what is the what?
Photo by Billy
One of the most interesting gifts I received this Christmas was a thick, hardback book my dad gave me. He didn’t wrap it. We went to the book store together, two days before Christmas, and he plucked it from the tower of books and placed it in my hands.
The book was What is the What by Dave Eggers–a fictionalized account of the real life story of Valentino Achak Deng, who struggled through conflict in Sudan before migrating to the The United States. The story begins with Valentino being robbed in Atlanta by an African American couple who call him “Africa” and show disdain for his foreignness. Within this initial conflict the narrator promises to tell of past dark misadventure: militias on horseback, long hungry treks across desert lands, encounters with lions, and all manner of loss. It is sometimes hard to go to the tragic, wondrous places books can take us, but I always find it worthwhile.
I can’t attest to how wonderful a book What is because I have only read a few chapters–but already this story has inspired and educated me. For example, in the last few days, when I hear about the war raging on in Dar Fur, I feel a new visceral point of connection. Why is it that stories, fiction or memoir in particular, create so much empathy and understanding in the reader? I suppose it is because they invite us to inhabit another person’s history, body, mind.
My gift to myself is make time to read the rest of this story.
What are you reading these days?
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Filed under photographs, reading, the world we live in | Comments (6)will’s first christmas
the sweater part III
Photo by Billy
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Filed under writing | Comment (1)will the real me please stand up?
Will sporting his best Christmas sweater
Photo by Billy
The other morning I woke alone to flat silence permeating the house and a quick sense of panic. I hit the worn wood floors barefoot and rounded the corner at a trot. I must have jumped up too quickly because blood rushed in or out of my head, darkness clouded my vision, and I found myself horizontal again–oddly unhurt, but for one finger.
It was the sound of Billy’s pounding feet that broke the silence, the baby jiggling contentedly in his arms. He tried to hide it, but I saw the question in his eyes…Who is this woman laid out before me?
Billy’s look leads me to ask myself how motherhood has changed me. When I was pregnant I expected transformation, welcomed it even, but now I’m not so sure. In six short months have I already used up all my patience, my wonder on William? Am I anxious, worried, morose, or just plain exhausted still? How can I even evaluate this new self when the lens with which I see myself is also newly colored?
In the face of so much new change and challenge, how can I nurture the best parts of the old me?
I’m collecting unique and pleasingly plain names for my Middle School Stories Project. I want names that evoke different genders, ages, ethnicities, and styles— Care to share your favorites?
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comments (4)memory and forgetting
William chillin’ in front of his peeps
Photo by Billy
I can say that at first my belly was like a fish-bowl with one small guppy splashing in it; then that guppy grew. I can say that, bound and upside down, he pressed my skin taut as a sail. I can tell you that he hiccuped, and shifted, and searched for space at the cage of my rib with his foot.
But mostly I’ve forgotten how it feels to be pregnant.
I spy pregnant women and try to remember. What were the sensations of inhabiting a body turn vessel–the good, the bad, the ugly of it?
Remembering is like recounting an adventuresome story, one that you hardly believe ever happened to you.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (0)becoming that type of mother
surly will at six months
Photo by Billy
I shove a sippy cup and a plump banana into my faux leather purse. The purse is sleek and stealthy, a remnant of my life before motherhood. This particular purse will not be useful to me much longer– I am becoming that type of mother who needs a bigger bag. Maybe a tote with a handle that hangs over my shoulders, leaving my hands free for other matters.
I am physically weighed down with my new life: the carriers, the carseat, my 6th month old 21 pound baby boy! My back hurts. My clothes sag. My hair needs washing. Yet I care less about these things than before, so there is a lightening too– A shedding of self consciousness and expectation.
Poet Nikki Giovanni wrote:
if i can’t have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i’ve got
So maybe, in time, I will tote a tote with pride and pull my mom jeans high and comfy on my waist, and shorn my hair short like in college. Maybe I will produce snacks and straws and board books from my bag, like a magician performing for William.
Maybe I will become strong and supple, embracing with both arms the life I have.
Some time ago I wrote an essay called “space” inspired by an interview with Nikki Giovanni. Check it out here, published on Salomemagazine.com, a great site.
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Filed under motherhood, photographs | Comment (1)the week will was born
william week one
Photo by Billy