Out of the Mess... a Valentine's Collage

The table is transformed.  It's shiny dark wooden surface is completely hidden by a riotous sea of pastels.  Little bits of paper in pinks, purples, and baby blues are strewn about half-hazardly. Torn candy wrappers and half-eaten lapis lazuli lollipops dive under the river of cards. Red hearts, like little shouts of love, punctuate the portrait.

From a distance, glancing at the carnage with an artist's squint, this aftermath of my children's Valentine's Day parties is a thing of beauty.

Putting aside for a second the looming clean up and the sugar coursing through their veins, I simply take in the still life, noting the abstract patterns created by their excitement.

And then I remember how late I stayed up last night with the man who used to be my Valentine, taping 72 chocolate kisses to 72 little cards. Those 72 carefully assembled packages have been ripped into pieces and are now part of similar collages in nearby kitchens tonight.

Just the thought of all those messes is enough to snap me out of my artist's reverie and move back solidly back into mom clean-up mode.

Hope you're as relieved as I am that the pre-Valentine's festivities are now over. Now on to the romantic Valentine's Day celebrations!

This week's (W)Rite of Passage prompt is, as usual, drawn from Bird by Bird. The quote is, "The writer is the person who is standing apart. Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul." 


Join in the fun and add your link below!

Letting Go of the Guilt

I've been trying to let go lately. Not let go of my friends, my life, or my family. Not at all.

I've been trying to let go of the guilt.

I take on guilt like a large sea sponge at the bottom of the ocean takes on water. I soak it up until I'm filled to the brim, and then I try to drink in some more.

I feel guilty when my children are cranky, or hungry, or tired. I berate myself for not anticipating their need, for not being better prepared. I feel guilty when my children tire quickly of their new toys on Christmas morning. I regret spoiling them, not giving them more moral fiber, not having been tougher on them. I feel guilty for not being a better mother.

When a cookie wrapper flies out of my minivan at preschool pickup and the teacher opens the door, I feel guilty for being such a slob. When my husband is tired, I feel guilty for not having nagged him more to go to bed the night before. When he walks through the door and dinner is still a full thirty minutes from being ready, I feel guilty that I am not better organized.

And mostly, I feel guilty about my blogging and my writing. It's not enough that I blog here every day. I should also be journaling more, writing more horrendous rough drafts in my notebooks. I should also be blogging more on my review blog and rejuvenating my abandoned writing blog by beginning to post writing prompts again.

The guilt is crippling. It sends me to bed every night with a heavy heart. Another day gone. Another missed opportunity to complete the ever growing to do list.

But for the last few weeks, I've been trying to let go of the guilt that paints bruised shadows under my eyes every night. I've been resisting the temptation to stay up late trying to complete one more task, and then another task after that. I've been shutting down the computer before midnight and climbing up the stairs focusing on what I did accomplish instead of what remains to be done.

On some nights, the accomplishments don't sound like much. Doing a congo line around the kitchen with all three kids with Taylor Swift blasting. Losing to Bella in the Game of Life and hearing her belly laugh that I named my kid Grover. Reading Purplelicious to Juju with really mean voices for the cool girls who like black. Those actions are intangible and don't get checked off any to do list.

But strangely enough, the more days I have filled with intangible moments of laughter, the easier it is to stave off the heavy guilt. And suddenly guilt-free, or at least working on it, frees me up to really be creative and get my pen flowing during my moments of free time.

Give it a try... let go of the guilt. I dare you.

Once again, Sunday Scribblings and Write of Passage have prompts this week that tie together. On Write of Passage, Mrs. Flinger asked us to write about a post with a clear plot, a point which you are trying to make. And Sunday Scribblings' prompt is message.

The linky below is for Write of Passage, should you want to join in the challenge of putting the focus back on creative writing to the momosphere.

Learning to Eat my Inner Broccoli

Since I moved to Ohio, I've been reveling in my inner broccoli. No, not the little bland green trees that my kids mysteriously love, but that other broccoli, the one that Anne Lamott refers to in Bird by Bird. I've been sitting for hours on end at coffee shops, pen poised above my notebook's blank page, giving free rein to that little voice inside of me.

I've let that voice take control. It used to whisper but now it speaks with authority. It states decisively:

• you're trite.
• you're banal.
• you're boring.
• you're blah.
• you're whiny.
• you're angry.
  
• you have nothing to say.
• you might as well put the pen down and stop fooling yourself. 

When I manage to silence it for a few minutes, I eke out a few paragraphs, fill a page or two in my notebook before reaching for the sweet temptation of Twitter and its finite 140 character escape.

They say that writing is a lonely occupation, that it's just you and the blank page, and six months ago I would have agreed. Back in New Jersey, I spent hours every week filling page after page with memoir and fiction. It just poured out of me effortlessly, leaving me refreshed and elated. But I now realize that what kept me grounded, what kept that inner broccoli at bay was the support of my writing group.

We met every Tuesday at 9:30 to talk and write. We took turns leading the group, challenging each other with different types of writing exercises. And at the end of every meeting, we read aloud for a few minutes. There's something about coming out of the notebook, about hearing my words aloud, seeing others nod, smile, and even tear up because of a story I've written that just fills me up. It gives me the strength to chop down that broccoli, to see the little nuggets of gold buried amongst the drivel.

I've been searching for a writing group here while trying to establish some sort of routine in this new world. I haven't found one yet, but I know I will, when I least expect it. And until I do, I'm going to continue facing my inner demons at the coffee shop until I figure out how to eat my broccoli to silence it.

