The flutterings of a mother, who is also a sometimes writer

I AM a writer. That's what you are supposed to do to be successful. Wish it into being by repeating words. Ad nauseum. Until they become your reality.

The truth is, I am a writer. Sort of. On somedays. Between the afore mentioned puking, the majority of it not mine. I get to be a writer between little people screaming for attention or little people locking eyes and capturing me for many moments, assuming I didn't fall asleep.  I am a writer when the napping gods choose to smile on my semblance of a schedule and bless us with long and peaceful slumber. I am a writer when dinner got made or when everyone has gotten out the door and to the place that they are supposed to be. On days when there has been minimum yelling, which are a rare and precious-not-for-sale-commodity, I am a writer. On days when there is yelling, I retreat into my snail shell and don't really want to venture out anywhere. I have nothing to offer for review or critique or even, most unfortunately, for my own record. On those days it feels impossible to make lasting changes.

Is the climate still changing? Did we really just finish another election cycle? Did YOUR child have more good than bad in their day? It is hard to think about the big picture and life outside of our little life. It is hard to remember just how many have survived these early stages or that some few have even thrived. When my brain is so jumbled and tired my thoughts feel like I must force them through a cheese cloth and my head feels so noisy and clang-ity from all the demands of being a full time mother, I know I have had to give my all and it has had to go to someone else. To four someone else's actually. And sometimes this mama is just too battered from outbursts and toddlers assaults, and big kid acerbic tones, and middle kid explosions that I just have nothing to say. Or I have plenty to say, but I am just too tired to say it. It has certainly not been a season when I could do it all.  (Perhaps that was your unstated and secret reality too. The one that we hold in so suavely, while our faces are turning purple). But I never expected it to be a season when I could do so very little.

And, also, so very much. While some of my personal and professional goals have taken a backseat, I try to remind myself that in choosing to be full-time mom and teacher I have also accomplished the tasks of principal, curriculum committee, librarian, janitor, busdriver, artist, after-school care, nurse, gardener, computer teacher, and cafeteria lady (no mystery meat here!). And now, in an interesting supplemental employment addition, I am book mobile.

But there are also gifts I have been able to give myself. More time to rest or at least to succumb, occasionally serenely and with less guilt, to the demands of parenting.  The gift of being the one to hold each child no matter how they are feeling and be the one who is there to catch those sighs of sweet release. The gift of time to sit and watch the hawk shivering all morning in my peach tree. The gifts of watching the garden change: my kids harvesting a potato or picking a pepper, a tree exuding a spectrum of colors so beautiful I just want to lay down beneath it. And I can. And likewise my children have given me countless gifts. A large one being gift of remembrance. Remembering that things like bugs and seed pods and puddles and paint are worthy of our attention and vast in their mystery. The magic of watching my child learn to read. Or knowing they can cook their own snack. Or siblings reading to each other. I get to catch creativity in action and sometimes be invited in to the play. I've also gotten to spend many hours reading and reflecting while nursing and, at least in my head, solving world problems. But really back to my little world; I’m glad I’ve gotten to the be the one who gets to show you, my darlings, the butterflies.

Cris, the first time he noticed a butterfly

To add to a beautiful poem, The Butterfly Jar, by Jeff Moss:
       
We had a jar with a butterfly.
We opened the lid and it flew to the sky.
And there are things inside my head
Waiting to be thought or said;
Dreams and jokes and wonderings are
Locked inside, like a butterfly jar.
But then, [when I can write what I see]
I open the lid and set them free.


Take heart. No matter what your parenthood journey looks like, even if the many things that you are, must be delegated to sometimes things, they are still fluttering around in there, somewhere. And, someday, alighting. 

The Last Day of Summer...Ripples of Love

 

Somehow it is the last day of summer

and rain is falling on the roof

sweet slow soft,

as it's beginning it also is ending.

This week, for the first time,

two bouncy boys

will head to school together

They promise they will miss me,

but not their teachers, who live there.

