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. 

Greetings from planet Kutcha Kutcha!

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A number of months back, Cris told me that at night he never sleeps but that some aliens from planet Kutcha Kutcha come and get him every night and he goes with them. Oh yeah, and we are not actually his real parents. The aliens have brought him here to put him in our care. So in honor of his *SIX* year old birthday (and thanks to a great Groupon!) he got this book- from Planet Kutcha Kutcha, of course!

Sand surfing

Sand- that tiny gritty stuff that runs through your fingers when you close your hand. It is the moments of everyday that we try so hard to keep forever, to remember individually, but they blend together with all the thousands of others. However, cumulatively we pack these memories together and build a house. Or we climb on top of them to gain perspective. They are what boost us up and make us feel like we are on top of the world. And sometimes they are the most important thing in that world.

Over Christmas break my family went to visit some relatives in Texas on their 85 acre cattle ranch. The property is bordered by a little creek that runs through some old cottonwood and red oak trees. There are ponds, prairies, horses, and newborn cattle. We walked around the perimeter and checked it all out and the part that enticed my kids the most was the large sand piles that were created when the pond was dredged out this summer to deepen it during a severe drought. To them they really are mini- mountains and nothing makes one feel more triumphant than climbing a mountain- or putting the last finishing touches on a sand castle.

Michael, Cris and Connor on the sand piles

I think children and striving artists understand the need to "create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists [and children] from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.” -Anne LaMotte from Bird by Bird: Some instructions on Writing and Life

23: Dash

23

Dash

    1. (noun) A symbol used in writing to connect elements.

    2. (verb) To finish or move off hastily.