Out of the Mouths of Wild Boys

Today, in what I can only say was a very uncharacteristic move for me considering I'd gotten three very interrupted hours of sleep last night, I took the youngest three Ohboys to the park down the road.  My eight-year-old was supremely mad at the world because I'd interrupted his intense schedule of playing with the iPad.  He informed me of a plan he was hatching that involved running back to our house as soon as we got out of the car.

"Good luck with that!"  I grumbled.  "We're, like, four miles away from home."

His expression changed, suddenly curious instead of crabby.  "Four miles?  Or four feet?" He wondered.

"Yeah, definitely four miles.  It's a long way.  It would take you a very long time to walk from here.  I used to walk here on my horse."  I pointed out. 

He was quiet for a second, then asked, "Which horse?"  

My stomach wrenched.  I hadn't talked about him much with the kids since he'd been gone.  "Moe."

The kids asked me if I was going to do that again with Moe, and I reminded them that Moe was gone, that he was in 'Horsie Heaven', remember?  I hated having to say those words out loud again, especially to my boys.  My voice cracked and I could feel my lower lip tremble.  

He mulled this over.  "I think he is in real Heaven with all the animals, and we will see him again."

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I choked out, "Me too.  Do you guys miss Moe?"

Two of the boys said, "Yeah."

For those of you who haven't met my six-year-old, let's just say he's rather, uh, intense. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it usually booms from him in low, rumbling voice, as if the words are threatening to rip him from the seams.  

As far as I could remember, my six-year-old hadn't mentioned Moe's passing much, but he surprised me by suddenly growling, "I wish Moe could come back for a few days."  He repeated this several times, growing progressively louder to be sure I'd heard him.  

So, of course, I drove up to the parking lot looking like a bleary-eyed freak, and was able to cross off my daily blubberfest a little early.  My kids had been missing my silly old horse, too.

:(

I miss Moe.  :'-(  I can't help but miss him, especially on the days when he would have cheered me up the most.  Every picture of him I come across, even the most recent ones I've looked at dozens of times--it looks like he will walk right out and be here again.    

Fall of 1995, at the Bridlewood Event.  

 Me, the boy, and Moe - 1999

 Same as above, just a cuter photo of Moses.

 Moe and I, my senior picture.  <3

Miss you, Moe-Moe.  I still can't believe you're gone.

Mothering the.... Oh, Forget It.

Tonight has been rough.  Well, if I'm leveling with you (and I believe I am), the last 14 years have been varied shades of rough.  Maybe you've already made the connection that my oldest is nearly 14.  If so, you've won a prize.  I'm not sure what the prize is yet, but it might be a glass--heck, a bottle--of wine shared with yours truly.  And, truthfully, I'm not really a wine-drinker, but it makes me feel more sophisticated to say "wine" instead of just about anything else.

When I was a little girl, I played with baby dolls endlessly.  I changed their diapers, I fed them little pretend bottles of milk.  I patted their little backs tenderly so they could pretend-burp.  We would stroll around the house with them strapped securely in their little teeny-tiny pink strollers...

Actually, no, no I didn't.  That was some other little girl.  I had one, count 'em, one, baby doll.  She was beautiful, but her eyes were molded shut, perpetually snoozing.  She never woke up to eat, just slept the day away, wrapped in the pink and brown afghan my step-mom crocheted for her.

You're looking at (well, looking at the words of) the girl who flunked her "egg baby" project in health class because I let my sweet little Shelly take a nap in the back of the family van for six hours while I schussed my Saturday away at the ski hill.  Shelly even got a full-body x-ray when we had to go through the TSA line to go pick my sisters up from the airport.  Mother. Of. The. Year.

When I played with Barbie(s) and Ken, they never fell in love and had children. They fell in love--that, friends, was my objective in life.  Falling in love.  Not having children.  My big dream was to own a big riding stable, train horses, have a wickedly handsome husband.  Period.  The End. 

