commitment
computer drawing by me
I’ve started to write a series of short stories about a fictional middle school. I imagine teachers with coffee stained teeth and jeering, giggling 13-year-olds in crowded halls. I see their anxious parents, too, crowded into cavernous auditoriums, listening to administrators shout welcome over reverb on the mic.
In part I’m drawn to this subject because I spent two years teaching art in a public middle school. But even more telling than that job is the way people cringe when I mention it. Presumably they are remembering their own awkward 13 year old selves, or else anticipating their children growing into this troubled time. I like the idea of going straight to that uncomfortable place and exploring it, like pressing your fingers into a bruise. After all, in America, middle school is the public institution where our identity begins to take shape, where we first assert our independence, and all the while cling to conformity.
This project is exciting to me, but I am afraid to make a commitment. In addition to the enormous challenge of writing, completing this series would involve more time than I currently have. To be successful I need to better weave my writing into my daily life, finding space somewhere between piles of laundry and our already strained quest for sleep. In short this is a foolhardy endeavor.
Even so, I am committing to this series of stories.
If you have a moment check out my earlier super short piece of flash fiction published on Rumble e-zine about bygone school days called job well done
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Filed under drawings, writing | Comments (7)my every haphazard action
Will lounges at The New Yorker
Photo by Billy
We banished Will from our bed two weeks ago, and the blood is just seeping back into my left arm; the ache in my shoulder is finally waning. In his co-sleeper, a mere foot away, Will still struggles to fall asleep independently. And even from this small distance, I see clearly the habits he picked up from sleeping and nursing beside me in our bed. He searches comically with his foot for my thigh which once bent reliably beneath him; he turns his head strongly and opens his mouth expecting my breast. Unsatisfied with our new distance, he improvises − propping his foot on the canvas crib-side, delving in his mouth with his fingers. He does these things ceremoniously, each and every time he tries to pass from wakefulness to slumber.
When we decided it was time to move Will from our bed Billy and I purposefully forged out a sleep plan. It includes methodically transitioning him from vigorous night time feedings and letting him learn to self sooth. We listen for measured minutes to his operatic cries on the monitor before walking in, only to touch his round belly, peer at him with lovingly, and walk out again.
For me this isn’t the hardest thing. The love in our eyes is real, and I know learning is born of struggle. The thing that gets me is my unwitting complicity in Will’s sleepy desires; I am responsible for his habits and so I own the dissatisfied tap of toes, his searching mouth. I wonder how many new sorrows I create for him on a daily basis with my every haphazard action.
Long after my limbs are recovered and my body is rested, I feel sure this sense of responsibility and remorse will remain.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comments (3)will laughs
for carol
Photo by Billy
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Filed under photographs | Comments (4)eating out in manhattan
will and my mother in a cab in the big apple
Photo by Billy
We walked William around in every restaurant we ate at in Manhattan:
The deli where we got a hot slices of cheese pizza and cool sodas in cans.
The slender soul food place where we ordered collards, candied yams, salmon coquettes and mac and cheese, as if it was Thanksgiving. Even the touristy American restaurant, outside of Bodies:The Exhibit, where Spanish-speaking men served us large plates of food with tip included.
When Will fidgeted or shrieked, one of us would scoop him up before a full fledged holler escaped his small mouth, and commence to pacing. Sometimes we couriered him outside to the street, where he marveled at lights, listened to sirens, and watched cabs whiz by, secure in our aching arms.
Will slept soundly, however, in the Thai restaurant off of 30th. Swaddled in his stroller, his eyes fluttered occasionally, as we sampled spring rolls, jasmine rice, milky curry with avocado and tofu. Maybe he slept so soundly because of the din that filled that long space. Or maybe the subway that rumbled beneath us intermittently kept lulling him back into happy slumber.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (0)william in autumn leaves
Photo by Billy
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (0)luv-luv.
Photo by Billy
Will was slung to my side when a woman I barely knew came up to us at a party: “Aren’t you just in LUVVVV?” she asked, admiring Will, her eyes wide as platters.
“Yeah, ” I offered, “he’s pretty sweet.”
“No, I mean aren’t you in LUV-LUV? Like you could just just EAT HIM UP!?! Like SCARY LUV?” Her voice teetered on the edge of shrill. “Like these little toes, couldn’t you JUST EAT UP these toes?”
She fondled Will’s feet falling out of the sling and bared her teeth– more of a garish grin, really– still I tucked his legs protectively into the folds of fabric.
To be fair she isn’t the first person to ask this question. But when the subject of LUV-LUV comes up, I feel a bit lost. What is LUVVV, anyway? A racing heartbeat? Color in your checks like when you see your crush across the locker commons? Fantasies of fighting off predators to save your babe from bodily harm?
When I look at Will what I feel is admiration and wonder and responsibility. I want to see the most thoughtful mother I can be reflected in those wild watchful eyes. Mine is a serene, measured love; love with an ‘o.’
And yet each time I’m asked–and I’m asked often–I nod my head dutifully; If luv-luv is required, I will offer it willingly to my baby boy.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (1)