Mommy Ever After » hemingway

The temperature also rises.

Rebecca Fox Starr — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 18:28:29 +0000

After 12 wonderful days of holiday break, my daughter finally got to go back to school on Monday.

She was so excited; she had missed her friends and teachers a lot.

We are two days in to the new year and, wouldn’t you know it, she is home sick again.

She woke up late last night, crying for me, and her temperature was 102.4.

After lots of snuggles, a back rub and Tylenol she went back to bed, but is home sick with me today.

So today was supposed to look like this:

That would be me blogging. I don’t think I have ever shared this before, but I have never worked at a desk (outside of being in class in school) in my entire life. I read and write from the bed or the couch or the floor or the car. Right now, I am writing from the third floor room that is currently transitioning from former-playroom to future-guest room.

But, instead of being able to put on my writer’s hat today,

this is how the day has actually looked:

Nice nod to my best guy.

I tried to make up for it with this:

We do what we can.

And when I called the doctor she asked me if the cough was wet or dry or raspy or barky.

I am a somewhat seasoned mom at this point, having had two kids with RSV, croup and both viral and bacterial infections of all kinds. But I am sorry, I cannot classify a cough that specifically unless you are going to play me Youtube clips of each different kind and ask me what sounds most like what is coming out of my daughter’s mouth.

Which means, a trip to the doctor.

Woo!

And pardon me, but I need to go now to deal with this:

So for now, I am forced to say A Farewell…

to the computer.

The post The temperature also rises. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

“In Our Time” and on my night table.

mommyeverafter — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:11:00 +0000

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
-T.S. Eliot, one of my favorites.

Last night before bed I scanned my night table for my glasses, and took a minute to note what I keep there, next to me, as I sleep.
I don’t have much, but everything is meaningful. I have one of my crystals (of course).
I have a mirrored frame, containing a small piece of art that reads “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”
In the far back corner, hidden behind a silver carved wood box, I have a feather or two and (don’t judge me, please) my lucky purple underwear, folded and twisted up into a tiny little knot. Unidentifiable to anyone but me. My protection symbols. Ok. I know it’s weird. Whatever.
I have a photograph of Ernest Hemingway, older and bearded, writing at his desk.
And tucked away, behind it all, I have a few pieces from the hospital. They remind me of where I have been, where I no longer wish to be, and where I hope to go.

The pins are from a night earlier in my stay, when I was doing a partial hospitalization outpatient program and staying in a beautiful local boutique hotel. My dear, kind, amazing friend came up one night to sleep over with me, so that I would not be alone. Since my hospital was located a few miles from a lovely, quintessential college town, I met my girl at 6:30 that night, once my program for the day had ended, and we spent the evening walking around, through the college apparel shops, the pharmacy, clothing stores and savoring every second in their real, actual book store. We don’t have many (if any) of those around anymore. I must have lingered in the far back right corner between Hemingway and Fitzgerald for a good 10 minutes, just running my hands across the spines of “in Our Time” and “A Farewell to Arms” and “An Immoveable Feast”, like I wanted to inhale them.
At the checkout counter, they had these silly little pins for $1 each. We each picked out a couple, and I keep mine by my bed, because they make me smile. They make me think of this time of great transformation, but also of my great fortune to have a friend who would drive all the way to another state, after a long day of work, to spend 12 hours in a hotel room with me, just so that I wouldn’t have to sleep by myself.
There is also a beaded bracelet, that I accidentally made too big during a Sunday morning art therapy session while I was inpatient. I remember stringing each bead on carefully, knowing, as I did it, that I wold save this simple, silly little craft forever.
I guess subconsciously I keep these things, this strange collage of items, in the place that is closest to me as I rest,
hoping for healing, protection and guidance;
that somehow some of the powers of the crystals, and the safety of the feathers and the weight of the hospital stay and the wisdom of Hemingway and the reminder of eternal love will seep into me during slumber.
Hey, who knows how these things work.
Each night as I fall asleep I pray for a new beginning the next day; a new place from which to start. And, if nothing else, I can always rest easy knowing that, undoubtedly, Tulips are better than one.

The post “In Our Time” and on my night table. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

My Shop is Closed

mommyeverafter — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 14:43:16 +0000

(via Ramshackle Glam’s Pinterest Page)

ser·en·dip·i·ty

ˌserənˈdipitē

noun

noun: serendipity; plural noun: serendipities

the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

***

Yesterday, I read a post that brought me to tears. My girl Jordan over at Ramshackleglam wrote the most beautiful piece entitled, “Not So Brave“, about the impending (like, this week) birth of her second child, a daughter, “Goldie”.

