PoetryProsePieces

The Air Here

2009-06-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

The air here is heavier,
filled with salt and sun and sound.
Where fragrant flowers
trigger memory upon memory,
touching me like so many
clammy hands.
Here each heaven-leant breath
fills me deeper
with wonder at the
mundane made divine . . .
the simple smell of salt-spray
catches me off-guard while waiting
as we filled up the car with gas.
Where bird-songs mean something
I can't quite remember,
and the luau music in the distance
taunts me with a culture
I couldn't quite embrace.
Through it all the warm sun
holds me here
and I am lulled into thinking
I finally belong . . .
this time I won't have to leave.

Untitled and Rough -- poem about hiking to Manoa Falls

2009-06-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think this might have some good stuff in it, but I feel like it is all over the place. I think it probably needs to be cut way down, but I'm having a hard time cutting anything (actually, I keep adding!!). It has so many different themes, and images and ideas. Is it too much? Anyway, here it is:

Your tiny trail-muddied shoe rubs
against my leg
smearing dirt across my shorts
as I carry you down from Manoa Falls.

On the way up, you hiked uncomplaining
jumping and climbing and scrambling
your own way over the bolder
whose mossy back divided the easy trail.
You beckoned me on
when I paused,
eager to reach the falls.
Mothering me by
telling me to watch out for the puddles.

Now you are wet against my side;
where you sit on my hip
the fall-water soaks me to the skin.
Tired and skinned-kneed, you insist
on being carried, and though tired too,
I oblige.

Ahead, I see the boys have waited
in the bamboo forest
where the sticks click, talking to us
in the breeze,
as we pause with them for pictures.
When the wind gusts I look up
and I'm dizzied by the violent
swaying of these tall, thin giants.
I feel like a child, swallowed up in this ocean.
A stick of bamboo blown down
thuds hard on the ground
and I move us quickly along,
fearful of where the next piece will strike.
My boys and brothers disappear
ahead of us again.

Behind us lags
my mother with her parents.
Four generations of haoles
trailing through the giant ferns.

And again on my hip
you fill the relative silence
with a little nonsense tune.
Competing now and then
with the chattering of birds,
and always accompanied
by the low gurgle of the stream,
you hum in my ear.

A breeze brings a flower scent
filled with a hundred blurred memories
of my childhood in Hawaii.
And in this moment of filtered sunlight
touching earth and trees and stream,
with your sweet body
against mine
all is suddenly sublime.

Ode to Zoloft

2009-06-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

lying in bed
mid-morning
heaviness
holds me
there
with heart enough
only to stare
through tiny cracks
in slats
of blinds where
I see
it is sunny outside
of me.

A List

2009-06-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Things I'm afraid of:

snakes
waterskiing with snakes
the dark
looking stupid
saying the wrong thing
being someone's service project
my children's pain
losing a child
losing my mind

Dear friend,

2009-06-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

little by little
at our weekly
park bench lunches
i begin to
serve up my sorrow
always in small
bite-sized pieces
like finger foods
on a high chair tray
slices of my darker side
carefully wrapped
and presented
little sour sweet
anecdotes and memories
lemon drops
to slowly suck
as they're stuck
in the side of your cheek
nothing too bitter
to make you gag
some thoughts i chew
in silence
as our children run off
to play.

Living My Nightmare

2009-06-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

When I was pregnant with my fourth child, there was a dark little spot inside of me that did not truely believe that my baby would be born alive. It was all the normal pregnancy worries amplified far beyond normal. This was not every moment. But there were enough of these dark thoughts pressing on me that it was definitely not healthy. I put off preparing his room and getting out the baby clothes for a long time because of these worries. And then one day when I was finally making myself work on it, I actually thought to myself, I wonder if the Relief Society will send someone over to pack these things up for me, or will I have to do it myself when I get home from the hospital? Yeah. Really dark stuff. So that moment when the doctor laid my perfect little boy in my arms was the first moment that I really and truely knew that I was taking a baby home from the hospital with me! A very joyous moment.

About five months later, a friend from church lost her baby girl during labor. It tore my heart open, and shook me to the core -- here she was, living my nightmare. And then I had to watch as she kind of came a little unhinged. She got pregnant again soon after that, again with a baby girl. Mostly she seemed so incredibly strong to have gone through what she did. The day I started to really worry about her was when she told me that she couldn't decide whether to use Natalie's things for the new baby. I told her that I was sure that Natalie would want her little sister to use her things. And then she said, "but what if the Millenium comes?" I was so shocked by the question that I couldn't begin to articulate an answer. I suppose then they could have had their two baby girls share the clothes that they had lovingly prepared. The millenium did not come, but her baby did. We moved away before her baby was even born, but when we went back to visit, she was beautiful. Perfect. And alive. I think the wounds were still there for my friend, though, under the smile. I'm not sure if holding her sweet baby was healing wounds, or picking at the scabs.

