Let's Pretend, Baby, Because the Revolution Outside Needs Our Magical Minds

"One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry"

I recite these words at least once a day, sometimes five or six. Bruce Degan's children's book "Jamberry" has been a longtime favorite. It was the first board book I bought the baby when he was just a few months old and already showed an unusually obsessive love for the books on the bookshelves throughout our house. It was a defining moment as a new mother, as a writer, and as a lover of books. It didn't matter that he wouldn't know the words until months later, I brought "Jamberry" home and read it through to the "berry" end while the baby shifted in my arms, still a newborn, still so far from words.

We just celebrated the first year with our son. And at this marker in his young life, I can say the babe's love of books has only grown into more of an obsession than I thought possible. We've blockaded the shelves for the first few feet up with end-tables, baby gates, and toy boxes so he cannot reach the treasured collection I've amassed over my lifetime. He points eagerly up at the volumes and tries to make the words that he now understands but cannot speak: "I want!" Once a day, at least, I pick him up, pull us close to the shelves and let him touch the bindings with an outstretched pointed finger. We're just close enough for him to touch, but not grab and pull. The tiny thing caresses the titles and lets out a little hiss of breath that simultaneously means "I made it" and "What magic!"

And I couldn't agree more, my son.

His desire for books, now that I can read board books and picture books to him and he understands the words, is insatiable. We read "Caps for Sale" "Good Night Moon" and "Hello Baby!" as frequently as we read "Jamberry" and sometimes it's all in one sitting, one after the other, after the other, and then repeat! Did I ever guess I might start to grow tired of reading? Not really, but these days, I am surprised to hear myself say, "let's do something else, let's not read books right now" and I am simultaneously so proud of this little child of mine, and so exhausted from reading the same lines over and over that he's grown to cherish.

What follows a new understanding of the words on the page? Imagination and pretend.

Within a week of turning one, this boy astounded me when he reached out to the page where a little boy and a bear tumble in a wonderfully imagined world of berries and dancing animals, and from the pictured bounty of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, my smiling son plucked an imaginary juicy sample and brought it to his mouth and made a smacking-lipped tasting sound with his lips and tongue. I was shocked and brought to a few joyous tears at witnessing my son's first display of pretending!

I immediately followed suite and took my own berry or two and "mmmm" "yum!" tasted the sweetness of that moment and laughed as he repeated and copied my "mmmm" sound. I was a proud momma that day.

These days, I am wrapped up in my jobs teaching young adults how to navigate their lives and educate themselves, and helping a local cafe kitchen run smoothly. Between everything, I am trying to stay engaged and aware of a growing movement of change on our streets where my fellow citizens are pushing up against the walls of a system that has somehow lost it's imagination and ability to honor the integrity of a life that allows someone to feed more than just their bank accounts, their cars, or their greed. I am witnessing a newly imagined system of inclusion and speaking where the one, and then the many, are heard.

I am honored to witness this revolution.

Whatever one might think of this wave of protest and call for action, it cannot be denied there is a new united voice out there in the streets and it calls for justice on a most basic human level, without discrimination, without waiver, and without a motive of greed or partisanship.

For the first time in my lifetime, I can say I see a horizon of real change coming, and my son can one day know change is possible when people gather, use their voice and hold the shameless and corrupt corporations accountable by those they use, abuse and strive to silence.

My last thought here is of the ballot envelope that sits on my desk along with the Voter's Pamphlet.

People, the system may be flawed, may be unrepresentative of you, may be corrupt, may be disenchanting. It is darn near without imagination or innovation these days. Yet it is the system we have to work within right now, and until this changes, as it will, we must use it to our advantage and exercise our right to vote. While many rights are being challenged, and are at great risk in the streets and in the halls of justice as I write, I think the message of the occupiers remains a very loud: TAKE BACK YOUR RIGHTS and ENGAGE IN YOUR DEMOCRACY!!

So please, please take the few minutes it takes to educate yourselves on the issues on the ballot and vote, vote, vote. I know it's a bit cliche to bring this up, but it's anything but cliche for those who have lost their lives and loved ones: people outside of the U.S. are risking their lives to cast one vote, sometimes the first vote in their adult lifetime.

The baby stirs. Until next time, keep imagining, keep aware, seek out the truth, and be safe! ~AD.

