Happy Blogoversary to Me.

Almost one year ago, to the day, I was 32 weeks pregnant, helping my husband home from surgery. His cut 6"4' frame balanced on my squatty, imbalanced body full of Thor and anxiety as we worked our way up the front steps of our home. We knew it would be a challenging time for our family, but he needed the surgery. We walked into our front porch, and the smell of freshly created vomit wafted into our nose. My mother was frantically cleaning up puke and sheepishly confused as to why Beatrice was throwing up. The stomach flu visited our home at the same time that Sam had surgery. And so, the next day, I was sick too, as is the way of the puking virus. I was cleaning my puke, Beatrice's puke, and Sam's pee pee. I was supposed to be on modifed bedrest, honestly, and all of this, I feared would kill Thor. It was a whirlwind of suck the like of which I feel I am still recovering. Honestly, the last year, I can say that I have had a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder. Any hint of norovirus amongst friends and family has met with a fierce and unwavering shiver and then distance. "Good luck with that. See you next month."

It did not keep the stomach bug from visiting the ranch almost exactly a year later. Thomas Harry started middle of the night from Sunday to Monday with explosive diarrhea that was (hell, still is) bright green. (It is such an interesting color, I had to note it). Then about twenty four hours later, his Exorcist-like puking began. Projectile. All-encompassing. We actually had to change our bed sheets until we had no more bed sheets. Tuesday night, I literally sat on the couch all night watching Thelma and Louise, Giant, Fiddler on the Roof, as he slept on my lap. I started puking sometime on Tuesday. It ended quickly for me, except for this math.

Check it out:
lack of sleep + puking + caring for a puking child + one high-energy/cabin fevered not sick child + a dog + a cranky, sleep-deprived husband = me fucking losing my mind.

Actually, Sam has been amazing. He took off work to care for me and Thomas Harry, because I simply haven't been able to rise very much. Or rather, maybe he took off work to care for Beatrice while T.H. and I writhe in crawling-out-of-our-skin-itis. Last night, lying in bed, inhaling the sour smell of psychic and physical defeat, I remembered and concluded in pure monkey style: the pukes might be the harbinger for my blogoversary.

This week is my two year blogoversary.

TWO YEARS! Whoop! Yee haw! Yippee! WONKA WONKA WONKA!

Two hundred and ninety five published posts. Forty unpublished posts. Amazing. I don't know what I thought this space would be two years after starting it. I don't know what I thought it would be the day I started it. But all I can say is that I would not be the person I am today without this blog and without you. You have loved me, supported me, made me feel like part of a community and helped me more than I could rightly express. So, thank you. Thank you for reading here and writing here.

For my two year blogoversary, I will give away something. It is actually your choice. One: a mizuko jizo painting of your choice painted by me with your baby in mind. This is the listing from my etsy shop. I will work with you to create something you will love. (If you are not interested in a mizuko jizo painting, you can also request a meditating mama painting, or a small painting of your children/child.) Two: a jizo statue for your altar. The jizo is shown in the Remembering section of my sidebar, right in front of the Buddha. I actually ordered it from this Etsy shop for this giveaway. or Three: They Were Still Born, which is a book in which my essay Mothering Grief appears.

And so to win one of these three things, please comment below. Tell me which of these items you would like to win. And, to steal borrow this idea from the lovely and very talented Lori Lavendar Luz from Write Mind Open Heart, I would really appreciate you leaving ME a present in return. That gift would be to tell me which of my posts made an impression on you and why. You don't have to link to it, but just mention the idea of it. (Or you can link to it, if you want.)

Happy blogoversary to me! And thank you, again, for your love and support.