Ironically, in my search for wickedly handsome, I managed to get the wicked part spot on.  Nine months later, I had a baby and no dashing husband.  That wasn't really the way this was supposed to happen.  Love, yes please! Babies, meh.

Three additional offspring (and one devilishly good-looking husband) later, here I am.  Ironically, I spend most of my professional time helping families welcome their little bundles of joy or figure out how to be their own brand of parents.  I can really identify with the parents who are just plain shell-shocked, and I feel a twinge of guilt when I am around parents who are ALL IN when it comes to this whole nurturing thing.  My kids have been short-changed.  I am afraid for them, my example has been so atrocious.  Good thing they're boys and don't have to emulate me--but goodness knows I wish a lot more for them in their future partners than what I am to them and to my husband.

Now, granted, parenthood hasn't been a skip in the park or anything.  Boys 2 and 3 came with expensive (time- and money-wise) diagnoses which solidified in me that survival was the ultimate goal, any free-and-easy good times we managed were icing on the cake, especially in those early years.  Boy 4 came as a surprise when we thought we'd made a surgical stand to be done with the procreating stuff, right when I'd chosen a brand new tack for life.

So, forgive me for my lack of warm fuzzies inside.  I'm, frankly, still in shock.  That makes me feel guilty, too, because I know plenty of couples who have been overlooked and wrenched in two in their agonizing quests for children.  I've been given four--like swag just for showing up to the party--and I'm not entirely sure what to do with them now.... except maybe string them up by their toes when they're naughty monkeys (which is, like, always).

So tonight, for the bajillionth time, I am verbally duking it out with mouthy teenage boy, the one who started it all.  He is too much like me, and yet so different.  I realize he is smarter than even he will give himself credit for, and he has been able to sense the resentment I've only recently confirmed is simmering in my veins.  Resentment.  A life that hasn't played out as planned, even though my initial plan wasn't ambitious at all.  It's so utterly selfish of me.    Life is good, sometimes unbelievably so.  I am lucky to wake up each morning on the very soil where I ran as a little girl.  My dashing husband works hard so I can afford things I love like horses and impulse-buying on Amazon.  No doubt, this is probably a much better life than what I'd planned for myself as a child.  I just wish I'd been endowed with more of a mother's heart instead of whatever ended up in its place.

They keep telling me it gets better--holding onto that.

Imagination

For a while there, I was my own best friend.  Maybe I still am.

My parents split long before my memories could confirm it had ever been any other way. The two sisters I had were four and ten years older; by default I was either too little or too big of a pain to tag along. Surrounded by cornfields and gravel roads, my nearest friends lived over half-an-hour away. I visited them on holidays or saw them at church--playdates were rare, too much stress for my single Mom. Two boys lived next door. They treated me like blood brothers would, rescuing me from one peril (climbing too high up the tree fort tree) and delivering me gleefully into another (swooping bats from the mammoth pine tree in their front yard). And growing up at the tail end of the twentieth century left me with no social network to complain to about it all.

What did I do with all of my free time? I did what any desperate kid would have done in my situation: I used my imagination. Hour upon hour was whiled away in my basement serving never-ending droves of invisible diners who would hover around child-sized card tables at the renowned "Cactus Bay Restaurant". In the creepy-crawly recesses of the back storage closet, I would whip up light-as-air cuisine on my warped burnt orange kitchen set. This was where I first learned to answer phones, a skill I would take with me into adulthood. If only I could say as much for the cooking...

When life as the maitre d' of the Cactus Bay Restaurant became a drudgery, I morphed into a librarian, organizing a family's worth of books in the middle of the basement. It remained, more or less, organized until my parents remodeled a couple years back, undoing all of my hard work and tossing most of the books. At least I hadn't gotten more than five books into the card catalog system I'd dreamed up before deciding I wasn't that bored. Librarians of the world, I salute..... zzzzz.

When it used to dump dozens of inches of the white stuff in Michigan, I'd bundle myself up and run around the yard. My shuffling footprints became paths, and the longer I played, the more places there were to discover. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. "Who's the crazy kid talking to herself over there all by herself?" "Oh, her. Whatever you do, don't make eye contact."

