I think therefore

In our early 20s, many of us with the privilege of college attendance, realized that the lecture we were half attending was not the education we wanted or deserved. That with that tuition dollar, we could travel to Thailand rather than listen to an old white guy tell us about its culture. That we were paying thousands of dollars for no guarantee of any real enrichment, status, or future security.

Ask a 5 year old what she wants and she will probably say, "to go to school."  But let's not stop there. Ask more questions. What do you think school will be like? What interests you? And you will find no school can fit this shoe (no matter how slick, integrative, or alternative).

Kids care about making connections - with other kids, with concepts, within their own heads. Every child will paint a different picture of kindergarten. But much like the 23 year old at university, the shit happening in the classroom is just that. It's what the state, the teacher, or the culture want "taught" and the learner, whether child or adult is left thinking,"hey, why am I here?"

What if we didn't see ourselves as vessels to load down with facts and with other people's knowledge. Rather, we saw ourselves as full from birth with everything we need. That our goal was to find the mentors to help us unpack and utilize all that we have.  That we can live in presence and in passion rather than bow to the man because we gotta. This idea that we "gotta" put our kids in school to get educated is the first and most profound act against our own brilliance. We don't really trust ourselves,  right? And unfortunately somewhere along the way we decided not to trust our kids either. That they need to move rather than sit in a desk. That they aren't interested in the ABCs and would rather be writing a story in scribbles. No, that's not learning. Sorry, your child is not okay. They THINK and we can't be thinking right now. They dance, no god damn dancing in these halls. 

Seriously why the hell is it a problem if a kid doesn't want to read until they are nine? Why?! But yet every day I see that school bus packed with faces bouncing around like buttered popcorn headed to the formal instruction that is needed to BE.

I hope in my lifetime we stop and think about why we send our kids to kindergarten. We didn't send our kids to school to learn how to walk or talk yet we think they can't read, write or fucking think without outsourcing to a "professional". As one of those pros, I wish parents knew how incredible they are. I wish we stopped shipping our kids off to foreign concrete caverns (schools) and instead met every neighbor within a 5 block radius and set up a community based cooperative child care/learning programs for parents and kids. Don't laugh. Don't forget that we are the ones making the choices here. We are the moms and dads that our children chose as guides. We are the folks that help our children construct reality. What kind of reality do we want? One where our kids see themselves as test scores, desk fillers, or inadequate according to other people's professional opinions? Or do we want our most precious to see themselves as empowered, nurtured beings who are heard and respected, who have rights and choices, who are as much the teacher as the learner. 

What if we stopped and listened? To our heart, to our own experiences, and most importantly to our children. They know what they need. And we can work together to support our children. 

Broken

What do we do when we can't fix it? 

There is no sleep in my soul. My son screams in his waking body. 

Laugh boy, at my need to rest. Your new eyes don't blink.

I wither like a sun bruised grape.

Meditate mamma: I am limitless. I am love. 

This too shall pass. And I am on this ride. Accept. 

The spaghetti and meatball world entangles me. 

Wicked madness on a plate, yet my child must spin this bloody mess on his fork. 

Consumed. I don't know. And I'm one of those people who pretends to.

So hold on son. And I will too.

If I

If I am, then let me be love. 

Limitless

My arms open to the ocean

If I can, then let me be hold.

Body

My feet plant in the earth

If I will, then let me be friend.

Creation

Destruction

I am.

One handed typing

A mother or a pervert? Yes. I'm a one handed typer. I like to envision a woman, mid thirties, with three small children inventing the "smart phone" - a device that actually demands single digit dexterity and that is easily operated while breastfeeding, diapering, and cradling.
My son is my agent, editor, and humorist. Laying across my lap, he looks up, smiles, frowns and directs my virtual pen. Writing stops at his command, inspiration flows from the sleep washing his cheeks, and he suckles to the beat of my imaginary keyboard.
Growth is relentless. He squirms and grunts like the engine of this mother son machine, his eyes fixed to my armpit, pupils tracing the shadows on the wall behind us. I can't put him down or the circus music stops, he screams as though ripped from the story, and I place him quickly to breast again. Yessir. Sorry sir. Writing commences.
Love is what fuels this three legged dog and the one handed typer. I will tell you more as long as my son approves my message.

What is love? Take one.

