Ekphrastic Mama

May 2020

13 Posts Back Home
Showing all posts made in the month of May 2020.
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Comfort and Challenge

Writing

In making my list of 10 elements for a great day (yesterday’s post) I found myself contemplating the balance between comfort and challenge. A good day possesses them both, in unequal measure, as one bleeds into the other. Writing, for example, is both challenging and comforting. I begin with the easy flow of words in a journal, just writing whatever comes to mind, which I find comforting, seeing my thoughts materialize on the page, the abstract inner workings of a mind translated into black and white, or in my case, purple, my ink gel color of choice. Purple both soothes and excites my soul. From the space of colorful freewriting, I find it easier to move into the work of writing, developing stories and putting words together that others might make sense out of, or be moved by- more challenging, and sometimes unexplainably exhausting. And yet, at the end of…

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Top 10 for a Great Day?

Inspired Lists

Do you ever wonder why some days end on a high and others end in defeat? Today was a great day, but why? What makes for a great day? In an attempt to quantify it I made a list of my top ten elements. All are actions I can take to push my day in the right direction. If my actions are good then every day can conceivably be good, if not downright great, right? Before you look at my list you might want to jot down your own. In no particular order- Drinking enough water; 6-8 glasses at least Doing Yoga, ideally 30-45 minutes, but 10 is okWriting. And more writing.Accomplishing something on a project I want to finishNot overeating or drinking/numbing emotions with food or drinkGetting outdoors for 30+ min. strenuous exercise, or at least a walkBeing kind, and showing it with a smileNot getting carried away by…

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Life as an Alien

Prompts

A few years ago our youngest was drawing space shapes- a moon, some stars, a wobbly planet, when she looked up and said, You’re the best mom in the world. Child #6 was a late-life reckoning, born 13 years ago, when I was 47, the last thing I thought I wanted at the time. But time has a way of changing everything. She looked back at her drawing and reconsidered. No, wait, you’re the best mom in the universe. You’re better than an alien mom! An alien mom is the coolest thing she could think of at age 4. I smile, thinking who loves me like this? I try to remember if the first five were this adoring. I don’t think so. Or it could be that life has since erased the phase of adoration on both sides. Still, I linger, trying to picture what about myself makes me better…

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Why We Write

Adventure Mom

Why do you write? Every now and then I return to this existential question. Like Flannery O’Connor, I don’t know what I think until I write. I need to see my thoughts spelled out in words, and then I can edit them, put them in order. When I see them in black and white, or purple- I love purple gel ink pens– I can shape them. But until then they are floating and abstract. Have you thought about this? I’m almost certain you have, but it’s worth revisiting now and then. Like Henri Nouwen, I’m seeking to articulate the movement of my inner life. As writers, maybe we are also trying to rephrase the world, take it in and give it back better, “so that everything is used and nothing is lost” as Nicole Krauss writes.Or, like Anaïs Nin maybe we want to create a world in which we can…

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Devious Dolls

Memoir

What do you do with your mother’s doll collection after she dies? No one wanted them, except my youngest daughter, but we had to fly home from Las Vegas, and she already had too many dolls for the size of our house. “You can have one box of dolls. One small box,” I said, giving in, trying to think where we would put them when we got back to our down-sized house in the Pacific Northwest. We’d gone from 6 kids to 4, to 2, and now finally, to one; one child who still wants to play with dolls at 11. In today’s grow-up fast culture that’s got to be a good thing, right? A year and a half later, as our daughter turned 13, she asked for only one birthday gift: a dollhouse for her American Girl dolls, which are quite large. But when your quarantined daughter becomes a…

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Things We Say

Adventure Mom

“Get back on the horse,” is something my mother said quite a lot. I fell off quite a few horses… And “things will look different in the morning.” She was right, they generally do. “No good thing ever came from alcohol.” Said with a pointing finger as I recall, and a scouring look, eyes tight. Of course I had to debate that one. “What about when Jesus made water into really good wine for a wedding?” “That was because the water was no good,” she answered, then changed the subject. Even though I don’t ride horses much anymore, “get back on the horse” has become an adage to live by, a saying I quote often, usually to remind myself. What sayings do you carry around in your mental pockets or notebooks? May is a great time to get them out, write them down, maybe write them into dialogue between your…