In it, she wrote,
But that’s why I’ve been spending time every day looking at these photos: because seeing them reminds me that there’s something much bigger waiting for me on the other side of the pain and the exhaustion and the everything-that-might-go-wrong, and that’s that no matter what happens, I know this: I get to fall in love. Again. I almost can’t believe it. I know there’s “a baby” coming…but my daughter? That doesn’t feel possible; it feels too big and too forever to be real.

So maybe being not so brave is okay. I mean, it’s okay to be scared of falling in love. It should be scary, shouldn’t it? Because you can’t control it, and you can’t stop it, and once it’s there it changes everything.

And she wrote, so eloquently, about the exact sense of overwhelming anticipation and fear and excitement and love that I was trying to describe when I wrote the hardest words, my post about my inability to bear more children. And her post moved me, because it was addressing the exact thing that I mourn the most. The magic.

I mourn the magic.

***

This week, I had a doctor’s appointment at the hospital. It was the hospital where I gave birth to both of my children. The hospital, for me, is haunted. I drove into the garage and pictured myself, just a year ago, walking through the darkness, cradling my giant belly in my hands.

I entered the building and right past the outpatient lab. I looked inside and pictured myself 12 weeks pregnant, after having been shocked at my Sequential Screen Ultrasound when the tech told us that he saw “something between the baby’s legs”. It was in that lab that I called my dad and told him that we were having a boy.

I walked to the East medical office building and took the elevator, the elevator that I rode every month, and then every week, to check on my babies’ heartbeats while they were still inside me.

And being in the hospital…it hurt.

***

This past week, I experienced two competely different, but equally meaningful experiences:

I geared up (with true, sincere happiness, mind you) for the impending births of several babies whose gestation I have been following and celebrating.

I saw photos posted online of newborns. I saw tiny heads in those tiny striped hats. I saw people become parents.

And simultaneously, I experienced having to tell at least five different people that I would no longer be bearing any children of my own. I had to tell a doctor and a nurse. I told several people who asked me while I was pushing my son in his stroller around town. Sometimes it was met with skepticism. “Oh, well you never know.” with a sly smile.

But I know.

***

So here’s where serendipity comes into play. I read Jordan’s post with a pang. And I thought about how I could could write about my own, still sad, feelings, while still being so happy for and proud of her. But I was scared. I thought it would be therapeutic, but I was nervous about taking the first step.

And then, coincidentally, she emailed me. We exchanged notes about her daughter and mine; we talked about some milestones, about trying to get my daughter’s ears pierced (hashtag fail) and how much she has to look forward to; I told her about the black, knee high suede fringe Minnetonka Moccasins that I will be sending her little girl’s way. And that made me happy. And she wrote about feeling “Not So Brave”, and, in turn, she gave me the courage to feel OK about not holding it together. About admitting that I am still in pain.

And then she posted the Hemingway quote. Not only was it the perfect quote, but it was my guy, Hem.

And so I am letting go.

And so I am writing hard. I am writing about what hurts.

I am definitely still wading through the mire of grief stages. I am still bargaining, thinking of ways for me to add to my family.

Sometimes I have dreams that the doctor was wrong. That I can, actually, decide to “try” again. I can wait, with a quickened heartbeat, for two lines to appear on a stick. I can see a little teddy bear flickering on an ultrasound. I can find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. I can feel kicks and feel nauseated and feel the baby being pulled from inside of me as I hear the doctor say “I see a hand! I see a foot!”

But that is not my story.

My story may, someday, include more children. Probably not, but maybe. But they won’t be coming from my womb.

Write hard and clear

The shop is closed.

So for now I will enjoy my babies and appreciate them more than they will ever know. I will celebrate the births of my friends’ children. And I will try to bust the ghosts when I walk through the hospital halls.

My shop is closed. But there is great joy ahead. There are memories to be made. Milestones to face. Dance parties to have, hands to hold and heartbeats to listen to, as I rest my head on my babies’ chests at night. There are lullabies to sing and lives to live.

My shop is closed,

but so, so many doors have yet to be opened.

