booknboob.com Blog

I’m sitting in the garage.  A room that my husband converted into kind of a family play space. I am sitting here trying to escape the noise so that I can write about the silence.

Ah, the silence.

My boys are in the tub.  My sister is at work.  My brother-in-law and their two dogs are in the room that used to be our reading room and is now their bedroom.  The TV is off.  The radio too.  But still, I feel stifled.  I feel like there is no space to crawl into.  No space big enough to allow me to open up to myself.  To sing.

Laaaaaaaaa.

At one point, in the history of this blog, I wrote about the ways in which silence was chocolate.  The ways in which silence provided the space for a voice to carry its own tune.

But, alas, there are two types of silence.  The silence that pulls the throat open allowing it to sing and the kind that cuts the windpipe short like kudzu around the weak trunk of a uncertain tree.

It is this deadly silence that has been plaguing me.

That’s as far as I got before hearing the clamor of footsteps outside of the garage door and being summoned to help dry off our little beast.  We have no schedule for our passions around here and no space to experience them anyhow.   Even now, with no one home, I am stifled by dishes that need washing and clothes that need folding.  Before exiting the garage the other night, the night that I started this post, I scratched down on a piece of scrap paper:

Writing is frivolous.

It seems that the two silences needed for creativity are at war with each other in my life.  There is the silence that engulfs me.  The silence that keeps watering my ideas down to nothing but jibberish and a feeling of empty sadness.  Then there is the silence that is lacking.  The silence that fails to envelope me in its calm quietness.

I am having a serious problem with my creative cholesterol.  The good is markedly low and the bad is clogging the life out of my veins.

What is a passionate woman to do?

I guess do what I am doing right now.  Steal bits and pieces of silence when they occur– ignoring the dishes and the laundry and the noise and the telephone– and force out the silence in your mind by just writing anyway. Even if it’s no good, even if nothing is urging you to do so, even if you can hardly stand it.

Then congratulate yourself.

So, pat on my back.  I did it again.  And each time it will get easier.  (I hope.)

I was listening to Fresh Air this afternoon.  An episode in which Terry Gross was interviewing late-in-life lesbian and comedian Carol Leifer.  (If you don’t know who Carol Leifer is, don’t feel bad, I didn’t either.  Perhaps I’m out of touch.)  And, I hate how I just prefaced Carol’s name by stating that she was a “late-in-life lesbian” but that’s what half the program was about.  Need I be ashamed?

Anyhow, this Ms. Leifer and her partner Lori, decided to become late-in-life mamas by adopting a little boy named Bruno.

I could go into the whole ain’t it neat that late-in-life women still have the opportunity to become mamas (as Leifer did) or into the whole this is a two-mama family raising a little boy thing (which Leifer did not).

But, I won’t.

I won’t because something more personal, maybe more profound, spoke to me about this conversation.  Leifer became, against all odds, a mama at 50.  And she commented that she is a better mama at 52 than she could have been at 22, 32, 42.  She explained how her place in life is so much more settled, more quiet, less go-go-go.  How now, as a 52 year old she is able to just slow-down, relax, and enjoy her son.

Hmm.

Now I’m kind-of wishing that my uterus would hang tough for another 20 years and allow me this revelation.

(more…)

I only have a brief moment.  I’ve started to really hit the books/computer hard as a National Board candidate.  So, you may be seeing even less of me.  (No, no, don’t cry.  Please.   Stop.  I mean it.)

I still haven’t had time to complete my muffin top extravaganza.  But, it’s coming.

Oh, yes, it is.

Instead, I’ve continued to be plagued by guilt about Silas and the whole hospital ordeal.  It just seems like a really sick, ugly shame that I had this major family disconnect at the same time that Silas was so ill.   Of course, it wasn’t intentional.  But, you know, the whole road to hell and all that.

Still, and I don’t know if I can put what I was going through into words (or if I even want to put it into words), I’ve learned from that bitter lapse of familial bliss.

(If you’ve been reading you might be noting that “familial bliss” might be a poetic stretch of the imagination.  But, still.  You know what I mean.)

Anyhow, I don’t know if it was seeing my boy so sick or if it was my mom coming to relieve the stress or the fact that I’ve been regularly taking my medicine, but I’ve been through a major change.

I’ve been able to relax and enjoy!

And, with a two-year-old that’s just vital.

