Boot Camp, Brussels Sprouts, and Writing– oh, my!

CAUTION:
The following blog has way too many metaphors. That’s probably because I have had SUCH A HARD TIME WRITING over the last 5 months. : )

***

I’m in boot camp – climbing up steep hills while carrying artillery, traversing various obstacle courses, and marching until my feet bleed. I do this in sleet, rain, snow, sunshine– no matter the weather. I get up at dawn and work until dusk. I know that the goal of boot camp is survival. That’s it. Nothing else. Just survive. You don’t have to look pretty or smell good. Just get through it–alive.

I have been in boot camp for these last several months, my first semester of the MFA program at Pine Manor College, and am emerging battle weary. But, thankfully, it’s over, and I’m about to attend residency number two to kick start semester two. So, as a send off and farewell to the semester that was, I give you my parting thoughts.

***

Our program is a rigorous study made up of five 10-day residencies (over a 2.5 year period). Upon arrival home from residency, students begin their independent study, which involves turning in five packets of work, spaced out about a month each– 25 pages of creative and about 10 pages of critical writing (literary analysis)– to a mentor, who is a professional author as well as someone who has been through the same rigorous study (with their own MFA).

***

I went into the program looking forward to working on my creative writing . I finally could justify the hours and hours I spent at Starbucks drinking tea and clacking on the keyboard. I could tell my husband, “But I have to write today–it’s homework!” I specifically wanted to focus on a short story collection that I have been kicking around for a few years. Short stories are much harder for me than novels, which I can bang out in a few months. So, I looked forward to having a teacher help me hone my short story writing.

I pictured myself churning out story after story and my mentor giving me life-changing advice. I pictured us simpatico. I also was convinced that everything he or she was going to tell me would be THE THING that changed my writing. That I would grow and expand. That I would be humbled by my own growth and expansion. The skies would part and my writing Savior would arrive in flowing robes with an ethereal glow. As for the critical writing, I figured it would be necessary but not really a lot of fun. That I would, as my five-year-old daughter does with her vegetables, get that over with first and move on to my “just desserts"– my creative writing.

***

However, as life sometimes goes, I did not get my “just desserts”.

What actually happened was with each packet I turned in, I felt more and more depressed about my own writing. Worse though was that my “just desserts” turned out to NOT be my creative work. Working on my creative work was like being forced to eat the most dreaded vegetable ever–Brussels sprouts.

By the second packet, I wanted to just focus on the critical writing. Let me just keep reading other people’s stuff. Let me focus on how they succeed or fail in their story-telling. By the final packet, I actually pondered quitting the program and getting my PHD in English Lit…That would be so much easier than an MFA. Really. I think it would be. What gut-wrenching-muscle-aching effort is it to analyze other people’s work? Hell, I do that for a living anyway. I’m an English teacher by training. Teacher/tutor/coach by trade. Piece of cake. Almost effortless. Like breathing. Actually, I realized by semester’s end, it’s kind of fun, too. Really, it’s so much easier focusing on other people’s shit, right? It’s kind of removed because it’s not about you, so you can kind of relish in the severity of your analysis. Relish in how much you dissected it, relish in the decoding of it all, like you took apart the VCR and actually figured out how to put it back together.

***

It was the feedback.

With each letter of feedback on my writing I struggled. I struggled to figure out what to do with the feedback and how to do whatever it is I needed to do. With each packet, I would work furiously revising and rewriting based on the notes given. But it was like running up Mt. Washington, without sneakers, without water–hell , without clothes. In the rain. Eating Brussels sprouts.

This shocked me. I wanted feedback. That’s why I signed up for an MFA.

So, what happened?

***

Traditionally, in a class, you have your fellow classmates to commiserate with or to at least bounce things off of, you have other people to encourage you when you feel like giving up–someone other than your teacher. In a class, you have other students to talk you off the cliff when the teacher tells you that you got it all wrong and have to start over. Not that my mentor said those words exactly, but, unfortunately, that’s how I heard the words. I kept hearing, “You’re wrong. You’re ideas suck. You’re stories are vapid. You. Suck. A. Lot.” Again, she NEVER SAID THAT. But I heard that in my head. So, while she may have been criticizing my ideas and my writing, she never told me to pack it in. To forget it because I’m a no-talent asshole. But, again, that’s what I heard.

This same psychological phenomenon happens sometimes with my students–particularly when they are new (as I am to the MFA program): I will give some feedback that’s rather critical–not about them as writers or human beings but about their story or essay– and the look on the student’s face says, “You just completely ran me over with a large Mack Truck and now I am barely alive.” Not only will I notice this slack mouth, half-alive, barely able to inhale look but so will the rest of the students in the class. This is their cue to chime in: “Your story is great! You are such an awesome writer! Just a few more tweaks and this draft will sparkle.” Sometimes my students will come right out and say, “Hannah didn’t just tell you that you sucked, okay? She said that you just need to fix a few things.” Also, quite frankly, teachers aren’t perfect. Sometimes they say things in not the most gentle way, and it can hurt. Having other students around can be good for translation purposes.

Being the teacher, even if you are as I am, not on some kind of self-proclaimed pedestal of all-knowingness, you are in a position of authority. Therefore, no matter what you say– good or bad– it really affects the student. Deeply, intensely, and completely. So, to reduce the intensity and the shock of feedback from the teacher, students need one another. Being in a residency program, you don’t get that immediate support from your peers because you are truly on your own with your mentor. I guess I could have reached out to my classmates but that would have been through email, and I’m not sure how it would have been received if I emailed them and said, “I JUST GOT MY LETTER FROM MY MENTOR AND NOW I WANT TO HANG MYSELF. SO HOW ARE YOU?”

Instead, what I did was not say ANYTHING (although my mentor did sense things weren’t going that great with me and my writing). And, if you know me well, you know I can’t do this, at least without causing some severe anxiety and depression. So after I got my letter of feedback, I would just sort of try and do exactly as my mentor advised, without sitting with the feedback and really processing it. Then, I would get frustrated and feel like some of her feedback didn’t resonate. That maybe she wasn’t understanding what I was trying to do, and hell, maybe I wasn’t conveying what I wanted to do to her because maybe I was still evolving my idea…I think, worse of all, I didn’t pick up the phone and call her and tell her how I was feeling. That was truly stupid because see, I wasn’t alone. I did have her. That’s what she was there for, support and encouragement, just as much as she was there to critique.

It’s also vital to the mentoring/critiquing process that the student give the teacher feedback– that there’s a dialogue between teacher and student about the work. Because the work evolves. It isn’t just– poof! There it is. Feedback cannot occur in a vacuum because writing a story is a creative process, which is not formulaic or linear but circular at times. Crafting a story can be confusing, like when you have one of those thin chains that gets tangled up in itself and you have to carefully work out the knots, sometimes with a pin and it takes a while to figure out how exactly to untie the knot. So, if someone is critiquing your story as it is evolving, when it isn’t ready for a critique, a dialogue between writer and critiquer is vital.

