Monday, April 4, 2011

Getting Myself Started

I am so low tech that to start my blog I am using a pen and notebook. I have an ipad, but wireless connections can be sketchy in a small town and I don't like the ATT 3G network. So here I sit as my daughter is jumping around in her gymnastics class and I am using this hour to create a post. Every week I have this hour of waiting and here begins the collision of motherhood and artmaking. As a poet I keep thinking of a little poem I wrote when I was in high school...

HATE
inside the word hate
is a little word ate
hate ate me up

And still that poem rings true. I have had a lot of hate for the structure/nature/process of my life. This hate has been consuming. It is the conflict of what I imagine family life to be and what it really is...

I love my daughter, I love my husband, but I have not been able to find my place over the last six years with regard to my work—in any form: poetry, writing or filmmaking. The collision is constant and I am battered in the process. My daughter is five and only now can I breath and think.

The nature of hate is that it prevents one from really seeing things as they are. In six years of being married, I have finally begun to see my husband for who he is, not some unmet "Mr. Right" fantasy. I think that is what this moment is for me now, in writing here at "Welcome to Mommyville": seeing, letting the hate dissipate and reflecting on the collision, but moving beyond it as well. Hopefully, in this process of writing and exploring, I will uncover that mommy power I know exists.

I pause here for brief commercial break: my daughter is flipping around on the uneven bars. In 25 minutes that will be the topic of my conversation. It is so loud in this viewing section at the YMCA gymnastics center with all the kids in classes and parents plus siblings watching. It is this type of collision that I have resented—the total control of my time by others, by family. Now though, I have begun practicing the art of "tuning out" and hope to write through the static each week.

Probably due to my personality, I haven't really connected to other moms in this venue. Once and awhile a quick comment here or there, but so often folks seem connected to others and inaccessible. Breaching the mommy circles can be tough and intimidating. What's different now is that instead of heading into "the zone"—just sitting and vegging, I am taking back my time. I used to lead a life of quiet before I was married with a kid. I realized after reading The Highly Sensitive Person (www.hsperson.com) that my way of rejuvenating myself and destressing from overstimulation was to have total quiet—the kind where you lay in bed all day and watch the clouds pass by the window. Okay, so that is not happening with a kid.

Finding another way to rejuvenate myself is the quest. Writing my own blog as a way to focus myself and stretch my brain will surely improve my disposition and propel me towards...what, I'm not sure? And as I sign off at 6:30am to start my Monday morning, a discussion of undie selection has ensued: "Guess which underwear I picked Mama?" Then a quick of flash of the stripeys, of course. The collision continues...

1 comment:

  1. Wow Mo! Awesome blog! Hate never ate me up. I "ate" hate up in the form of food ie stress eating etc.Thank God I don't have to do that anymore! Most of the time. As long as I stay away from the really good cookies, I'll be ok-lol!Glad to see you finally getting back to some "me" time of rediscovery-cool! Love ya sis!
    Jody

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