Ekphrastic Mama – Page 6 – Ekphrastic Mama

Ekphrastic Mama

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I am the mother of three daughters, each born in a different decade, and three sons in a somewhat closer clump. One "hub" hold us together. This is not what passes for wise family planning in American culture, but as the beat poet Alice Notley wrote, “I didn’t plan my pregnancies. I’m an experimentalist.” When I was writing Ekphrastic Mama for Mothers Creating/Writing Lives: Motherhood Memoir, I took stock of our family span: with one child married, one in college, one in high school, one in junior high, an elementary schooler, a toddler, and now a grandbaby, I was experiencing all phases of motherhood simultaneously. Years later I'm still experimenting with ekphrasis- art that speaks out- and hoping to inspire others in their writing ventures.

begin

Set an Extravagant Goal

Writing May 3, 2020

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.…

Back thru our Mothers

Prompts May 2, 2020

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…

Birthday oatmeal in Germany

Happy May Day-Birth and Rebirth

Prompts May 1, 2020

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.…

12th birthday

Last Day of 12

Childhood May 1, 2020

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…

mamomemo & Covid (photo by Jon Tyson)

May is Almost Here-mamomemo time!

Writing April 28, 2020

So what are we doing for Motherhood Memoir Month during the coronavirus sequester? Writing of course. Not a mother? No worries. Everyone has a motherhood story to tell, because obviously… where did you come from? Was your mother missing in some or many ways? Absence is a strong theme in many motherhood tales. But wait- I’m not writing memoir at the moment. Perfect- me either. I spent so much time writing about my mother and our manic relationship over the past year-and-a-half since she died that I have put that away. So what am I doing? I’m writing a novel. And the mother-daughter theme, or conundrum, drive a lot of the story. So the prompts this time will be for fiction as well as memoir and journal writing- because if you have a mother, you need a journal- a place to download all those thoughts- the good, the bad, the…

MaMoMeMo 2020 is Almost Here

Writing April 28, 2020

So what are we doing for Motherhood Memoir Month during the coronavirus sequester? Writing of course. Not a mother? No worries. Everyone has a motherhood story to tell, because obviously… where did you come from? Was your mother missing in some or many ways? Absence is a strong theme in many motherhood tales. But wait- I’m not writing memoir at the moment. Perfect- me either. I spent so much time writing about my mother and our manic relationship over the past year-and-a-half since she died that I have put that away. So what am I doing? I’m writing a novel. And the mother-daughter theme, or conundrum, drive a lot of the story. So the prompts this time will be for fiction as well as memoir and journal writing- because if you have a mother, you need a journal- a place to download all those thoughts- the good, the bad, the…

The Art of the Wasted Day

Writing March 26, 2020

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hample is “a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude,” and it’s getting many of my allotted reading minutes at the moment. It’s rather perfect for these times of armchair travel and virus inspired daydreaming. Why I like it: I tend to feel bad about not accomplishing much on a given day, but now that I know it’s an art form, I’m all in. I can feel good again. Carry on. A favorite writing inspiration: The author doesn’t believe in the narrative arc, “that fiction of fictions.” I find this more than a bit freeing, along with the idea that the final destination of a novel or story is “the creation of form offering the illusion of inevitability, the denial of chaos.” The author wanders and muses about travel, writing, her lost love, and those musers who have…

What are You Reading?

Books March 20, 2020

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hample is “a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude,” and it’s getting many of my allotted reading minutes at the moment. It’s rather perfect for these times of armchair travel and virus inspired daydreaming. Why I like it: I tend to feel bad about not accomplishing much on a given day, but now that I know it’s an art form, I’m all in. I can feel good again. Carry on. A favorite writing inspiration: The author doesn’t believe in the narrative arc, “that fiction of fictions.” I find this more than a bit freeing, along with the idea that the final destination of a novel or story is “the creation of form offering the illusion of inevitability, the denial of chaos.” The author wanders and muses about travel, writing, her lost love, and those musers who have…

What (not) to Say to a Dying Guy

Epiphanies February 17, 2020

My dear friend’s husband is dying. He’s also my husband’s closest friend, and a bit of a difficult guy, but affable and generous, fun and flattering by turns. A few years ago, after I cut my hair short and dyed it platinum blonde, he won my undying affection for comparing me to Charlize Theron on Dancing With the Stars. The flattery went to my head, and I had the poor judgement to repeat it to a co-worker at REI, a brotherly friend. Oh, he said, really? She’s one of the most beautiful women on the planet… I think you look more like Annie Lennox. Another co-worker told me he liked my hair better once the white-blonde dye job grew out some and dark roots grounded it. Before that, he said, I looked like Bart Simpson. When I repeated this in the break room to another younger co-worker, asking, Would you…

Are You My Mother?

