dear books, dear stacks of books

file under: hello things! things that i may read someday!: stacks of books around my house lately, from recent birthday bounty and recent library trips. delicious! i pick them up and leaf thru, occasionally. a word or two's in there. look i'm actually in the middle of "a life's work" by rachel cusk.

now i am thirty-two, and whitman was thirty-six when he began LEAVES OF GRASS isn't that right?

file under: small thing with life-changing words::::napkin on which i found my son's name (half-eaten by a baby)

file under: baby fashion thing (thank you jane!)::::what is the grass?

the doll is not small

file under: thing sewn:::::::made a doll for finn at a Home Ec doll class! (not done yet. . .more hair will grow, clothes will be made, things will be embroidered and appliqued)

a small sunday thing

file under: thing read that resounds sharply with my experience of motherhood thus far::::::quotes from introduction to rachel cusk's book "A Life's Work"

" Birth is not merely that which divides women from men: it also divides women from themselves, so that a woman's understanding of what it is to exist is profoundly changed. Another person has existed in her, and after their birth they live within the jurisdiction of her consciousness. When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself; and so it is as difficult to leave your children as it is to stay with them. To discover this is to feel that your life has become irretrievably mired in coflict, or caught in some mythic snare in which you will perpetually, vainly struggle."

and

"I make this explanation with the gloomy suspicion that a book about motherhood is of no real interest to anyone except other mothers; and then only mothers who, like me, find the experience so momentous that reading about it has a strangely narcotic effect. I say 'other mothers' and 'only mothers' as if in apology: the experience of motherhood loses nearly everything in its translation to the outside world. In motherhood a woman exchanges her public significance for a range of private meanings, and like sounds outside a certain range they can be very difficult for other people to identify. If one listened with a different part of oneself, one would perhaps hear them."

and

"Looking after children is a low-status occupation. It is isolating, frequently boring, relentlessly demanding and exhausting. It erodes your self-esteem and your membership of the adult world. The more it is separated from the rest of life, the harder it gets; and yet to bring your children to your own existence, rather than move yours to theirs, is hard too. Even when you agree on a version of living that is acceptable to everybody, there are still longings that go unmet. It is my belief that in this enterprise generosity is more important even than equality. . .In motherhood I have experienced myself as both more virtuous and more terrible, and more implicated too in the world's virtue and terror, than I would from anonymity of childlessness have thought possible."

and finally

". . .my experience of reading, indeed of culture, was profoundly changed by having a child, in the sense that I found the concept of art and expression far more involving and neccessary, far more human in its drive to bring forth and create, than I once did."

delights i guess

fenugreek

elf owl

file under: the discovery of new delights:::::::1. found out that there is such a thing as an 'elf owl' 2. discovered the words 'galactagogue' and 'nursling' 3. learned that fenugreek does indeed increase your milk supply (after learning that getting my period again did indeed decrease my milk supply!)

doing a thing on a friday afternoon

file under: thing that needs help::::: the crafting corner of a room

file under: thing organized and cleaned:::::the crafting corner of a room

babies together

file under: magical thing accomplished::::: went for a walk with two babies and a dog! (and, i have to admit, a husband)

file under: a baby type thing to do::::::: finn waking up while robin stays asleep

file under: things two babies can do together:::::: theo & finn & the eating of food

small things

file under: a thing that is a dog trick::::::quinn asks us to throw a tree for her

file under: thing sewn for the baby i love:::::: playmat for finn worked on, not done yet. . .

file under: a small thing:::::: autumn thing observed in winter

valentine's day 2009

file under: things red:::::: red roses, red owl

file under: thing sewn for my lover:::::: valentine heart pillow, embroidered indeed

file under: thing that is to be consumed and that is also a lover's gift:::::chocolate bliss thing

adventures of papa & finn, last few weeks

file under: ecstatic thing witnessed:::::::: peter crooning to finn

file under: lovable things::::::: nice smiles

file under: a thing that was always a reluctant adventure: the whole family spends an AWP weekend in Chicago, complete with coughing papa & getting-sick baby

more finn tricks

file under: thing that is a cold adventure:::::: finn's first swinging experience, in january.

file under: thing mischevious::::::: finn about to eat mama's journal

a couple weeks of baby tricks

file under: thing witnessed:::::: baby birth activist

file under: thing finn loves to do:::::: eat a bowl of avocado.

file under: a thing we do together:::::::: go for a walk in the very cold and share a green scarf.