Aug 4
The Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
from Standing by Words. © 1983
Yesterday’s post made me think of this:
Ellen Bass is one of my favorite poets. I highly recommend her book, Mules of Love. You would be glad to have this beauty in your collection.
For print version of poem above, go here.
May 26
When you have a blog, commit to it, and then a week or more goes by and you’ve neglected it, it can feel even harder to sit down and post. After so much time, it feels like one must have something really truly important to say to warrant breaking the silence. Guess what? I don’t. The moral of the story might be don’t let so much time lapse like that again. But I don’t think so. As they say, Life happens, and so it is true. In that time there’s been a lot of it. Life, that is.
Some highlights:
1. Moving James’s crib out to baby Emma’s nursery-to-be spurred a bona-fide “boys room decorating spree” where furniture and other room appointments were moved around between the three boy’s rooms, repurposed, swapped. Some walls were painted, a few new pieces ordered, an old severely stained carpet is awaiting its replacement. Is it the lamest excuse that I haven’t been writing because I’ve been picking out paint colors? I never wanted to be the woman who decorates her house, but between us, not only do I kind of enjoy it, my kids are at the age where they received it with such appreciation I found it especially gratifying. The two older boys’ rooms went first. When youngest, James, saw all this activity and the room transformations, he asked, When do I get my special room? Awwwwww. It felt good to go through things and take a discerning look at what they really use/don’t use and pass along things that another child might appreciate. The whole exercise also felt like an important “moving up” ceremony for my little family. The baby’s room is now a little boy’s room, the little boy’s room is now a preteen’s room. You get the idea.
James's bigger boy room
2. I’ve been scurrying around making summer plans. Every year, without fail, it sneaks up on me. That and Christmas and birthdays, always here before I know it. In my family, we all seem to have a jones-ing for a serious road trip. (Cue this song). There will be some camp, lots of swimming, but the main event will be the five of us, in a car, many hours, many places. (Call me crazy, but I’m really looking forward to this). Details to follow.
3. I attended a one-day writing workshop with poet Dorianne Laux and fell in love with her. Wonderful poet and gifted teacher. A veritable academic and yet not afraid to use the “c” words when poetically necessary. Which seems to be pretty often. She introduced me to a few new poems and poets, got me writing (like for reals) with some fun (that’s right, fun) writing prompts. She reminded me that writing can feel like playing. A few kernels from the day:
I leave you with a Dorianne Laux poem, which is pretty much the story of my life these days.
May 3
Speaking of personifing nature, I can’t pass a frothy tree in spring without this poem coming to mind. A perfect poem, if you ask me.
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Thanks to Drew for first reading this poem to me years ago. And for taking me to one of his readings. That was one lovely Sunday afternoon.
Find more Tony Hoagland here and here.
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Mar 24
Sometimes we all need a little Naomi to get ourselves inspired.
Ahhhhhhh.
Feel better?
I do.
If you’d like to know more about Naomi, go here.
For one of my favorite poems by Naomi, visit here.
Mar 21
Last week I introduced you to my dear friend, Rachel Zucker (go here to see that intro). Here is that interview about her new book (in collaboration with Arielle Greenberg) that I promised:
What do you think this book is about?
Rachel Zucker: Home/Birth: a poemic is about birth and the transformation that birth can bring. It is about feminism and friendship, about misogyny and the history of midwifery and obstetrics. It is about activism and joy and rage.
Who do you think/hope it will speak to?
RZ: I hope it will speak to women who have not yet had children.
Do you consider this a book of prose or poetry? Or neither?
RZ: The book is mostly prose but has some poems in it that are made of the prose around them. I consider it a hybrid genre text.
What is your relationship with the “cause” of child birth now that your youngest is almost 4? For me, I am just as passionate about the topic, but as I’ve “moved on” from having babies to parenting older children, I find that it’s just not on my radar in the same way. Which makes me wonder whether that tendency, in part, the fact that we do “move on” in a way, contributes to a less than grounded movement in improving maternal health care.
RZ: The cause of fighting for better maternity services continues to feel very urgent to me. I’m not obsessed with birth in the same ways I was when I was pregnant or thought I might have another baby, but I’m still very passionate about it. I feel like our terrible maternity services are inextricably linked to our broken health care system and that both must be fixed. Also, having a baby at home, becoming a doula, training to teach childbirth ed classes and being an activist–doing something so outside the mainstream–has changed my life in ways that have nothing to do with birth.