***

What I’m figuring out here in this blog is that I wish there had been more time to talk. Talk about the work I was creating or rather the process I was experiencing with the creation of the work. The other problem was at the beginning of the semester my mentor suggested I do a loose outline of my project. So I did, hating every minute of it because I wasn’t quite ready to do that. Did I tell her this? Nope. I just was the good little student and did it. Then, I assumed I had to follow the outline. Except, I didn’t want to, so I really didn’t.

Additionally, there was a story I was working on, and it wasn’t really fully formed in my head, but I had to send her what I was working on, so I would try really hard to “figure it out” so I could answer her very valid questions about it. What I wanted to tell her was… “I’m not sure yet what I want to do with this.” But, again, I didn’t so…I tried to do what I thought she wanted me to do with it and…it turned into a mess and I got very sad. I wanted to dream and write and enjoy this wonderful opportunity to write . Yet, I constantly felt like there was a certain expectation on her part, and I wasn’t hitting it.

There was way too much struggle, and this was new for me. I have never had a struggle like this with my creative writing.

But the thing is…I felt like maybe she wasn’t understanding me, and I wasn’t really understanding her. See, this is all stuff we could have discussed. Should have discussed. But we didn’t. And it’s that that I truly regret.

***

Thus, with all that struggle, I feel sore. Tired. Weary. Like I did boot camp or climbed that frigging mountain. I ignored my feelings/reactions to the feedback letters. I kept telling myself I was too sensitive and had to “get over it”. I felt sad, I hurt, my muscles ached, and I seemed to wake up sore everyday. It felt like one long intense workout with out rest, like a marathon or something. One that just kept going and going.

But, I wasn’t in boot camp with a drill sergeant. I was a mentee in an MFA program that urges the student to communicate with their mentor about how things are going, really going, even if they are going really, bad.

***

So…

I know I have an abundance of metaphors here– see how my writing is suffering now! ? : ) But both metaphors describe what it has been like to do my creative writing this semester. It’s like eating Brussels sprouts while traversing some kind of boot camp obstacle course that involves climbing up a steep mountain, naked.

Gross.

Yet, I do not want to give up. I want to go through this process of intense study and writing. But how do I stop struggling? My muse is not struggle. It’s like how I feel about my study of yoga– “release into the resistance” is what one of my yoga teacher’s tells us. That and “lay down your arms”. Oh and this good one, “trust your process”. I just have to accept these yicky feelings. Stop struggling and accept where I am. Be in the moment and just sit down, one key at a time, and write.

Also, maybe I should try Brussels sprouts one more time?

Write What You Know

First of all, I think that I forgot something during these first few weeks of the semester (post residency). I forgot the reason I decided to get my MFA–to write, to write in a more focused way, to have the best and greatest excuse to write when maybe I “should” be doing other things. Don’t get me wrong, I have a super supportive husband who, even prior to school, says “Go, get out of here and write.” Not to mention that I had a very active writing life before the MFA. I was writing at a clip of a novel and several short stories a year for the past five years. Ideas a-plenty and writer’s block– virtually never. I also had the amazing support of my writing students. So, I was a writer and an author before the MFA and pretty confident in my talent– never thinking I was great in a competitive way but knowing I could write a good story and hold people’s interest and had pretty good command of language and story telling.

Then, I got to the residency and, well, all confidence– everything I thought I knew kind of disintegrated with each workshop and each class. I was suddenly 14, before my first real true writing class or workshop when I was screwing around in my room writing about the second-tier popular girls overthrowing the popular girls in a book called “Rivals” and devouring Judy Blume and Sweet Valley High Books at an alarming rate.

I have studied the craft for over 15 years, taking classes at Harvard summer School, going to writing camp, taking every workshop offered on the east coast as well as teaching writing. I am, damn it, a writer. I got the clout; I know character development and no-nos of plot construction– show don’t tell.

Sitting in workshop listening to the deconstruction of my peers work and my own, I thought why the hell are we bothering? What we want to achieve is truly impossible. We will never be done we will never be right.

I fell into a trap that I TEACH and COACH people to side step. I have writing techniques created as the antidote to the number one complaint I have when people come to class MY BRAIN WON’T SHUT UP AND LET ME WRITE!!!!! My techniques are all about writing through these “tight spots” as I call them. These techniques work! I have hundreds of students as well as myself to prove it.

But there I sat feeling stupid and young and amateurish like one of the wanna-be American Idols that stand up and perform completely off key and suck but have no idea until they see themselves on TV.

I should stop writing.

But I haven’t because I am 33 and have been writing for years and teaching it, and I don’t know how to do anything else.

So, I am writing. I’m working on my creative and my critical work for school, diligently.

There’s just something missing that I used to feel every single time I sat down to write–

FUN.

Working towards my MFA, so far, is NOT fun. I am spending like $30,000 to NOT have fun.

So what do I do? Nothing. I am not doing a damned thing except continuing on. Riding on faith, faith that somewhere, at some point, the fun will return and I will get my wings–or whatever– and fly.

***

So, I finally reached out to my mentor–reluctantly, not because she is someone I can’t talk to, on the contrary. She is very easy-going and supportive. I hesitated because, well, I shouldn’t be suffering from any kind of block, I mean I am a teacher of how to unblock– it’s like an overweight trainer or a doctor who smokes, right? Anyway, I did reach out and she kind of reassured me. She told me to basically chill out and enjoy the inauguration. Which kind of made me think, God, I am so self obsessed.

But what artist isn’t?

Anyway, that reassured me that she isn’t worried about me. At least I can fall on that, that faith, or whatever it is.

But she also, in our exchanges, has pushed me to examine my work in a way that I have avoided or maybe never considered. Coming into the program I decided to work on a short story collection called Regular Girl. All of the young women in this collection struggle with “regular girl” problems: love, food, sex, self-esteem, friendships, parents, identity, and even parenthood. Their struggles are those of other young woman growing up today, yet the way in which they attempt to gain control over their lives, which seem to be spiraling out of orbit, is truly unique.

As part of my first set of assignments, my mentor has asked me to write up an “intention” for the collection as well as summaries of the stories I already have and ideas for future ones.

In a recent email exchange she brought up the following:

… I have a feeling your collection is too general and broad. To say that you are gathering stories about a "regular" girl might get you into trouble. Is a "regular" girl only white and middle class? Is a "regular" girl also black or Asian or Latina or poor and living in the mountains? What kinds of problems and hopes does this "regular" girl have? Do you see what I mean? So part of writing the collection is about explaining why and how these stories fit together. Otherwise, you are kind of stumbling around and just writing anything. And that might be your goal as well. Some writers just write a bunch of short stories and collect them together without one central theme. However, it sounded like you did have a purpose in mind when you spoke about your work at residency.


My first reaction, my first draft of this blog, is filled with defense, anger, who-the-hell-does-she-think-she-is-tone combined with a lot of words around “I am sick of this forced multicultural shit.” Then, this morning, I turned on Good Morning America and saw excerpts from the inauguration that I MISSED, yeah. Totally missed it yesterday because of some self-loathing and anger bullshit around writing. Anyway, I watched the images on the TV, and there were a lot of shots of people with various shades of skin tone–a lot of shots of people with brown and honey colored skin. And that’s when I had this kind of moment, I started to cry, just stood there watching the TV and crying as images of old women and men, young women and men, of various shades of color, flashed across the screen and they were all crying too. So, my second reaction to her email, after my crying fit, once I sat down to rewrite and revise this blog, my second reaction was…Holy shit. She is right. She is completely right. She is not talking about forcing some multicultural shit. She is talking about reality. Real life. Real life regular girls.