This week's Writing Well Challenge at Write of Passage was Broccoli.. Today, take a few minutes to be still and quiet. Listen to your inner voice and write what she/he says. That's it. Whatever it is that's in there, let it out.

And that's just what I did. 

The Punk: Write of Passage Writing Well Challenge Week 1

Today's writing well challenge on the Write of Passage group is character. Find someone, anyone, and build two paragraphs around them.

Do you ever see striking people and wonder what their story is? I love to make them up, entertaining my husband and children with them, or sometimes just recording them in my writing notebook.

This writing was inspired by an unlikely trio I stood in line next to at the Columbus airport last week.

Most people only saw his purple mohawk and the angry red pimples covering his cheeks. Then they wrote him off, tightening their grip on their purse and wallet, taking a step away to steer clear of danger. Rhonda saw it every day as she walked with him down the street, and it made her sad to have the world dismiss him so quickly, missing a chance to know such a gifted young man.

She'd seen his potential right away that day she was volunteering at the homeless shelter. She'd looked up to grab another can to stack up on the kitchen shelf and had found herself looking into his kind eyes. She'd assumed they belonged to a grown man, they were so weary, so tired, and she'd been shocked to find that they belonged to a young fifteen year old boy. She'd known right then and there, before she'd heard his sad story from the shelter manager later that morning, that they had been destined to meet that day, and that she was meant to bring him into their lives. It had taken a lot of convincing to get Jim to agree to foster a white punk teenager. He'd asked, "Are you just looking for trouble? But she had been unshakeable and because he was a good man who loved her, he'd finally given in and agreed to have the boy come live with them for a while.

Rhonda wiped an errant tear before Jim or the boy could see. Both were busy observing the planes taking off and landing. They both looked happy and relaxed with each other, laughing and joking. She couldn't believe they were here, about to board a plane to Chicago to bring the boy back to his parents, to finally set his story back on the right path.

Now it's your turn. Find a character, someone at the mall, a red light, the doctor's office, and write about them. 10 minutes. Go.

A Painful Write of Passage: Riding the Bull

I was sitting in my office, getting sucked into my computer's glowing screen instead of going to bed like a good girl, when inspiration knocked via email. It was an invite from my new Ohio friend Momo Fali to join a new Ning Group just started by Mrs. Flinger with the most wonderful mission. The group is Write of Passage and it's mission is to bring us back to the essence of blogging: Writing. Community. Challenge.

This week is just the BETA week with a cringe-worthy prompt, but as I am a little brown noser, I jumped right in. I embedded some code at the bottom of this post that should enable you to post a link to your post with the same topic, but if this doesn't appear, please leave it in the comments so I can pay you a visit. And head on over to the NING group so you can join the fun!

My most embarrassing moment. As Natalie Goldberg would say: "10 minutes. Go."

From the onset, I felt like an interloper. When I walked into the back room of the Korean spa, they greeted me in their white bathrobes, champagne glasses in hand. I waved and nodded at each of them in turn as they told me their names, promptly forget them, and then went to change out of my street clothes.

They were a bunch of high school friends on a Moms Gone Wild Weekend in New York City, and it had taken some serious convincing by my neighbor and best friend to get me to crash their reunion. I'm not sure what finally convinced me: the pleasure of getting to spend an entire day with my friend without having to police our kids, the lure of a massage, or the danger of mechanical bull riding. For whatever reason, I found myself driving into New York City that sunny Saturday morning to join a bunch of inebriated women for a Moms Gone Wild weekend.

The afternoon was uneventful, just your typical, blissful, soothing, pampering massage. It wasn't until we walked into the cheesy saloon, off of Times Square, that things began to get interesting. The bull sat in the middle of the deserted bar, a hulking mechanical beast draped in stained leather. I sat with my gaggle of wild moms at the bar, awaiting the first rodeo victims for a few minutes before boredom set in.

The bull sat, frozen in the spotlight, unused, unloved, untamed.

I thought to myself, "how hard can this be? I used to ride horses, this should be piece of cake."

And so, full of bravado and eager to make the night live up to its promise, I walked up to the bull master and signed the waver form.

Minutes later, I had walked across the deeply padded bull pen and climbed atop the contraption. I was towering above the patrons of the rapidly filling bar and being cheered by tourists wearing cowboy hats. Both of my hands were clutching the pommel of the saddle and I gave the technician the nod to begin. He looked back at me and shouted "one hand!" I raised my left hand high in the air, and with a squeak, the bull began moving.

He was jerky, but gentle at first, spinning me slowly around the room in a rough dance. Every quarter turn he would kick up his rump, like a spastic high schooler at a prom. I managed a few embarrassed smiles at my jeering group of moms before the attendant got bored and flipped the speed to high.

Suddenly the bull went wild, bucking back and forth violently, right and left and up and down. He was spinning around so fast that the crowd was a blur. I could hear their shouts but could make out no one. My riding background was helping me too much and I was maintaining my balance. The bull was now so rough and fast that I was scared and had no idea how I would get off gracefully. I tried shouting, "Stop!" but either the attendant didn't hear me, or just ignored me, because the bull just increased its speed.

I must have looked like a pathetic rag doll, bopping back and forth on the back of that black monster with my snazzy suede jacket and my lipsticked lips. Finally, desperate to get off the stage, I simply let go of the saddle. But instead of falling gracefully to the side, I went over the head of the beast, slamming my wrist on the saddle, before falling head first in front of it. I scrambled away on all fours, sinking into the padding until I made it back to the paddock door.

I wanted to skulk off and forget about my very public dismount, but my new friends were waiting for me. Most had cameras in hand, each filled with pics of my mortifying rodeo.