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.
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Of Winning with Daughters

Writing & Motherhood

Sometimes the most powerful words are your own, recited back to you. Lily is a poet. At 16 she won the Central Oregon Writers Guild poetry award. She won it again this year and I won an award for non-fiction so we each read our pieces at the awards ceremony, mother and daughter. My story started as a letter to her, wrapped around one of her poems, a collage of sorts, hoping to be a collaboration. Here’s the story: Such Unkind Things  The way your dark mascara dripped and blurred under your eyes when you peeked out from behind your pink blankie made me think of a Pierrot doll, and I asked if you were okay. Your whispered response turned into a sobbing storm when I encircled you with outstretched arms, and I thought, How much are you willing to put up with? I see you reaching for this mechanical…

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Marking Milestones

Childhood

Life is good, as it should be at 17. But it’s also scary and uncertain at times.
She wants to save the world, but she’s starting to see how difficult that might be. Yet she still wants to do her part, so she created her own internship with the Global Immersion Project. Read what she writes about crossing the San Diego/Tijuana border: http://globalimmerse.org/embers-silent/

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Whose Pants Are Those?  

Adventure Mom

My friend thinks I wear the ‘pants’ in my family, but she says it’s okay since the man of the family is not angry about it. The bigger question, or the underlying issue: Who’s in Charge? So many issues come down to that, the underpants. So I’m thinking about these pants and how they fit– what kind of ‘pants’ are they anyway?  Are they Spanx, an undergarment so elastic they suck you neatly in, but then slap you silly when you peel them off, gasping for breath?  Or are they more like sweats– loose and accommodating, good for a Saturday stroll or Sunday lounging?  Or are they work pants– chino style, somewhat serious, yet unassuming, in traditional khaki-tan so they don’t show spills? Personally, my style is more of a pedal pusher– you can dress them up or down, great in the garden or the classroom, very versatile.  I like…

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The Gum Graft

Childhood

I sat in the chair breathing deeply, calmly trying to relax since I opted out of sedatives, thinking novocaine should be enough. After all, it wasn’t much of an area that needed a gum graft, just a small nick at the top of number 8, my right front tooth. I fell down a waterfall when I was 8, more of a chute actually, but to my 8 year-old self the water fell down an expanse of cement and was therefore a waterfall. or more possibly a waterslide. What can be slid down begs to be climbed up, and slid down again, and again. It was at the end of Wildwood park in Vista where we used to play as kids, circa 1967. On one end of the park this steep cement flume led down into a tunnel under a bridge. We thought of it as a waterslide made extra slippery…

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