***

Growing up, my friends were various shades of African American, Hispanic, Caribbean, Asian. I always found it interesting that no matter where we lived or what school I went to, I gravitated toward the minority groups. I think because I always felt out of place as a Jew in a sea of Christians, I felt a kinship with other minorities. It’s not like we talked about our differentness, but I felt safe knowing that we had each other–just in case. Just in case someone ever made a big deal out of who we were– we had each others backs. Just in case. I even chose my college, Clark University, almost solely on the advertisement I saw in my school ‘s guidance department– a pea pod with different colored peas in it. Ah ha, now I might fit in somewhere.

And now, when Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama were my choices for the democrat candidate, I was really torn. I wanted the symbol of hope either of them would bring to our country and when it was Obama, it was an amazing feeling. For some reason, I felt safe, finally, like this country is not a bunch of racist bigots. We are going to be okay.

So I totally believe and want and need diversity but– I am afraid.

First of all, I don’t want to convey any stereotype of any cultural group, ever. I am NOT a stereotype and neither were my friends in high school. A. I was the dumbest and least academically successful of my friends and my favorite type of music was rap. B. The best student of my friends happened to be a black girl who preferred Led Zeppelin to rap. C. I did not go on to become a lawyer, a doctor, etc.

In my current life, one of my best friends happens to be gay–but she does not have short hair and wear flannel shirts with the arms cut off. In fact, she cares more about hair and make up than I do. My other best friend is a Jewish girl from Long Island…who married a French Canadian who is NOT a doctor.

So, see, it would bother me to portray a character who is poor and black and strung out or gay and butch or Asian and valedictorian.


And, secondly, I don’t want to be the empathetic white girl trying to speak for a population that already has endured other people trying to speak for them. I want to write about what I know and, quite frankly, what is safe.

On the other hand, I realize that my strong reaction to my mentor’s words means that maybe she hit a nerve, too. That maybe all this self-riotousness that I just espoused is actually a cover up for something far simpler.

I am afraid of failing. I am afraid of writing the story about say, three best girlfriends who are each a different color and it never mattered until they went off to college and really saw for the first time that they were all different and that their differences really mattered. Or, the other story about the closeted gay girl who is outed by the boy she repeatedly turns down and then tries, for a while, to live that good, heterosexual life her mom and dad want so badly for her but ultimately fails. I guess, I am afraid of writing stories with characters of different races and backgrounds because, like it or not, it does matter. It matters to this world and it matters to those of us who wish it didn’t matter–because it matters to others.

How can I write stories from different perspectives with characters that are a different race without that being the issue or THING in the story? It’s kind of like how on the new 90210 the upper middle class white family has a black son, and it’s great that they kind of don’t dwell on the fact that he’s black– but he is black and we are all wondering how he wound up with this family. They give us bits of info in each episode but it still feels contrived. Yet, I applaud the writers and the studio for trying. I mean that is a good thing whenever anyone tries to break a color barrier.

So, I feel completely, creatively, totally stuck. My mentor made me realize that my entire collection, as it is, is a little, narrow-minded. I mean, it is, isn’t? How arrogant of me to think that Regular Girl stories featuring an all white, middle class cast would really be an accurate portrayal of a regular girl in this country! In this world? How small minded of me. I know, I know, I did not intend for the collection to be single-minded, but the thing is, it is. As it stands, it is and that, well, that bothers me. A lot.

What I would like to do in this collection is have the voice of a variety of girls–from different backgrounds, including different ethnicities and races– be heard but I am afraid that I just can’t pull that off. That’s really it. I just don’t know if I can pull it off. Maybe I am a one-trick pony and need to make peace with that.

But I can’t. I just can’t.

***

P.S. I showed this to my mentor and her words brought me to tears....she commended me for opening my mind to her thoughts and suggestions but told me this, "Write what you know..." So, now, my task is to write what I know, what my experience has been, which, I seemed to have forgotten included friendships and relationships with all kinds of people. Now, I have to challenge myself to go ahead and talk about those things through my creative work.

More Observations from Motherhood

Motherhood continued….

I kept my promise to my students in my current class who asked me to journal about motherhood. The journal is ongoing. Below are more entries continuing from my last blog entry. Most of the time I journal it’s just a quick opportune moment while hanging out with the kids–the baby asleep and the big one playing.

Again, I share with you not in the hopes of advice but in the hopes of connecting and urging you to share your mommyhood stories with me.



October 28, 2008

Now we are going to move on to D Ab,cdef…efg…eeeeee…(silence) Doll….Then we are going to go to E e abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy and z how I know my abcs next time won’t you sing with me….that’s all scribble after tomorrow we are going to do scribble efg…

A POEM AS I WATCH MY 4 YEAR OLD PLAY

We rearranged the playroom
The hum of our new white noise machines
The asthmatic purr of Maisey to the left, on the kitchen floor
The musical tones of my eldest daughter as she plays school and talks to her students they are learning the abcs and “scribble” as she calls cursive
My youngest is quiet…I would say finally but for her taking an hour to settle into bed is good luckily she never blaringly cries just fusses herself to sleep
I finally get that and stop futzing with her every 5 seconds

I a m not a poet and I HATE poetry. Except Emily Dickinson.

“g-g-gi-ff-t “ Now Chels is sounding out words. I can’t see her as we have rearranged the playroom so she can hide in front of the couch and play. But I know she is using her Barbie workbook. The same one she wants to bring to class to teach you all about how to write letters. Yeah, that’s what she thinks teaching “writing” means. : )

I don’t know what to write… Oh, yes, I do. I cried today as I fed Viv her dinner bottle today. It was just before 5, I had finished her bath, and she was howling for her bottle, which I know she probably wanted almost an hour before but had been patient with her mother who wants to try and get a schedule of some kind–

BTW Chels is taking her students to the computer lab now.

Anyway, I was feeding Viv, and she was super focused, not even remotely distracted by my stroking her cheek and kissing her soft, yummy, dumpling forehead–

No cheating! You know what cheating means. You do this…I am not going to do that– Okay?

Anyway¬– sorry, it’s hard not to eavesdrop on Chels.

So, Viv was feeding and I had on the classical station because we discovered over the weekend that Viv loves it, calms right down. The melodies were rushing around me, violin sounds and Viv was half asleep, but sucking steadily. I held her, warm, to me, and I was able to look out the front window and see the peeking blue from the gray clouds and the leaves wiping around from the wind–

There she goes again. It’s been exactly and hour and she is not totally asleep.

