Category Archives: family

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small mother

I was already a mother when I became a mother. Long before I had my son. I just didn’t know it.

I became a mother at three. My mother had tuberculosis when I was born. Luckily she coughed blood a month before, otherwise I would not be here. I was born in a tuberculosis sanatorium, the first baby there in 25 years. My mother said that the staff was hugely excited about a baby. She was drugged to the gills while reading about the French Revolution and hallucinated Marie-Antonette’s head on a pole and the guillotine. She joked that she could never read about the French Revolution again. I was born, she kissed me, and I was swept away so that I would not get tuberculosis.

I was with my father and father’s family and then with my maternal grandparents. I came home to my parents at nine months. Adults kept handing me to other adults. I concluded that they were loving but stupid and couldn’t be trusted for a moment.

My sister was born five days before I turned three. My mother said that I met guests at the door and said, “Come see my baby.” Mine, because these adults don’t understand the needs of a baby, and I want her to feel loved and safe. No one will give my baby away!

Later my mother would tell a story about my sister worrying about Kindergarten. My mother could not reassure her. Neither could my father. I spoke up: “All you learn is colors, numbers and ABC and you already know those. I taught you.” My mother claimed that my sister was instantly reassured. I don’t remember: these are my mother’s stories and she is gone. But I have collected mother daughter pictures and small statues, just a few, all my life. And I wanted to have children. I liked surgery and obstetrics, but I chose family medicine, because I want to have children and to see them and be a mother too.

Health and joy and safety and comfort to all mothers and fathers and children everywhere.

 

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reflective

This if for Blogging from A to Z, the letter R. Virtues and views, feelings….

When do you feel reflective?

What does reflective mean to you?

I took this picture thinking of photrablogger’s Mundane Monday Challenge, now #106. The photograph is from Fort Worden, one of the gun emplacements on the bunkers. But it is returning to moss and green and the sun was out and sky reflected.

Here is Dictionary.com reflective:

adjective

1.that reflects; reflecting.

2.of or relating to reflection.

3.cast by reflection.

4.given to, marked by, or concerned with meditation or deliberation:
a reflective person.

Reflections can be beautiful. Not always, though. Thinking of reflection brings this poem up:

Reflections

Sometimes the growing pains
Are hard
Sometimes when you move on
It hurts
Put away childish toys
Friends have gone other ways
Even family
You love them
Still
You’ve changed

They resist
Don’t like the evolution
Upsets the plans
Changes the rules
Don’t you love me
As I really am?
The authentic
True
Real
Me?

Or only the hazy
Image
You had in your head
Of who you thought I was
Friend, daughter, cousin
Suddenly I am eight feet tall
Ogre
Threatening
Stunned by silence
Abandoned by your withdrawal

But my skin is shed
I spread my hood
And rise
And flick my tongue
Not to threaten
But to smell
To taste
Your curious presence

When you rear back
In alarm
I am startled

I see a cobra
Reflected in your eyes

(written about 2002)

 

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innocent

For Blogging from A to Z, the letter I. My theme is Virtues and Views. I am writing about emotions for the second year in a row: last year I for introverted. This year I am think about innocence and feeling innocent.

How often do you feel innocent as an adult? And how often did you as a child?

My memory has painted this picture of my daughter as messier than the actual picture. I give her a chunk of banana for the first time and let her feed herself. She holds the banana and squeezes it through her fist and puts her fist to her mouth and waves her hands with joy! She is only a few months old and not sitting unsupported. The thumb and finger pincer grip develops at around 9 months. Before that, it is a sweeping fist that soon goes to the mouth. And the fists are not terribly well under control at first. But, she manages to get more than half the banana chunk into her mouth bit by sticky bit, and the rest all over her. She is tired in this picture and very satisfied. She isΒ  innocent of feeding herself and decorating herself with banana before this day.

After she fed herself she goes straight to the bath, a tired and happy baby.

 

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ease

Feeling ease. Is that a virtue or a vice? What makes you feel at ease or relax or stretch langourously? Boa cat is enjoying spring sun through the window and warm fur on warm velvet.

For the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, last year I chose envy. This year ease and rest and letting the muscles warm and stretch in the sun. I wish for some ease for all the children in the world, in frightening places or with frightening people, for some time of rest and warmth and safety and ease….

I am supposed to be at letter G today…. I will have to stop lying in the sun and get moving….it’s cloudy today anyhow.