Normally my ancestors’ stories sit just below the surface of everyday life, and the rhetorical whitecaps show you where. For example, when I was pregnant, Rebecca objected to the idea that the baby would use her old high chair. She used to stand on its flat wooden seat to reach the counter and cook, but …
Category Archives: Spirituality
The Space Between Worlds
Several of you asked me how I was doing after Sibyl was born, and here, almost six months later, is an answer. It’s a bunch of things I wrote in the first two months postpartum, all stitched together and edited. It probably has a harsher slant than it would’ve if we’d talked in person, since …
New Here
Rebecca spent much of the week before Sibyl was born having diarrhea and occasionally throwing up. I spent much of the week cleaning up after Rebecca, having a nasty cold, and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have a newborn yet. Then a day and a half before my due date, my cold turned …
Making Up Stories
Rebecca and I make up stories in secret. I hear we’re not the only parents and children who do that, but how would I know? Joining a practice without much personal precedent is an eerie feeling. When you first start, you’re waiting for someone to catch you and tell you you’re doing it wrong, and …
In Process
An addendum to The Two Year Old Thing: A year ago, Rebecca was in her magical communication phase. She wasn’t talking much yet, but she used things around the house to lay out her ideas or convey what she wanted to do. I called it magic because it invoked patterns via imitation and association, following …
Yule
When the nights are longest and you wake up at the watching hour, the way your ancestors did on nights like this, and there’s no way that you’re going back to sleep any time soon and you and your mama are both sick of trying, then it’s time to snuggle in the dark and tell …
Epistemologies
Before anyone gets excited, let me note that this pregnancy ended in a miscarriage a couple months ago. I’m not currently pregnant. “Maybe,” then “probably,” and at that point I joined the April 2012 birth board on BabyCenter. I’d fantasized about the moment I found out I was pregnant again. My face got hot when …
In Lieu of an Actual Post
…I give you the link to a short piece I wrote for my friend Sarah‘s Pagan Families blog.
Just Like Magic (3)
One Monday morning at the end of January, I was standing at the new espresso machine making myself a cappuccino, when Rebecca came up behind me. She was holding a moka pot and a can of shaving cream, and broke into a huge grin when I saw what she had: Coffee with foam! Rebecca enjoyed …
Bargaining With Happiness: The Suck Stops Here
Sometimes I make a bargain with my life: I won’t be happy unless I’m happy with our workload distribution, with my day-to-day opportunities, with how I got here, with my level of control. As if I could only allow myself to be happy when I look out and judge everything good. As if I were …
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