Now another friend is living another of my nightmares. My sister in law is hospitalized as I write. For post partum . . . I don't know what to call it . . . I suppose it has gone far beyond depression at this point, so is is post partum psychosis? I don't actually know her clinical diagnosis. My brother called me the week after Easter, and made her get on the phone with me to talk about post partum depression, and the wonders of medication. Because after my fourth child, a little boy, was born -- healthy, perfect and alive -- I still found myself lost and wandering in the maze of depression. Walking that balance beam between the darkness and the light. And medication saved me. It is still saving me every day. She and I had a nice conversation about it. She was not particularly open to the idea of taking something, but said that she could see my points that I was making about it, and said that she would prayerfully consider what to do.

I never followed through. I thought so many times that I should call or email and see how she was doing, what decision had she made about medication, did she end up feeling like she needed it. And now she is living another of my nightmares. Of course, it is a nightmare from which she will emerge. She is getting help, and I am confident that she will be fine. But I find myself feeling so so sad for my brother, who had to involuntarily commit his wife to a hospital, worried for my four nephews who must be scared and confused, and heart broken for my sister in law.

And I also have to admit, I am sad and worried, and heartbroken just a little bit for me, too. I can't stop thinking: How close to the edge did I come? In my wanderings through the darkest of times, how close was I to where she found herself? Am I even now safe?

Mom mom

2009-06-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the name "mom" is my least favorite word in the world. When it is being called out in anger during a fight between siblings. When it is being whined. When it is repeated over and over -- often even after I have said, "what?" more than once. When it is repeated for the 17 millionth time in a particular day. I have decided that I know why Heavenly Father has asked us not to take His name in vain. Could you even imagine what it feels like to have your name cried out in anger, whined, and repeated . . . multiplied by 5 billion? I have asked my children not to take my name in vain, but in this they aren't any more obedient than Earth's general population. Sometimes the name "mom" represents the constant pull I feel of needy little people overwhelming me. Their cries distract me, and peck mercilessly at my mind's every thought.

Sometimes the name "mom" is my very favorite word in the world. When it accompanies a declaration of love. When it prefaces a humble request for help. The first time each of my six children has truely learned it. Any time it is voiced with admiriation and respect. I think I know why Heavenly Father has asked us to come to Him in prayer. Can you feel him there, returning your love, ready to help, eager for us to learn more of Him? I am so thankful to each of my children for the blessed moments of motherhood that I find so fulfilling.

I have had thoughts along these lines many times throughout my 15 years of motherhood. I got thinking about it again recently because my Emily often calls me "mom mom." It is baby talk, but it fills me with warmth, and I began to wonder why I like that name so much. I have been called by many appellations of motherhood: mom, mommy, mamma, mommylu, mother. Yet somehow, mom mom is the one I find the sweetest. I feel she is endowing me with all the blessings and love normally accorded to two moms. That she can't fit all that I mean to her in just one name. It fills me with resolve to overcome the trials that motherhood brings. The repetition is a prayer of thanks for who I am to her, of what I can and will do for her, of the love she knows I return so fully to my sweet sweet EmilyEmily.

Things I Want to Write About:

2009-05-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

After the hurricane

Mom mom

Sunday Clothes

Summer of the Chickens

Work on my Hawaii poems

Lupus

I had a million ideas one day, and didn't get any of them down. Well, that's what this list is for. Hope some of them come back to me . . .

Airing My Dirty Laundry

2009-05-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided to ask my sweet sister in law to look at my stuff here on this blog, and see if she had any feedback for me. But before doing so, I read through all of it. I guess that was the first time I had done that (read all the posts in one sitting). And I had to absolutely laugh at myself because of all the laundry references and metaphors!! I decided that one day I'll have to publish a compilation of poetry and essays that all have something to do with laundry. I can give it the same title that I gave this post!! :) I guess that is one of the things that I feel the most overwhelmed by is trying to keep up with the laundry for 8 people. Or maybe it's just harder to make glib little references to needles and diabetes test-kits, another very overwhelming aspect of my life.