The post My Shop is Closed appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

On writing.

mommyeverafter — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 13:06:58 +0000

This morning, as I straightened up my kitchen, I found an old picture that I had developed; It was a photo of Ernest Hemingway, aged and bearded, writing with a pen on a legal pad.
***
Recently, I found a journal that I had kept as a child. In it I had proclaimed that I wanted to grow up to be a writer.
I am not sure if I have grown up yet,
but I write every day, so I can feel, at least, half accomplished.
I remember in sixth grade when we were assigned to write a creative piece for English class;
Mine was 65 pages long, as I wrote the story of a murder mystery, as told from 4 different perspectives (the last one being the mansion’s security camera, showing the truth. Of course the murder occurred in a mansion).
Every time we were given the option of doing a report or choosing the “harder” creative writing option, I felt like I had scored; I loved creative writing.
I can remember being in seventh grade and writing, in a paper, “Life is like an ocean, churning day by day. Unfair and unsatisfied, we often turn away.”
I have no idea what that means, but my teacher liked it so much that she wrote it on our chalkboard, where it remained for the rest of the year.
In high school, my life as a writer changed, because I became a good reader. I had been reading since I was three years old, and was always an avid lover of books, but in high school there was a profound shift. My first period of my first day of high school was English with Mr. Segal. It also happened to be his very first period at my high school, as he was a transplant from Chicago. Mr. Segal changed my life. I had him both Freshman and Junior years, and he taught me about motifs and words like “trepidation” and “incredulous”; he taught me about transcendentalism, which led me on my own existential journeys. Mr. Segal introduced me to The Great Gatsby.
When I got to college I had to take an advanced Intro to Writing class my first semester because I was in the honors college. My teacher looked like a miniature Anne Hathaway, but she was good. I don’t know why I say “but”, as her resemblance to Anne Hathaway should have no bearings on her ability. She was probably 23.
In her class I wrote a story called “Slice”, which was all about the situational irony of an affair and an unplanned pregnancy. Heavy stuff, right?
Second semester my life was changed once more. I took a writing class as an elective. My teacher was a grad student, Rebecca Rasmussen, and in her class I found my favorite genre of all literature: the short story. We read Joyce Carol Oates “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and I felt the feeling of simultaneous intrigue and dread. We read classic short stories, but also obscure pieces, like one called “Mengaerie” about the personification of animals in a pet store. In that class, our culminating project was to write a short story of our own. I still remember so many of the pieces that my classmates shared; The Story set to Bruce Springsteen Music, the beautiful and heartbreaking story with allusions to suicide, and my own, a gritty and raw piece called “Merry Fucking Christmas”.
I fell hard for short stories and became an English major.
After my declaration, I had to take serious English classes, reading Chaucer in Middle English and The Divine Comedy and Shakespeare.
I began reading voraciously, often with my boyfriend at the time. We would take long car rides and read out loud to each other. We would bring heavy anthologies to the beach, and pour through them, our stomachs turning at “The Most Dangerous Game” and “Roman Fever”.
And then, during my Junior year, my life changed once more.
I transferred to a different branch of my college closer to home. Because I was still in the Honors College of my school, my class went from a large group of peers down to 5 of us. We were assigned to take a class with Dr. Linda Patterson Miller, Hemingway Scholar. She wrote about The Lost Generation, the group of expatriates who wrote in the early 20th century and hung out at Gertrude Stein’s salon. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald and his colorful wife, Zelda. John Dos Pasos.
Ernest Hemingway.
Dr. Miller was a Hemingway scholar, and knew the family personally. She exuded knowledge and creativity and art and passion. She knew it all.
She introduced me to my favorite collection of all time, In Our Time. I read and re-read “The End of Something”, my favorite short story ever. I cheered for Marjorie, the heroine in the story whose strength I hoped I could emulate.
When I write about that time in my life I get butterflies in my stomach. It was when my world changed. I fell in love with two men that year: Hem, and my husband.
As part of being in the Honors Program, the five of us were each required to write and publish a Thesis. One of my dear friends, also an English major, decided to analyze “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I think about this a lot, when I think about my Fall and Winter. The other three studied and wrote on subjects within their academic fields. I, once again, chose to opt out of a research based paper, in favor of a creative piece.
I wrote my thesis based on the works of the early 20th century authors and artists I had been studying with Dr. Miller, who became my mentor, and decided to try to write using the artistic technique of cubism. My thesis was called “Just a Little Bit of Dancing: A Cubist Family Portrait Through Writing.”
Since college, I have continued to write. I have written poems, inspired by Pablo Neruda and ee cummings. I have written love letters. I have written song lyrics.
And I have written on here.
This has become my journal, my manuscript.
***
Writing has become a gift to me. The keyboard has held my hand when I’ve needed strength. I have been able to reach others through my words. It has been cathartic and often fun.
Tears come to my eyes as I think about the people who have shaped my love of words. I love words so much that it almost hurts.
So I just wanted to say a public thank you. A thank you to my teachers, my classmates, my readers,
and to the authors who have blazed a trail ahead of me that I am so honored to be tip-toeing through.

***
I write when I’m happy, I write when I am scared, I write when I am bored, I write when I’m lonely,
I write when my heart is bursting, I write when I am grateful, I write when I am proud, I write when I am motivated…
I write because I can.

The post On writing. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.