I played with a gaggle of Barbie dolls and the solitary (but insanely lucky) Ken doll. Barbie(s) and Ken fell in love; got in jealous, hair-pulling cat-fights with unsurprising frequency; awkwardly rode their palomino horse, Dallas, even though their rubber-snappy legs weren't really horse-worthy; and went swimming. Of course they went swimming! The only outfit I had for Ken was the shiny purple swim trunks he'd been wearing in the box. Out of pity for perpetually-underdressed Ken, there were an abundance of luaus. That was much easier than, gasp!, buying him a pair of pants. It was nearly the same with My Little Ponies, except they were already horses, so they didn't need to worry about being ill-designed to ride themselves.  Interestingly enough, the ponies were all girls, as far as I could tell, but there were an awful lot of babies within the herd. No one ever explained that one to me, and I'm still wondering.

A family friend gave us an incredible handmade dollhouse that had been his daughter's when she was a young girl. It was the most magical thing I thought I'd ever laid eyes upon, and not a bit of it was made of plastic or blonde hair. There were still hair-pulling cat-fights, but those usually took place after sipping from a teeny mason jar of sweet tea while sitting on the wraparound porch, perusing miniature copies of The New Yorker. You know, like in real life.

During a particularly inventive time in my life, I collected Happy Meal toys. Besides the fact that they were way more awesome back then, I was fresh off my first read-through of The Indian in the Cupboard. In that classic book, the main character, a young boy named Omri, brings a toy Indian (and, eventually, other toys) to life by locking them in a magical cabinet. Well aware that magical toy-incarnating furniture was not easily located within K-Mart, I was hopeful that my cluttered bedroom closet would be the next-best-enchanted thing. At night I would lock up my plastic Miss Piggy figurine and tell myself that maybe in the morning she would be asking me to transform cold, lifeless Kermie, too. Of course, it never happened, and for that I'm probably thankful. A few decades later, I realize that I would have likely soiled myself in fear if I'd managed to bring life to any of the things I locked in that closet.

My extensive stuffed animal collection made up my entourage, headed up by the purple pony I named "Diamond" after a palomino mare Mom attempted to buy and promptly returned after she repeatedly walloped on our poor Tennessee Walker, Jake. Stuffed-animal Diamond managed to escape from a trip to Lost Toyville after she'd had the brilliant idea to hide in a twist of hotel sheets during a Wild West road trip. A nice maid rescued her, and she's been with me ever since. I still wonder how many miles my parents had to backtrack to the previous night's hotel just so I would stop howling.

Somewhere on the outskirts of my posse was my Cricket doll. After dad let me watch the first Chucky movie at the ripe old age of eight, she was banished to a black garbage bag in the corner of the basement. Rest in pieces, scary doll.

Being easily-amused has always had its advantages. I'd like to believe that having to rely so heavily on entertaining myself, especially in those years prior to my own pony, the goodness that was the Nintendo Entertainment System, and pretty much every single bit of technology we have now, I was preparing myself for something much bigger. My thoughts and feelings were solely mine then, not given a lot of chance to find a living, breathing audience. And even though I found a fairly reliable pressure-release valve the first time I put my leg over a horse, I also discovered that I'd taken on another role--counselor. By putting ink to paper, I learned to get it all out, because sometimes that was the only way I knew how. Some of those joys and hurts are still bottled up, others have made their way to the surface. Somehow writing for my therapy, my sanity, also became writing for my enjoyment... and, if you really think about it, maybe the two aren't all that different.

The Eye of the Beholder

My fluffy grey pony was ill, so ill he had an expiration date.  At fourteen, I couldn't wrap my mind around the vet's words, all I knew was that they were scary.  Final.  A year, maybe.

Cancer.

What could a kid do to cure an old, sick pony?  Nothing.  