Monkey mind

Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Stop thinking about breathing and just breathe.
Monkey mind, Angie, monkey mind.
I just want to cuss now. Fuck, my skin is uncomfortable around my soul. And my belly binds up in lotus position. Frankly, it always did. Why does meditation sitting have to be so fucking uncomfortable? I mean, shouldn't it be in a comfty chair? The comfty chair?!?! Nobody expects the Spanish...Thinking, Angie. Thinking.
Oooooooooooooooooooom. Can you chant in your mind? I am chanting in my mind. Maybe I should use Fuck as my mantra. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Thinking. Fuck, Angie. Focus, dude. You are not supposed to do anything and you can't even not do anything. Oooooooooooom. Om. Nom. Yum.
"Mommy?"
Ignore the girl. You are meditating, for goodness sake. Keep. Your. Eyes. Closed. Keep them closed. Ignore her. She knows what she is doing. She is working with the monkey mind.
"Mommy? Mommymommmymommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy."
Go away, little girl. Ask your father.
"MOMMMY?!?!"
"What, child? I am meditating."
"Do you want me to hit the gong now?"
"No. I will tell you when to hit the gong. Now go."
"Okay, but Mommy?"
"Yes, baby."
"Can I meditate with you?"
"Of course, but this is a non-talking meditation."
"So, you won't tell me to breath in love?"
"No. You will have to tell yourself that."
"Oh, sure. Sure, I can."
"Okay."
"Can I ring the gong now?"
"Yes, you may ring the gong now."

Breathe in love. Breathe out impatience. Maybe I should be listening for God. Or for my intuition. Wait, my intuition tells me to drink sixteen bourbons and eat a gallon of ice cream. My intuition is an asshole. Monkey mind, Ang. Monkey mind. 




















Breathe in love. Breathe out criticism.
Breathe in love. Breathe out anger.
Breathe in love. Breathe out fatness.
Breathe in like. Breathe out loathing.
Just like. Just breathe in like if you can't breathe in love yet.  My fucking knees hurt.
Breathe in tolerance. Breathe out starvation.
Breathe in tolerance. Breathe out monkey mind.


Breathe. Out. Monkeys.


Gooooooooong.
"I rang the gong, Mommy, because I was done."
"Thank you, love."

The Art of Surrender

My only goal this year is to make peace with my body. Not write a novel, or even a blog post. Not to paint a picture every day. Not to run a mile, or lose fifty pounds. I didn't vow to read a book a week for a year. I didn't promise to quit drinking. I didn't make resolutions about eating no meat, or dairy. Just to make peace. Just to come to accept.


This path has been more complicated and intense than I ever imagined. I realize that the body I inhabit is built of shame and anger and self-loathing. My daughter died in me. My. Daughter. Died. IN. Me. In my fat belly. The first thing I did when I got home from the hospital is google stillbirth. And there in the first list of things that are correlated to stillbirth is weight. Obesity causes stillbirth, it said. I killed my daughter with fat? I finally built up the courage to ask my midwife about it a few weeks later, because it became this festering nugget in the back of my brain. I would say, "We don't know what killed her." And I would think, "But I know, it was my fat." Deep down, I started integrating the blame into my being without really realizing it. When I did finally ask my midwife, she laid her hands on my shoulders and said, "Fatness did not kill your daughter. You did not kill your daughter." She explained that it was just a correlation, like being Latino or African-American. I cried and told her I gained so much in my pregnancy and maybe that killed her, maybe. She could tell me, I begged, the truth. I can handle it, I promised. She promised me she wasn't just being nice. But I didn't believe her.

Making peace with my body means I need to start believing her, or even if I don't believe her, to forgive myself for killing her. Forgiveness has always seemed like a powerful process  to me. I have gotten to places where I have forgiven people for breaking my heart, stealing all my things, for hitting me, for cheating on me, for stealing my identity and for betraying me. To be honest, I don't really know how to forgive myself. Somehow, there is a sense that this forgiveness is wrapped up in changing my body image and relationship and so I am starting there.