I’m not going to go into all the cute little things that I’ve watched Silas do lately.  About how particular he is and how he throws his head back when he laughs.  Honestly, all the wonderful is pretty much summed up in the picture.  (Yes, I finally broke down and posted a cute picture of my son.  Does that mean I’ve turned all warm and fuzzy?  Still, can you even try to resist that smile?!?)

So, I guess the good part of fucking up– as long as no one was seriously hurt along the way– is– yes, I’m going to be totally cliche and am going to try to use at least one more set of hyphens– is– okay, I don’t really have anything to add but the hyphens– is that you can, indeed, learn from your mistakes.

I’m sure I’m not the first parent who was overdoing it at work, was feeling stressed at home, and who decided to put the blinders on in a desperate act of self-preservation.

The good thing is, I’ve re-prioritized.

So yeah, that’s why I haven’t been here.  It’s not because I’m reading trash novels (well, I am) or because I’m watching trash T.V. (no, I’m really not– unless you count Thomas as trash) or because I haven’t a thing to say.

I haven’t been here because I’ve been playing with my boy.  (Well, and I’ve been working on my Nat’l Boards while he sleeps.)

Anyhow, may you live each day like it’s 1999.  Or, whatever.

Love the one your with.

~Em

So, it’s 9:30.  I’ve got a whiny son with a temperature and a whiny husband with a cough.  My house is beyond looking like vagrants live in it.   (I’m not being cute here people.)  And, I have a stack of papers to grade up to my knee.  (Still not being cute.)

Worst thing: I’m annoying myself terribly.  (And, I don’t know how to use punctuation!!!)

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It was inevitable.   And, don’t think I hadn’t thought of it.  I know that the name of my blog has the word “boob” in it.  At the time, the time when I was actually reading books (book) while (n’) a child sucked milk from my breast (boob), it seemed like a cool idea.  I still think it would make a smart t-shirt.  (I’ve already picked out the design.)  And, despite the potential porn-seakers, I guess I really don’t want to change.  

But, of course, today marks the day when a smart-aleck blogger– Mike the Bull of all people– decided that I didn’t have enough boob to live up to the name.  (Visit him at http://www.mikethebull.com/ And, yes, he writes about dog balls.)

So, why the hell not???  Let’s dedicate the next few minutes to, well, boobies.

(In case you were wondering, that is my under-wire popping out.  Just like it was–unbeknownst to me– as I talked to my principal this afternoon.)

So, yes, today, ironically, the day that book n’ boob was finally called out for it’s lack of boob (and sadly, I must say, book as well), my own little fun bags tried to break free.

In an environment where melons, speed bumps and hooters are on the very constant forefront of the minds of at least 1/2-2/3 of the population (I’m a middle school teacher), it is not, in any way advantageous to have one’s ta-tas on display.  At least not if you’re trying to be a professional.

I was thankful, however, that no one asked me about the large, round metal instrument that was protruding from my cleavage.  Maybe they didn’t notice…

Anyhow.

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This is the second night that I’ve come home to the boys already nestled, all snug in the bed.

Hoo-yah!

Before you think that I’m some sort-of partyholic, I should say that this late night homecoming is not my regular deal.  I had an improv performance last night– it went very well thank you– and I attended a local play this evening.  And while I enjoyed being out doing the artsy thing, I think the homecoming was even more riveting.

Because the homecoming involved the silence and the silence is chocolate.

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I’m just coming off of a seven hour cleaning high.  And, ahhhh, I needed that.  I’m only working 1/2 days now and Silas took an extra long nap and somehow I got my momentum going and then Bam! for the first time in, uh, six months, I feel like I have a home again!  Teaching full time and parenting full time is no easy task.  Tack on a giant remodeling project that you did not consent to and it’s, well, hell actually.

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Last night, I dreamed about dating Stephen Colbert.   It was sexy in a very farcical kind-of way.  I was disappointed that we didn’t make love.

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About a month ago, I spent a good 24 hours detoxing in the most primitive of ways: vomiting every last nutritive (and non-nutritive) fiber stored, however temporarily, in my upper digestive system while simultaneously (well almost simultaneously praise the lord!) urinating out my behind.

It was a lovely, lonely, humbling experience.

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It’s official.  I plopped my kid in front of the TV so that I could actually get something done around here.  (Ironic after I just wrote a post about the demented self-created world that I inhabit in which chores and false responsibilities take precedence over my family.)

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