Memories

2009-05-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

my memories are torn and crumpled
they are the little washed paper pieces
found in the dryer lint screen
and I don't know whether to
carefully unfold them
piece them back together
pray the faded writing
though smeared and barely
legible will still provide some clues
or scoop them up with all the
rest of the bluegray lint
and toss them in the little plastic
garbage can next to the washing machine

Darkest thoughts

2009-05-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

Remember that mom who drowned her babies,
to save them from the world?
It worked, right?
Her babies went straight to heaven.
But she sold her soul to the devil in the process.
What deals will
I have to make with the devil when
my cries go unanswered . . .
Father in Heaven, please, please,
please, can't you just help the baby sleep through the night?
I'm so very tired . . .
I'm the one facedown in the bathtub.
Drowning in my own inability.
But I always raise my head,
gasping for air,
but living.
For one more day living.
Even in my darkest thoughts,
I want to be with my babies
for today
for always
So they are safe
I am safe
No contacts signed in their blood or mine
As I stagger,
gasping
through one more day.

Empty

2009-05-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Wet sloppy toddler kisses
caught between loads of laundry
that squealed laughter
overheard as I make dinner
playdates and parkdays
homework help
driving
Always driving kids
somewhere
pre-nap snuggles
storytimes snuck in too rarely
datenight
diapers
hugs from a son taller than his mom
days so full so
full
I've weaned the baby
But still I feel
sucked
so
dry.

Strange

2009-05-18T08:59:00.001-07:00

I lay down next to the stranger in my bed.
The quiet comfortable stranger
breathing slowly.
He was awake when I went in to brush my teeth.

I wake to an empty bed.
To a busy life full of needy children
alternately hugging and pushing.
He won't be home until it is dark again.

Mid-day, I put the baby in her crib.
She's angry, but tired;
her tears will soon subside.
He doesn't take my call when I need to hear his voice.

It wasn't always this way.
I almost remember knowing for sure
he loved me.
The stranger I've bound myself to forever.

Doing the Math

2009-04-23T12:28:00.001-07:00

The sweet sharp smell

of rubbing alcohol

no longer evokes

doctors' offices and hospitals --

the little square swabs

have become as much a part

of our landscape

as cheerios and baby wipes.

Some things I've stopped calculating:

the shots . . . twice a day times

a year and more . . .

the finger-pricks

that leave the swabs bloodstained

multiplying til I'm dizzy.

We've filled as many

gallon juice jugs

with your medical-sharps-waste

to match your three years.

Other math must still be done daily:

correction factors . . .

Insulin-to-carb ratios --

I wish I could as easily

divide your pain

your disappointment.

Even the small hurts

I'd make smaller.

I prick and you flinch.

And I want to flinch.

Let the diabetes win for one day

as I stop playing pancreas

so I don't have to be the one

to do the math

find the magic number

balancing your life one meal at a time.

Needle poised before

your perfect, round, toddler belly:

"We're turning your tummy

into swiss cheese" I joke.

You laugh and I poke.

This one didn't hurt -- too much --

but still my mind is racing

doing the math

dividing

Divide.

In Search of a Smile

2009-04-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

I grimace at the bright pink polish

on stubby nails.

What was that impulse?

a stab at youthfulness?

attempted joviality?

Instead it is silly

and I must admit

smudged

when I reached too quickly

for the package of diapers.

But polish notwithstanding,

poopies must be changed.

And though it offends,

I'm sure it will be days

-- and many chipped tips --

before I drag out cotton balls

and polish remover.

Because after all,

the baby is still crying,

the dog is still barking,

the laundry is still dirty,

the three-year-old is still begging me to

change the batteries in a (probably broken) toy,

the dishes are still waiting,

I still haven't showered . . .

And, I guess, I'm still hoping.

Hoping maybe later, as I'm folding finished

laundry I'll see the pink

and think it's pretty.

And then

for the first time today

I'll sit there among the neatly

folded piles

and smile.

Dark Days of the past

2008-11-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

In 1998, I was a young mother. 28 with three small children. After two boys I should have been happy and excited to have my little porcelain doll daughter, but instead I was terrified. The therapist told me that I shouldn't feel any more overwhelmed to be a role model for a daughter, because I have already been teaching my sons how to view women. Great. She also tells me that I should look in my childhood to find the roots of my problems. Seek out my parents mistakes. Somehow that doesn't reassure me that I can be a good mother either. Our sessions didn't continue for very long.