Part of this process is quitting drinking, mindful and moral eating and learning to integrate my body, mind and soul again. I know it sounds weird, but I feel like each part has been a separate entity. I have made a commitment to try to pray and meditate every day. To bend on my knees and give it up to the universe. To ask for help. I have a problem asking for help from people and even more so from God, or the universe. Mainly because I don't know how I feel about those things. God? Creator? I don't know. I think I have always been the quintessential definition of a deist. But maybe the kind of God I am praying to isn't the point, even if it is just asking for help in the dark, in the abyss. Maybe it is the art of surrender. I cannot rationalize my way out of this cycle of suffering. I cannot write it out. I cannot starve it out. I cannot drink it out. I cannot. And so, that is part of this year.

Praying and meditating every day is not something overdone or elaborate. I read a prayer, I ask for help and inspiration and specifically name something I want to do better today. When I meditate, I listen, instead of the Buddhist emptiness that has always accompanied my meditation. I am listening for my own voice. It is a strange thing to have to relearn how to trust yourself. To refind intuition. This process has given me focus and the quality of not having to reinvent the wheel. I just do it, and then it is over. I always imagine these things impossible to integrate into my life. But when I do it, it is simple.

So far, 2011 has been really amazing. Hard and scary, but also amazing and insightful. I miss having meditation and prayer as part of my ritual. I have drifted a long way from my spiritual center. Anxiety and grief like an winding, dark path off the road. Meditation and prayer and peace of mind felt too much like making peace with Lucy's death, when really that are simply making peace with myself.

about the boy.

Thomas Harry is ten months old. Well, two days ago. He enjoys being naked, pulling his sister's hair and playing the maracas. Both literally and figuratively. He is a fast crawler, and chases both the dog and his big sister. He also likes appropriating abandoned juice cups. His one grey eye and one brown eye have morphed into this amazing greyish brown color. He's got really cute boobies, as Beatrice points out. And he has eight teeth. He is 26.5 pounds, 30 inches and has the head circumference of a two year old. In our house, we say that the boy leads with his head. It is his form of affection to head butt your nose like some kind of football hooligan. He is very good at throwing a ball directly to you.


He is the Thornado, bringing a flurry of joy and overturned trucks and play kitchens, where ever he crawls. I didn't imagine that when we were pregnant. I was caught in this swirl of negativity, fear and inactive panic. How hard it will be. How jealous Beezus might get. How sick/hurt/damaged he might end up. How we don't have enough bedrooms on the same floor. How my love seemed not to be boundless. And then he was here, and he slipped into our lives like he's always been there. And he makes us laugh until we cannot breathe. And my love for him bottomless and encompassing and absolutely terrifying.

Ten months later, Beatrice doesn't remember a time before Thomas was here or a time when Lucy wasn't dead. And I think that is it. Lucy has also found her place in our family too. She is in every list we make about the most beautiful babies. She is in the invisible sister brigade that marches through the kitchen with pots and pans. She is in the rainbow we draw. She is the other baby in our family. She is the little sister. Perpetually, the little sister.

being and nothingness

When I studied kung-fu, my teacher used to always say there was nothing more dangerous than a student of three months. He had just enough training to think he had enough training. Push him past that point and he learns that he knows nothing. The more training he has, the less he knows. In the end, the true warrior avoids conflict anyway. Somedays I feel like spiritually I am perpetually three months out in life.


I don't know why I am telling you this. I just want to write and I can't write. I spend a great deal of my spare time reading about what other people think about God and humanity and life, and I have never quite made up my own mind. This fucking koan is stuck in my head again: if you have a stick, I will give you one. If you don't have a stick, I will take one away. I took it once to a philosophy professor. I meditated on it all the time, but it never came to me. "This is not a logical argument," he said. "It is a riddle." And that made me more determined to figure it out. What do you think it means? I finally took out stick and put in truth.


If you have truth, I will give you truth. If you don't have a truth, I will take your truth away.


Maybe it should be God. Or confusion. Or wisdom. Or baby.


The funny thing is that I used to balk when reading these Buddhist stories of monks who meditate on the same koan for years, and I have invested a decade on that one and have nothing.


