Milk and Bones

Four feet planted firmly in a flowering field
How long we have plowed this field
Seasons sinking towards something sweeter
Air can take the pollen smell away
bring her breath to our ailing ears
Four steely feet feared by tan little girls
Sink away in the muddy rain
Lakewater moss and algae bones
Steel toed feet fade too
Like the bones of a burning barn:
“SAVE THE COWS! SAVE THE COWS”

we are reduced to ashes
we are reduced to dirt
milk, oil, water, wind
what we become
where we come from
In a cold bed I hear nothing
I couldn’t eat my dinner without
a glass of milk to wash away the meat
I’ve grown old, too
My feathers are a silver foggy grey this season

When we were young we found the way to the water
and drank from the lapping lake
When we were young we fought and struggled
forgave like the sun dries a stormy night
the grass was greener
we held on tighter
the storm killed the baby birds
and it was me who burried the bodies

My feet are asleep
With your feet turned to mud
It’s harder to find the lake

on my own in the summer
one without the other
Remember when we were both mothers?

We know the heart of a mother
cries harder than others
at the breaking of rhythm
the pull of a cow-hide collar bruising our milky bones
a body used, a body abused
Empty and exhausted, you can’t win every time
I wear my heart on my sleeve

With your breath in my ears,
I closed my eyes and let you see me clearly
I reached out to touch your heart
like a storm you moved towards me
Naked eyes and naked feet
I was afraid of your pregnant body
opened my eyes in time to see
your face crash into mine
hand to heart, iron feet
Remember when we were both mothers?

B-Star

(photo credit L. D. O'Niell)

And Then I Fed My Child

Why does my child eat so much? Everyone's answer is always "Oh, he's a growing boy," but this is getting absurd. No really. I'll tell you what I did today. It's really boring.

I woke up at 8:30 am which is super late because it means I slept in 2 hours past the usual alarm, and 3 hours after those crazy birds start chirping. L had already fed the boy, but the didn't stop him from looking longingly at the eggs and sausage I made myself. Oh yea. In between waking and sharing my breakfast with him, he ate two bananas, this weird meat stick thing, a gigantic cup of orange juice, and cheese. Then after breakfast I began my weird Saturday morning Domestic Explosion, which usually involves doing all the dishes, taking out the trash, watering the garden, cleaning something that we've avoided cleaning all week (like our clothes), and baking something that most people just buy. Today I made fruit leather AND peanut butter cups. So Bottomless Pit also snacked on left-over apple sauce (fruit leather before it's cooked) and peanut butter. Then I read some Harry Potter, while the boy made himself a snack of banana slices dipped in peanut butter. Then I showered, and we went to the park and had a picnic lunch. I fed him SO MUCH FOOD, even meat! He played for a bit, then ran back to where I was sitting and said, "Do you have any more food?" I gave him a carrot. He looked at me like I had just farted in his face, but he took the carrot anyway and ate it in five seconds. Oh guess what? He was still hungry! You know that Eric Carle book about the Caterpillar? I'm pretty sure my child (or any growing six-year-old) was the inspiration. So then we played lots of hide and seek and I tried to distract his stomach by giving him gum to chew on. On our way to the CVS he said, "Hey Mama, can we get a snack?"

You know that feeling when your kid has the flu but you have to go to the grocery store, or the pharmacy, and you bring your sick pajama-wearing kid along but you are filled with this anxiety that he's gonna puke again in the middle of the store so you go as fast as you can and just hope you stop driving and rush him into the bathroom before he explodes again? I felt that way today, but opposite.

We got home and while I was prepping his dinner he made himself a weird snack of banana and melted cheese-- he does eat food other than bananas, by the way. When I was growing up, if we wandered into the kitchen when my mom was cooking and asked for a snack we were shot a filthy look and told to leave. I tried that for a few years, but gave up a few weeks ago when I realized that he still eats a huge amount of "proper" dinner right after having a weird snack. My mom always said "It will ruin your appetite." God, if only. One time I let him eat an entire bowl of ice cream and brownie BEFORE dinner and he still ate every single vegetable on his plate. Ruined appetite, my ass.