I have never been easy to get along with. I am moody, irritable, a worrier. So if my post partum emotions were a little intense, it still didn't seem that much worse than usual. Ten years later, the details have blurred, some perhaps too dark to see, some blocked out in self-preservation, most memories just faded by time. I do remember fighting (about the pies, of all things!) with my in-laws when they came for . . . either Thanksgiving or Christmas. There were some Saturdays where I couldn't drag myself from bed, and spent the day crying. Church was one of the hardest parts -- pretending for three long hours that everything was okay, because I couldn't admit that it wasn't. There were many days that were just pretty much normal, though everything felt harder, and sort of clouded over.

I remember the feeling that by the end of each day, my children had consumed me -- sucked everything right out of me, and left me a pile of dry bones.

And I distictly remember the dark of night, awake, and changing diapers, with cold light slicing across the changing table, lifting my little angel, and whispering, "don't be like me. . . don't be like me . . . "

My husband first realized that something was truly wrong in the first week of January. He was desperate to get the Christmas decorations put away, and I couldn't pull myself together to get it done. He confronted me, begging me to work on it, saying that he would do it himself, only he knew that he wouldn't be able to do it to my exacting standards. Packing away the Christmas decorations is one area in which I am a perfectionist. Everything is carefully wrapped, boxes are labelled. But I remember that year, looking around, and realizing that I did not care. I felt so dead inside that I couldn't feel anything about these precious memories anymore. And I could not imagine another Christmas. The future was so black, I just couldn't see that far.

Dark Days

2008-11-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

Today I am in quicksand. If I struggle, I will only sink faster, so I hold. Very. Still. I hardly move, hoping maybe to float, but it sucks me slowly down. The laundry piles up around me; dirty in the laundry room; clean, spilling from baskets, in the family room; folded piles tipping haphazzardly in stacks on the stairs. I move enough to feed my family, to keep the baby from crying, to help the toddler reach the potty before she pees. But today I just can't drag myself from the pit, and it sucks me sucks me down.

bumping

2008-10-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

I feel the words bumping around in my head almost constantly now. Little words and phrases trying to get out. I try and try to order them into a story that I can tell. A story of someone else in another place. But in the end, there is only one story that I know how to tell. Or many little stories that make up the one true story. The story of me. For many years I have felt the words now and again, start to agitate and press, sometimes oozing out into a few lines of poetry. Something that can ease the need for a time. I kept waiting for the crisis, the denoument. Waiting for something important that will mean something to someone outside of me. But now the words are too persistent. I wake in the night with a restless baby, and the words are there, waiting, restless too. I cook, I clean, I play, and mingled with my ordinary daily thoughts, the words insist -- it is time. And so I begin to write.

All my life I have traveled along a thin line. The darkness waiting on one side to swallow me up, and my blessed life, full of laughter, hope, and above all, light, waiting on the other, hoping to embrace me. I've tried to choose the light. And mostly I've succeeded. There have been dark days, laying on the bed, looking through the cracks in the slats of the blinds, and seeing that there is light somewhere outside of me. But at least I have seen that there is light. I have dragged myself through days where I felt that I was pushing through water to get even the smallest things done. But I know of others whose days feel like dragging themselves through peanut butter. So I travel that line. One foot in front of the other, balancing, balancing. Always a little afraid, but mostly just concentrating so I don't lose my footing.

It sounds so dramatic that way, so I should mention too the times of sheer joy. The delight I feel in the embrace of my tiny children. The happiness I find in caring for an innocent baby, the contentment, and pride in helping a child with a project for school. The pleasure in my husband's loving arms. The fun in playful moments shared with friends, or family. Belly laughs, light laughter. Light.

For Emily

2008-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

new favorite moment
to file away
to bring out
when you are grown:
nap-time snuggles in your new big-girl bed
face to face so close
I can smell your dorito breath.
I reach to caress your sweet chubby cheek
and you in turn pat mine
with your little warm hand.
My heart with that delicious ache
of almost bursting.
For a moment we both fight sleep:
you, to avoid the dreaded Nap
me, so I can creep away when you sucumb.
"I love you Emily"
"Love you too mom-mom. Soso much."
And then you roll away
snuggling deeper into your pillow.
Mission accomplished.
But this time I find myself
almost wishing
you would beg for a story
one more song
just to prolong
this tender moment.
I stare a few seconds at your little back
then, before I miss my opportunity
I go to tend to laundrydishesbills.

Grandpa

2008-09-28T15:55:00.001-07:00

It's crazy how you can miss someone almost daily once they are gone, when you only saw them about annually when they were alive.

The last time I saw him, he was standing with Grandma on their driveway, waving goodbye, after one last hug. I'd said, we'll come in the summer. But we didn't. When I came, it was for his funeral.