I didn't know how to deal with this horrible new knowledge, the inky foreboding that lurked at the edge my periphery.  Sadness wrapped its unrelenting fingers around my heart, crushing me from the inside out.  I didn't shower or even bother to change my clothes for several days.  There was no point.  Water couldn't wash away the grief; a new outfit couldn't mask that the world as I knew it had ceased spinning.  

He grew frail, his life ebbing just as the vet predicted it would.  Almost a year from his diagnosis, he had all but faded away.  If one could ever be lucky in losing someone, I guess I'd hit the jackpot.  There was no opportunity to feel blindsided or suffocate under an avalanche of shock at the suddenness of it all, as I had six months prior when I'd happened upon his herdmate peacefully asleep--gone--in a stall.  My pony and I had been saying our goodbyes day after day, for months.

The hunt began for a new horse to distract me, to attempt to replace two horses lost in the same year.  We tried a sweet little bay Arab mare who belonged to a family of a schoolmate, but no spark ignited between us.  Mom called a couple of ladies who owned a breeding facility down the road to see if they had anything for sale.  They did.  A couple half-brothers foaled close together--chestnut geldings named Moe and Patrick.

When we arrived at the farm, there was a blonde girl younger than myself riding a copper-colored horse around in front of the barn.  This was their "arena", and it was edged by a large barn, various farm machines, a big lean-to, and a large pile of two-by-fours waiting to be used in some yet unnamed barn project.

"That's Moe."  The woman indicated with a nod, leaning back against the fence.

He rivaled the shade of a polished penny, his flowing mane and tail several degrees lighter.  His body was overly-compact.  There was barely room to place a hand between his front legs.  His legs were spindly, his hooves big.  Each of his legs were white nearly to his knees, with the exception of his left hind leg, which was a stocking.  His face was dishy, common to his breed, with an alarming canvas of white around his irises.

She offered to let me ride him to see how we did together.  Nearly fifteen, I had spent most of my life riding horses and ponies who were either trained well or trained well enough.  Moe was six and, I realize now, had barely been saddled.  At the time, I hadn't ever ridden a green horse, and I wonder why my safety-conscious mother ever allowed such recklessness.

Under saddle, Moe swerved and ambled at the walk, unsure of where I was asking him to go.  As we moved around the riding area, I am certain I saw turtles lapping us.  He tested me with each step to see how little he needed to do to make me happy.  When I worked up the nerve to ask for his bouncy trot, he dragged me so far out into the circle that he ran smack dab into the pile of two-by-fours with his knee, making himself bleed.

It was love at first sight.

Trying For Unstuck

My writing had been going so well until losing Moe. For the past several weeks I'd been making progress on the second draft of my novel, putting in 20-30 hours a week before everything crumbled around me. And now, there's nothing. The only thing I can seem to string together are old stories about time spent with my old guy. It feels like there is a dam in place somewhere deep inside of me that isn't letting anything flow unless it's about him. And it's not for lack of trying. Yesterday I sat with my latest chapter staring me in the face and I managed to add only a few sentences in as many hours. It's frustrating. Yes, I want to write about Moe and all of these things we experienced together, but I also want to finish this draft.

A search on "grieving and writer's block" led me to this article. In the article, there was a specific quote that really resonated with me.

Considering that a writer's creativity is part of their psychological identity, it is not surprising that what affects people as individuals, also affects them as writers.

The part of me that allows me to weave tales is the part of me that is also still so much in shock with every emotion under the sun. I also read another bit in this article that makes me realize that maybe I'm in some kind of purgatory.

Writers hurt when they can’t write. They may not realize it, but their behavior speaks volumes. Often, writers will go through a series of stages before they are ready to write again and these stages are similar to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief in psychology. In other words, when writers can’t write they grieve, so it makes sense that the stages of writer’s block would parallel the stages of grief.

I am a writer; whether you consider me one or not is of no consequence to me. I know what I am, and the above quote is revealing itself to be true. It's painful not to write when you know it's one of the reasons you're here.

