the yard

The rain stopped and Ben, in his pyjamas, was curled up with Curious George and a Rice Krispie square and so I put on my boots and went to see what's waking up around this still-unknown house: quince.

Apples.

Little moss-stalks.

Something that looks like grass but isn't. It's soft, and waxy, and all in a clump. It's greener than green. I keep wondering what's going to peek up from its middle.

Pie.

There's fairies at the creek, not rainbow-sparkles-glitters ones but muddy ones, the ones who make space under the deadfall and come out at night to scold the crows. I give this a ting-ting-tingle, like we always do, and I whisper. But not too loud. They're sleeping.

A recent Dark Rye assignment teaches me that dandelions are salad. There's lots.

Hosta, the most obliging.

Imminent scraping-cramp.

Back inside misty and flushed and nibbled by blackflies and he's still there curled up, just so curly and warm, and I pry one boot off and then the next, and I pat across the floor to him and say Right here, right on my smacker! And he puckers, and we smooch, and he smiles big and wipes his face on his sleeve, and so do I. And I put the kettle on thinking loppers; seed; rake; saw; pastry.

the blue mood sponsors reverie

     

He is hours from five years old, the eve of meeting him and his twin. The anniversary of the last day I was that person. That echo of the upset mews of a two-pound boy in a plastic box—the good, healthy upset, a sustaining little fire.

What's this mean?

I squeeze—squeeze—squeeze his hand. He smiles.

I—love—you!

Yes, baby, my always-baby. He runs, clip-clop, and I chase, always.

biting the hand

Please remove me from all lists for all campaigns and clients.

Please remove me from all lists for all campaigns and clients.

Please remove me from all lists for all campaigns and clients.

Please lift your lip up over your head and swallow.

Please, just please, leave me alone. I don't give a shit about Macy's ShoeSanity! Campaign, or fighting for womens' pelvic health, or the Thank-A-Mom movement sponsored by Nabisco, or your 'Mommy Getaway' sweepstakes. I don't give a shit now and I won't next week. Not even if you offer me a new pair of slippers will I give a shit, and neither will my readers. Leave me alone and never email me again. I don't care if you're NBC, ABC, or PETA. When you email me wanting me to help you sell something—products or ideas—you suck.

The Babble thing was nice, but I'm going to need to change my email, shut down my website, and renounce my citizenship in order to get away from this unending barrage of people who think, because Babble called it, that I'm influential in a way that could sell the Swiffer Wetjet. This is not some backhanded self-congratulatory thing like <squeaky> Ooooh all these pesky awards, look at my inbox and all the hundreds of unread messages from all these unknown powersuits who want a piece of me! Ooooh this pesky popularity! because the truth is, I'm not influential, I'm not popular, and whenever a public relations person knocks on my door, I grind them into a corse porridge and stew them up with butter, cream, and figs.

That's with a public relations degree. That I have. That's mine. I know. That was a long time ago. I was tipsy.

I'm not trying to position myself as too radical for corporatization, or too 'authentic' (I loathe that word). I just think that 95% of modern marketing is uninventive, manipulative, predictable slosh that's a pox on our culture, and especially on the internet. I don't want to be a part of it. 

That's with fifteen years of experience in Marketing. I'm not just mouthing off, and I'm not talking about you and your blog. I'm just cranky. And whenever I want to feed my crank, here's what I do: I go to Pinterest without logging in.

THERE. ARE. NO. WORDS. CRYING THANK YOU!!

ANIMAL PRINT!!!

JESUS HIS FOOTPRINTS R FOOTPRINTS! YOUR A BELIEVER TOO ARNT YOU!!

PORK CHOPS!!!

