Marble Hill

I was trying to unsubscribe to Poets.org because I usually hate their featured poetry and dislike their daily emails even more, but I stumbled upon this and got sucked in. I'd love to hear thoughts on this poem...

Anyway, it got me thinking about so many things, which good writing always does for me. There were so many layers to it that I could relate to. My mother, motherhood/feminism, the eternity of time, the unknowable unkowns, etc. On the other hand, I'm not clear on what the poet was saying? Was all this just his trouble with religion, or merely a political statement? I got the feeling there was something personal going on, but the way it ended, I couldn't tell. I am thinking he was male, possibly gay, and from a Muslim culture.

I found it interesting anyway.

Three Times'a Bitch

I walk in to the 7-Eleven on my lunch hour one day and notice they're selling a type of lottery ticket that's called "Three Times'a Charm". It looks like your basic slot-machine style lottery ticket where you have three chances to "pull the lever". I never buy lottery tickets.

After lunch my friend emails me. She asks how I'm feeling.
I tell her, “Alright, a little crampy, but I think it's because I ate a very spicy curry for lunch.”
She tells me, “Oh, I was just going to tell you not to eat anything spicy.”
I say, “Why? Is that supposed to be bad for pg?”
She's writes, “Yeah, I thought you knew that. It induces labor. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare ya.”

Later, feeling annoyed, I google the shit out of "spicy food bad for pregnancy". Everything I read says spicy is fine. It's an old wives' tale that it will induce labor, but only if you are full-term. All the experts say it's been studied and there's no evidence that it has any effect on pregnancy or labor at all.

I feel vindicated. But I am still bitter. I want to talk to people who have experienced miscarriage, and know how sensitive you get about these things, especially with hormones raging in early pregnancy. I post a new thread in my "Cautiously Expecting After Miscarriage" group:

Subject: Cramping
Okay, I am trying not to freak out. This is my 4th pg, the last two ended in m/c at @ 7 & 9 wks, and I'm about 6 weeks along this time. I have been craving super spicy food and I had a very spicy curry for lunch. Now I am cramping.

My friend tells me it is bad to eat spicy food when pregnant, that it is known to induce labor. Please tell me she is full of it! I am so nervous because of the prior m/c. If this is just an old wives’ tale, I am going to kill her for freaking me out!

On my way home from work, I pick up James at his friend's house. The mom and I get into this conversation about babies and pregnancy and miscarriage, and we talk about our experiences and I end up telling her I'm pregnant. She is so excited. She hugs me and tells me she will pray for me.

She asks how I'm feeling and I tell her, "Alright, a little crampy, but I think it's because I ate a very spicy curry for lunch."
As I am talking to her I feel this slight wetness. I immediately begin to feel embarrassed, because I know if I were to go into the bathroom right now I’d see blood. And I just told this woman who I don’t even know very well that I am pregnant.

After I get home I tell Jim everything as I am making James a quick dinner.
Suddenly I feel the familiar gush and I say, "Uh-oh I have to go to the bathroom."
I squat over the toilet just as I had done three weeks before, to look at the evidence.
James opens the door and asks me something. I'm not listening. I don't know if he wants me to make some decision, or give him something.
I tell him, "Give me privacy and go get daddy."
I try to comprehend. I tell myself, "Oh yes, you were right, just like you thought." But then, I remember that all day I told myself everything was fine.

The door opens again, I think it is Jim, but it is James and I raise my voice, impatiently saying, "I already told you to go get daddy, now, go get daddy!"
He is offended, and just wants to know if he can play Electric Company on the computer.

I hear Jim on the other side of the door, saying, "I am right here, what is it?"
I say, "Come here." He squeezes James out of the way and comes into the hot stuffy bathroom with me, closing the door behind him.

Later I am talking on the phone to the doctor. I have never met her, she is someone new, because I hated the last one. This one seems nice. I tell her I had just made my first appointment to come see her this Friday. She says that is good, to keep that appointment. Just take it easy, and call her if anything changes. She tells me, "You can try again."
She tells me something about women who have three miscarriages. Apparently, there is some medical rule of thumb that says I am eligible for a certain amount of fertility testing.
I feel like she is trying to tell me I am lucky, like I have won some sort of perverse lottery. "With luck we can figure out what is wrong and fix it."

