turning a corner

why I can't stop writing mediocre poetry

Since Nettie's been born, I've wanted so badly to write about her and about motherhood and all the little moments that I don't want to forget. But I've had a serious writer's block there. I keep a very straight-forward journal, which is written as daily notes, nothing more. I've tried many times to start a poem or a bit of prose about something that touched me. It just hasn't been accessible. I don't seem to make any headway and what I manage to write, I hate. 

All of a sudden, though, I find myself starting poems in my head in response to something funny she said or some bizarre situation we find ourselves in. Then when naptime comes, I run to the computer to try to get it down. They aren't my best work, but they are something. They hold a bit of her, they make a memory.

So much of the first two years was just really physically and emotionally hard for me. Nursing was so precious, but so exhausting, and honestly, it was always a source of stress for me. I worried about my supply and my diet all the time. And having a little person who is completely physically dependent on you is wonderful and I never want to forget all the snuggles, but it is taxing, especially for an introvert like me who needs alone time, time to unplug from people. 

I ran out of milk about a month ago, right at her birthday time, and though she still asks to "see if Momma has milk" a few times a day, (and we do), we are both doing fine with the fact that I don't. That has brought some separation and some relief for me, and I wonder if it's this separation that has allowed me to start writing about her. Most of what I have felt these first two years has been so intense and overwhelming, and so mixed with angst and fear, that articulating it was too much. I have a dear friend who wrote a beautiful poem about walking at night with her infant son, at least twenty years after the fact. It is so intimate and captures the moment and the feelings so well. I thought of it many times when I was up nursing Nettie in the night. 

Maybe in five or ten or even twenty years I'll be able to come back to my daily journal of these first two years and make something more beautiful of it. I don't know. For now, I'm just happy to be capturing any little part of my sweet, kooky girl. 

***

Enumeration

Momma has lots of moles, 
I like the little red ones.
We can see them when she doin’ her yoga.

Momma has blue and white eyes.
There is little bits of pink
right there in the corner, right there.

• October 2024 1
• July 2024 1
• May 2024 1
• February 2024 1
• November 2022 1
• April 2022 1
• January 2022 1
• September 2021 1
• April 2021 1
• October 2020 1
• July 2020 1
• June 2020 1
• May 2020 1
• April 2020 1
• March 2020 1
• September 2019 1
• August 2019 1
• June 2019 2
• April 2019 2
• September 2018 1
• November 2017 1
• October 2017 1
• August 2017 1
• July 2017 1
• June 2017 1
• May 2017 3
• April 2017 1
• March 2017 3
• February 2017 3
• January 2017 3
• January 2016 1
• October 2015 1
• September 2015 2
• August 2015 1
• July 2015 2
• May 2015 1
• March 2015 3

What makes Momma cry

What makes Momma cry (#2. We attempt time-out, I read an interview with Joe Hutto* in The Sun)

This is time-out, I say, sliding her chair into the corner. 
What time-out mean? she asks. 
It means you sit there and be quiet.
What momma doing? 
I’m reading and you’re being quiet. 
What being quiet? 
It means not talking. Momma is not talking and Nettie is not talking.
Momma is reading and Nettie in time out, she is NOOOT talking.
Momma is reading a magazine and — 
“mule deer exercise reciprocal altruism.”

I’m pushing! I’m pushing!
Stop pushing, please. Don’t push your chair. 
And stop talking. We’re being quiet, remember?
“are dependent on the accumulated wisdom of the matriarch…”
I’m pushing! I’m pushing with my feet! 
You’re going to fall off your chair and hurt yourself. 
“Most go no longer than a month without receiving
some sort of injury from a barbed-wire fence.”

I said stop pushing. 
Momma said stop pushing! She said stop it! 
And BE QUIET! Momma says BE QUIET!
“…we live in a profoundly brutal world.”

I slam down the magazine, suck in my breath: NETTIE!
Momma is TRYING to READ and YOU are SUPPOSED
to be QUIET and SIT STILL! Time-out is a PUNISHMENT!
Okay, we’re going back to the table! I slide her chair back.
Nettie, eat your food. (The bite is deflected.) 
What Momma doing? 
I’m trying to finish reading this while you eat your food.
“… I’m unapologetic about my emotions.”

Nettie, take a bite. Do you want to go back into time-out?
Yes. 
You WANT to go in time-out? Okay. (sliding the chair)
Now you have to be quiet. And Momma’s going to finish this.
Nettie being quiet and Momma is reading — 
“It’s such a gift … just to go out and be a mule deer for a day.”

*Joe Hutto is a naturalist and wildlife researcher. An interview between Hutto and Al Kesselheim, similar to the one I read in The Sun can be viewed here.

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I feel sort of compelled to add the disclaimer that up until now, I've tried to parent mostly "intuitively," because reading things ends up really stressing me out and making me feel inadequate. And also because I haven't settled on any parenting method that I really like. But I'm finding that two-year-olds require a firmer hand sometimes, and so, since I haven't prepared or read up on what to do when, for instance, your child decides she's just going to stop feeding herself, I've resorted to some tactics that I'm not proud of. But things start to feel desperate, as some of you may know or remember. And stupid things, like the time-out described above, happen.

I've been going in a few other directions lately, working on some things that haven't ended up on the blog. I would say a lot of my life fails seem to come out in poem-form, and since I intend this blog to be (mostly) encouraging, I don't want to include all of them here. If you're interested in following some of my other writing, you can find more here.