He ate dinner (two mini pizzas and a 2 glasses of a super yummy protein-filled mango smoothie), ate a peanut butter cup for dessert, then went to bed complaining that he's "starving."

No really. That's all I did today. I fed my son for 12 hours, and I read some Harry Potter.

-B

I fell, and now I want to write a lot about it.

Earlier this week I decided that I want to join a roller derby team. Yeah, that’s what I said. Skating super fast, wearing tiny shorts, getting my ass kicked. It’s totally a good idea. Yes, I watched Whip It, and that may have had something to do with it, but also there are other reasons. Like that I miss being on a team and playing a sport, and that I’m super all-the-time mom/wife and it would be nice to do something for me only. And if I’m not going to be a farmer right now, I need to do SOMETHING that thoroughly exhausts my body in that way that makes me feel really alive. You know that scene in Whip It where Ellen Page is on the phone but also icing her knees cause they ALWAYS hurt? Yea, I want that.

The problem with watching movies is that they make hard work look soooooo glamorous. It’s always a musical montage. Rocky made it famous, but Whit It had it too. You see Ellen Page dig her conveniently still-fitting Barbie skates out of the back of her closet. Some amazing song comes on and she’s skating down her empty suburban street. She’s breezing along. She hides behind a tree so her mom won’t see. She skates around effortlessly at her diner job cause her boss apparently says that’s fine. She doesn’t even fall in the whole montage, but if she does it’s really ok, because within minutes, weeks have gone by and she’s really good at skating now.

Well, I fell, cause I live in real-life. There wasn’t even music playing. I bought skates on Wednesday, but then was completely horrified when I put them on at home and discovered that, even though I can ski like a pro, inline skate like any good kid of the 90’s, and ice skate backwards, I actually DON’T KNOW HOW TO ROLLER SKATE! This ruined my plans for a brief but epic training montage. I had thought, “Oh try-outs are in a month? No big deal. I’ll just start going on runs in the morning cause I’m a little out of shape.” I did not factor in learning how to not fall on my ass. So, whoops.

My six-year-old decided to be my coach. I put on the skates last night, plus the elbow, knee, wrist, and head protectors, and found a good long sidewalk. He was running alongside me shouting encouragements and telling me how it’s done. “You just need to grab onto a tree to stop!” I said no to that suggestion, but actually, I didn’t know how to stop without grabbing onto something. I was pretty sure the toe stop thing had something to do with it, but didn’t know how to make it work. My son (who does not own roller skate, by the way, but DOES know everything) explained it to me: “You see the space between the sets of wheels? When you want to stop, you have to pretend there’s a rat under your foot there. Then if you scream ‘RAT!!!!!’ and tip your foot up so that thing (the toes stop) hits the ground, you’ll be able to stop automatically. You have to get away from the rat. That’s how you do it. I actually know about how to stop roller skates. For real.”

I think it’s because sometimes I forget he’s only six, and not forty-five, or maybe because I didn’t have a better idea, but I actually did what he suggested. I was going at a steady speed when I screamed “RAT!!!!,” tipped both my feet up, wobbled like crazy, then fell backward, and landed butt-first on the sidewalk, hard. The impact had this lovely affect of traveling up my spine and shaking my brain so I was feeling the pain mostly in my head, but don’t worry! Today I feel it in my butt. My tiny coach ran over, and practiced his encouragements, “I’m sorry that happened. Let’s try again.” But I just sat there stunned, defeated. He tried a new tactic. He asked gently, “Where does it hurt?” and I answered “My butt,” to which he responded by falling over in a giggle fit, completely ignoring my agony. Oh yea, he’s six.

And that’s the last time I will listen to my 6-year-old and pretend he knows what’s what! (Until tonight, when I get home from work and he tells me that Great White Sharks can actually live in rivers but only when they are really old, like 500 years old, and I believe him cause he’s super cute and very convincing- “No, really! It’s true. My counselor told me!”)

In conclusion, I’ve learned that I am not in a well-shot movie, but would still like to learn how to roller skate really well.

-B.