If You Look

One more for National Poetry Month. This one is mine. I wrote it for Poetry Month. Enjoy!

If You Look
I tell my children: If you want to know me, look in here. There will be no other record after I'm gone.These slim cardboard volumes are what I leave

in place of ashes; these and the songs I sang to you at bedtime or while stirring vegetable soup late at night with the first autumn cold snap.

You will not find me bound in tidy brown leather,
gold leaf lettering the cover; or embellished with
cutouts and stickers on acid free paper.

I will be faded to almost nothing where I wrote in pencil.

When you read, you may hear my alto; perhaps
remember the way my hands turned pages.
You may discover a blossom pressed where it fell

unknown from the wisteria one summer.
Remember how it grew in braids up the ancient Cedar
by the corner of the house; how in early morning

I sat beneath walnut trees, writing about
wind and sea or a crescent moon at daybreak?

If you look, you will find me recalling a certain sunset,
the smell of my son when he was seven,
robins digging worms in rain-soaked soil.

You will find me here, quiet in the hammock,
the apple I was eating fallen to the ground unfinished.

National Poetry Month

I suppose this is a good time to begin blogging again . .. my son tells me I need to write more. "It's been too long," he says. My sister-friend, who brought to blogland to begin with has probably given up on me. My daughter is doing a wonderful job on her blog.

So since this is National Poetry Month and I love poetry I offer this initial post, courtesy of the Poem-a-Day e-mail from Poetry.org. One day soon I'll add one of my own. Enjoy!

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner

First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don't even notice,
close this manual.

Giving Thanks

In this post, dear reader, please allow me to pat myself on the back and curry a bit of compassion and recognition for the life I have lived and for the new life I have chosen. Forgive this post. It may be self-indulgent and may seem self aggrandising. So be it. It is the truth of where I am and I have never been one to run from truth. Read on, if you like. Or perhaps visit another, more selfless blog if you find this distasteful.

Before I embarked upon this amazing new journey of wedded bliss I was an empty-nester.

Here are my fledglings and me. My youngest child is now twenty years old and living mostly on her own - in the home I moved from eight weeks ago when ~G and I eloped. My two other children are twenty-six and almost twenty-five. The eldest is building her own nest. I have spent the last sixteen-ish years raising them without a husband. I have learned to care for myself and for my children without input or assistance from a companion and, for the most part, life has been good for our little family. Some of the more recent years are chronicled in this blog.

Just now I started thinking of a primary song ... I love mommy, she loves me. We love daddy yessiree. He loves us and so you see, we are a ha-ppy fa-mi-ly.

We have been and still are a very happy family.

We are no different from any family. During the past decade-and-a-half we have collectively and individually been pushed to our extremities in most every way. Throughout the years, more than once, I have felt angels 'round about us to bear us up.

The thing is, when these three children started serving missions and going to college and thanking me for raising them and all that good stuff, the anxiety, trepidation and any doubt or self-pity I had ever experienced simply melted away. The challenges of parenting became a distant memory. More than once I have wept tears of gratitude over the fact that "It's over! We did it! The kids are grown and they are happy and healthy!" Sometimes the tears felt like a flood of long-held-back hoping beyond hope for something that I feared might never be accomplished or realized.

The other thing is, I thought I was done. I thought it was full speed ahead into "me" time. I was finally going to find me a good man and buy me a sailboat and motorcycle and get back to school for my master's degree and, and, and. ..

Now, I know a few of you are chuckling to yourselves thinking, "Dear, dear, Melody. You silly girl. Have you forgotten that parenthood is an eternal vigil and that you will never be done with your beautiful offspring?" No, I haven't forgotten. I understand that. My kids are always a part of my life.

But I have also found a good man who has equally good kids. And it just so happens that his kids' ages, unlike my children's ages which move upward from twenty, move downward from twenty. All the way to ten years old.

What I am saying is that in this new marriage to the man I love (with whom I will eventually own a sailboat) I have fallen in love with his children.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, but as I moved into the home of a not-empty-nester, I found my mother heart moving right in with me. This tired-mother-heart is being renewed. Sometimes with a few skipped beats, but it is undeniably swelling to give and receive love to more children at an unexpected time in my life.

I am discovering again that one's heart is designed to love as many children as one chooses to love. With each of my own children's births I found myself surprised that I could love yet another - love with such depth and devotion that it took my breath away. It always felt like a miracle. It still does.

I did not bear, nurse, diaper, sing lullabies to or catch any of these four when they were about to tumble down the stairs as toddlers. But I love them just the same. Right now they feel something like my nieces and nephews - like blood relatives, just not quite my blood. It is a new experience and I am still making sense of it. What I know for sure is that I know how to love. It may be imperfect, but I know how to love. I wish there was a term other than step-mom because that doesn't quite fit. Then again does it really matter?

The essential truth is: these children are mine because they are his. And I love them - both because they are his and because, as individuals, they are wonderful and easy to love.

I feel fortunate to have a husband who is a good father and who meets his children's needs with a generous heart. He is sensitive to the fact that these beautiful people did not come from my womb and sometimes expresses concern that I may feel unduly burdened. I appreciate this about him. Even more I appreciate his children for accepting me, accepting my best efforts. They are accepting and exceptional.

They did not choose me. I did not necessarily choose them. Yet here we are. . .

Then again, perhaps all of us somehow choose each other to move through life with. Maybe we were friends in heaven. Maybe that's why any of us can handle being parents and children to each other. We loved each other before. So we will love each other now - regardless of the circumstances.


Yeah, I like the way that feels. And I feel profoundly grateful for these seven children, for my husband and for the blessing we have of being part of each other's lives.