Facing Forward While Looking Back

What does a blogger do when she has blog-block? I'll start with a list and then offer two poems. The list is:

"A Week of Distractions, and Why I Cannot Start This Blog Post"

Baby taking first steps.
Baby teething, thus baby-holding ALL day long!
Baby with first fever ever, up all night taking temperature and assuring dad the baby is "fine" while excessively worrying, listening to breath after shallow sleeping breath with my finger on the doctor's number.
Keeping up with the patriotism of Occupy Wall Street!!
Working two day-jobs and getting to both on time!
Showering.
Not-showering because of all of the above.
Making two cakes for two friends, one gluten-free and covered with strawberries, the other a tall chiffon.
Making fresh butter.
Planning a first birthday party for baby.

I sent my thesis to an old friend today. It's the first time the manuscript has really seen any quality attention since I graduated this past July. I was prompted to skim through the poems and learned once again, when in any kind of block, writing or otherwise, it helps to take a look back before going forward. I've been looking back a lot these days because my son's first birthday is close and I cannot believe a year has passed or what changes have occurred in him, and come to think of it, in myself as well. Last October, I was still in graduate school and typing out poems in the early hours of morning and into the night.

The following poems were written for my thesis, a collection of poems about family, death, pregnancy, and motherhood as I've experienced them thus far. "Crescendo" is a poem written after seeing the first ultrasound image of my son. "Motherhood I" was written in those first few days after his birth. Both poems are serving me now as I plan to write a letter to my new one-year-old over the next week. Not sure how to start such a letter, yet, I do know the act of looking back at his start is where to begin; those first impressions, those first fears and joys. It is my hope that the letter will be a way he can "remember", through my words, his first year of life. Chiffon batter, teething tears, revolutions, and all!!

Crescendo

The blue image of your spine on the ultrasound is translucent

yet appears solid as cast fossil imprints.

Your father, brought to tears, reaches for my hand in the warm room.

The monitor hums while the nurse coos at the clarity of your image.

We see you

yet I am not weeping, as I thought. I am in school-girl awe,

as when we first opened our Earth Science textbook

and learned of magma, river deltas and our collective core.

I can’t stop looking because your back is riveted, vertebrae

like ridges on a dry creek bed in August. How I smoothed my seven

year old fingers over the crusted work of rain, remembered, the sound

even, of Spring’s flushing clean

and my sense of the world-spin in tall grass and goldenrod.

I am looking at your movement, you are so much more than “tadpole,”

than “hummingbird” heart we see clear as the night sky

over desert or sea.

I am as a pre-teen crushed by first love,

breathless butterfly crush, kissed from the inside out,

the day moves forward slow, life suddenly refracted

and I know I am done for when I’ve looked at your moving

image we copied, first still-life portrait,

ten times in an hour. Like I’ve received your first

Valentine and I am blushing head to toe

with each new reading of your signature.

We see you

and it feels we’ve discovered

a new generation of species, like we are kid-

scientists alone in the wild and knowing we’ve found

evidence of something magic beyond our little

minds, unable to wait to tell anyone, everyone!

hysterically excited as we run and run and run.

We see you. 

Motherhood I

On the fifth day or so, I begin to realize

                                    this knot in my gut, in my throat,

            love and terror

at your dependence and perfection

            of fingernail and elbow,

will remain with me

until my last day. I can no longer walk away from my life.

            Beautiful baby: you’ve consumed my core

and for the first, I feel absolute.

            In an instant, knowing I would spend the rest of my life

building a ladder to the moon if it made you smile,

I begin to see what I’ve signed on for: something as involuntary

            as my need for water and air.

This is

             night upon night whispering in the dark

to the feathery hair on the back of your neck

                        how I love you more than the world

and it is truer than I could have imagined

            because I cannot remember life before you—

                        my memories somehow have you hovered there.

This is

            waking and fearing

the dream has distracted me from your tiny breathing chest.

This is

            walking from the kitchen door, through

the backyard carrying the garbage, because I need

the walk, after birth,

and the fresh air, and suddenly

it is the longest and the farthest I’ve gone from you

since you were conceived.

The appreciation for sunlight

            on my skin

                        is overwhelming as I panic

at the thought of our tether

being stretched this taut. 

~AD