The little girl

walks on tiptoes

around the table

and crawls on her belly

to catch balloons

delicious inflated moments

that disappear

before you know it.

The season was spent

plopping berries

launching arrows

skipping stones

chasing waves,

the sweetness

piercing

the water

and returning.

I visited gardens

taller than my head

where birds, bunnies, and me

find surprise, abundance

and we put it in a jar

of goldenness

to pour out,

lavishly, over cold things.

When this ice cream melts

cascading through my fingertips

I hope- for you-

to catch it;

to lap it,

from my hand.

"Fanx". A lot.

Somebody else had a birthday. (Um, it may have even been in the fall. That's what happens sometimes. Sorry buddy. I wrote about you then, but didn't get to publish it.)

On the day before you turned 5, amidst a great deal of giggles and birthday pancakes, I recounted in my head the day you were born and how I worked with such intensity to get you with your sideways turned head here. The way that you greeted the world with such calmness and keen observation, not even crying.

These days you are not always calm. Things change pretty rapidly for you. But you do take in everything.

All year your art has really developed. Your pictures, like your life,  are filled with great details and voyages and heroes and quests. Your horse teacher is right that someday you may write a very complex book.

Bastilla: The girl elf

Your gratitude for the world around you is always near the surface and just hearing your simple "fanx" always makes me more energized and generous. Also you very astutely have discovered that, "magic isn't real; except when it's in yours heart." So, in you my darling, never forget that it is actually overflowing.

 

Music also is slowly opening itself up to you. You surprised us all when suddenly you love to do your own funky dances, especially to Latin rhythms, and, unlike so many other times, do not even care if anyone is watching you.

Your humor has developed and as you remind us, can be a great coping mechanism for all of us. Sometimes we meow together when you are upset (I have no idea why this works, but it does), or your toothbrush has to talk, or you and I play a complex game where I am you as a grownup and you are me as a little girl. I get to give you permission to be a lot less serious. And through it all, you remain a small man of great mystery.

Before you turned five you had the firsts of learning to ride a horse, singing in front of an audience, the two of us starting Tae Kwon Do together-- that thing you have "waited for your whole life." You also make some pretty mean pancakes.

Lake Ft. Smith

And some pretty silly faces. You are trying to be a good brother, going along with crazy exploits, enduring being dressed, positioned, and frequently bossed. However, you are also starting to take on new roles as director and crafter of stories. And you stand up for yourself. Fiercely. With your toddler sister you are more willing to indulge, occasionally adore, and even collaborate with her.

You are exacting and careful. Few adults notice or care about all of the details that you do. And you also have the artistic gift of thinking non-linearly and in multiple directions, dimensions, and story lines. Your giggles are amazing and I am so thankful for the quiet mornings when we are up before anyone else in the house. And that you still have a Dragon, who grows and that you make nests for. Dragons, are after all, sometimes very delicate. You help me to learn about patience and living with intensity and completeness. How I love you and your daisies that fill my days.

-XOXO Mama

Thinking about a boy

...A boy who's lean limber body is always a knocked arrow ready to fly, a spring
ready to bounce, a kite ready to fly. A boy who had a birthday recently! He moves with gaiety and speed. He never walks, but instead prances, climbs, and cavorts- everywhere. He knows lots of funny buttons- and he pushes them all simultaneously. Sometimes, I want to be more like this boy. I want to act fearless, even when I am not. I want to see the world as mostly friendly and entirely open-handed.

I wish that I could fabricate out of nothing a world where only my favorite things and selected people could live. I wish that I could take on any new challenge unabashedly, and, even, at times, foolheartedly. And I want to find the hilarity that you see in the world through it's quirks. I want to feel humor without embarrassment.

I wish I could see a world that said yes to my heart, even when no echoed in my ears. I wish I could stack numbers and make them dance. I want to see your magic in discovering new words. I want to learn new things, whole languages, any instrument encountered; just because. To be able to soak up stories how a tide pool catches the tide and then to see their reflections completely mesmerized.