Though I haven’t seen the finished product yet, I saw part of an earlier draft and remember throughout the piece the refrain, “we haven’t even begun to talk about. . .” I love this because it rings true with how women communicate. With my closest friends (you being one of them), our conversations are ongoing, often spanning years with days or weeks in between. But we are able to jump right in when we can. Can you tell me a bit about how you and Arielle came to this format. It seems to work so well.
RZ: There is so much to talk about and this book is as much about my friendship with Arielle and about how women talk to one another and support and inform one another as it is about birth or home birth.
What are you reading right now?
RZ: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and Alma, or the Dead Women by Alice Notley. Yesterday I read Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer.
A few years ago you sent me Daybook: The Journey of an Artist by Anne Truitt, which is about her efforts to resolve her creative life with her family life. How are you doing with this these days?
RZ: Yes, that was an amazing book. Well, it’s hard and easy to answer this question. I’m writing this on the second day of a 6 day writing residency. I’ve never been away from my kids for this long and in this kind of way. There is SO. Much. Time. It’s wild and scary and wonderful.
At the end of the day, what are the things most often that don’t get done (domestically, creatively, whatever).
RZ: Every day I fail to do many many things on my list of work stuff. And my children hardly ever bathe. I’m serious. They rarely bathe. I’m enormously productive and every day many important things fall through the cracks.
Before I die I want to _______________________________.
RZ: I can’t answer this. I’m listening lately to a podcast called Darma Talks by Pema Chodron. Arielle recommended these to me (of course) and I really think you’d like them. She talks very movingly about how all we have is the present moment. I’m not going to be able to do it justice but I do feel, deeply, that I’ve lived a life of tremendous luxury and opportunity and good fortune and that if there is something I really want to do before I die then I should be doing it right now and if I am choosing to do what I’m doing right now that’s because I have done all the things I want to do. All I have is this moment. Thinking about what I want to do before I die isn’t what I want to think about right now because that leads me to regret which is a way of escaping the present moment when it is difficult and I’m trying to stay present. I’m sorry if this answer sounds all high and mighty, I don’t mean it that way at all.
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To see this book at Amazon, click here
If you are in the New York Area:
Wednesday, March 23, 7 PM
Reading and Book Party to celebrate Home/Birth: a poemic
536 West 112 Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam), NYC
with co-author, Arielle Greenberg
It is open to the Public.
Sadly, I will be out of town, but please go and tell her I sent you!
Mar 18
Some things you should know about me:
I love my friends.
I love books.
I love my friends’s books.
Rachel Zucker
I am so darned fortunate to be blessed and surrounded by so many creative and interesting friends. Writer Rachel Zucker is one of them. We met over eleven years ago at a Gymboree class on the Upper West Side in NYC and all it took was her leaning over and saying something about the teacher being just a tad too peppy for her taste (she was right, she was almost histrionic in her enthusiasm for bubbles). The rest, as they say, is history. Over lunch we agreed that the moms in the class were competitive in ways we didn’t understand : Is he rolling over yet? a put-together looking mom would ask in clipped speech. No? Oh, he will. She started rolling over like, a month ago. And on to ask the next mom.
Over the years it seemed that we could talk about anything, even the stuff mothers aren’t supposed to utter aloud. We’ve talked about it all. We were both so different and yet so much the same in the things we were thinking about. We also shared a willingness to be honest and a respectful, interested stance to hear from the other in the ways we were different. We now have six boys between us and we sure don’t get to talk as much as I’d like. But those women who are your friends in those early days of motherhood (in the sleep deprived trenches) are like your blood sisters– and this Rachel is certainly one of mine.
It is no surprise that her poetry is as honest, courageous, and truth-telling as the woman I know as my friend. I have always admired both her talent and her ambition and was not terribly surprised (but insanely proud) when her most recent book of poetry, Museum of Accidents, was announced as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award this past spring. I also know the back story and how even if she makes it look easy (and she does), that it hasn’t always been easy to negotiate her family life and her creative life. This makes me cheer even harder for her. It’s not easy, and she does it so well.
Her new book HOME/BIRTH (check it out here and here) is a collaboration with poet Arielle Greenberg. It is a subject close to my heart as my youngest son was born at home (as was Rachel’s). It was yet another thing we shared. We spoke constantly in the months before and after. Today I will spare you my thoughts on birthing politics, (that’s another post for another day), but I am so excited about this new book and the kinds of conversations I hope it encourages.
Please join me here at Lovesome on Monday to read my interview with Rachel about the new book. It is the first in my new interview series I’m calling: Because It’s Not All About Me.
Until then!
Mar 15
Theme: Linen by The Theme Foundry