–the wind wiping and the musical swirling and Viv sucking, and I started to cry, just thinking…About my friend who’s son has been in the hospital for 2 weeks, with some kind of infection they can’t pin down, swollen eye and rash and morphine drips and no diagnosis. He’s almost 4. Last November a few days before Thanksgiving, she lost her third child, 16 weeks. She’s pregnant now, due in December, and this is what she is facing this year….I thought about it and I can’t say it– the loss of a child–God it is the worst thing in the world, I think. I looked at my healthy baby, and I cried and I thanked God.

Am I capturing motherhood?

October 29, 2008

Last night at 2 am. Chelsea came in. “I had a bad dream!” and not in the matter of fact voice that means she thought she might have a bad dream and preventatively she wants to come in and sleep with us–just in case. No. She was genuinely crying and scared. I brought her back, shushed her, didn’t even ask what the dream was. An hour later she came in and Mike brought her back. A few minutes later, she came back in, and I went back with her and slept in her room.

At some point in this whole thing, I think Mike said to me, “You need to be nicer to her.”

I feel something when Chels is needy…It used to be I would feel an urgency to meet her need. “Mama…I need to do last snuggles…Mama I need you to read me that book…Mama I need you to kiss my boo boo…Mama I need you to read me two bedtime stories…Mama….” I jumped and jumped because I really wanted to. It was healing to soothe her.

The needyness she has now is fickle and evolving. Sometimes it’s “Mama I need you!“ Then, two minutes later it’s “Mama, I can do it myself!” But in the middle of the night she needs me…

At one point, while I was in bed with her, I felt her stir a bit, and I said, “You can hold on to me, honey. That’s why I am here…Later, when I stirred and tried to find my spot, she said, “Mommy you can hold on to me if you want.” And I did.

I tried to explain it to my mother today but she just turned it into a statement about her mothering of me:

Me: I just don’t want to start some kind of thing where I am always sleeping with her-
Her: You know you didn’t sleep with us every night!

I mean come on! Did I even mention my shit? Of course, she was right to be defensive because why am I so crazy about making sure my daughter stays in her bed and I in mine? Because my mother never tried to get me to sleep in my own bed and let the boundary just burst wide. So much so, that I didn’t sleep by myself until I was 9.

I worry that Chels, who has the same anxiety I had as a child,anticipatory. As in, fear of the "What will happen? What could happen?" I don’t want to cater to it. I guess, I want her to be tougher than I was…I am projecting my own shit. I guess I have to get out of the way and watch her and deal with her needs in context to her and her life– not my childhood…

Isn't that the definition of good parenting?

October 30, 2008

Mommy I ate a little bit of it.
Keep eating.
And then you will give it to me?
Do I have to eat all of it? The two carrots? That’s boring. Sitting here and eating carrots– BORING! BORING! BORING!
SHHHH! Do you want to go to your room?
I can eat and still do stuff, Mommy! Mommy? I am not kidding, MOMMY! I AM NOT KIDDING. Crunch. That’s just mean, not letting anyone do something! You can’t just be MEAN! That’s just being mean, Mommy. You’re being mean!!!
Eyebrows raised [mine].
She turns her back to me and then glances over her shoulder.
Ahhh, but she is silent.
She turns again.
I type.
She scratches her neck. CRRRRUUNNCCCHHHHH
She leans her elbow on the table and puts her head in her hand. CRUNCH CRUNCH Shakes her head like, my mother is soo cruel how can she do this.
Silence
No crunching.
I burst out laughing.
What are you laughing about? What are you laughing about? Now she whispers: What are you laughing about? Then, louder: What are you LAUGHING ABOUT MOMMY?”
Us.
Me and you? Oh, my God!
I think we are funny.
She laughs and crunches. I don’t think we are funny.
She pretends to swim on the floor.

Nov 3
Last night before bed I was moaning about period cramps and I turned to Chels and said, “When you are a big girl and you get your period, I want you to know you can talk to me about it.” She cocked her head and said matter-of-factly, “That’s inappropriate to talk about with your child.” Mind you, this is the same child who bends over and looks at her "va jay-jay" as she calls it and says, “Mama, I think I got fuzz in my va jay-jay. Can you get it out?” Talk about inappropriate. She also is the same child who wants to watch me go to the bathroom at all times and I have to politely refuse her, citing “privacy” as a need. So, anyway, I found this all to be very amusing. So I said, “Oh, why is it inappropriate?” She said, “That’s not for a long time. We can talk about it when I am bigger.” I said, "How come you are so smart?" And she said, “Cuz my head is thinking.”

Nov 4
Whole day with both girls. Took both to vote and both to Stop & Shop. Finagled Mom to come over. Outside now typing and watching Chels sulk because she has no one to play with. We did go to the park, and she did play with a little girl she knows from the pool. The neighbors aren’t around so she ‘s bummed. I found out this morning that one of the neighbor’s kids, a 7-year-old boy, was talking about his “ding dong”, a word I never heard Chels use before today, and that he ordered her and his sister, who is Chels’s age, to take off their panties during some kind of game–

So I just went over to the neighbors and said something to the dad, and he was clearly embarrassed, but I think we both agreed that we didn’t want to make a big deal.

Nov 5
God, I think about the stuff that went down when I was a kid. Not really at Chels’ age but a little later. I seem to remember vividly, and not fondly, that a neighbor, when we lived in VA, invited me to come over to his house and then bought me passed his mother who was baking cookies, down to his basement where he stopped, turned the light on, and then in a flash, wiped out his penis. I screamed and turned around and ran up the stairs and out the door. I believe when the little boy wiped it out he beseeched me to “touch it, go ahead and touch it!” Good Lord!
Just thinking about my daughter….AHHHHHHHHH! I don’t want her touching “it” until she’s at least 25!!!!!

Stay tuned for more from my mommy diary!

Mommyhood & Writing

Observations From My Mommy Diaries.

Read about my life as a working and writing mommy. It’s raw and unedited…but a little censored!

I am currently teaching a writing workshop and one of the constant homework assignments is 12 pages a week. So, I decided to keep a “mommy” diary during this time. I hope to post daily or weekly excerpts. I am not looking for advice with these posts, just looking to be heard and understood. I also am in the processing of editing and publishing another book. Having a newborn, an almost 5-year-old and a business makes for one TIRED Mommy. Maybe you can relate?


Oct 18

I love Viv. I love her needy, floppy, sturdy, learning, emerging baby body. The way she responds to skin and touch and food and warmth, so natural, so instinctual to lean into my hand when I cup her cheek as she sucks her bottle or lean into my arm as I cradle her head while she feeds. When I hold her upright against me, over my shoulder her head nestles into my neck, her mouth and hands searching for my skin, her little scratchy fingernails gently poking my flesh. I love when she is tired.

October 19

The house is relatively quiet, just the hum of the baby monitor– Viv is asleep for a nap. Chels and Mike are at Sunday school– Well, Chels is and Mike took off to bowl, he’s highly motivated to take her now because the bowling alley is nearby and he can squeeze in a game. Viv is a little off her normal schedule today which produces a small trickle of anxiety. If she is off in her feeds, she won’t have the magic tank up between 5-6 pm so she can get through the night until 5 tomorrow…I just started to write about that more and then felt stalled like why am I writing about that? Who gives a shit? It’s boring. Only I give shit because scheduling my baby is of utmost importance to a working mother, to any mother. I am not a schedule imposer but more of let’s-observe-her-and-see-what-she-does-and-needs and then let’s work around that, but it can’t be the haphazardness of the first 6 weeks to 2 months any more.

