Thread

I keep my grandmother's apron rolled in a narrow ball.  Pilled, worn to a fray.  Furling edges.  Deep pockets with rows of flowers, orderly and tight.  I see my fingers from afar when I pull it out, and become loose in my own skin.  Sometimes all it takes is a touch to bring me back.  Brillo.  Olive oil.  Wooden cabinets with plastic liners.  Spearmint leaves, rosary beads and unwound tissues.  Memories roll around inside like huge steel balls.  Bumping my ribs and skin.  I am too small for the space they need.  They leave huge, soft bruises, black as night.  The memory of her table.  The sound of their TV.  The smell of peppers and skinned tomatoes.  I am little - my girl hands plunged in those apron pockets.  I am safe.  Unaware.  Full.  My hair is blowing in the wind, but I sit inside.  The sun is on my face, but I am at her kitchen table.  I hear nothing but birds and boiling water, and feel the warmth of her eyes on my skin.  The sound of her calling my name.  Her voice lands in my palms.  I've caught it like a sparrow.  

Now -- I look at my daughter.  Scan her smooth face, and her eyes, black as pools.  What memories will bring her back to me when I am gone?  What will wake her in the night?  What string will she swing for blindly, and find?  What will be the thread that leads her heart back to mine?

{honored to have this photo and writing be a part of THE CHORUS - a coming together of women artists' imagery and voice.  follow the link for other writings and photos on 'memory'}

twoandneveranymore

I'm spun black, caught in my own mad web.  For watching my own beautiful children grow stuffs my heart in a jar.

Everyday, my eyes drink in their small miracles.  Skin stretching over bones.  Minds flying.  Fingers carving letters on paper.  My lids fluttering from the magic.  Until they sleep -- and I push my face greedily into their hair.   Breathe deeply, searching for babyness -- round faces, rolled thighs, black, shining eyes.  Reality slaps without mercy as I stand in line at the grocery store, a baby-in-bucket-mother next-in-line.  A pregnant-bellied-woman washing her hands next to me at the airport.   White heat-rising, my web pulls tight.  I see my selfish self clearly.

My twoandneveranymore children.  A phrase someone I adore used the day she realized her two, were indeed her last.   For some it's oneandneveranymore.  Others four.  And some, none.  No matter the number, the day appears.  And defines - carving lines thick and blue as veins.  And brings with it either a wave of relief, or wall of grief.  And the wonder that our days are indeed racing past us like rain.  Mytwoandneveranymore.  I swallow the words like stones.  Mytwoandneveranymore.  Mytwoandneveranymore.  My heart pushes against its own walls, sharp and thin.

I push the dull ache down to my toes, only to feel it rise bit-by-bit all day, then settle in my heart as I lie my head down at night.  The realness of their growth, a blue flame, singeing my skin.  I'm ablaze from the sheer heat of needing to be a young mom again.  Of wanting their babyness back.

Twoandneveranymore.

I mend with the truth.  Long zagging stitches.  Filling the holes from the inside out - pushing-into, stitching-up, guarding the raw spaces.  And let their smallness slip away.  I ink the smell, the feel, the memory of baby deep inside - a ball of white light hidden under my skin.  It glows.  Its warmth, a reminder to be grateful.  

My twoandneveranymore.  I am getting there.  One day at a time.

{Preview} In our bones

A new baby drapes your home in gauze.  Wooden walls turn into a sheer, breathing tent - a cover that eases light, quiets aches, and softens the world outside.  Everything else pushes to a far away place.  Muffled.  The smallness of your bed becomes all the space you need.   Long moments pile and loop, as you watch this small person who was just growing beneath your skin.  You try on the feeling of mother.  Caregiver.  Sheppard.  Lover of someone new.  You reconnect with someone your body and spirit seems to already know.  He was meant for you.

Blindly, I run back to these early hours as my children grow.  Some days at a dizzying pace.  I come up for air, gasping for the moments when breathing, feeding, sleeping was all that mattered.  These memories fuel for the ruts, when things hurt, I am unsure, or maybe have lost my way.  Growing-up a child isn't easy.  And like weeds, they grow.  Racing towards the sun.  No matter how much you squeeze or beg or clamp shut your eyes.  They grow.

Many a wild moment will bleed and run and color the slate of their childhood.  The jungle of life pushes that early-gauze-newborn tent off way before we are ready.  Life's long arms creep in.  But we never forget.  Those first hours.  The haze.  The quiet.  The connection.  The billowing, blinding light of a new soul.

It's rooted deep in our bones.

One layer at a time

We as mothers, are weaving a dense nest.  Some layers are liquid -- shimmering, stretching, light.  And some are ragged - thin as wings.  But each day, no matter the beauty of the layer, the nest grows.  Whether we want it to or not.  Layers stream from our arms and legs, wild and long.  A whirling, mad circle.  Often I want to go back and pull the ugly pieces from yesterday.  Smoke them into sky.  But they are stuck, burrowed in with soft, oozing glue.  In their nest, the place they'll lie their heads for the rest of their lives.  A mottled place of memories.  Mistakes.  Deep love.  Ultimate safety.  Softness.  Regrets.

This nest, their childhood.

When they look back, they will find us there.  In the center.  Quiet.  Never perfect but trying.  Like a wren, we mothers are eternally busy, taking the memories, the moments, and tuck, tuck, tucking them into place.  Rearranging.  And stringing them together with songs.  Some days, layers of pure gold.  Others, nothing but scraps.  But all the while -- there we were -- singing into the light.  And building their nest.  A beautiful childhood nest.  On layer at a time.

When Seven sounds like thunder

It never fails.  When things get hard, I wonder why I was given you.  You, with your black eyes, and intense heart.  You, with your endless legs and eternal fight.  You, a bear in lamb’s gloves.  Whomever thought I was brave enough, fast enough of a mother to follow your quick wings, and care for your wild heart, didn’t know how much I would struggle.  Quickly I have learned -------

There is no easy parenting.

I often wonder how I can mother all your strength and pounding beauty.  I wake up drenched; grappling for that endless ribbon from your eyes to my heart.  I strain to follow.  And trust.  Trust in the deep contradiction that you come from me, yet aren’t mine.  Trust that the world chose me to be your mother.  Trust that in the sometimes-messy-stew of parenting fierce and independent you, there are moments of deep peace.  Quiet.  Connection.  Even shine.  And trust that slowly, I am learning to be thankful for your thunder, your growl, your glow.  For you teach me things no one else in this world ever could. 

You, my daughter.  My wild daughter of seven.