As you go out, I go in to worry, my interior stomach, my too-much-to-take-in-this-world-sandwich of what have we done by making a baby who will leave one day? My mom tells me it’s an age-old story, this story I am living right now. A friend tells me she hated the whole last year before her […]
Category: Parenting
What do you want? Why?
I’m awash in teens right now. I want to be all clever, with an apt metaphor. But I tell you again that the poetry people speak to me more loudly in the early morning. It’s late morning here and I’m remembering a conversation with my oldest. How when I said her, all the chatter is […]
January 31st
Everyone is maybe sick of the topic lately. But I can’t get enough of it. Clichés and all. Like my Interviewee that pointed out that by the time your kids are teens, that cake is baked. I very much feel that way while knowing my kind heart is a place my kids will ask to […]
The Eve of Age 17
I’m pushing into new territory. Others have gone before me, found new hobbies, careers that spin close enough to passion, lovers and friends: things that take up space. Or perhaps, maybe, could be that some of them are like me: wrinkling, shriveling up, pruned & lined in their almost nightly bathes. If I just get […]
Falling Water
Falling Water by Nancy Schatz Alton I feel myself pushing against the sadness that wells up inside of me. Don’t let it out don’tletitout don’t-let-it-out. It’s a crushing wave. I let myself feel it in small spills— Seltzer that ruins the Sorry game we’ve played so many times. I say, “Throw away all the games: […]
What Works
It’s 5pm on Sunday night, the only day I have no work this week. For so long, I thought I should be working more. Or working for pay more often. Now I’m working more, diversifying, switching things up, seeing what works. What works now: I really need that day off to feed me. I was […]
Arrival
She almost puts balsamic in the cookie dough. She calls out, “Mom!” and I use my woman eyes to locate the vanilla. Her friend calls her Car-o-line. Short but long like that, the melody of her full name—my chest clenches in pleasure. I want to write a poem. This time I have left at the […]
Sing It
Sing It by Nancy Schatz Alton We are still young. Our amazement still plays like a favorite song on the radio. It’s hard to hold our awe with all the bulletins coming in: beeps, alarms, no more rotary dial sounds for us. We are still young holding our young making new laps to […]
Flight
Flight by Nancy Schatz Alton I covet your glorious locks so much that you give them to me for seconds. You throw your luscious brown locks of hair over my head. We look in the mirror at your mop over my crown and laugh, say I look good with your strands teasing […]
14
The Christmas tree is down. The space stands empty, ready to receive the turn of another year tomorrow. Liz Anne turns 14 tomorrow. Someone asked if I was ready. Who’s ready for change? Does it matter if we’re ready? I prepare myself by calling my kids the year ahead a few months before it arrives. […]