HOW TO SURVIVE A DICTATOR → Call your mother-in-law who lived through the Third Reich. She may tell you to keep a chicken, collect firewood from the graveyard, or burn the stamp collection for warmth. All of these are valid. → Brush up on Russian curse words. → Never, ever have his name in your mouth. It is not worthy of your tongue or lungs & will cancer the air around you. → Understand nothing will be easy. Understand nothing is normal. → Find a way to forgive a family member’s vote. Note: this may…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Poem for the New Year My daughter said she would go outside her comfort zone, would pull the string on a booze-bottle popper. When her hands didn’t burn, she popped another. Said she’d try harder at school, listen in History. I guess I was going out of my comfort zone, too, letting her watch the video of the liberation of Dachau— a woman on her knees, kissing the arms of a soldier, weeping, a man lifting a corpse by the leg like a piece of scrap metal. I tell her as a child I unraveled the streamers that fell from…
Instructions for Motherhood Gut the herring. Cover your body in ash. Thorn with the blood that grows from the roses. Layer dirty linens with hot water and lye. Beat the caustic bleach that forms. Seed the ingredients for medicines and food. Clean away dandruff and lice. Stir a broth of beet. Soothe a raucous child. Catch the train that runs an hour behind. Calm the cross winds. Quiet rough storms. Ache for months in your elbows and knees. Make of kitchen twine an innerscape of lace. Stew beans in a pot until they soften. Add tarragon and coriander and rosemary…
Winter Baby Tell me the truth, I said to my friend, who had just given birth. How bad is it? You won’t believe the blood, she said, for which truth, I am indebted. And January, especially, is no time for something so bloody, so replete with fluid. But there you were staring up at me, wondering,what happens next? Nights, as you nursed (I decided never to refuse you), I read a novel where one character is castrated, one loses his legs to infection, another throws himself in front of a train. A different friend, also a mother, recommended this book…
Teaching as a Form of Self-Care I slept straight through election night. The next morning after learning the results I called my youngest daughter before her father took her to school. She’s a sensitive child; the kind of sensitive we don’t see often in the world anymore. I did not want to tell her that her candidate lost the election, but I didn’t want her to hear it from anyone else. As she processed my words, I heard her choke up. The more she tried to fight her tears, the harder she sobbed and when I asked why she was…
Sunflowers Just inside the gate, the rise and fall of dying sunflowers: disheveled petals and downcast eyes. Then a flick of wing and I realize a sparrow is locked in a kiss of life, face deep in the flower’s, seed by seed, stripping her beauty. Lines Written on the Election of 2016 The light inside is broken, but I still work: Sign taped to a broken soft drink machine. Soon, a meme: All of us facing the New Year. Now the newly crowned Emperor, Louis XIV- arrayed. Before light breaks he’s graffitied every last wall surrounding Pompeii. Jean…
Ten Self-Care Tips It was cold and dark when I left, but I had no choice. If I was going to hear even a whisper of my own thoughts, let solitude massage my attitude, and feel my shoulders release while I finally got to let go of what I’d been holding in, worrying over, if I was going to celebrate, give thanks and laugh on paper, if I was going to walk my path with clarity, I needed space. I needed to leave my husband and three daughters at home and get to my favorite place to write. This was…
return to the bush the women in the pink kitty hats need to go get their cousins. the apocalypse now crew has been selected to the run the country and it was not done by our hands. we have carried the weight of america’s decisions on our backs & in our wombs from the moment we stepped off the boat onto this land whose only goal was to devour us & our children. we haven’t sat down since we wet-nursed george washington’s children & built the white house. we haven’t stopped walking since mama harriet’s first journey into the forest…
Unplug, Rest, Be Grateful Self -care, a term we often associate with eating right, exercising and living righteously but if we really dig deep, self-care involves more than that. Although it sounds easy it is one of the most difficult things to do, especially for us women. By nature, we are nurturers, therefore everyone comes before us. Self-care is all about balance which is a very difficult quest to attain in life but not impossible. All we need to do is say no at times, unplug, listen to our bodies, embrace the quietness around us, stay still, breath and inhale.…
To Satya From Satya February 15, 2017 Before I left home for the last day of the writers’ conference, I placed the blank cards, the heart stickers, the 18 envelopes and the list of first grade kids’ names on the dining table. We made a sample card early in the morning, even before my daughter ate her cereal. We went through each step: fold the paper in half, place the large felt heart sticker on the cover, write “Happy Valentine’s Day” and “Love, Satya” on the inside, and then write the classmate’s name on the envelope. I passed along these…