2011 - Talk Birth

learns to accept hers. The way you model the distribution of chores in the household provides a
blueprint for your children’s marriages. Bringing consciousness and awareness to the small acts
of your life with your family can change the world. Your mothering is enough.
...As mothers, we think that our concerns are the concerns of the many. We have to make
sure that they are. As mothers, we hope that our children are protected by society. We have to
act when they are not. As mothers, we have authoritative knowledge about our own experience,
an experience we have in common with millions of women. We can build a more just society on
the ground of this common experience.
1. http://www.facebook.com/PortraitsAndPaws
2. http://www.normalfed.com/
3. http://www.mothering.com/a-lantern-for-lorri
A Writer’s Prayer (2011-11-13 12:40)
I often use my blog as as a means of saving thoughts and ideas for ”later” or for storing the ideas of other
people for future reference or reflection. Sometimes I feel like it is silly to do this–why write a blog post
that primarily consists of quotes that I want to remember or use in the future? Why not just trust that
I can eventually go back to that book or article and re-find the good stuff then? I’ve often chided myself
about it–don’t use your blog to ”store” stuff, use it for original ideas. Quit writing short little posts and
work on your books instead. And, more cruelly, don’t bother, no one cares. However, I’ve also realized that
I don’t have the space in my life right now for the sustained concentration it would require for me to write
my books. I have ideas for four of them. My miscarriage memoir is almost finished and I do plan to publish
it this year, but the others are not and I’ve accepted that they won’t be likely to get any of my attention
until my kids are older. I can barely find the time to write any articles lately, let alone books. But, then I
realized that in a way, when I collect words and thoughts in my blog–whether just transcribed words from
something that caught my attention, or fresh words of my own–I am working on my books. I’m preserving,
collecting, storing, and refining ideas, words, memories, and thoughts, so that I will have a rich collection to
mine when I’m ready to fully develop it. I might dismiss it as ”just blogging” and some posts might just be
short quotes from other writers, but I think there is good value to me in this collecting process after all.
From the anthology Sisters Singing, here is a quote from a longer poem called, A Writer’s Prayer, by
Sarah Jones:
352
...The body of a writer
is a political action
with each swing of a letter
each truth written
the world is broken open,
a vein of truth exposed.
A writer’s prayer is for herself.
That she will hold to slowness
that she will hold to the beauty of a candle
that with the dirt and the grit of living under her nails,
she will write her body into language.