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What We Are Unable to Say

Prompts

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” –Sue Monk Kidd, Why We Write About Ourselves It takes time to figure out what it is we want or need to say and how to say it. Usually it forms obliquely, a surprise after some exploration. Sometimes it is exhausting to work at writing. But that is just a thought, followed by a feeling; I’m seeking to replace them both. When your work is writing it can sometimes feel like you have not done much. Wrestled with words. A word monger. I don’t like to feel tired, like I need to recharge when I haven’t yet done a good day’s work. If I stick with the writing, the words start to reveal new thoughts, say what has been difficult to express. A discovery. And energy surges back into…

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The Job You Can Never Quit

Prompts

Fanny Howe never let children get in the way of writing. When I was at UCSD in the late 90s getting a Literature/Writing degree I had the honor of being mentored by the poet and novelist. I interviewed her once for a magazine and she described her writing process as a single mother, children climbing across her feet under the kitchen table as she wrote. The image has always haunted me; children are not an excuse not to write. The condition of motherhood demands that you learn to give birth to someone who won’t last, to love someone who will leave, to teach a person who will suffer anyway, to put a life before your own… To have a job that you can never quit. Fanny Howe, The Pinocchian Ideal. Have you ever felt like quitting? Write about that.

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Being Called Dottie

Memoir

Escape from the murder hornets with me for a moment on this first Monday of May during the sequester and let’s write something fun. Does life feel crazy? Do you have a crazy mother? All good subject matter… Last spring I wrote this: Two men sitting on a bench waiting to play pickle ball greet me as I walk up. You look like Dottie, one says. I was thinking the same thing, says the other. I smile, then laugh. That’s my mother’s name, I say, surprised by the amusement in my voice, the lightness in my heart. She died about six months ago, I add. Oh, I’m sorry. We’re in a group now, all heading out onto different courts calling for players. Well, we all die some time, I say, wanting to keep it light. I don’t want to be comforted by these men I don’t know. Actually, I don’t…

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Set an Extravagant Goal

Writing

Sunday is a day I rest, relax, rejoice. Then plan my week. What do you want to do in May? In WA our stay at home order has been extended. Perfect. For writers. I’m thinking of all the writing I can continue, all the things I appreciate about home. And I’m rethinking some of my goals. They seem extravagant. But I feel made for that. Set an extravagant goal, one you’d be stoked to reach. Then reach for it. It could be writing in a journal each day, or writing a letter you’ve been meaning to write, or a number of words each day, or just writing something each day. You know what would make you feel stoked. Decide and Do it. Unlike NanoWriMo who sets the goal for you, you get to decide what works best for you. Maybe it is 15 minutes a day. Or 10. Or 30.…

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Back thru our Mothers

Prompts

Was it Virginia Woolf who first said, we think back through our mothers? Is there an umbilical cord that runs through history? How are you connected, or not, through this way of thinking? Does it tie you down… or lend you a life line? Is it a kite on a long string, or a noose around your neck? You get to decide how you think of it, picture it, write about it. You can make it into anything you want, let it take you on a journey or flatten you out on the ground. I didn’t want to be a mother. I fought it for a long time, even after I became one. And that mother-daughter relationship paid the price. But then I got another chance, had another daughter. And then another. And now I wouldn’t trade my motherness for anything. And I’ve made peace with my mother, in the…

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Happy May Day-Birth and Rebirth

Prompts

Have you ever written about your birth? About what it might be like if you could access those earliest of memories, floating and then falling down into the birth canal, or being lifted into the light- however it was you came from that world within your birth mother into this world where the light is somewhat blinding by comparison? You were amphibious, and then you took your first breath of air, and you’ve been breathing ever since. How long did you cry for- do you know? Write about birth today, yours or someone else’s. Maybe you gave birth to someone and would like to revisit that scene in a journal, or use it in a story. Have you written it? There are lots of birth stories and mothers are sometimes criticized for writing and sharing theirs. You don’t have to share your birth story with anyone you don’t want to.…

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Last Day of 12

Childhood

It still does not fail to amaze me that I have a 12 year-old, but especially this 12 year-old, this child I was sure I didn’t want. At the time I found out I was pregnant I was 46, applying to grad school, literally filling out applications in the physician’s office, just getting a yearly check-up, but feeling a bit tired. We already had five kids. The oldest daughter was 25, trying to get pregnant. The oldest son was in college. One son was high school age, and another junior high. Our youngest daughter, a surprise when I was almost 40, was a third grader. It was finally my time to go back and get the graduate degree I’d put off for 20 years. Except I was pregnant. Our oldest daughter wanted to have a baby but was having trouble conceiving. She asked us to pray for her. As I…

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