Anyway, this truly is only interesting to my fellow mommy friends, and me not even, actually. Just me and my hubby and my other friend with an infant.

The world of having an infant is pretty narrow and small. It’s a world of nesting and wanting to be home, wanting to just be all about baby. Even though I work (from home), the day revolves around baby. I feel drunk with my love for her. I tell myself that she can flail on my bed or in her bouncy while I do stuff, but when she is awake, the brief periods that she is, I want to look into her round gray blue eyes and watch how they really seem to brighten and glow and light up when I talk to her and smile. I want to watch her try and hoist her body over to the side as she learns to roll over. I want to play our little game of holding my fingers and she’s gotta grip as I help her pull herself up to sitting. She looks so proud and happy when we do it. I want to hold her over my shoulder and let her cheek lean into mine so I can feel the soft doughyness, the dumplingness of her pudgy skin. I feel complete when I hold her and when I feed her as she leans into my arm or clutches with her hand onto the fabric of my clothes or rests her hand on my chest as she suckles. I love to run the palm of my hand over her head and feel the puppy softness of her hair and the warmth of her head. When I hold her and play with her I feel her life, her aliveness or growth, and her emerging into full humanness. I feel the same as I did with Chelsea– the same drunk baby love. When I hold her, no one else is around. The house isn’t dirty and there’s no work to be done. It’s just her.


October 21
Hands working. Ehhhlaohhhlaaahmrmmmmhmmmmhmmmmmdribble. Legs kicking. Bahhhhh! Swipe at the rattles attached to the bouncy seat hood. Leg up and a whine that sounds like I want to play but getting tired. Now an eye rub with some talking. Better get her to bed¬–

Put her down. Conflicted mommy-guilt, but, you know, get out of the way and stop making it about you, Hannah, after all, it’s most important to think about the needs of baby and every baby needs to learn how to self soothe and sleep. Sleep alone with minimal binkings and a mother or father coming in every second to rebink and reset. There has to be the time when you say, “Okay, I am willing to step out of the way and deal with the crying.” Guess what? It didn’t last long. I put her down and rebinked her once, telling myself, “Okay after this rebink, you will wait it out, and let her cry in increments of 5 minutes…” Look there it is, she is quiet and dare I say asleep…

Guilt
Worrying about some work stuff (I censored this to protect my clients)…. Chelsea saying she doesn’t like that I work because she wants to be with me all the time oh shit there goes the baby with a whine but it’s not a shrieking terrible cry don’t focus on it Hannah tune it out but I can’t want to sit here and keep typing wait wait Hannah don’t go in there but it’s escalating I need to go in wait wait wait wait the 5 but what if the binks in her neck or the blanky is on her head it’s fine she is fine no no I need to check you can check but then leave leave okay checked and she is fine but fussy and bink is out and I am going to experiment if I tell myself its just an experiment shit she is really crying mad now sort of not terrible but she wants that bink wait wait the 5 you can do it need to practice now she sounds fine shit was she even ready for bed should I have waited whatever I didn’t and now here we are be consistent Hannah that’s what a good parent does shit shit up goddamnit this is soo hard and the other one is yelling at her Barbies and watching Ratatouille keep waiting Hannah it’s an experiment you can do it just wait wait to go in don’t be so three more minutes and I can go in I have to stick with this I just have to I will I want to stop writing and eat my apple now Chels is sort of drowning out the baby which both annoys and relieves me. Shit.

October 22
Committing to writing every day and getting those damned 12 pages–what I have assigned my students in my current class. I have been working on my edits for my new book. I am sick of the querying and rejection process. Trying to make people see how awesome my work is. I kind of feel like f- it. Whatever I do is going to have to be good enough. This editor I am working with thinks I should query MSV, but I think that if someone doesn’t want MSW, than I don’t want to work with him or her anyway, you know?

On another note, I have parted with my agent, and she sent me a lovely email back saying she would certainly be open to working together with me in the future. So I feel good. I wanted to be released so I could have total freedom to figure out what I do want to do with the whole publishing thing. It wasn’t happening with her, and I don’t fault her, frankly. It’s the business, and I need to figure out what I want. If the business doesn’t want me, I need to either find out how to change so it does, or I need to totally let go and go back to just doing my thing, writing and self publishing. I don’t want to waste energy any more on people who just say no, no, no.

I want a book deal. I want it, but not desperately any more. I finally feel calm and okay about it like whether it does or doesn’t, I will be fine. It won’t be this awful huge big deal if it does happen. It will all be okay. I am not desperate. I feel so much more confident and at peace with myself because I no longer compare or feel envious of other published authors– whatever. I am not the same as others and that’s great. Who the hell really is the same or perfect? F- it. I have bigger things. That’s the gift Viv has given me. I don’t have time for self-loathing and pity. I just want to keep trying and putting myself out there, and it’s not for anyone other than me, really.

I am only up to 4 pages. Should I also count all the rewrites and edits from the week?

October 23, 2008

I need to step aside, get out of the way with Viv. She is not sleeping through the night. From 12-4 last night she cried and we went in and rebinked her. I kept saying to Mike, she’s suffering. He was like, “No, she’s not. She needs to learn.” Then I would say, “But we waited until Chels was 7 months to do this. And he was like, “We aren’t waiting that long this time, we are tired and she needs to sleep and learn how to sleep.” He likened it to teaching a child to potty train early; it will take a little longer but we will get there sooner than if we waited. I feel crazy in the middle of the night, and it feels like things have gotten worse since Sunday night when we were doing fine before without feeding her in the middle of the night and only rebinking a few times, but on that night it was like everything changed and we had to give in and fed her. Mike thinks it’s connected to moving her out of the old bassinet, which was way too small for her, and into the new one. Alyssa says growth spurt. I say, “Shit, I don’t know what the f-?” But the bottom line is, I feel responsible. Maybe I am working too much and not observing her enough to learn how to read her properly? I mean right now, she seemed ready for a nap, but then I put her down, and she has cried for the last 15 minutes and is still crying. I just turned on the monitor. I just don’t get it. I feel like it’s me. It’s something I am not doing or not understanding. There she is. Crying. You have no idea the torture it is to hear your child cry. Well, maybe you do. Why is she so sad? Why doesn’t she want to sleep? We were doing so well, and, now, it’s just terrible and the other thing is that when she is out of bed, she is so happy and sweet and smiling. Now I wonder, is she mad? Is she okay? Now she is kind of singing in there. Maybe she’s not tired? I don’t get it. When I went in there before, she was doing her trying-to-sleep-thing by turning her head to the side snuggling the blanket, and I saw some spit up. So I wiped it and then gave her binky and then shot out of there. She is quiet now. It’s only taken over 20 minutes. I have to get out of the way and make this about her. She is working it out. The only way she knows how, which is to cry. I mean she can’t talk, and she can’t even move around that much. Give her a break and yourself. Okay?

