new schedule

Well, I made it through the first week of full-time work last week, but by Friday afternoon, I was exhausted (and had officially developed a head cold). I really like the work (and my coworkers are lovely), but I did feel that pull back to my desk (when will I get any writing done?) and to the River Road (when will I walk?) and to my girls, my girls, my girls. The last has been the hardest. At 2:15 each day, I stare at my clock, knowing that Stella is walking back to my mom's house from the bus stop, chattering away about her day. That is one of my favorite parts of my day--Stella in reporting mode, talking a mile a minute about everything that happened at school. I miss it!


I think Stella misses that time, as well. On Wednesday last week, she screamed, "I hate your new job! You wear make-up now and you don't even look like my mom!" I nearly burst into tears. Later I asked her what I usually look like, and she said, "You wear sweatpants." Oh yes. Did I mention that I miss my sweatpants, as well? 


I know (hope) it will get easier, even as I add my fall class to the mix this week. But I'm determined to get up at 5 a.m. to build a little writing and exercise time into the week. What do you think? Possible?

my memoir dress

Well, I started my full-time job yesterday—thank you for all your good wishes—and I think I’ll really like the job. My co-workers are lovely and interesting, and the work is important. But wow, I haven’t had a 40-hour week desk job for over ten years, and it’s an adjustment. By 3:30 I was missing my girls, wondering how their days had gone, desperate to fold them in my arms. By 9:30 I had to put down the final Hunger Games novel (just 20 pages from the end of the book) because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. But I’ll get used to it, no?

Today the office is closed, so I’m working from home (or rather the coffee shop), and I thought I’d take a break to post some wonderful poems by my friend and fellow writer, Marge Barrett. Marge has a new chapbook called My Memoir Dress, which is just out from Finishing Line Press. Marge is such a talented writer of both prose and poetry, and these poems in particular speak to me as a mother. Marge is able to capture the beauty in the moments in life that many of us overlook. Her poetry is full of lyricism and grace—it’s the kind of poetry that makes me want to stop and savor each word. Marge has given me permission to post two of her poems here, so without further ado:

Wild Flowers

Bloodroot blossoms when my daughter is born.

Along the rushing river banks, shoots push

through hard winter earth. Pulled by spring sun,

the blue-green lobed leaves open wide, breathe.

In a steamy old hospital room, the midwife listens,

counts loudly, heartbeat’s dropping, dropping.

I push, push, push my beautiful bloody baby out.

Hush. Dim the lights. Her eyes, huge blue, study us.

Bloodroot blossoms when my second daughter is born.

Basal leaves again uncurl in the woods

under the web of stick-branched trees.

In the birthing room of a new hospital,

the doctor counters, no stirrups, deep vein thrombosis;

don’t want her throwing a clot to the heart.

This baby comes fast, looks out, alert.

Bloodroot blossoms when my girls are born.

Pure white stars, golden orange centers.

© 2011 Marge Barrett, reprinted with permission of the poet

Magician-At-Large

Leaving London’s Gatwick airport,

I tell them to spend the last change,

buy something sweet, maybe artsy,

why not touristy.

My son disappears,

re-appears

with a calling card

designed by a machine:

his name, our address, and

Magician-At-Large.

He’s fascinated by tricks,

sleight of hand, coins, cards.

He saves money for supplies

at the magic and costume store.

This, after building go-carts,

balsa boats and airplanes,

yoyos (rocking the baby, around the world),

chemistry sets, rockets,

rags on the piano, drums and guitar,

the computer.

My freckled-faced, red-haired son

wands the card over my head,

draws it out of his sleeve,

once again taking me away.

© 2011 Marge Barrett, reprinted with permission of the poet

Thank you, Marge, for letting me share your wonderful words here. People, check out Marge’s writing. And have a wonderful weekend. 

A recap of that thing called life (and some birthday wishes for my daughter)

I obviously haven’t posted in a while, and I apologize, but I’ve barely been keeping my head above water. I’ve been involved in a job search, a final edit of Use Your Words before it moves to copyediting, prepping for and participating in the 2nd Annual Minnesota Blogger Conference (which was this past Saturday and which was fabulous—even better than last year. I was blown away by the wonderful writing by the people in my session. Go, writers!) Saturday night, we were out in Blaine at the National Sports Center watching D play in the MN History Soccer Game. (He’s still got it, by the way—scored his team’s only goal. From the stands it seemed as though his whole body was smiling.) And then Sunday, we held Stella’s 8-year-old kid party (with a gaggle of 7- and 8-year-old girls running around our house and yard), then spent Sunday evening at the benefit concert for our friend John Sylvester (our friend who is fighting the diagnosis of ALS).