:::


The only authenticity I have is to admit that I am human. I adapt to my surroundings. But even my adaptations are flawed. And when I unravel my humanness, I realize it is all based on something flawed-fear, reputation, pain, sadness, grief. My experiences seem to lead up to this one point in my life. It is a point of acceptance that I am the sum of all the great flaws of humanity. It doesn't make me special. We all are the sum of flaws. I said that like it's a bad thing, but it's not. It is not bad or good. It just is.


I know nothing. I am nothing. Peel away the layers of me and it boils down to that. This month, I have been absolutely humbled. All of my wisdom, a lie. Well, maybe not all, but I am in a place of absolute bones and bareness. But in this place of absolute vulnerability and fear and nothingness, I am kind of happy. For when I stripped away the things I thought were holding me up, I realized that I had already been standing.

Enlightenment

“Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.”
Dogen(Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher 1200-1253)

I am over at Glow today, writing about my enlightenment, or lack thereof.

Fibs and prayers.

This post is almost solely about parenting my living children. I'll give you some room to leave.








While you are waiting, I will give you a little Connery.

Good evening, bitches!

Honestly, I have no idea what is wrong with me. I am sober, actually. I am just in a weird Connery codpiece kind of mood. Alright, onto the post.









My daughter talks about her vagina now. She makes jokes about it like a frat boy jokes about his johnson.

"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"My vagina."
"Don't be sassy, Beatrice."
"I'm not sassy. I am funny."
"Well, actually, that was kind of funny, but it is also sassy to joke about your vagina."

She draws it too. There is her head, then her body, then her vagina and then her legs. I actually thought she was drawing a thorax, but no, she assures me it is her vagina. It is a lot like performance art with her these days.

She sat today with namaste hands, eyes closed, cross-legged under her princess canopy.
"Excuse me, Mommy."
Sam and I look up from our heated conversation about how we envision the children's room, bunk bed and loft reading spaces. Thomas joining in conversation by screaming here and there.
"Yes, my love."
"I am trying to meditate, so you need to be quiet, or leave my room."
You are three, daughter.
"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. We are going." But I wonder what happens in meditation for a toddler. And then I realize that I taught her that. I taught her about the meditation and the vagina.


I had all kinds of ideas about the kind of mother I would be when I was a single woman. I'd get lost in the 100 yard stare, imagining a thousand "what if" scenarios. I have never really encountered a scenario for which I have been prepared. I mean, sort of, but not really. Not conversations about death, or birth, or vaginas or meditation. She comes at it with her own perspective, interest and questions. It is disarming and comforting to know that she will always be unpredictably herself. And I will never be a lecturer. She will always be someone I am getting to know.


I watch my daughter with equal parts amazement and wonder. She is so much like me as a child. Her little way of being, her diligence, her generous spirit and curiosity. Her desire to talk and connect and be part of the adult world. All of it is straight me, and when I see an adult get impatient with her, I pull her on my lap, and kiss her eyes. "My angel," I whisper. "Don't change."

It is the ultimate healing to love this girl. I find myself being more forgiving, compassionate and loving towards myself as a child. I always thought I was a bad kid. My mother assures me now that I was nothing close to bad, but in my head, I hear her admonishments and annoyance at my imperfections. I've always been notoriously hard on myself. It is no different now, I guess.

My parents' main parenting style, from what I can parse out by questions over wine, is primarily shame, not in a wholly unkind way either. Maybe that is a Catholic thing, or the way parenting used to be. I was ashamed when I misbehaved in public, and so I didn't. Shame is still a very close companion for me. Shame motivates me in a way that nothing else can, and in the same way, abandoning shame feels like finding that child again, pulling her on my lap, kissing her eyelids.

We drove upon the aftermath of an accident a month or so ago. Ambulance. Police cars. Lights. She watched a man strapped to a board being taken aboard the ambulance, and she said, "Who is that, Mama?" as though I know everyone in the world. I could only see that it was a man in his thirties, perhaps.