I feel like I need a plan. Like I need to reread Dr. Ferber and Weissbluth, but you know, I smell a rat so-to-speak. Am I going back and reading and making a plan in the hopes or in the magical thinking that if I do all that, it will all be better? Because the truth is, this may get worse before better. No matter what plan you do.

My plan is to let her cry it out in increments of 5, 10, 15. That’s my plan

I put Viv down at 1:44 and let her cry for 5 min and then went in and reset and then left and let her fuss for 10…It’s 2:18 and she is quiet. So this stuff really works. I have to trust that I know what I am doing. I did it before, and I can do it again. Crying it out and scheduling feedings is a good thing and baby needs it. So f- myself and I better get a spine.

Later…

Absolutely nothing has worked today. Nothing that normally works has worked and neither has crying it out. I do realize a few things:

I need to get back into going with my gut, intuition, and in-the-moment stuff with her. Maybe we pushed a schedule too hard. Whatever. I am struggling. That’s the bottom line and I want to let go and make space for the pain of not being able to get her and get her soothed and on a schedule so Mike and I and Chels will be happier. I have to make space for the feeling of failure I have. Make space for my pain and frustration and aggravation and sleep deprivation. But, you know, it doesn’t mean anything other than what it is. It doesn’t mean my life is a mess and out of control. It means my newborn is not predictable (what a shock!) and that’s frustrating (what a shock, again!) and also I feel guilty about being frustrated and wanting this all to move faster. You know, I didn’t have these feelings with Chels.

Speaking of… I left the baby alone with Chels upstairs. I need to walk away. It’s terrible I don’t even do this every day… I just went upstairs and she was slumped, drunk, in front of the TV with Chels. Her first time in front of TV. Loving it. I scooped her up and did my favorite hold with her. Cheek to cheek and she puts a hand on either side of my neck and grabs like a cling-on. Now she is down in my study while I type this and I realize I am still in shock that I have another baby and maybe that’s another thing I am feeling. I feel like I am in the center of chaos, and maybe I need to go into it? Now she is snorting cooing. Oops. She just threw up. Marvelous.

Oct 24
Had an epiphany. Spoke to a client whose hubby is a pediatrician. Told her that Viv seems to need to eat again around 10 or 11pm. She said, “Oh, yeah, of course. That’s not the middle of the night.” Yeah! My mommy instincts are still good. So Mike and I agreed to feed her another feed before 12 without a problem. Middle of night feeds would be like between 12 and 4. That’s what we are going to avoid. Perfect! Decided to stick with 3 ounces if she absolutely needs another feed.

But she had another tough evening and I immediately blamed my self. I said, “I am not a good mommy.” Chels was like, “No, no! You are a good mommy. I am not a good big sis.” I jumped right on that and said, “Yes you are! You are great.” She really does imitate everything.

I don’t think I made it to 12 pages, but I did work on my book in addition to this. So, does that count? Of course it does. I’m the teacher!

Stay tuned for more from My Mommy Diaries

Writings From Class: Warm up, Cool Down

The following pieces are warm ups and cool downs from my current workshop, Releasing The Writer Within, The MASTER Class. We begin and end each class with a meditation and free-write. Take a look at these spontaneous pieces:

***

Warm up

I am ready. I am excited. My stomach is queasy from fear. It will be okay. It is gong to be great. Last week I talked to Hannah, Shakay, Joanne about what is so important to me. I came away realizing I know a lot about bullying, spiritual abuse, all kinds of abuse. I have ideas worth sharing with others. It is like I have been preparing for this. Everything has converged. My knowledge, my experience informed by my knowledge. It was painful getting to this point but I have arrived. I am where God intended me to be all along. I was just a little slow in hearing it. I would hear it and then forget. Then I would get whacked. Oh yeh I got it. Only to forget again.
God was telling me all along. You don’t belong with those people – the secularists, the atheists, the keeping up appearances crowd. Some how my isolation has given me a unique perspective.

Cool Down

Gratitude. So much to be thankful for. I have survived. I didn’t kill myself. My enemies failed to defeat me. I am loved despite my father saying I would never be wanted. He didn’t want me. A fifth child, a companion for Trish who was a surprise. Three children was probably all my father ever wanted. He had his son and a spare. One daughter for my mom. But Trish and me, we were extras, not needed, unnecessary. But in the end I am the winner. What would he think of me, this class, this book. I never understood why he was so angry. It has never been clear.

Maggie Jones
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Warm-up

I peeled another layer from my onion this week. I’ve always been a highly emotional person. As a child, I was the center of all attention. I expected it, liked it, and asked for it if it wasn’t happening. I usually got what I asked for. However, as a child I was always moody. There are many pictures of me pouting and crying and laughing and smiling. I always thought moody meant bad moods, but it really meant my emotions changed a lot – sometimes from minute to minute. I’m not sure why that happened, but that’s a topic for another day and I’ve marked it in my journal as such. The important thing for me this week is that I remember my moodiness as a child and I’m still struggling with it now. I still expect all the attention, but now I’m missing my three biggest supporters – my Dad, my Mom, and my sister. But guess what? I still need attention – and I haven’t told anyone that I need it. So now, I struggle with finding a person or people to give me that level of attention – almost to the point of doting. And my goal is to somehow manage this expectation as I continue to live on this earth.

Cool Down

I am here.
I am present.
I am in attendance.
I am smart.
I am intellectual.
I am spiritual.
I am feeding my soul.
I am filling my inner core up with energy and priceless life experiences.
I am knowledge.
I am wisdom.
I am insightful.
I am resourceful.
I am hopeful.
I am scared.
I am tired.
I am being heard.
I am getting attention.
I am giving myself attention.
I am giving others my full attention.
I may be sad at times.
I may be happy at times.
I am moody.
I am grateful I have feelings and emotions.
I am thankful.
I am me.

Linda Fiorenzano

-----------------------------

Warm Up

Make space.
Breath in and out. Stretch and breathe into my muscles. Feeling the clean and openness throughout me. That’s what releasing and not walking around with lies or half truths or denial feels like. I have no secrets. I have nothing hidden and it makes for a lighter load.

He carries with him the heavy burden of repressed truth. I see it in the anxious nervousness when I see him, how he probably drinks a pot or three of coffee and day. How he can’t get through a meal with me without downing at least three drinks. How he doesn’t look me in the eye when we do see each other. How he has stopped calling me. How months can go by without a word from him.

I know that I could pick up all the slack in the relationship like I used to. Make the plans, the phone calls, fill in the blanks, make the excuses, tell myself lies about him, that he’s just the victim of his upbringing, that oh he doesn’t drink that much that oh he’s proud of me he just is very busy too busy to tell me that he loves me but he’s too busy, so consumed with work…that oh he’ll get around to visiting I just have to remind him–

Remind him that he’s a father?

