MaMoMeMo
May is motherhood memoir month

Prompts

Devious Dolls

Memoir

What do you do with your mother’s doll collection after she dies? No one wanted them, except my youngest daughter, but we had to fly home from Las Vegas, and she already had too many dolls for the size of our house. “You can have one box of dolls. One small box,” I said, giving in, trying to think where we would put them when we got back to our down-sized house in the Pacific Northwest. We’d gone from 6 kids to 4, to 2, and now finally, to one; one child who still wants to play with dolls at 11. In today’s grow-up fast culture that’s got to be a good thing, right? A year and a half later, as our daughter turned 13, she asked for only one birthday gift: a dollhouse for her American Girl dolls, which are quite large. But when your quarantined daughter becomes a…

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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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vlad-hilitanu-unsplash

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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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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Birthday oatmeal in Germany

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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Permission to Struggle

Memoir

It’s okay to struggle. painting by L.Lyn Greenstone Give yourself permission to struggle, Char, the Pilates instructor says. She also says things like, it’s okay to wobble. I never see her wobble, and none of the HIIT Pilates moves we do seem a struggle for her strong body, but I trust she knows what she’s talking about. As I take in her words, something settles within, allowing me to focus and be okay with weakness. So I take this bit of wisdom home, mull it over as I write this memoir. I’m struggling with organization, structure, and cohesiveness–all things I shouldn’t worry about right now. But I want to name all 31 chapters, know more about where I’m going, what the stops along the way will look like, and how I’m going to get there. It turns out writing isn’t like that for me. It is always a surprise journey.…

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Untangling the Mess

Memoir

First drafts are messy. We’ve all heard that, but I always think no draft can be as messy as mine. Given enough time, I will restart and restate parts of the story, losing track of what I already wrote. I’ll rethink it until the story swirls around and leaves my head spinning. Finally I have to print it and cross out areas, bracket and draw arrows to new places, cut and paste, with scissors and tape, old school. Actually, I start with my journal, so lots of scratching there too. I wonder how it will ever come together. But if I stay with it, like the bucking horses my mother used to put me on, it finally calms down and becomes something cohesive and wonderful- a great ride, a story readers can inhabit. I live for that. Believe in it. Believing keeps me going. Writing is an act of faith.…

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Scott in Chase's Timber's T-shirt

Ode to an Other Mother

Motherhood

Sons #2 & 3 just left to return home to Portland and Seattle. #3 was wearing a Timbers T-shirt. My hub commented that it was a pre-Alaska Airlines influenced logo (he works for AA now). Chase gave me this shirt the last time we were together, he said. And he told the story again that we love to hear, but are sad for too, for Chase is no longer with us. A few years ago Chase called Scott and said he’d be in Portland where Scott was living, interning with OPB, and could they catch a Timbers game together? I don’t have the money for that, said Scott, the starving student/intern. My treat, said Chase. And I’ve got nothing to wear. I’ve got that too. And Chase brought him the T-shirt. It was on loan. Never returned. Worn with a deep sense of nostalgia now. But it is the mother…

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Whose Pants Are Those?

Marriage

My friend thinks I wear the ‘pants’ in my family, but she says it’s okay since the man-of-the-family is not angry. But I see her trying to get at a bigger question, or underlying issue: Who’s in charge? So much comes down to that, the underpants. So I’m thinking about these pants and how they fit– what kind of ‘pants’ are they anyway? Are they Spanx, an undergarment so elastic they suck you svelte, but then slap you silly when peeled off? Or are they more like sweats– loose and accommodating, good for a Saturday stroll or Sunday lounging? Or are they work pants– chino style, somewhat serious, yet unassuming, in traditional khaki-tan so they don’t show spills? Personally, my style is more of a pedal pusher– you can dress them up or down, great in the garden or the classroom, very versatile. I like mine with some stretch to accommodate shape-shifting–…

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