress, or with working a full-time job stress. Other stress. Stress that I am refraining from writing about here because hellooooo this is the internet. And I do have a filter.

So here I sit with a knot in my stomach, and I remember that it's Tuesday.

I will not end my night feeling like this. I am not inviting the dreams that come when I drift out with a restless heart and a whirling mind.

(Did I tell you about my dream the other night? I pulled out too fast in my subaru and got hit from the side by a truck. I slammed on the breaks but they didn't work and so I shut my eyes as I plowed in and through a bunch of tents camped out in the middle of the road. I didn't know if there were people in them. I didn't know if it was my fault.)

I will find the gifts in my day, my week, my life. I will do this before I go to bed.

1. A birthday lunch with a sister. We both work downtown, on opposite sides of the Capitol building, in fact. Even when we don't plan lunch, we bump into each other and make the man who runs the Indian cart laugh out loud at our delight.

2. A husband who is a perfect-for-me partner. He lowers my blood pressure with his calm and steady presence, and he still quickens my pulse after almost *10* years of matrimonial bliss.

3. Parents who are retiring TOMORROW after a life of hard work and long hours. My dad is a mechanic, and he and one of his brothers have been running the business that my grandfather started back in the 1930's. And the coolest thing is? Some of the customers have been coming since they were children. And before that? Their parents were customers. Can I tell you a secret? I want to write a book about the business -- about the confluence that it was for a community and a family. My dad had 5 siblings. Half of them worked at or owned the place. All of his siblings had hoards of kids. And my cousins and sisters and I all grew up at The Station -- pumping gas out of old fashioned pumps, hand-drying cars that came through the carwash, and changing oil on Saturdays and summertime. (Can you write a memoir of a place? I think I'm going to.) And my mom? In addition to teaching math and physics for decades, raising five daughters, and cooking a home-cooked meal seven nights a week, she also has been doing a lot of the bookwork for the business. And now she'll finally be done, too!

4. Resilient, flexible, adaptive little boys. I am working full time, after being home full time for 3 and a half years. My oldest son doesn't remember much about the last time I worked, and the other two weren't born yet. But these boys have sailed smoothly into this new phase of our life, and I am enjoying them so much. It's summertime, so we let them stay up late and I get to spend time with them after work. Tonight John was gone, and after I put the baby to bed I plopped down on the floor and played a dinosaur trivia board game with Owen and Eli. We laughed our butts off when Eli said a T-Rex was a peapod, instead of a theropod. Dino-humor. You can't beat it.

5. And speaking of humor, we have the funniest baby (he's 19 months today, and I'm still calling him BABY) on the planet. He tells jokes. Knock knock. Who's there? Banna. Banana who? Onge. (cue maniacal laughter.) And then? He says to his dad. Daddy nurse. 'Dat side. Udda side. and then laughs hysterically. He's a joker, that kid.

6. This picture:

It doesn't happen often, but it's so stinking cute when it does.

Ok, /end ramble.

I feel better now. Thanks for the gift of Tuesday eyes, Emily. It's a good habit to keep.

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for K, on her birthday

She mothers with great humor, and even greater love.

She laughs off comments that would make another bristle, and subtle unspoken rudeness or drama slips past her unnoticed.

She has been through what many would call hell, and not only has she come back -- now she soars higher than she ever had before.

She is the embodiment of grace and forgiveness.

I'm not saying she's perfect -- no one is. But in watching her, I have swallowed lumps of humility that stick in my throat.

The woman carries herself with a strength and a faith and a fearlessness that I envy. But that solid core comes wrapped in the lightness of genuine smiles and laughter.

Her stories would inspire you, they'd knock you back. But they aren't mine to tell, so you'll just have to trust me on this.

Have you noticed that a 9-year span feels smaller and smaller as you age?

For most of my life I called her sister. I am so, so glad that now I also call her friend.

I love you, K. Happy Birthday, big sister.

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baby

My baby is getting so big.

He's still just a peanut, but when I hold him on my chest, lying on the bed, his legs drape halfway down my thighs.

I just held him like that for a while tonight. Sleeping, sucking his thumb. It felt so good. I have less time with him these days and I'm in no rush to hurry through bedtime.

When he was four days old, I dressed him in a cute hooded outfit handed down from my sister. She had washed it first, and when I slid that hood up over his fuzzy little head, the smells of Tide and dryer sheets stole his baby smell.

I just about threw up.

It was his fresh-from-the-womb, unsullied, concentrated-baby smell. The scent I compulsively, obsessively inhaled as I held him non-stop, burying my face in his hair, peeking my nose under his little stocking cap. The scent that knocked me out, got me drunk, high on baby love. The sweet potion of pheromones that carried on it the last trace of the womb, the fragrance of life on the inside, the freshest breath of new life seeping out his pores.

Snuffed out. Now he just smelled like Tide and dryer sheets.

I felt sick about it. Literally nauseous that I had lost a part of his babyness without having been prepared. There was no ceremonial bathing before which I said goodbye and took one last whiff. It was just gone.

He may be my last baby. I'm operating as if he is -- giving away clothes, passing on gear as we outgrow it. But all the while I tell myself we're not done. We're young, we can wait five years and talk again. It's easier to pass on the baby things this way, easier to let phases and milestones come and go if I leave space for the idea of another. If I knew for certain this was it, I'd mourn the passing of every stage. The end of 0-3, of size-small diapers, of crawling, nursing, whatever.