I want to seek out stars and feel undaunted by the universe and the tinyness of my place in it.

I want to make everyone feel cherished and welcomed and friendly.

Oh, to be unfatigued and undeterred and, no matter what, to have your drive to press on! I love you dear boy and am glad you had such a wonderful birthday!

Love,
Mama

Ninjas do not want to be noticed

Recently I have participated in several discussions related to the appropriateness of children dressing in costume that is not necessarily part of their cultural heritage. My friends asked thoughtful questions. Is playing ninjas culturally insensitive? Do cowboys and indians reinforce harmful histories and stereotypes? Do we cheapen or exploit traditions by trying to act them out before we know them fully or when we recreate them out of gleaned artificial and often cheaply made materials? Does multi-gender role-play nurture identity confusion and foster ridicule? Are we learning empathy or permitting mockery? For how long should we, as parents, allow the lines of fiction and fantasy to blur with often painful historical realities?

Playing indian. Oh wait, I actually am two kinds of indian.

Perhaps your house too is frequently filled with the antics of ninjas, indian braves, historic soldiers, and knights of the round table who parade as anachronisms (in the wrong time) or anatopism (in the wrong place) alongside dragons, leprauchauns, mermaids, greek gods, and fairies. Perhaps you too find yourself correcting and saying frequently, "but wait...let me tell you about this other part of the story", or "actually the way it really happened was...", or "let me tell you about the Geneva Convention and why you should not be allowed to openly torture your prisoners" (Okay, maybe that one was just me). But at some point we have to stop moralizing play. S-T-O-P.

It is generally so much simpler and paradoxically infinitely more complex then we grown ups assume it to be. Some of the loveliest things about childhood are the abilities to imagine ones-self to have the strengths or character of any persons or creatures past or present. I think having a broad base of imaginative allows children to build empathy by imagining life through a different lens.  As parents we can expose them to as many lenses as possible. Read big and broadly, celebrate cultures and differences, nudge a bit, but only gently, and then respect their abilities to develop and formulate their own compassion and empathy for others.

Bastilla, the girl elf

A lighter cultural satire that my family has enjoyed is Wink, The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed. When the directives are to be silent, bland, and unmoving he is opposing, floral printed, and acrobatic- and a far cry from culturally sensitive.  Wink wants nothing more than to stand out and go against the flow. (Interestingly, my five year old Connor changed the title of the book to Wink, the Ninja Who Always Did Not Want to be Noticed. Despite my silly grown-up attempts to try several times to clarify the differences, I think he said exactly what he meant. He wants to be able to assume different identities but to be noticed and scrutinized less. To him, acting out identities is not morality play. It is not a statement about colonialism, or racism, or gender identity. It is trying to make sense of a multitude of stories and cultures and having no preconceptions about how they should be interpreted; or interrupted. As Antoine Saint Exupery's Little Prince so poignantly says, "grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to always and forever be explaining things to them."

We have an aunt who is Japanese, dad, and grandma have traveled to Japan and taught cultural awareness classes of this culture, and my sister is living there for 2 years. My husband has also studied martial arts and Japanese history extensively. So while we are far from experts, there is always the urge to explain and enlighten. But for now, sometimes there are three ninjas living in my house and their names are Sodan, Wink, and Shadow.

Ichi, Ni, San...Ready or not here they come!

Of cabbages and kings!

This week was the Medieval fair, and indeed,:

"The time has come...

[the family said],

to talk of many things. 

Of shoes--and ships--

and sealing wax--

of cabbages and kings."

[And while the sea is boiling hot,

Oh! -Hear the mermaids sing!]

-Lewis Carroll The Walrus and the Carpenter

Slice a cabbage the most thinly or
"plummet" (a.k.a. pummel) the opponent to win.

After chasing knights down, sometimes one is just speechless,

OR must undertake a quest of their own.

Presenting: Sirs Cristopher and Connor.

Baby "dragons" require great gentleness

That mermaid gave her a shell!

["O Children," said the Parents,]
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
[They're snoring, every one.]