Reflection

our first week of homeschool, letter S /s/ Sun led the way; our biblical concept was Jesus is the light of the world. the science of suns, stars, and universes, the shakily drawn S, and the hysterically loud sibilance of /ssssss/ as in snakes....
week two segued with M /m/ Moon: I am the light of the world. flashlights and mirrors may not have honed the concept in a week, but the boys loved the light saber aspect plenty.
a semester since those early weeks, and we have more or less found our daily rhythm (well, i try, anyway) or at least accepted what happens (or not). i teach these lessons, some more prepared than others, some more obviously understood, and this week's H /h/ Horse teaches I will obey right away.
except i don't, always. and i asked shea if he did, and he said no, not always. we are so alike, he and i.
we took a break for late evening errands, and the sun had already pinked its way to purple shadows, and we drove the long way down ivy instead of around it, bump-bump-bumping over speed bumps and stopping every other crossing at the red hexagon commands. (we obey traffic laws under their pretense of protection. and our father who gives good gifts to his children, does he not provide ultimate safety?) thudding over last speed bump and stop-crossing through the last stop sign, the rest of the road should have been straight and smooth, but we stopped again at the uncovered man-hole, surrounded by those wooden hinged a-frames with reflectors at the top. shea wanted to know why a red light was shining at us, and i explained to him it was a reflector bouncing my headlights back toward us. with no hesitation he responded, "so our headlights are like Jesus, and we're like the reklector, right, mama?" 
my heart squeezed ever so tightly as i take in all the bigness of his question and understanding of our weeks-ago lessons, and i say, "yes, baby, just like that."


linking for the first time in months to a place near to my heart, at emily's imperfect prose w/ others.

Where (i am)

where am i?

i'm buried under the laundry, and the dishes, and the fears of mothering well, you know the kind--it holds a standard and tells you not to fear; you'll never make it even close.
but sometimes i see past it all (not past the piles of folded clothes, ever) and believe, for moments at a time, that I AM enough, and certainly my little boys turn to me in all their clamor and sticky hands,
and though there is an undoing in mothering, there is a putting together again in the being needed.

i am needed; it buries.

i'm hidden behind homeschooling, teaching /m/ and /p/ and trying not to yawn my way through child sounding out words. i peer out in mild jealousy at starbucks mother in yoga clothes, who've actually been to yoga and look limber and trim, and i drink my cold coffee with my wrinkled yoga pants, and think, if they went to public school, then maybe i'd 
but it's not true. i wouldn't. i'm still carrying all this weight "post-baby" (*the weight of the world is love) and it's okay, sometimes. i have a friend who wishes her belly would stretch taut and scar with the growth inside. she wears her scars in her heart instead, and smiles while she waits. i'm learning.

my hair grows long like insecurity, and i pierced my nose to say i'm tough. these are my inconsistencies, and they serve to shield when i feel insubstantial. the parts of me that want to write books, or poetry, even blogposts... she's here, but she skirts to the margins of the everyday. every day rises with its needs, and the she- separate- from- the- rest, she lingers like a wallflower waiting to be asked to the dance.

so, i don't know if i'm here.

i know where i am, and here feels far away.

but my there needs me here, too, so perhaps i can try again? we'll see. 

(*the weight of the world is love by allen ginsberg)