"I don't know, my love."

She paused, and said, "Maybe it is one of my friends." I turned around quickly. It caught me up--my breath and my parenting both. It was a moment where I needed to say something profound, something important. "This is the time when I teach a lesson about compassion," I thought. This is the moment I imagined before I ever had children, when I would imagine a scenario and how I would deal with it. I said something about how it wasn't her friend, but that it was good to see everyone as someone's friend. And then I kept going until I made no sense anymore. I am just winging it. I am just making this parenting stuff up as I go along. Maybe I am even making this life stuff up as I am going along too.

This year, I have made one resolution--to forgive myself and forgive my body. To learn to love this shell of me, because it is just a shell that I need to keep strong and healthy, even though the shell is not me. And I am not my shell. Forgiving my body, and learning to live in this skin is exceedingly hard, especially when you realize that you have been lying to yourself for so long you suspect you may be built of fibs and prayers.

But still, I am working hard these days on healing, on forgiving myself, on being a whole person honest with my faults, my shortcomings and my defects of character. It feels like a little like being skinned alive. I want to crawl under something which provides warmth and darkness, like the stove, until my skin grows back. And yet, some days, when I hold my girl on my lap, I realize that I am still exactly like her on some level. I am still little somewhere in me, even if I have found destructively adult ways to cope with the littleness.

Leper.

I used to think that I would heal from my daughter's death, but I am a leper. I will never really heal. I am always in some kind of dull grief pain, so much so that I rarely feel it anymore. My skin itches. My eyes run. But it's okay, really. I mostly live my life with others of my kind. In a colony. Or a virtual colony. And because I live with others of my kind, I feel normal. I sometimes venture into the non-leper world--mommy blogs, or play dates and the such, but I realize I don't belong there. It is as though the healthy, non-leper people are pointing at me and saying, "Ack, a leper."

"What? Me?" I stare at my scabby, oozing sores. "Oh, right, yes. A leper, but we all knew that already, no?"

When you are past two years, maybe it is time when you should not be still writing, arting and talking about grief.  A new babylost mama said to me recently that she didn't want to be someone whose whole life was about the grief from her child's stillbirth, and then I realized that my whole life is about the grief from my child's stillbirth. I wasn't offended, and she wasn't being offensive. It just was a moment where I reflected. This feels like the authentic me, though. I know, authenticity is such a bullshit word to so many people, but in a wholly existential way, it feels authentic. This is the real me. One who lives on the edge of the living and the dead, straddling both worlds, not truly part of either. I think that has always been my place in the world. A liminal place between worlds--white and Latina, masculine and feminine, mainstream and punk, artist and poser, sacred and profane, dead and undead. It feels right and good to make art and write about what comes up. But then again, maybe I am stuck. Maybe I am not supposed to still feel sad. I don't know. I. Don't. Fucking. Know.

Actually, maybe this leper talk is kind of creepy, or plain unfair to people with leprosy. But I think the analogy is good. Did you know that 95% of the human race have a natural immunity to leprosy? And that while I was mostly healthy and a good conversationalist, my kid still died in me. It was like a one in 160 pregnancy chance. I don't know why I am comparing statistics. When you have been a one, no other number of the other side looks big enough. And statistics kind of feel like bullshit. Still, leprosy and  full term stillbirth have their similarities.

My daughter asked me tonight why we can't have a girl baby that stays, and I have no response that feels adequate. I just stammered and then she said we can name her Lucy again, since we all like that name so much. It broke my heart open again, like it is the first time someone suggested that we can just have another baby. She is so earnest about it, so logical, I feel silly for arguing that Lucia is the only sister who gets that name. And that we can't just have girl babies because it seems like a girl baby should nurse with the boy baby.