When I breathe in and make space I notice the honesty in my body, that I don’t have any muscle tension, there’s nothing I am holding back emotionally. I am not lying to myself or anyone else. It’s the lies that make us depressed and anxious. It’s the lies we tell ourselves because if we faced the truth, wrote it down or said it out loud, we would lose something– we would lose the fantasy of a relationship. We would lose the facade we hold up to others. And for a lot of people, that’s all they have, a fantasy of what is and not the reality.

Anonymous
-----------------------------
Warm Up

the truth is, i have a center and i can keep myself safe. walking around the back of the word, i am separated by mere glass, easy to break. i am a part of its reflection. the truth is, i can't do it all alone. i am willing to put money down on this fact, ordering services to keep my head above water. to navigate around the sticky realities of finance and divorce. oh, and by the way, you, little doggie, i probably can't give you a home right now. sure, you rush in and stand there in all your furry white glory but i am in no position. i struggle daily. i get stumped when it comes to making dinner or doing the dishes. not here and not now. another truth is that the future doesn't look as scary now since we sat down to coffee and i allowed you at my table. we both just wanted to talk and get it out and we did. and even for everything my son is he isn't scary either. he just needs boundaries and a plan. like i do, like i have, until now. i think i see my own future the way i want it and all my time and beauty and energy fills up that picture until the outcome no longer matters. i am filling myself up with my own vision, i am kicking all the bs out of the way to make way for me. finally.

Keri Nieforth

Work From Class

Take a look at the following pieces from my current workshop. These are examples of "warm ups" and "cool downs". I begin each class with a meditation and free writing period and then conclude each class in a similar fashion. The writing is fresh, unplanned, and completely free and raw. Take a look:

Warm Up

I sit in the chair with my feet flat and firm on the floor. Planted. As soon as my feet were on the floor they connected and in my mind's eye I saw several strands and different widths of roots running from the bottom of my feet and they were growing and breaking ground and rushing and rushing until they broke all the way through...to a cave. The roots...all of them...were dangling from the top of the cave...swaying ever so slightly...not knowing...where do we go? what do we do? If the roots stay exposed they will die. Die with just air. They need nutrients, water and a place to seed and take root and grow. One of the roots...a larger one, started to sway back and forth and noticed an ice blue current of water below. As the root grew straight down the other roots took notice and they too stretched and grew faster and faster to reach the water. The roots hit the water, the water stilled so the roots could reach the bottom of the current and take hold. Stillness. Silent. The cave was covered with a gazillion roots...straight down from the ground above to the water bed of the current. As if a light switch was thrown, the vines began to swirl slightly as if in a dance and small sprouts of green began to grow. And grow and grow. Pretty soon all that could be seen was a sea of shiny green leaves. The feet planted on the ground set the roots in motion to find the current of crystal clear water that ran underneath the surface and new growth sprang forth.

My breathing relaxed. My body swayed slightly. I liked the sensation of a new life...a new growth. I liked the warmth when I placed my hand on my belly. I may not have a little Vivian inside of me but a re-birth of Shakay is imminent.

This is the best time of my life. I am so happy.

-Shakay
Passionate Writer


Cool Down

As soon as Hannah asked me to fill myself with gratitude, I filled up with tears and sadness. Am I thankful to be here in this class? Yes. Am I thankful to be alive? Yes, but with a huge amount of guilt. I immediately feel guilty that I am here doing something that I enjoy, but my sister and my parents are dead. They too had many things in life they enjoyed, like golfing, grandchildren, traveling, and Bingo, but all of their lives were cut short too early – all at a very young age. My sister was only 49. And like her and my Mom, I had breast cancer, but I’m still here – living – enjoying. Most days, I don’t even know I feel guilty, but on days like today and here in this class where Hannah asks me to go deep – I am reminded of how much I miss my family. Being on an anti-depressant helps me to get through each day and be productive – but I think it stops me from feeling the pure and deepest sadness I feel each time I have to face the reality that my loving and nurturing sister is gone. Maybe because…not maybe…I know that the excitement of this new house and decorating it just sucks without her. I cannot do it by myself – I need her – I need her support, her advice, her talent for decorating. I need her voice. I need to hear her voice and I cannot hear it anymore – ever again. I will never hear her voice again and it hurts. I try very hard to be positive – to move forward – to get up each day, but I’m numb. I have lost a huge part of my existence and some days I do not know how to exist happily, or contently, without her. So where’s my gratitude? Being grateful and enjoying what I am fortunate to have and own only because my parents died and left me money makes me feel guilty. I have no gratitude right now.

-Linda F.


COOL DOWN

And so I said to my friend who is an amateur gardener, “I’ve got this azalea bush and it didn’t bloom last year.”

“Did you fertilize it?”

“No.”

She turned on her heels and went to her potting shed, returning with a ziplock baggie of something dark and moist looking.

“Now did down around the azalea bush and put this fertilizer in the soil and water.” Never realizing that to me that means—on your way by the azalea bush, throw this stuff at it and pray for rain, which is exactly what I did. And, lo and behold, two blooms! So for me that justifies my approach.

We killed the plum tree, the peach tree and the other pear tree. The grapevine, trust me, no one can kill. The first year we were there it grew to the point that on one side it completely took over the patio and starting climbing up the side of the garage onto the roof. On the other side, it grew up and into the neighbor’s trees.

Every year I try to plant one new perennial or maybe an area of perennials. It’s a constant battle. My initial enthusiasm at the start of the growing season, slowly turning to resentment and then active neglect.

-D

Cool Down

There’s much I should let go – not sure if I ever will. I feel like I might benefit from writing negative things about someone, but I don’t know if that’s true. It’s almost like I might be able to write that person out of my life, release a hold that is on me. I think about it but don’t do it. Perhaps I’ll choose a time and do it. More likely a time will choose itself, or maybe I’ll just never do it. This is the closest I’ve ever come to the subject. There’s a deep journaling topic for me. It’s probably not a good idea, anyway. The potential upside might not exist and then I’ll simply feel bad about focusing on and blowing out of proportion someone’s foibles. Indeed, shouldn’t we accept people warts and all? I’m now considering a bashing session that would make a person seem like only warts, and really bad warts at that.

Hyperemesis gravidarum

Out Of The Loop...

Out of the loop...It’s a cliché, and writers shouldn't use cliches, but clichés are clichés for good reasons. They express something we all go through or experience. I think we have all been through being “out of the loop” whether due to illness, vacation, crisis, etc.

***

In bed.

Sick.

For almost two months.

Unable to do the following, which are all important to my every day happiness:

Eat anything other than crackers
Enjoy an afternoon cup of tea or morning coffee
Read unless it was a trashy magazine
Talk, the taste of my own mouth made me sick
Play with my daughter–it made me dizzy
Drive my car–out of the question…I had this “midline” or IV line in my arm
Smell my own skin, my husband’s cologne, fresh air, anything too sweet, too pungent
Shower–well, I did this in limited amounts
Drink or smell water–yes, water has a smell!)

The screwed up part was that I didn’t look disabled. And, I didn’t look like the “condition” I had (pregnancy). Although, my husband said the sad part was that I was so so so sick but so so glowy and pretty. I beg to differ. He’s a sweetie though!

***

Yuck.