I can't figure out what I want anymore. What's this story, anyway? I'm never going to live blog the unravelling (alright, fine: the restructuring) of my family. I don't feel comfortable saying all that much about my kids. I don't know why. It's been too long since Liam died to continue exploring his absence, because then it feels like I'm trying to reclaim my Bereaved Blogger membership card. Nothing feels acceptable anymore—not even being happy. It hurts, desperately. I'm replaced, thoroughly. I can literally watch them sail away into the sunset from my upstairs window, as they ought to, giving my kids what they love when I'm just here, in this house surrounded by mud and rock. I don't know how to start the mower, if I ever get topsoil and plant grass rather than just shuffling around inside and stopping every now and then to stare out a window and mutter Hmm. That's a lot of mud and rock. I did all this. I dismantled everything. I don't deserve congratulations, understanding, forgiveness, or community. I would lose a bake-off. I don't deserve to put forward my version, my narrative, when there are at least three or four other angles on me, on what I did. I don't know how to reconcile this grief, this new kind of loss, with the old grief, the first loss, and this space. I've got no interest in parent blogging. I come here and stare at a three-week-old stinker and wonder when I'm ever going to have anything to say other than 1) completely abstract, disconnected rambling; 2) non-specific regret; or 3) posts about how my blog is dying, and maybe it should. Then BING! Hi, <firstname>! Hope you're well! We're spring-tastic! First-prize winners will receive their favorite seersucker espadrille wedge pump!

I can't imagine who waits three weeks or a month to read this anymore. The internet offers attention—just a general attentiveness to your state of mind—a nod, a hand on the knee, an ear. But right now, I don't feel like I deserve it. I created this, took everything apart. Being alone and saying very little is my penance. Not soliciting ass-directed sunshine, because I know what that prompts. She's nothing special. Look at what she did. She's not a coper but gosh. She really has a lot to say about herself. They don't know how she really is.

And so I sit here scowling at horrific text art and imagining bleached smiles, cope-worthy sparkliness, and feeling like I've got nothing, at least not outwardly. Then I remember the time of year, the impending date, the grocery bags full of rainbow birthday candles and cellophane and chocolate loonies. But I don't feel compelled to ask for help with it, or to narrate through it. It sucks, and do I, and so does this, and so does Pinterest, and I don't know what to do about any of it.

I don't want to talk about why we blog or why we stop. I don't really care, honestly. I also don't want anyone to interpret this as one of those faint-swooning 'I might quit, I might quit...' posts. It's not. It's just a Tuesday afternoon. So why don't you tell me how you are? Share the worst Pinterest thing you've seen in a while. Or tell me something to snap me out of this. Whatever you like. Just don't try and convince me that PR people aren't delicious. Don't even try.

Audrey II

Sweetness, sustainability. Five easter egg hunts and still one to go. I run ahead and Evan chases me, and keeps going, and I can't keep up, because I'm laughing, and so is he, and I remember the little squeaks he used to make as a newborn, milk-drunk. And Ben wraps himself all sticky-limbed around my neck again, demanding pancakes. The light goes out and I listen to their breaths get slow and sometimes, I'm alright.

Then grappling. I was not a good wife. I was a sad, unreachable wife who sulked for a psychic. I itched around my scar and realized that I can't feel a thing, down deep, underneath it. I wonder what else is numb. That scar gobbled up my marriage and spat it out. Maybe that's what it does. Gobbles up and spits out. My belly is a venus flytrap. Beware, Seymours.

+++

Looking at pictures of my friends, weepy. University, high school, the Outer Banks, all the places between. Scrolling through so many smiles. It makes me want this house packed full of women. Women squashed up against the glass of every window with fistfuls of Lauranne's frozen aero bars and Michelle and her buddies are clearing a space to light stuff on fire, and me and Daphne and Leah are in a corner eating eggs benny and Eve is wearing a yellow dress like the human daffodil she is and Alison is ranting about how I always mix up Tasmania and a whole other country and I try to yell SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE! but my mouth is full. Then me and Daphne and Leah go AUUGGGH GOD and unbutton our pants. And Leigh and Jeanette are all huggy and there are so many others there too, and you, and it's loud. Catherine and Bon deep into it in some corner and they're smoking, jezebels. I wonder what they're talking about. I always do. They're all here, and they're all fucking scarred, and scared, and I need them.