So if you wonder why I can't "get over it already", first of all, you don't "get it" at all. But also, I am determined to keep the words from petrifying within me and taking away my other great passion. The loss of two loves within the same week is surely more than I want to deal with now.

Rain

A little bit ago, I looked out at the back of the barn.  In the drizzle, a chestnut horse was picking at the hay I'd thrown out earlier, taking a break from grazing in the pasture.  Out of habit, I wondered which horse it was--Moe or Trinity?  It's something I don't have to consider anymore.  No more counting white socks, face markings, or body mass.  There's only one brown horse left

It hasn't rained much this summer, but this morning it did.  When I went to throw down hay and open the pasture, Trinity's copper coat was dark, soaked with it.  In my mind's eye, I see him so clearly, drenched, his coat the color of deep mahogany, the little puff of forelock that seemed to be impervious to moisture lifting in the breeze.  When he was thoroughly wet, the whites of his eyes always seemed that more pronounced, transforming him even further into a caricature of himself.  Anxiety would wash over me whenever I noticed his muddy white legs, wondering if I was in for a battle with his longstanding skin issues.

I remember how upset he would get when I would ride him during a rainfall, how he would hold his head sideways to keep the drops from his eyes and the great fuss he would make until I was finished.  He wasn't always that way, and I don't recall a particular experience that brought it on--it was just something I learned and accepted about him, especially in his later years.  Just as I choose not to fully function at temperatures lower than 20 degrees Fahrenheit, he chose to shut down during a storm.  Unfortunately for him, it seemed I always brought him out for a ride on days when showers were likely.  Even though he probably thought differently, I didn't do it on purpose.  I enjoyed all of his antics--the mini-rearing and bucking--even less than he enjoyed water pelting him in his precious eyes.  On these occasions, I would call him my 'princess pony', even though he was neither.

The storm is welcome.  Moe can't be annoyed by it anymore, as much as I wish he could.  The grey cover of the clouds and the whispering of the raindrops reassure me that it's okay to be, to heal, in a way that sunshine and the cheerfulness of the birds does not.  

Love Hurts

We thought he might be more motivated to move around if he rejoined the herd.  And he was, for a little while.  He made his way back to the end of the pasture closest to my house where I could see him when he laid down to nap.  I napped, too, sitting up in bed here and there to glance out the window to see how he was.   Eventually he stood up and made his way back to the barn, away from the mares, and laid back down for another nap.

The thought occurred to me that monitoring him this way was going to be impossible.  We couldn't see if he was eating or drinking here.  If we wanted manure as an assurance of happy gastronomic events, well, he was surrounded by it from days long since past... no mention of his pasturemates who were  having no issues in that department.  Plus, it was hot and unmercifully sunny.  I worried his temperature would spike and dehydration would take hold.

I walked down to the barn to grab his halter and lead rope, wanting to bring him back into the coolness of a stall.  My mom met me at the back door of the barn to discuss.  While we stood there, the mares walked in toward the barn, one-by-one.  Fansi gave slumbering Moe a glance, and kept walking.

Trinity approached Moe second.  She put her muzzle on top of his head and drew a long breath in, then moved down, seeming to stroke his neck with her nose.  Tears sprung to my eyes as I witnessed this tender act between my historically witchy mare and this fragile shadow of Moe's former self.  I wanted to throw my arms around her in gratitude for showing such uncharacteristic compassion; I wanted to bawl my eyes out; I wanted to curl up with Moe and Trinity tucked up to my chest like the world's biggest stuffed animals.

"Oh, look!"  Mom breathed, her words nearly liquid with emotion.

And then, Trinity squealed.

Turning her rump to a barely-sitting-upright Moe, she struck at him with her back hooves.  I don't know how many times she kicked, or how many times she made horrifying contact with his already-aching sides.  He lurched to his feet and was shuffling backwards as quickly as he could in his haze, but she was much faster.  Shouting and waving frantically, I managed to halt her sudden outburst and coax Moe back into a safer spot.