Thomas turned nine months on January 1st. Nine months. Today I received the travel journal after its harrowing journey through Europe, Canada and the United States. Ines included a bag of hand-carved pebbles. Skytimes included a little handmade journal, and everyone wrote diary entries from the Travel Gnome's point of view, and it made me feel like crying. I mean, if I were a different person, I would have wept. Last year, I would have wept. But this year, I just laughed, and my soul did cartwheels like the first time someone wrote a goofy haiku with me and thought it was funny. I read the whole thing with a glass of amazing red wine. It is perfect to have others put their hearts and souls into something you also put your heart and soul into. I don't know how else to describe it.

As my Facebook friends know, someone kept the journal for a month and a half. I know she would argue at that categorization, but let's just say, it was mailed in mid-November, and didn't arrive on the next person's doorstep until the end of December. We exchanged emails about it, since I felt she should apologize to all the women and she felt like I was being a controlling bitch. She acted entitled. I don't know, I reacted, and shouldn't have. I have no defense except that I give a shit. I gave a shit about the travel journal being the last piece on still life 365 for the year and it wasn't and it upset me. She said her family was sick, and she gave me a load of excuses. I wanted to tell her everything I had been through this year, and still managed to publish a piece of art every day of the fucking year. I wanted to tell her that the day I was in labor with Thomas Harry, the day I went to the hospital, is the day I mailed out the journal. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning the night before sending off emails to every person participating, and packed it up and waddled to the post office. Then I birthed Thor.

Maybe it is just me who is a leper. You know, she isn't the first person to call me a controlling bitch. Probably not the last. I am not even offended by that, really. I get things done. Some call that controlling, others efficient. I have thick skin for that sort of insult. But it reminded me of the betrayals of my life. This is a drop in the bucket, yes, but still, that feeling of someone saying, "Your desire to have things a certain way betrayed you, not me." It is a truth I can never seem to learn. I have to stop desiring things.

In a separate note and question, how long is it supposed to take a couple to finish a bottle of port wine? Sam claims this should last us more than three days. And that I am perhaps drinking it more like wine, rather than port. But it is so dang good in front of the fire while wearing my big heavy woolen grief socks. I also promised an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel. Maybe tomorrow? Anyone coming to the reading on Sunday?

New Year

I think I am psychologically banishing the last post. It makes me uncomfortable on many levels, but not least of which is that engaging in the kind of self-congratulatory crap one does when listing their accomplishments for the year makes my eyes bleed, or get angina, or you know, feel silly. It's not that I shouldn't acknowledge my goals met and challenges given and completed, but it is rather, well, I don't know, not very Buddhist. And, to be perfectly frank, it just feels like of ooky to me.

So, hey, look at this shiny thing over here! It's the internet and a story.

Yep, it is the end of the decade. I have had a crazy decade.

Ten years ago, 2001, I was starting my last semester at university. (Yes, it took me ten years to graduate. Shut up.) And it was post Y2K, does anyone even remember that? The turn from 1999 to 2000. I will never forget sitting with my friend who was raised a fundamentalist Christian. We always met at a bar aptly named Dirty Frank's, mainly because if he wasn't waiting tables, that is where he was. That year, in fact, he would receive what is known as the Golden Roach Award for Patron of the Year. Let's just say, it is not exactly a bar in which you want to be known as the King of the Drinkers. At any rate, it was December 1999, and me being a student in Religion, we used to just sit and drink heavily and argue Scripture.

I miss those days with hours at my disposal to formulate my ideas. Now, I just spout off the first offensive thing that comes into my little pea dinosaur brain. He was so well-versed and smart. This was the kicker. He is gay. And so he grew up with a kind of self-loathing that made me angry at Fundamentalists in general and his parents in particular. And so we would argue--me trying to convince him that he was not damned and he trying to convince me he was. It was a fool argument, and most people avoided joining in our shenanigans. So we were left for hours to talk. Those evenings are amongst my most coveted, I love him with the fierceness of 10,000 apocalyptic suns. And I just wanted him to see himself as God's son. To have him feel worthy of love.