Monday morning I woke up desperate for a day to regroup. Instead, everything is full speed ahead. I accepted a temporary full-time position (starting this Thursday!) in a social service agency that serves the Latino community in the Twin Cities. It’s a wonderful organization, and I’m excited to gain new skills and polish my very rusty Spanish. (I sputtered and turned bright red in the interview when we switched to Spanish. I looked like a complete idiot. That they still offered me the position is incredible.)

So I’m excited about the job, but it will change the whole feel of our lives. No more Zoë days. No more games of Sorry with Stella in the afternoons. No more mornings at the coffee shop writing. No more multi-step dinners during the week. (Hello, crock pot.) But still, it’s a good move for me and my family. (Someday I’ll be able to break down the things that led to this…) For now, I just have to trust that I will figure out a way to fit in my writing and some exercise.

This is all a long excuse for why I haven’t posted in almost two weeks. What do you think?

And now it’s Tuesday September 13^th, and my Stella is eight years old today. Usually on her birthday, I revisit that day, eight years ago, when I was vomiting and burning up from the magnesium sulfate, when I was just hoping that she would come out of me and be able to breathe on her own. Last night I wondered whether this year would bring the same flood of memories, and I doubted that it would. Stella is so grown up—so healthy and tall—so far removed from that three-pound preemie she was when she was born. But this morning, like clockwork, I thought, oh, this is when I began vomiting, this is when D arrived from his red-flight from Seattle, this is when, this is when. And I am tugged back in time by the current of details, seared into my memories of the day I became a mother.

I know there are women in similar situations right now—in their hospital beds, praying that their babies will stay inside them a few days (or hours) longer. I’m thinking of those women and families today as I celebrate all that my daughter has become: strong and determined, empathetic and caring, athletic and so very graceful. I love you, Stella. Happy Birthday! I’m wishing you a year filled with laughter and play, adventure, new interests and friendships. 

reading woolf

It’s been a melancholic week, even with the serious basement cleaning that D and I accomplished last weekend. (I’m still on my mission to de-clutter.) Stella started back to school on Monday, and she is thrilled to be a second-grader. Thrilled. She comes home full of stories about her day and her new classmates, and I love this. But I can’t help that tug of emotion: She’s growing up too fast! There is nothing we can do to slow the onward march of time! I have also been missing my grandpa a lot this week. At the beginning of each school year, we would figure out which day would be my grandpa day, the day I would take him for errands, get groceries for him, or later, just visit him and make him lunch. This year, Wednesday is the day I have alone with Zoë, and it would have been my new grandpa day, and all day I felt heavy and disoriented knowing that those days are no longer a part of my life.

It doesn’t help, perhaps, that I’m reading Virginia Woolf’s The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. As I make my way through the collection of essays, I keep thinking of my need to make connections, to share experience. But it seems so futile sometimes. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so much work—it takes so much effort—to continue to move forward, stay open to new experiences in the face of the challenges that life provides. Does it sound like a need some kind of renewal? I do.

My goal for the weekend is to sneak away a few times and sit outside, reading Woolf. Her prose. Oh her prose. I love this:

The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it.

What’s not to love about that?

I’m wishing you all a lovely, relaxing long holiday weekend. 

clutter and clarity

I’m awake early these days, my to-do list making it impossible for me to sleep past a certain (still-dark) hour. So I get up, make some tea, and sit down at my desk, which is once again cluttered beyond recognition.

Here I sit, thinking about the weekend (a couple of birthday parties, housework, back-to-school shopping) and the fact that Stella starts school on Monday, which seems impossible. A second-grader? Already? Little Z will also be back to her school-year schedule at her pre-school beginning on Monday. And though I will miss my girls and the slower pace of our summer mornings, I am looking forward to getting back into a routine. I lost my groove this summer. I haven’t been to the coffee shop for ages; I haven’t been writing.

I think I need to purge—spend a day cleaning and organizing my desk (again), going through the girls’ clothes, packing up Stella’s too-small items and storing them, giving away the items that Z has outgrown or refuses to wear (basically all pants that aren’t “jammy” pants). I also need to do something with all my books. They are stacked in my office, stacked on top of the already-full bookshelves throughout the house, ready to topple. I need to get rid of some of them.

