THPR January Challenge 1

Describe your current season of life. What do you appreciate about it? What makes it different from other times in your life? I am no longer young, but not yet old. The boys don’t take every scrap of energy and attention like they used to – parenting is a much lower pressure exercise these days. I love the ages they are now, they are so fun. The other day I was dropping Jack at a friend’s house but he was waiting for the friend to get home before leaving he car, so we sat in the dark and he played songs by artists new to me – Ice Spice (“she’s a ‘freak’ mom, do you know what that is?”), The Kid Laroi, Kali Uchis. Just sitting in the dark, not really talking and not really needing to, listening to music. Liam, who had a fairly difficult 7th grade year and so far is having a miles-better 8th grade year, is really getting into cooking. Having a cooking buddy makes the process of dinner prep so much nicer, and he’s an eager student as I teach him some basics (like the smoke point of different cooking oils, how to draw the bitter liquid out of an eggplant, some basic knife techniques). And Craiggy boy – we had his little friend Jonah over to spend the night earlier this weekend and they were so cute. Their delight was so pure. They got into sleeping bags and had a “John Cena worm fight” (I don’t know); watched The Jungle Cruise movie shirtless for some reason; made surprisingly sophisticated meal requests (poached eggs with Cholula hot sauce; Jonah inquired into exactly what seasonings I used in my mashed potatoes). We are at the time now where we breathe deeply of the three of them, riotous boys tumbling around our house like pinballs in the machine. We are counting down the years.

Now that I am forever with child

by: Audrey Lorde (with apologies, as I have changed the pronouns to reflect sons instead of daughters)

How the days went
While you were blooming within me
I remember each upon each —
The swelling changed planes of my body —
And how you first fluttered, then jumped
And I thought it was my heart.

How the days wound down
And the turning of winter
I recall, with you growing heavy
Against the wind. I thought
Now his hands
Are formed, and his hair
Has started to curl
Now his teeth are done
Now he sneezes.
Then the seed opened
I bore you one morning just before spring —
My head rang like a fiery piston
My legs were towers between which
A new world was passing.

Since then
I can only distinguish
One thread within running hours
You . . . flowing through selves
Toward you.