As more and more y2k crap was obsessed about in the media, he became more and more convinced that it was really the end of times. It was the Rapture, he said. The signs are everywhere. And he wasn't sure if he was going to be saved, so in case God did not call him home, he was stockpiling good water in his studio apartment. He had cases, he said. And freeze-dried food.

We were drunk. And I was going through the Book of Daniel and Revelation and trying to convince him that it wasn't surely the time, based on Scripture. And he reached across the table, his beautiful eyes meeting mine, and he said, "Angie. I love you. God, you know, I love you. But I am not sharing my water with you. You are on your own."

I walked the streets New Year's Eve in a silver ball gown and Doc Martens. I watched an Eagles game with my friends earlier in the night, then went to my lovely friend Sid's place. I remember a kind of 3 am hush over the city, and wondering, if perhaps, 144,000 people were suddenly gone from the world, would we notice? And then I thought about my water situation. How I didn't have any. And I didn't know anyone who had water in the city who would share. I mean, I knew people who would knock on my door and ask for water, but those stockpiling it weren't sharing. I cried walking home, because my marriage dissolved a few years earlier, and I was hopelessly waterless without anyone interested in water either. Maybe that is all I wanted for the decade of 2000-2010, to find a people who would share their water with me.

Tonight, I made a salad of baby lettuce, fontinella cheese, walnuts, portabello mushrooms dressed with grapefruit balsamic vinegar and walnut oil. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio. Thomas Harry screamed in his high chair every time his peas ran out, and my daughter asked me what a parade is. Sam leaned back and savored his glass of red wine. It's an ordinary night here. I am on the computer. Sam is reading.

I have no moral here. No large reflection. It is just a moment. A million-gazillion moments of life strung together. And now, I have a people, Sam, and people, y'all, who would share their water with me, and more importantly, I have a people and people who I would share my water with. Thank you and happy new year.

:::

On a few separate, but no less interesting notes for the New Year, I am going to be doing a reading Sunday, January 9th at the Newark Free Library (750 Library Ave Newark DE 19711). Janel Atlas, Nina Bennett and I will be reading from They Were Still Born from 2p until 3:30p. So, please consider joining us for the event. I will be selling copies of the book there for $30 a piece. The event itself is free, and here is the write-up about it.

Finding the Words
When faced with traumatic, devastating loss, many people turn to books for information and comfort. What happens when those books don't exist? Three authors will share not only their personal narratives of loss, but also how their book came to be. Janel Atlas, along with contributors Nina Bennett and Angie Yingst, will discuss their newly released collection of essays, They Were Still Born. Free.

I am also hosting a workshop on Exploring your Grief through the Creative Journal at the Grief and the Arts Workshop. No art experience needed. You simply come with an open mind and a desire to explore your grief creatively. I will be mixing creative prompts with journaling in my session. This is held Saturday, January 22, 2011, 3:00pm - 6:00pm at the Newark Arts Alliance, 276 East Main Street, Newark, DE 19711

It will be an afternoon of making and sharing art, both visual and literary. All who have been impacted by the death of a baby at any time during pregnancy or infancy are welcome. Participants will choose among several guided workshop sessions and get to take their creations home. There will be four workshops--two running concurrently. The other workshop leaders are authors and artists Janel Atlas, Nina Bennett, Angie Yingst, and Stephanie Paige Cole

Pre-register by January 12 and pay just $12, or pay $15 at the door; tickets cover materials and light refreshments. To register, e-mail Janelatlas@gmail.com or call 302.737.6088

2010 Wrap-up

It's easy for me to write rather than feel. I realize that

I have been taking stock of the last year and what ha

2010: WHAT A YEAR! 

I have no idea how to start this post really. I am all about reflection. That is all I do, reflect. When you cease action, you become the equal and opposite reaction of inaction, which is not action. Is that reflection? I don't know. I ponder my navel daily. On a bunch of blogs. In art. In writing. In status updates. Ironic really. I remember a time when I was younger when I just didn't really say no to an experience. I chalked it up to experience/writing fodder. I thought I would write when I get old and could no longer do.