Are You My Mother?

Epiphanies February 10, 2020

The Unexpected Cheese-white cheddar laced with parmesan- is the sample offering at Trader Joe’s as I run in to get a few groceries before heading back for my daughter at ice skating. I take one, happy to see it’s finger food. All their samples can be finger food, even the slaws and salads, eaten in a few bites without the plastic-wrapped-plastic-fork, but then you need a napkin. I add the cheese to my cart, then turn back for the coffee sample, wishing I had my double-wall espresso cup in my bag, but I’ve gotten careless. A slender lady in a tailored gray wool coat is taking her time getting coffee, adding cream, stirring, tasting. Her cart is pulled across the sampling space and people are starting to line up. I move to one side of her, slip around to nab a tiny cup. She looks at me, then steps back…

A Novel Memoir

Writing & Motherhood December 6, 2019

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay is a stunning novel that reads like an amazing memoir, illustrating how we carry our mothers with us. Shalini, the narrator can’t seem to shake, or outdrink, or out think her dead mother. The mother, whose death is a mystery until near the end, shapes the narrative in many evocative ways as it carries the reader through the steep mountain sides of the Kashmiri region of India on an unforgettable, and possibly unredeemable, journey. I find myself taking notes, marking passages, returning and rereading to see how such a young author pulled off this feat in her first book. This is the type of book writers study. It is the kind of novel I will read again, as much for the story as the writing. Actually the story feels deeply sad and very real, as if I’m experiencing it as it unfolds; it is…

In Canada for ice skates and yam fries, and our 40th anniversary, sort of...

Between Birth and Death, a 40th Anniversary

Writing November 17, 2019

Only our 1st anniversary was ours alone. By our 2nd anniversary, our first baby was due–the next day, and anniversaries transformed into multi-tasking events. Now, our 40th becomes an occasion to fly up to Canada and get ice skates for our youngest daughter. November has long been my favorite month, beginning with All Saint’s Day- my birthday, also called Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The middle of the month, Nov. 17, is our anniversary, 40 years today. It falls exactly between my parent’ anniversary on Nov. 7, and my husband’s parent’s anniversary, Nov. 27, a line-up of marriages that lasted over 50 and 60 years, such as they were. My father-in-law died the day after their 60th anniversary, on Nov. 28, Thanksgiving, 2002. As if he’d made it to the finish line, he ate his last piece of pumpkin pie, the only thing he ate that…

Retreat: Girl in a book on a bike at the beach

Adventure Mom October 20, 2019

The Trees-to-Sea highway over to the Oregon coast was a dream of a drive for a writing retreat, crisscrossing streams until it delivered me to Oceanside, Oregon, my mountain bike on the back of my car, my trusty tent inside. Rooms on the coast are expensive, but camping is a boon. South of Oceanside is Cape Lookout State Park where I pitched my tent in the trees just beyond the sand dunes. At night, I listened to the ocean purr, cozy and content like a kid on an adventure, sunny and glorious for three whole days. In between writing spurts, I rode my mountain bike down the Netarts Spit, the only bike in the sand. My tires are wide but not super fat, so sometimes they bog down. I turn to sand that is either wetter or drier and pedal harder. Riding and writing have a lot in common. Sometimes…

Writing About Bees

Memoir July 7, 2019

I’m writing over at Ekphrastic Mama (LoriLynGreenstone.com) most of the year, and here in May… come over and see what’s happening: Here’s a post about my life as a neophyte beekeeper (not the right word since one really can’t “keep” bees…). https://lorilyngreenstone.com/my-second-swarm/