The Spark Has Come Undone

There is a bright bright sun
leaves unfold in a wide yawn

I want to float with the breeze
fan through sweet blossoms
scatter love like a bee
take to the trees

but the dark evening has come
and reacquainted with unfermented blood
this musty dread anchors me down
I can tell
the spark has come undone again

these three ripe moments came and passed
squeezed through my life too tightly to grasp

potential doesn't know deadlines
infinite moments float outside of time
and I am anchored down again
while this unfermented brooding washes over me

Thoughts on Seven

count backwards from 100 by sevens

grant me the awareness

of the suffering

try cutting food in to seven pieces

with only one hand and no thumbs

that prevents people

two thousand seven

from seeing

seventy things to think about

the suffering around them

A Selfish Fool

I will say this:
love is an action word.
music muscle flexing
cyberconnecting

I know
your heart
is rythym
broken beat
still
it's not yet

I'm always out there and sticky
bumpy
lumpy
learning
yearning

carrying my grooves
with me
everywhere I go

that's so I hear the music when it comes

you're always
silent waves
softened soul
polished smooth
too slippery
to stick
staying so still
even the music
misses you

I am four years old and I am having that same dream again. The one where I am running through a dense dark forest, running for my life from a large, hungry, brown bear, “California”. I am running through the thick branches and then I am in a tree and I am climbing as fast as I can. The tree is so tall it goes on and on and I am being chased. Now I am six. I go faster and now I see a boy above me, urging me on, saying, “Come on, you’re almost there, you can do it!” and I am almost reaching him and each time he urges me on, saying, “Just one more step, I know you can do it!” and I climb up to that branch and he is still one branch higher. I am climbing faster and faster but he is always out of reach and then, finally, I can see it, I am going to reach him this time, and I climb up to that branch and it breaks under me. I am twenty three now. The boy reaches out to me and grabs the tips of my fingers and I slip away and fall and fall and fall. I fall so far that eventually I look around and realize that I must not be falling at all. I am a baby. I am flying. I have total control of where I go and I can swoop down over houses and hills and by people and they don’t seem to see me. I fly over my hospital and then I circle around and look in the windows to see the children in my ward sleeping and the nurses walking around and it feels so nice. I keep flying, past familiar streets and houses. I come to my own house, and my family is there and none of them see me and I realize the will never see me in this state. I realize I must return to my body and I feel the jolt and wake up crying. I am confused. Even though I must be awake I don't know how old I am or where I live. I want to get back to the dream. I close my eyes and float, but the phone rings. It sounds distant. I go for the phone but find I can't move. I struggle and manage to reach it on the fourth ring. I hear my Mom and sister crying. I am awake.

A Bit of a Rant

Okay, let me start by saying that I probably should not be posting at this exact moment bec aue I am so stinkin mad I feel like my ass is on fire, but it must be done, I can no longer be silent.
I am innocently whiling away my hours listening to a little "Morning Edition" on NPR when I happen to glance at a link for this article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104107045. I start getting a little tight in the throat as I am reading it, so trying to distract myself, I glance over at my Facebook page and I read this post from my friend, Kathy: "Health care reform is not optional. As a former social worker, I can tell you there are numerous individuals in need of medical assistance and only able to get limited help if any. I had to deny or terminate benefits for folks that would probably die without it. In fact, I had a client who died a month after having to cut of his medical benefits. For him, I send this out. Get involved & make it happen." along with a link to this: http://www.healthreform.gov/. Needless to say I about blew my stack COMPLETELY when I started reading some of the pedantic, high brow, philosophical discussion of poverty I have seen in some time in the commentary after the "richless" article (I might add, I listen to NPR regularly).
My comments started out trying to be illuminating, but finally descended in to my typical hysterical defensiveness like I get when I am really deeply RIGHT about something that means a lot to me that others don't ever seem to get. So, if you're interested, you can read my comment thread (Obviously, I am Fndr Bndr). But in case you don't have hours to waste on the internet skimming over another's petty rant, I will sum it up thusly: While I didn't want to get in to a pissing match over who has it bad and who has it worse, on some level, when does it occur to you that your perspective on life is so skewed that you can't even conceive that REAL SUFFERING exists around you? Why does it never occur to some people that their highly educated, WASPy snobbery is not enough? When is buying lattes that protect the rainforrest or sending a hundred bucks once a year off to the World Wildlife Fund not enough to make up for the enormous, unfair disparity between people who have their basic needs met and those who don't? Is anyone even listening to what they are saying when they post about this stuff??
I must say, I thought that the mainstream media was coming a long way, when on Mother's Day on John King's broadcast, he highlighted a homeless single Mom and talked about Moms who do what they have to do to get by. (Sorry, I don't have the link to the story, but if I find it I'll put it in here later.) We don't use the term poverty enough in our media in my opinion.
Anyway, end of rant.
Here are a select few pictures from MY Mother's Day.