*ahem*

Yeah. Then my daughter died. And I sat and wrote it. I sat and reflected it. I wrote the same thing again and again. I aged thirty years in the moment when I found out she was dead. I became an adult. A woman. A mother. The old crone. La Llorona. A writer. In the truest sense of the word, it was not part of me. The me that thinks. It was not conscious. I had a secondary birth of this writer.

I feel compelled to write now about this past year.  Last year at this same exact time, my last two friends were in the process of leaving our friendship. I mean the last two friends I wrote to, or had mostly regular contact with. I have friends from before Lucy's death. Well, two. Lots of Facebook friends, which is different, but no less important. When the last two friends left, I had to say. " I can no longer think that everyone abandoning me is about them--their personality defects. This is definitely about my personality defects." I guess me point is that at this exact point last year, I was at my grief bottom. No before-daughter-death friends left. Full of fear and anxiety. I vowed to focus on doing art and writing and surrounding myself with light and love.

My dear friend Jess tolerates my rants quite brilliantly. She reflects back. She listens. I was so upset in November about receiving a rather unpleasant email from a still life 365 person, making me feel unappreciated. I could go on and on about it, especially as the same person ended this year with rather unpleasant unpleasantness, but I won't. Anyway, Jess was wonderful about listening and wrote this:

I wonder if I can ask you to do something as a little experiment? If you're up for it, write a school report for yourself about this past year. What you've achieved, how you've behaved, what you did well and what you struggled with. Write it in the 3rd person, as in 'We are delighted with Angie's progress this year...' And after that give yourself some grades in whatever you like, but I would include a grade for effort somewhere in there.

I wrote the darkest, deepest, musty caves of my brain, the ones that say I fail at things, and I am not doing enough for anyone, and that I have failed everyone, including myself. But the truth is that is a fucking lie. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times: Grief, Depression and Anger are fucking liars. They are like the Triumvirate of Liars.  Or the Axis of Lying Evils. And so, I think for my own sake, I need to make a list of the goals I set and accomplished for the year. Not in third person, or with grades, but it is a great idea. I'm so sad and down. This seems important.

Lose weight after the baby was born.
I lost 45 pounds. YES THE SAME 45 POUNDS AS BEFORE, but still, we are counting accomplishments. I am stymied on weight loss and frustrated beyond frustration, but whatever, maybe today I can just bask in the forty five pounds lost rather than the forty five pounds to go.

Publish a piece of art or poetry, craft or music, by a grieving parent or loved one, every day of the year.
I actually did that. On the blog still life 365. I actually worked every day come surgery, hell, new baby or high water. And I did it, mostly, while smiling. Hundreds of hours surrounded by art.

Get published.
Why, an essay I wrote came out in a book called They Were Still Born. You can order it and write a review if you are so inclined.


Be Creative Every Day.
I did something arty or writey every fucking day, son. Here is the blog that shows a pathetically small piece of that year.


Write a Novel in a Month.
What?! A novel in a month. Call me crazy. Crazy like a fox. I will post a snippet, I promise.Maybe on my birthday?


Make a painting every day for November for Art Every Day Month.
I even made a book and movie out of that project.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Be a good mother and wife.
I did my best, but I have pretty amazing children who laugh more than cry. Here is a picture of them wrestling on my bed with a cell phone (don't judge.)

Participate and complete the Sketchbook Project.
I also made a movie of that too.




Be kind and sometimes extraordinary.

I kind of feel like I am forgetting something...oh, right, I had a baby. My husband had surgery. My daughter somehow learned how to say please and thank you and write her name and remember the words to the Earth is Our Mother. I also read about a gazillion books, dressed up like Frida Kahlo, read out loud in front of people, cook a meal everyday and cried buckets of tears. Next year, my only goal is to be more loving towards myself and forgive my body.

Happy New Year, my dear beloved friends. You have made me a better person. Thank you.