Tasting Life Twice - part 2 - In the Beginning

It all started with my friend, StielCrazy. She happens to be a nurse like me. She also happens to be married to my new husband's brother. Most importantly, she happened to be one of my best friends at what was a new job in home care a couple of years ago. I adored her from the moment I met her and I trusted her implicitly, still do. If I were mortally wounded or otherwise incapacitated I would want her to take care of me. I trust her with my life. As it turns out, I was right to put my faith in her.
At some point Ms. Stiel mentioned that she knew a great guy that I should meet. "He just needs someone to get out and have a little fun with. All he has ever wanted was a true companion - someone to jump on a snowmobile with and maybe someone to cook dinner for him when he comes home from work." Somewhere along this time I heard Paula Cole in my head: "I will wash the dishes while you go have a beer . .."

Now, don't get me wrong, like Paula Cole and all the other real women in the world I too have wondered: "Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie son? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the Cowboys gone?" However, I am something of a feminist and have lived on my own for over a decade. So fixing dinner for a snowmobile-riding cowboy didn't quite do it for me.

I resisted giving permission for her to share my phone number with him for a week or two. But Stiel's little wink from time to time, the way she smiled at me when she talked about the possibility of my meeting him and her occasional, "What can it hurt? He really is a genuinely kind man and I can't say enough good about him" finally broke down my defenses.

No, that's not true. It wasn't just that. It was a warm feeling I had inside when she spoke of this man whom I had never met, had never seen and who came out of the blue at a time when I wasn't particularly looking for a man. That is the real reason I said, "Okay. Go ahead. Give him my number."

Tasting Life Twice (part 1)

Something happened recently. Something really important. Something so significant that the months-long writing dry spell I've had must end now. It must.

Last weekend with my dearest friend and companion I took a leap of faith.

On Friday, 26 September 2008, in a small town in Idaho I married the man I will spend the rest of my mortal days with; the man I will spend the rest of my immortal existence with; the man I chose and who chose me to share both the sacred and profane, thrilling and mundane, peaceful and insane moments of life with.

We became one. Or at least we vowed to become one and to never give up working toward that end. This oneness is no small deal for me. When I speak of it or write of it I am referring not only to a oneness of body, or even a oneness of spirit. Far more significantly, I believe, like others of my faith, that there is a kind of oneness that is essential for lasting happiness. This oneness isn't just about the two of us coming together. It is about coming together in God. And, God knows, we will need it.

In Case You Were Wondering

Every girl should know which Disney Pricess she is most like. . .


You Are Jasmine!

Independent and adventurous. You don't want much; just to break out of the guilded cage society has put you in and experience life to the fullest. Following orders isn't really one of your strong points, and you would rather live a life of poverty than being forced into something that you hate.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

I'm Having a Baby

My belly hasn't started bulging yet.

But I am compelled to connect with every enlarged abdomen I come across. I always ask permission (okay, maybe not always) before I rest my motherhand gently, but securely on that floating basketball of womanhood. Just in the past few days I have warmed the surface of several protruding baby-filled balloons: my friend, Julie; the young woman in the mall; most of all, my daughter.

My firstborn is having her firstborn.



I'm really not having a baby, she is. But I find myself wishing I were. It's quite insane, but it's undeniable. I am baby hungry at forty-six years old.

My belly aches sometimes. I remember how my waistline disappeared almost imperceptibly over those first weeks. I remember my breasts swelling, feeling tender, looking divine. I remember feeling that I was, in fact, a Goddess. Yes, a Goddess. I was unashamed; unabashedly, indisputably, magnificently important in the world. My worth was unquestionable, I glowed with virtue and purity. I knew that I was more than just myself and I loved every minute of it. . . okay, I didn't love having to pee all the time or the fact that I wanted to nap 23 hours a day or the difficulty breathing during the last few weeks. But everything else I LOVED. I didn't get sick. I was awash in estrogen, progesterone and who knows what all else. It was positively mood altering.

I want to do it again. My motivation is selfish, I know. I want to feel those feelings again. Even more, I want to mother a child with several decades of none-too-easy child rearing behind me. I want to share with just one new soul the peace, the wisdom, the joy and understanding that has woven itself into my being through the experience of mothering three beautiful (now beautifully grown) children. I can mother so much better now than I ever could before.

This all sounds so idealistic. And, honestly, I don't know that I could endure chronic sleep deprivation again. My body revels in afternoon naps and my heart almost giggles with the freedom I have to come and go as I please. But those four AM breast feedings in the quiet predawn, the smell of my babies, the newborn sounds; the trips up the sledding hill when they were toddlers and the bedtime stories; the utter delight . . . well, nothing really compares to it.

It seems one of life's strangest ironies that we become good parents by simply being parents. We slog through the child-rearing years as best we can. Then, about the time we figure out how to be great parents, the ones who needed us most to be great parents are all grown up. I don't really understand it.

Of course, for a nice Mormon girl like me, there is also the issue of needing a loving supportive spouse to make a baby and raise a baby with . . . and since I don't currently have one of those, well, I suppose the truth is that I am on my last round of baby hunger. I haven't had any of this for several years.

I remember giving up the idea of having more children when I rounded the forty-two-year-old bend. Since then I think I've only felt this way once before and it was merely a moment. This recent bout has lasted several weeks--long enough for me to think about blogging about it.

Maybe it is because my baby will have her baby very soon--within a month or so. Or maybe it is simply the death throws of a hope that was never realized. I had hoped for five or six children. I always imagined myself as a mom to a big family, but my life circumstances haven't allowed for that. I don't know that I will take the time to figure out exactly why I am having these feelings. Maybe I'll just enjoy them.

Maybe I can take all this good mother love and share it with my grown babies and their babies as they come along. What do you think?