And I hope that when all of this purging is complete, I will be able to breathe easier, think more clearly. I know the house and my desk will become cluttered again before long, but perhaps I can develop some systems to help? Anyone have any ideas how to do that with two small children in the house? 

when there is hope, hope

(A heartbreaking, but take-action post.)

A month ago, D and I found out that our good friend, John “Sly” Sylvester might have ALS (Lou Gerhig’s Disease).

Earlier this summer, John and his wife, Tessie, spent two weeks at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester because over the last year John had lost mobility in his hand and arm. At Mayo, John underwent a slew of tests, and the doctors came to the conclusion that John most likely has ALS. There is no definitive test for ALS—the diagnosis is made through a process of elimination.

There is a slim chance, however, that this diagnosis is incorrect. Instead it might be an auto-immune disease that mimics ALS. But the only way to identify and halt the progression of this auto-immune disease is for John to undergo a series of infusions of Intra Venous Immunoglobulin Antibodies (IVIG) over the next 3 months.  If the therapy is successful, it will mean a full recovery for John.  If the injections prove futile, the ALS diagnosis will be confirmed.  But if John doesn’t receive the treatment, the auto-immune disease will remain undetected and lead to the same conclusion as ALS. 

The average patient with ALS is given 2-5 years to live.

John is only 38 years old. Tessie is 30. Their son, Gus, the cutest little guy with the most beautiful eyelashes I’ve ever seen, just turned one. They deserve a chance to be a family.

John has dedicated his adult life to helping others. He and D played soccer together for the Minnesota Thunder in the late nineties, and since then he has worked in the Minneapolis Public Schools, Harvest African-centered Prep School in North Minneapolis, and as the girl’s coaching director for the Minneapolis United Soccer Club. 

John met his wife Tessie in 2001 when they were both coaching summer youth soccer. They were brought together by their love of soccer, their dedicated connection to their families, their strong faith and their belief in giving back to the community.

John and Tessie both come from humble backgrounds. John wouldn’t have been able to make it to the level of a professional soccer player if it hadn’t been for the many coaches that waived fees in order to make it possible for him to play the game he loved. This is why John wanted to work for Minneapolis United and be able to help other young people, regardless of socioeconomic status, realize their dreams.

As a young woman, Tessie worked hard to obtain an academic scholarship to St. Thomas University and later completed dental school so that she could provide a much-needed service in low-income communities. She is currently a part-time dentist in a free dental clinic in St. Paul that serves homeless and marginalized people.

They are both self-insured, and their insurance *will not* cover the IVIG treatment, John’s only chance at surviving. The treatment costs $75,000.

John and Tessie need our prayers. They need our support. And they desperately need our financial help.

Please donate what you can to the John Sylvester Medical fund. (Donations are tax-deductible.) If you are in the Twin Cities, join us at Brit’s Pub in Minneapolis on Sunday September 11 4 – 8 p.m. for the Rally for Sly silent auction and benefit concert featuring Tim Mahoney, Kari Noble, Dave Hudson, and Hip Replacement.

John and Tessie have spent their lives helping others. Now they need our help. Donate. Please. And give John a chance to see his son grow up.

a blur

How can it almost be the middle of August already? Summers always go too fast, but this summer has been a blur.

I drove up to St. Cloud yesterday to present to the Forum of Executive Women about writing, publishing and motherhood, and it was such a wonderful event. What an interesting and organized group of women. And I was relieved that I didn’t need to fly from the podium to find a restroom in the middle of my talk. (TMI: I’ve been struggling to get over the stomach flu, which laid me—and poor Stella—out while we were up north at my mom’s cabin over the weekend and hit D Tuesday night. It ran through Stella’s system very quickly, but it’s still hanging on to me, unsettling me.)

Aside from the flu, I’ve been busy with the girls and presentation prep and some freelance work and some tweaking of Use Your Words. But I haven’t done much new writing this summer, which always makes me feel a little disoriented. I’m hoping that as soon as school starts again, I can carve out a better schedule for my creative work.

I’m also looking forward to my upcoming fall Mother Words class at the Loft, which will meet Tuesday mornings, 10 – noon, for ten weeks, starting September 27. And then of course the 5^th Annual Mother Words reading at the Loft on Thursday, October 13^th, featuring authors Jill Christman and Sonya Huber. Mark your calendars! It’s going to be a wonderful event.

So there is much to look forward to this fall, as there always is. But I wish I could somehow slow down these last weeks of summer. Or is it that I need to somehow slow myself down?