I didn’t write much or do much of anything most of the time, except sleep, but my sleep was active with dreams and stories. I wrote entire short stories all from my bed.

Of course that was in my head. Now I have to see if that story will get out on paper. But first, let’s see if I can finish this blog in some cohesive, complete fashion. It may just ramble without a solid thesis or direction. I guess that’s fine. At least I am writing, right? Or, write? Ha!

***

The good part about having been away for so long was that I didn’t realize I needed a break from everything, work, writing, civilization. I appreciate those things more now that I am back.

Yesterday, I went back to Starbuck’s for the first time. I sat and worked for 3 hours. It was bliss.

When I think about the last time I did that, I was tired and stressed and tired of being at my computer, tired of the people around me–the talking and chatting. Tired of the smell of egg sandwiches burning in the oven and harsh smell of Starbuck’s coffee. But, yesterday, I adored the click click of the keys, the sounds of patrons talking, the burnt smell of coffee and eggs. I inhaled like it was the first time. When I walked outside to my car, the smell of fresh air, which previously when I was in the thick of being ill, made me more ill, smelled new and possible and the word H-O-P-E came to mind. Then I rubbed my belly and the H-O-P-E turned into P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E.

Those are words I didn't think I would use just a few weeks ago.

***

So, believe it or not, my “morning sickness” was not the usual kind–some of you are laughing and rolling your eyes, thinking, of course Hannah doesn’t even due pregnancy the normal, typical way. She goes and gets some rare condition.

So read below to learn a bit about what was wrong with me:

Hyperemesis gravidarum: (from Greek hyper and emesis and Latin gravida; meaning "excessive vomiting of pregnant women") is a severe form of morning sickness, with unrelenting, excessive pregnancy-related nausea and/or vomiting that prevents adequate intake of food and fluids.[1] Hyperemesis is considered a rare complication of pregnancy but, because nausea and vomiting during pregnancy exist on a continuum, there is no clear boundary between common morning sickness and Hyperemesis. Estimates of the percentage of pregnant women afflicted range from 0.3% to 2%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperemesis_gravidarum

***

After this experience, I have such reverie and such appreciation for the capacity of the human female body. I cannot believe the pain, and yes, nausea is a form of pain and no, it’s not all in the woman’s head. Many, many of the case studies I have been reading about the treatment of Hyperemesis in the good ole days. One report cited that nurses were so disgusted with these woman that the nurses (woman mind you) would force the sick patient to clean up their own vomit. Needless to say, women died or had illegal abortions because of Hyperemesis. Think about that.

From my experience, today there’s a whole host of resources, medications and treatments available that really do help and save woman and their babies lives. Thank God.

However, this is the dirty secret of pregnancy and isn’t talked about, openly. Only the garden variety, the ginger and crackers cure type of nausea is discussed in books and among women. There’s a whole bunch of shame, which I experienced that goes along with Hyperemesis. It’s like why can’t I muscle through this? Especially for me since in my first pregnancy, I was nauseous…but not like this. Not where I existed on a handful of some kind of cracker a day. Where ginger ale or eating wouldn’t cure the nausea. At first, I did think it was in my head, but when I began to drop weight and when I started to vomit just stomach fluids and when I kept getting emitted to the ER, I started to wonder, what the hell is this? Very, very quickly my docs started to use the word Hyperemesis, and while I was too weak to look it up on the computer, my husband did. That’s when we began to take the whole thing seriously.

***

So now where am I? Well, I am proud. Proud of two things…well proud of many things really. First, right now I am proud of this little piece of writing. Just a few weeks ago I didn’t think I would be able to string together a sentence let alone write an entire blog.
That gives me H-O-P-E.

Second, I am so proud of the way my family held me together. I didn’t talk much about that here but I think you can imagine what happened to my mind as my body twisted into the darkness of the nausea. They held me and my mind together…and the medical professionals, but it was my husband who brought me to the hospital over and over and it was my mother who watched my daughter each time and it was my best friend who talked to me every day even when I couldn’t do anything but cry to her and it was my not-even four year old daughter that said things to me like:

“Just let our body be, Mom. Just rest, it will be okay.”

“Just let your body feel whatever. Don’t compromise it. Let it go.”

“You’ll feel better soon, Mommy. I know it’s tough.”

Now that makes me feel P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E.

Release The Creative Woman Within Weekend

Release The Creative Woman Within

October 2, 2007

It’s hard to write about the specialness of the retreat this weekend. In case you don’t know the retreat I am talking about, click here.

Julie and I were both teacher and participant this weekend. Writing is like bathing for me, and photography is just as natural and necessary to Julie as writing is to me. However, while Julie has taken my classes and always loved to write, photography has always eluded me…I actually thought that taking pictures was reserved only for special events– birthdays, weddings, bat mitzvahs or “first moments”, like your child’s first day of school or first time they ride a bike or climb the jungle gym. I never thought of photography as “art”, and I never thought I would ever have a desire to “just take some photos” for fun. So I was the most hesitant student at the retreat this weekend. But, then, Julie took us on a photo-walk this weekend as part of the retreat, and I had an epiphany, an opening, a change and shift about photography and what it meant.

Not too long ago Chelsea took to my digital camera, which was fine by me. My daughter NEVER breaks things. Seriously, she is a careful Capricorn, cautious, patient….Everything I am not. So she took picture after picture. The armoire in the living room. Her bear and blanky. My night gown laying on the bed. The maple tree in our yard. Our new car. Half of my face. Me, sort of sideways, in "tree pose".

I scrolled through the pictures when she was done, with her, and she was very excited and pleased with herself. I smiled and cheered as I do for just about any new thing she does. But inside I thought, I will delete these later when she’s not looking. I’m sure she’ll forget. Of course, she saw exactly what I was doing when I tried to delete them, sticking her chin on my shoulder and saying, "No, Mommy. Those are mine! I want to keep them!"
So, I did. But vowed that when the memory stick was full, those would get dumped.

But then I went on the photo walk and when we returned, Julie printed the photo we liked the best out of all the shots we each took. I took a close up of two leaves on the road and when she handed me the print not only I, but all the women gasped.

It was rich, soulful, gentle, vulnerable.

It was art.

When I went home that night, after this first day of the retreat, I scrolled through Chelsea’s photos again, this time on my computer and saw the same thing in some of the shots that I saw in my leaves.

Emotion, motion, beauty.

The next day at the retreat we did some more photos and writing, and this time I really felt a connection not only to the writing but the photography. Almost with equal intensity and desire. Much like I feel on a daily basis, I have to write, I felt, I have to take photos.

So, I don’t know if I have conveyed some of the specialness (I hate that word) but some of the awe and freshness I felt from this retreat, but maybe if you check out this blog over the next few days when I post the photos I took (some) and the writing I did (some). Maybe seeing what we did will convey the incredible journey I took this past weekend.
Chelsea's Tree

Chelsea's Mom

My Two Leaves

Our next retreat is February 2 & 3rd, 2008. Click here to register.

Release The Creative Woman Within

Check out this writing and photography retreat that I will be running along with Julie Brigidi of Bristol Workshops in Photography in Bristol, Rhode Island. Please email me for more information.