Herd animals are biologically programmed to push away weakened and dying members for the good of the rest of the herd.  When a herd animal is compromised, they tend to slow everyone else down and attract attention from the wrong kind of animals.  Was Trinity acting as alpha mare and pushing out a herd member who would only bring them harm?  Was she putting Moe back in his second-in-command place after he'd had a day of too much attention from the humans?  Was she just psycho, plain-and-simple?

Whatever motivated her to act that way, it was heart-wrenching to watch.

Loss of Focus

Hopefully eventually words will decide to return.  I keep sitting here trying to force them to, and I haven't been able to concentrate.  Whether it's due to depression, distraction, or weariness is anyone's guess.  Likely, all of the above.

My goal was to finish the second draft of my novel by the end of July.  When I finally feel like typing, I think I'm going to spend much of my time recording memories of Moe.

A friend suggested I somehow incorporate the loss of my horse into the storyline, and I'm just not sure if I have the [lack of] heart to bring that on  someone else, even just a fictional character.

Humdedum.

Don't feel like writing much.  Maybe I'm just tired.  Maybe he just took my passion with him.... at least for a little while.  I am still a writer.

Man, I miss that horse.  I came home from the hospital last night after having waited around most of the day and went out to ride for a few minutes before the sun set.  It was so quiet without him.  Again, no one standing at the gate, anxious for his dinner.  No one sharing a pile of hay with Fansi.  No one trying to sneak out when I brought Trinity out to the crossties.  No one testing the limits as to how far the fence could bend.  It was a blow to the heart to have to move his brush box and halter to get to Trinity's things.

I am just home from the birth of a sweet baby boy, one I am jokingly referring to as Baby Moe.  His parents called me to tell me they were headed to the hospital to be induced as my Moe was breathing his last.  Tonight, I feel sad that my Moe is gone, but I think I'm too tired to cry.  I'm sure that will change soon enough, once I come down from the emotions of the birthing room.

And I feel sad that I'm not more sad tonight.

Sinking In

The barn was really, really quiet when I went down to feed a little while ago.  No one was hovering at the gate, ready to maul me for his scoop of Equine Senior.  No one took forever to gum said scoop of Equine Senior.  No one searched the other stalls to make sure tasty morsels hadn't been left unaccounted for.  Fansi got her own pile of hay.  So did Mariah.

I didn't feel the need to call out, "See you tomorrow, guys!" like I always do.  He's gone.  I won't see him tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

There's this nagging feeling, urging me to write it all down--every memory, every quirk of his, every second of our last embrace--because tomorrow I will forget it all.  And I want to give into this leading, stay up all night typing and weeping and remembering, but I know I can't.  Soon, a family will call, ready for me to care for them as a soul enters this world to replace the one I've lost.  Soon I will support another family recovering from a sleepless night of nurturing.  Writing our story would take every ounce I have left.  Somehow, I have to convince myself that tomorrow I'll still be able to look back on our lifetime together and see it as clearly as I can now.  I must rest so I can hope to carry on.

I've got to thread together the tatters of my emotions and try to mend the hole in my heart.... I hate the idea that someday I could forget him, and that someday I won't think of him and miss him as much as I do right now.

Broken.

At 11:45 a.m. on this beautiful, sunny morning, I lost my very best friend, my secret-keeper, my first love.  His eye fixed on eternity, I buried my face in his neck as he breathed his last.  Nothing could have ever prepared me for how completely empty I feel without him here.

You were one in a million, Moe.  Ammon-Adar.  Hidden Fire.

I will terribly miss his unfailing curiosity and forgiveness.  

Four years ago, Hunter's first ride sitting all alone in the saddle. 

An old picture of three of the four doing what they do best.  Moe, right; Fansi, middle; Trinity, left. 

Anyone on the ground was fair game.  In this picture, I'm riding and he is stalking my niece.

Two nights ago.  Moe mustered all of his strength to come say hello to everyone.
He was loved by so many, and he loved so many in return.

