MaMoMeMo
May is motherhood memoir month

Ekphrastic Mama

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Things We Say

Prompts

“Get back on the horse,” is something my mother said quite a lot. I fell off quite a few horses… And “things will look different in the morning.” She was right, they generally do. “No good thing ever came from alcohol.” Said with a pointing finger as I recall, and a scouring look, eyes tight. Of course I had to debate that one. “What about when Jesus made water into really good wine for a wedding?” “That was because the water was no good,” she answered, then changed the subject. Even though I don’t ride horses much anymore, “get back on the horse” has become an adage to live by, a saying I quote often, usually to remind myself. What sayings do you carry around in your mental pockets or notebooks? May is a great time to get them out, write them down, maybe write them into dialogue between your…

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What We Are Unable to Say

Prompts

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” –Sue Monk Kidd, Why We Write About Ourselves It takes time to figure out what it is we want or need to say and how to say it. Usually it forms obliquely, a surprise after some exploration. Sometimes it is exhausting to work at writing. But that is just a thought, followed by a feeling; I’m seeking to replace them both. When your work is writing it can sometimes feel like you have not done much. Wrestled with words. A word monger. I don’t like to feel tired, like I need to recharge when I haven’t yet done a good day’s work. If I stick with the writing, the words start to reveal new thoughts, say what has been difficult to express. A discovery. And energy surges back into…

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The Job You Can Never Quit

Prompts

Fanny Howe never let children get in the way of writing. When I was at UCSD in the late 90s getting a Literature/Writing degree I had the honor of being mentored by the poet and novelist. I interviewed her once for a magazine and she described her writing process as a single mother, children climbing across her feet under the kitchen table as she wrote. The image has always haunted me; children are not an excuse not to write. The condition of motherhood demands that you learn to give birth to someone who won’t last, to love someone who will leave, to teach a person who will suffer anyway, to put a life before your own… To have a job that you can never quit. Fanny Howe, The Pinocchian Ideal. Have you ever felt like quitting? Write about that.

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Being Called Dottie

Memoir

Escape from the murder hornets with me for a moment on this first Monday of May during the sequester and let’s write something fun. Does life feel crazy? Do you have a crazy mother? All good subject matter… Last spring I wrote this: Two men sitting on a bench waiting to play pickle ball greet me as I walk up. You look like Dottie, one says. I was thinking the same thing, says the other. I smile, then laugh. That’s my mother’s name, I say, surprised by the amusement in my voice, the lightness in my heart. She died about six months ago, I add. Oh, I’m sorry. We’re in a group now, all heading out onto different courts calling for players. Well, we all die some time, I say, wanting to keep it light. I don’t want to be comforted by these men I don’t know. Actually, I don’t…

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Set an Extravagant Goal

writing

Sunday is a day I rest, relax, rejoice. Then plan my week. What do you want to do in May? In WA our stay at home order has been extended. Perfect. For writers. I’m thinking of all the writing I can continue, all the things I appreciate about home. And I’m rethinking some of my goals. They seem extravagant. But I feel made for that. Set an extravagant goal, one you’d be stoked to reach. Then reach for it. It could be writing in a journal each day, or writing a letter you’ve been meaning to write, or a number of words each day, or just writing something each day. You know what would make you feel stoked. Decide and Do it. Unlike NanoWriMo who sets the goal for you, you get to decide what works best for you. Maybe it is 15 minutes a day. Or 10. Or 30.…

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Back thru our Mothers

Prompts

Was it Virginia Woolf who first said, we think back through our mothers? Is there an umbilical cord that runs through history? How are you connected, or not, through this way of thinking? Does it tie you down… or lend you a life line? Is it a kite on a long string, or a noose around your neck? You get to decide how you think of it, picture it, write about it. You can make it into anything you want, let it take you on a journey or flatten you out on the ground. I didn’t want to be a mother. I fought it for a long time, even after I became one. And that mother-daughter relationship paid the price. But then I got another chance, had another daughter. And then another. And now I wouldn’t trade my motherness for anything. And I’ve made peace with my mother, in the…

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Happy May Day-Birth and Rebirth

Prompts

Have you ever written about your birth? About what it might be like if you could access those earliest of memories, floating and then falling down into the birth canal, or being lifted into the light- however it was you came from that world within your birth mother into this world where the light is somewhat blinding by comparison? You were amphibious, and then you took your first breath of air, and you’ve been breathing ever since. How long did you cry for- do you know? Write about birth today, yours or someone else’s. Maybe you gave birth to someone and would like to revisit that scene in a journal, or use it in a story. Have you written it? There are lots of birth stories and mothers are sometimes criticized for writing and sharing theirs. You don’t have to share your birth story with anyone you don’t want to.…

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Last Day of 12

Childhood

It still does not fail to amaze me that I have a 12 year-old, but especially this 12 year-old, this child I was sure I didn’t want. At the time I found out I was pregnant I was 46, applying to grad school, literally filling out applications in the physician’s office, just getting a yearly check-up, but feeling a bit tired. We already had five kids. The oldest daughter was 25, trying to get pregnant. The oldest son was in college. One son was high school age, and another junior high. Our youngest daughter, a surprise when I was almost 40, was a third grader. It was finally my time to go back and get the graduate degree I’d put off for 20 years. Except I was pregnant. Our oldest daughter wanted to have a baby but was having trouble conceiving. She asked us to pray for her. As I…

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MaMoMeMo 2020 is Almost Here

writing

So what are we doing for Motherhood Memoir Month during the coronavirus sequester? Writing of course. Not a mother? No worries. Everyone has a motherhood story to tell, because obviously… where did you come from? Was your mother missing in some or many ways? Absence is a strong theme in many motherhood tales. But wait- I’m not writing memoir at the moment. Perfect- me either. I spent so much time writing about my mother and our manic relationship over the past year-and-a-half since she died that I have put that away. So what am I doing? I’m writing a novel. And the mother-daughter theme, or conundrum, drive a lot of the story. So the prompts this time will be for fiction as well as memoir and journal writing- because if you have a mother, you need a journal- a place to download all those thoughts- the good, the bad, the…

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The Art of the Wasted Day

writing

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hample is “a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude,” and it’s getting many of my allotted reading minutes at the moment. It’s rather perfect for these times of armchair travel and virus inspired daydreaming. Why I like it: I tend to feel bad about not accomplishing much on a given day, but now that I know it’s an art form, I’m all in. I can feel good again. Carry on. A favorite writing inspiration: The author doesn’t believe in the narrative arc, “that fiction of fictions.” I find this more than a bit freeing, along with the idea that the final destination of a novel or story is “the creation of form offering the illusion of inevitability, the denial of chaos.” The author wanders and muses about travel, writing, her lost love, and those musers who have…

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