But this way, it's like parting ways with a friend, all the while reassuring each other --

I'll catch you one more time before you go. I'm sure I'll see you again. We can say our goodbyes then.

So you leave with a See You Later, knowing in your heart that it's over, done; but having avoided the teary, tangled emotion of an official goodbye. By the time you realize you're not seeing your friend again, you've moved beyond the rawness of it, grown accustomed to the way things have become. It's not as hard to acknowledge a goodbye in hindsight than it is to see it, to say it in the moment.

If I never have another baby, here's what I'll most miss.

Never again feeling my baby move inside me.

Giving birth.

Seeing my baby for the first time -- laying eyes on him in those first seconds out of the womb.

New Baby Smell. (that head. it truly is the scent of heaven.)

That first glass of orange juice after labor.

With all three boys, after I pushed them out into the world and we made our acquaintances, my husband and midwives helped settle me onto the couch or the bed, wrapped up warm in blankets to counter those post-birth hormonal shivers, and someone brought me a glass of orange juice.

All three times, it was the best thing I've ever tasted.

He's getting so tall we've had to lower the crib mattress all the way down. At this age, we already had the other boys sleeping on a mattress on the floor. But Axel seems too much of a baby - even for all his big kid tendencies - to move him out of the crib.

He fell asleep in my arms tonight, head resting on my chest, his thumb in his mouth.

I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach over the rail and lay him down.

I covered him up and stared for a moment before

I snuck out quietly, whispering

See you later, Baby.

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my main men

My old man:

My dad testing out my hubby's longboard

My main man:

My little men:

...

We were traveling on Father's Day, coming off a week long family reunion in the mountains of Colorado.

I grew up the fourth of five sisters. Surrounded by girls. Everyone said

Your poor dad.

But if you ask me (or him)

He loved it.

(And we love him.)

...

And this dreamboat husband of mine?

Well I love him, too.

I could go on and on about why, but I did that last year.

And I'm a few days late

but I wanted to say

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and my Man and all the daddios out there.

(love you two.)

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rearview

back soon....

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serendipity

carries a lot of suitcases but all of them are empty because she's expecting to completely fill them with life by the end of this trip & then she'll come home & sort everything out & do it all again

- "Veteran Traveler" by Story People

:::

serendipitous that this was my Story of the Day.

See you all in a week or so....

COMMENTS CLOSED

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on motherhood and art and our former selves

"When would I write?" I asked. "I've been at work, or I've been with the kids. And don't say at night, because I know you know I don't have the energy for that."

"I get why you haven't been writing. I'm just saying you act like you've given it up for good, and that I don't get. What you need is time, but you seem to think it's something more than that. It's like you've bought into the idea that a mother can't also be an artist. Or shouldn't be."

"I just find it hard to go from breast milk and peekaboo and diapers to, you know, bigger things."

"But that's saying breast milk and peekaboo and diapers aren't bigger things, or don't represent bigger things, which seems like a very male point of view. A fixation on your mother is subject for literature, but actually being a mother isn't? Well, guess who set those rules? If obsessive interest in your own penis wins you the Pulitzer, then what's wrong with obsessive interest in your own breasts?"

"Are you writing about your breasts?"

"No, but I could," she said. She glanced down at them. "At this moment I can't think of what I would say."

- From Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

I devoured Leah Stewart's novel, Husband and Wife this weekend. And while the plot is about (you guessed it) the relationship between a husband and wife and infidelity, the whole book really delves into the issue of losing or burying or hiding from the selves that we are before we become mothers. It's not just for artist-mothers, although the protagonist is a poet. I think the book will get every mother thinking about what parts of herself that made her her have been missing or disappearing since having children. I can't get enough thought or discussion on that topic.

Stumbling across this book so soon after being part of Greetings From Motherland was serendipitous. In time, I hope to share some of the artwork from our show, so stay tuned. If you haven't yet read it, I guest-posted at the GFM blog a few weeks ago on the experience of making art with a group of mothers of very young children. You can read it here.

Related:

If you haven't yet, go search out a copy of Mamaphonic - a collection of essays written by women who are "balancing motherhood and other creative acts." I read it about a year ago, and it inspired me to dive back into my creative writing again - my poetry, my fiction, as well as the type of essays I sporadically post here. I recommend it to everyone, and my friend Corinne actually just wrote about it recently on her blog.

Other must-reads on the topic:

I've said it before, but Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write ("a book about art, independence and spirit") is a treasure that was thrust upon me by my friend Nancy (thanks Nancy!), and of course Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is inspiring, and she'll give you the best advice on writing out there -- you can't write because you want to be published. You have to write because you love to write, because you must write or your head will explode. (I'm paraphrasing.)

We all have that creative spark flickering inside. Give it a little oxygen. These books will fan the flame.

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starfish

they sleep splayed out like starfish.

dreams lapping up and washing over,

their breath rolling in and out like the tides.

:::

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from my notebook

{dear eli}

My little child, my boy.

You have a fire within and a spark that's contagious.

Your cheeks the softest I've ever felt, ever kissed.

Sometimes I project your traits

onto a teenage version of you. And I worry

for those days when you will push me away, defiant and strong.

You are my boy, and your feisty-ness is mine to cherish, to recognize in myself.

So I will nurture you as best I can. Loving you, directing your energies

into safe places.

And I will love you completely.

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