I've never seen a horse love kids like Moe.  

Two days ago, shortly after I found him rolling in the manure pile.
We have so few photos together.  :(

Last night.  He wasn't feeling well, but I still think this was a beautiful picture of his gentle spirit.

Not feeling well this morning, but still chewing on lightbulbs.
Apparently, that's how he stayed young.

Moe and I, Fall of 1995.   This was my senior picture, and I blew it up to poster size
for my dorm room.  That's how much I missed him while I was away.

Heart Breaking

Tonight, with the sun setting beyond us, we sat together in the paddock.   I took his head in my hand, rubbing his favorite spot, willing him to crane his neck in pleasure but only hopeful my love would trasmit through my fingers and my nearness.  Do you want to keep trying?  Do you want me to let you go?  His answer was a long, soul-searching look I never thought him capable of, then a roll to his side.  In the liquid of his eye, the clouds swirled.  I could see Heaven, and I believe he could see it, too.  His dreams no longer of meeting me at the fence, begging for a treat; but of old things made new, the celestial breeze lifting his flaxen mane as he galloped across paradise.

He is not gone yet.  I am not yet sure if now is our time to part, but tonight I am mourning.  I mourn for the horse he was before yesterday morning.  I mourn because he has endured so much in the last day because we had hope--such a dangerous thing sometimes.

I'm so sorry, Moe, if I've made the wrong choice in trying to hold you here with me.  After decades of you and I as a constant when nothing else was, I just don't know how to do this without you.  I really don't want to do this without you.

I love you.

Nerd Love

Your syllables wrap around my heart.
Your profile picture fills my dreams.
I want to fill your monitor with my :-*.
When you log out, you take my breath with you.
Counting the moments until I see your screen name again.
<3


~~

Inspired by virtually real events and avatars all over the world.

I Give Up On Today.

An early morning birth, which I nearly missed (and so did the expectant parents), three hours of sleep, three hours of cleaning for my grandparents, temperatures nearing Satan's armpit level, and then another couple of hours of sleep does not make for a happy or creative me. A new life is a blessing.   My grandparents are a blessing.  Sleep (no matter how disjointed) is a blessing.  The hot, hot heat is better than the cold, cold freezingness... but not necessarily on a day like today.

Today I can't seem to spew the words out without either wanting to rage or bawl.  So, I am going to give myself the opportunity to just go with it.

I am a writer.

This is the best I can manage.

Random Thoughts on Writing For a Thursday Night.

Writing for an audience is oppressive.  Writing with an audience is unnerving to the point of paralysis.  I can't stand for the husband to look over and read whatever it is I'm currently working on.  Maybe it goes back to the time a few years ago when I allowed him to read something of which I was very proud, and he promptly turned to me and, in all seriousness, suggested I needed therapy.  No, you goon, that was my therapy.  Yeah, perhaps that's it.  THAT GUY officially is no longer allowed to have an opinion on or even catch an eyeful of anything I type.

To be in my personal 'writing happy place', I prefer dead quiet or music appropriate to my mood.  I do not, on the other hand, find myself to do well with constant traffic in and out of my room, door slams, running cats/barking dogs, wrestling, or video game sound effects.  It's summer vacation.  With four kids home all day every day, imagine the impact these strict parameters have on my word count.  Mmmhmm.

And what do I do when stories need to be told now or never, but they're completely separate from what I'm working so hard to complete.  First world problems, absolutely, but still new and confusing to me.

About What I Know

“Write about what you know, Anne.”  That’s was my mother’s knee-jerk response every time I mentioned my idea to finally get down to writing a book.  Historically, my mother had always been an undiagnosed romance book junkie, except I couldn’t recall her ever having a moment to herself to read.  Instead, she subjected us to countless hours of movie and television adaptations of her favorite love stories.  Anne of Green Gables?  Absolutely.  Jane Eyre (the version starring Timothy Dalton only need apply, thankyouverymuch!)?  Yes and yes.  If I took the time to do the math, Mom had probably spent months of her life engrossed in someone else’s love, and nearly always from a completely different era.  Writing about what I knew, advice from L. M. Montgomery’s leading fella, Gilbert Blythe, to his future Mrs. Blythe, was a tall order.  I hadn’t led a life full of hijinks, ambition, or flirtation.  The list of subjects I knew resembled a hastily-scribbled note for forgotten items from my last shopping trip.  Topics I had little to no knowledge of likely could fill volumes of books, which could, in turn, pour out endlessly from countless rooms.

