Harper and I are in the car on a Friday morning under a grey sky that’s sending soft snowflakes like cherry blossoms that flew off the trees’ branches every April in Washington DC. “It’s a pink day!’ Harper proclaimed that morning in her blue dress, her blue shoes with the jaguar print because she loved Diego and Baby Jaguar, and holding her blue “OG” (her pacifier) in one hand, and Bear in the other. Blue was her favorite color, and she never went anywhere without Bear and her OG – usually in her mouth – but that day the cherry blossoms showed her a new color to delight in; something else glorious to see about the world.
Today, we don’t say anything about the snowflakes. I am talking to her about time management, about order and organization; I am telling her she is on her phone too much.
I use the windshield wipers for the first time to swipe the flakes away and Harper slams her head against the headrest.
“It’s always about the phone,” she says.
We are waiting to turn left and the snowflakes are so big I can see their individual designs, and I tell Harper she’s right – I always make this about the phone.
We turn, and I start to ramble. Everything I say is wrong and we are almost to school but I keep talking. I keep saying the wrong things.
We saw “Into the Woods,” the night before and the witch who I guess was also Rapunzel’s mother, she was the one who locked Rapunzel up, she was the one who believed she could love her best and loving her – she thought – meant protecting her from the world. It meant locking her away from it.
Rapunzel ends up dying. She gets trampled by a giant – the wife of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk who Jack slayed. The wife giant – heartbroken – was coming for revenge. Rapunzel got in the way.
I wonder if Harper is thinking about the witch mother like I am now. I wonder if she thinks I sound like her like I do now.
We are in the drop off line at school, and I am trying to think of something else to say besides, “I love you,” and “I’m sorry.” I think these phrases have fallen flat, they’ve lost their meaning, we say them too much. So I say nothing and the snow keeps falling and Harper and I watch a group of boys playing basketball on the court outside of school. The court is iced over, but they keep playing. I can tell this is one of the reasons they want to play – that slipping on the ice while trying to play basketball is actually the best thing to do while waiting for the school bell to ring and tell them it’s time to come inside.
They are slipping and sliding and passing and blocking and shooting and laughing at their attempt to play this game in a new way, and Harper and I start to laugh, too.
“That looks so fun,” I say.
“Yeah,” she laughs. “It does.”
She steps out of the car and thanks me for the ride.
“See you at home,” I tell her, and pull away, wishing that Harper and I had talked about the snow falling instead, and that the witch mother hadn’t been so afraid to let Rapunzel live.
It is the end of summer, in 2007. Hadley is almost a year old, and I am sitting in a friend’s living room with a group of other mothers. We get together once a month for a book club.
One of us, and it’s not me, has a blog. I read it faithfully, and since I’m being honest, I read it with jealousy. I want to do that, too. I am afraid though, so instead of asking her about her blog, I challenge her – “Why would you write about your day? Who even reads it?”
I do not remember her exact words, but I remember the pause before she answered and I remember the sentiment: She said she wrote to make something from her days, and to share it.
That was all it took. The next day, I went to blogspot and set up “Notes from Naptime,” and call it “mommy blogging,” or whatever offensive put down that’s out there, writing about being a mother saved me. It helped me become a better mother. It helped me see I am a good mother. To be able to create something from what I do not know, what I am afraid of, from what makes me sad, or proud, or joyful, or whatever gnarly, nuanced layered part of my day it is has kept me from turning into a witch mother who uses her magic in destructive, manipulating ways, and instead holds that fierce fear until she can turn it into fierce love and set it free.
It is from this perspective and passion that I came up with A Year of Content: A Guided Planning Workshop, a 75 minute Zoom workshop where I will guide writers through brainstorming exercises to explore topics to write on their blogs during 2023. We will do some reading and writing (get ready for poetry), and writers will walk away with a year’s worth of writing topics and a plan to write them, and write them well.
The cost is $35, and upon registration, participants will receive a 27-page workbook for the workshop, and for their planning purposes. There will be three sessions: January 6 at 2pmEST, January 7th at 4pm EST, and January 9th at 7:30pm EST.
I know the pull to write something from my days, and I know the cost if I choose not to. Let 2023 be the year you write it down. Let it be the year you create.
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