I guess I'd known, even when I'd mentioned another trip, that we wouldn't make it out to Utah that summer. But I was trying to make myself believe that this wasn't the last goodbye. He'd slowed down so much in the last few years, that every goodbye worried me. On the other hand, he was doing fine. He still had a sparkle in his eye, and actually, conversations had been easier since he'd gotten better hearing aids.

It was on Justin's 12th birthday that I got the bad news. We had been spending the day celebrating . . . breakfast of kolaches (his favorite), shopping for the birthday leopard geckos and all their paraphenalia . . . and were home briefly before heading out for a late lunch, when I decided to check in on the family message board. And found Grandma's message that Grandpa was very sick. Leukemia.

When we got back in the car, much subdued, to head out on the next birthday adventure, the song that had been last playing came on. It was a Mickey Mouse CD version of "If You're Happy and You Know It," blaring loudly. We all laughed a little at the irony, at how suddenly inappropriate the song was . . . and then cried a little too. Because we were sad, and we knew it, and there isn't a cute little song to tell us three easy things to do to express our sorrow to find out a beloved Grandpa is dying.

Later in the day I called my mom, to tell her how much I love her, and how sad I was about her dad, and she gave me some more details, including the fact that she and my dad were heading out to be with Grandma and Grandpa in a week; that Grandpa was out of the hospital; and the doctors didn't really know how much time he had, but certainly no more than a year. It was sad, but it also gave me hope that I could work it out to fly out for one last visit.

In the end there was no time for one last visit. By the time Mom got there, they knew Grandpa was within days of dying. I was suddenly faced with a miserable choice: fly out immediately, hoping that I would get a few minutes to visit while he was coherent; or wait to go to the funeral. It broke my heart, but I chose the funeral.

In a way, that's what life is all about. Trying to make the very best choice out of the miserable options we are given. Or sometimes we're given really great options to choose from, and are faced with choosing what we think is best, and the trial is never looking back and saying "what if . . . ?"

I just hope that Grandpa thinks I chose well, that he understood that I was honoring the best memories by not seeing him at his worst. One of his regrets in his last days was that he had never made it out to see our newest house. But I know he has seen it now, because I can't imagine that Grandpa, given the opportunity, is not watching over his family. He loved us all so dearly. I just hope in his last bad days, where I didn't show up to see him, he knew how much I love him. Hope he knows now too. That he sees my choices and is proud of me.

Because Grandpa always chose the best. He was good, kind, tender-hearted, honest, generous, faithful, living a life close to God. In the days where I was struggling with his imminent death, my husband, who is not verbal with his feelings, said (in essence) "I know that this is really hard for you. You will miss him so much. But it is only for this life. You know you will see him again. Your Grandpa is one of the best people that I know, and we both know that if anyone will go straight to the Celestial Kingdom, it is him." Which in a way, was my husband expressing to me that he knew that I was one of the good ones too -- that someday I'll be with God again. And with Grandpa.

Instead of that one last visit, I'm looking forward to that first visit.

And I'm trying to choose the best, so I'll be there.

Tortured Artist

2008-09-28T15:37:00.000-07:00

I usually only write poetry when I am depressed; yes, I am a horrible cliche -- the tortured artist.

And sometimes reading a book will inspire me and I will want to write. I will have words bumping around in my head trying to get out for days. Sometimes I will write some of them down, but sometimes they will just bump and bump until they give up, and my brain goes back to thinking the "normal" way.

But I suddenly feel like a switch has been turned on inside my head, and everything is prose trying to arrange itself on the written page. I wake at 1:30 am to feed my crying baby, and I am composing lines about her tiny hungry mouth at my breast. Not that the 1:30 am stuff is any good, but the point is that I can't seem to turn it off. So I thought instead, I would try to actually get some thoughts put down. Little stories, poems, etc that come to mind.

Your Eyes

2008-09-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sweet little child, what do you see
with those brown-green eyes
looking up at me?
When I don't hear your cries
what crosses your mind?
When I walk too fast and leave
you behind?
When I can't ease your pain
do you know I hurt too?
Though I feel so deeply my failures
do you feel my love for you?
Sweet little child what price
do you pay
When I'm broken and seem to
have lost my way?
I see a worn-out mother
frazzled, half-dead --
But you look deeper and see
divinity instead.
In your eyes I find I can
almost see
The one you adore,
the mother you believe me to be.
When you reach out tiny hands
around my neck holding tight
Suddenly we're
both bathed in God's loving light.