‘Writing what you know’ sounds like the easiest task in the world.  But what happens if you write what you know and it’s so minuscule you can’t bear it?






...


(This is also shared in my blog devoted specifically to things I'm working on right now and bits I've pieced together in the past -- Words At My Fingertips. Join me, won't you?)

More On the Subject Of: Weird Writers

So, as it pertains to writing, I guess my penchant for coffee and stuff to chew on isn't so weird, after all.

Wearing green make-up to greet my visitors is genius--I'm going to have to try that.

Home.

Being a birth doula is strange.  Being a postpartum doula--especially one who works nights--is a little bit more strange.  I just spent the last 36 hours living in someone else's house, rummaging through their cabinets for linens and toilet paper and silverware (not really in that order); eating their food (which, actually is a bit of a stretch because they really didn't have any food there until dinner last night.  Let's not talk about it.), sleeping in their guest bedroom, showering in their shower, washing their underwear,  snuggling with their progeny.  I mean, that is a weird way to make a living.  

But these people were grateful and ready to have me come back again--no haggling my hourly rate or bemoaning the divit I'm putting in the newborn's college fund, all the while I can't stop thinking of my children at home all day with a sitter who will expect half of what I make.  Not complaining--it's not their fault that this is what I choose to do with my life and that I have hooligan kids of my own who need someone to break up the fights every once in a while.  It just is what it is....  This family was ecstatic for a handful of hours of sleep strung together and someone with the clarity of mind (yes, that'd be ME) to pipe up and suggest, "Hey, I bet your baby would love to be held after spending the last few days in isolation, more-or-less, in the NICU." 

I'm home now, curled up in my own bed, drinking an iced coffee that I mourned the loss of for an entire day.  In a few hours, I will move again, hopefully to eat cheeseburgers and other food I probably shouldn't but am too tired to stop myself from.  For now, I'm thankful for a few things:  Fighting babies, parents who are strong, coffee, chocolate chip cookies, and thunderstorms.  Not quite in that order, but close.

P.S. - While working, I had to park at the end of the street to avoid a ticket.  When I got in my van this morning to head home, it was clearly threatening me.  "Wash Me!  Or I will break on you!" was etched into the crust on my back window, along with a sun holding a sponge?  That van bettah recognize.  No one tells me what to do.  No. One.  ;-)

21 Hours In

Still no coffee. I had to settle for a warm Coke, and have yet to actually eat more than a piece of chocolate.  Great family, though.  Can't complain too much.
Reading on my Kindle, mostly, in the downtime.  And napping now to make up for the sleep I'm going to miss this evening.
Ready for my house.

1/3

Almost 12 hours into a 36-hour postpartum job. 
I'm a little anxious because now it's morning and I'm not quite sure where my coffee is coming from.....

:)

I had a dream last night that I was chasing kids (not my own, for once) through a city.  We decided to stop by a famous train museum that was based on a kid's show.   It was closed, but the guy who worked there was super-nice and showed us around anyways.

He even said "Inconceivable!" without me even having to ask.

Word.

"...I just wanna throw my phone away

Find out who is really there for me..."

(Part of Me, Katy Perry)

Hey Waiter! There's a Pit Hair In My Cookbook!

There's no cookbook good enough that I can overlook armpits on the cover photo, no matter how much photoshopping you've done to make those pits look angelic.

Now that I think of it, there's NO BOOK that can make me overcome my gag reflex over armpits.  Put your arms down and step away from the book covers, people.