The man made a great scramble. But after years of pupishly chasing his tail, I was flea bitten. No amount of love was going to make this man love me. Oh, it burned - so powerless I was to his heart's whimsy. He did not mention the hot tobacco on my breath as I passed, rather he acted oblivious to my presence and courted his breakfast like a horny teenager.
I never made it to the table. Hitting send, I propelled my image to a man I barely knew across the country, knowing that I would be thoroughly feasted upon. Perhaps that is all I wanted - to be seen and to captivate someone so intensely that he could barely function through the doldrums of his day. In other words, I was ready to fuck him up the way I had been by this man in my kitchen space.
That is all I wanted and knew of love in my late 20s. Pain and chaos. Maybe digesting all those Bukowski poems resulted in this diagnosis of irritable heart syndrome. But whoever was to blame did not matter now, for finally I had gained control and in my net was the biggest fish the ocean could have churned.
Sean. The towering urbanite from the Twin Cities was calling me. In two weeks the train would bring me to his Midwest doorstep and all my sex would leap into his arms - a pilgrimage of my womanhood back to its molten core. I took the call and compliments as I sipped my coffee. Love was not necessary like it had been in relationships prior and in its playful absence, freedom and joy returned to my smile. I thought I was on to something: Love is need and needs are fucked. Sure. It felt good and I could go about my day lighter than I had been in years. My thoughts were pleasant and no longer consumed by a longing for love.
After two bottles of wine and 40 hours of rolling, I reached Minneapolis wild and beautiful. I scampered to my motel to prepare for my lover's arrival. In the cheap glass of my bathroom, I drew my game face and waited for the ball.

A chapter of birthing

When I found out I was pregnant, my instinct was to fanatically forage for knowledge - for terms, for the language of birthing. And damn, I found everything. Encyclopedias of pregnancy, techniques of childbirth and rearing that reminded me of reading political pamphlets - each school of thought bashing the other as the old way or the risky unproven method while singlehandedly claiming victory.  "Birth with us or else."
Jesus, what if I chose the wrong team? What if I ruined my kid's life by eating that Butterfinger with every horrible coloring and preservative known to man?  What if I can't breastfeed and my kid disowns me and grows a third arm?  I was scared shitless.
What to expect if you're expecting? A staggering spew of information and absolutes disguised in passive aggressive manifestos.
This ain't that. Two gems I have to share with you are as such: shut your brain off and ask your heart, what do I know of love?
This is a story of one woman's determination to understand what the hell love is so that she could fearlessly and passionately be the woman and mother she dared herself to become.
First, we begin where I began in the depths of my 28th year of loving. Standing before you, nude in red cowboy boots, posing with a Marb light lit to lip, and languid on itchy carpet, I snapped a portrait that captured my knowing. I came downstairs to email the flick to my Midwest lover while my boyfriend scrambled eggs.

a happy birth story

The first time it happened, I nervously perched on the love seat in my aunt's house. The baby had a penis, which I sort of made out in the ultrasound photo, and therefore all decor came in powder blue - bears, cars, fucking footballs, tangled up in a haze of our cultures' baby boy. The women were gathered to play the baby shower Super Bowl - the worst was the tootsie roll in the diaper game. Surprise! Luckily there was alcohol for the women like myself, who weren't sure they would ever have kids and were horrified by the women who had. Many looked sexless, as though the birth of their child had caused all sexual inclinations to perish and Winnie the Pooh to set seige on their vaginas.
I set to get drunk quick and that's when the stories began. "Look honey, your boobs will never be the same after you breastfeed this kid. If I don't wear a bra it's like there are two pancakes hanging off my chest." Not to mention, "I was in labor for 36 hours until I screamed to the Doctor to get this thing out of me and he got out the vacuum thingy to suck his huge head through ..."  There wasn't enough alcohol to make this a party and I felt terrible for my cousin, who sat silently on the sideline opening box after box of the same onesie 3 piece outfit ready to burst with child and anguish.
I wondered why. Why would anyone have children if this is what birth and parenting reflected? Why would we celebrate life and womanhood in such a perverted and dogmatic way? Why did having children seem to strip these women of their power? And why wasn't the booze taking away the pain or at least speeding up the show?
It would be several years later that I found myself seeking the answers to these grand wonderments but let me tell you, this is a story about birth that you won't hear at most baby showers and it is one that will leave you in awe of your own beauty, strength, and vagina. So please join me in this happy birthing story - it's about a woman (that's me) who found her truth between contractions and discovered what the hell love really is and isn't through birthing two incredible beings.