things fall apart
This week, everything is broken.
The land-line hisses, refuses to ring, and in tandem, my cellphone mutes whenever I try to pick up a call.
The washing machine has broken, too, two times in seven days, leaving our clothes suspending in pools of soapy water.
The man who came to fix it (twice) produces, from the pump, the large bobby pins I use to twist my hair.
Did I mention, someone backed into my car on Mother’s day? The third dent this year; the insurance adjusters keep calling, but I can’t pick up….
Mid week, in the middle of the night, I woke to a acidic, acrid smell of smoke filling the house. And me, a zombie, opening and closing doors, trying to find the source. Turns out, it was the dishwasher: an ice cream scoop melted onto the heating element at the bottom. Eyes burning, I tried to usher out the chemical-air while the boys slept. Days later the smell still clings to the plastic interior, every dish ruined. The machine leaks now.
We will have to replace it after all.
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)my mother’s day
Photo by Billy
Despite countless hours and many sleepless nights, I’m still new enough to mothering that I am surprised by cards in my mailbox leading up to Mother’s day. These are things I’m supposed to remember to send, in honor of her birth-day, and all the days after that connect me to her.
The truth is, I am still half-shocked by plain fact of my motherhood.
A friend sent me a poem selected in the Post in honor of the day. Listen here, click this link, or enjoy it below, if you’d like.
Dead
By Sarah Harwell
The way my daughter sleeps it’s as if she’s talking
to the dead. Now she is one. I watch her eyes roll
backwards in her head, her senses fold
one by one, and then her breathing quiets to a beat.
Every night she fights this silent way of being
with all the whining ammunition she has.
She wins a tired story, a smothered song, the small
and willful links to life that carry her away.
Welcome to the Egyptian burial. She’s gone to Hades
with her stuffed animals. When she wakes,
the sad circles disappeared, she blinks
before she knows me. I have listened
to one million breaths of her. And every night
my body seizes when she leaves to go
where I am not, and yet every night I urge her, go.
William and his friend, Louie
Photo by Billy
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)goodreads
William’s small smile
Image by “Papa” Johnson, William’s beloved grandfather
I’ve finally joined Goodreads, the website that allows you to create a virtual library of things you’re already read or want to read. Goodreads appeals the list-maker in me who likes to keep track, take notes, create timelines. And of course you can share your library with friends there. I’m amazed by the volume and quality of books that people I know are reading. I’m enjoying the pithy, personal recommendations that come to my inbox. Anyway, if you decide to join too, look me up there.
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