...and I haven't had one in a while, where I look around and think, "So many stories to tell!" And feel my heart contract as if I'm fleeing some predator, something faster than me, and I know I'll lose to it because all of us do, and there will be untold stories and paintings unfinished and things in my heart I won't have given away.

Quick! something in me breathes, all that is dearest to you... let it go! Give it away, give it now, while you still can!

And I whisper back, Working on it...


Stardancer Home.

Tags: life
Current Mood: frozen
Current Music: Assemblage 23 - Decades

Detaching from the need to be "successful" in some measurable way as a writer has taken me the better part of a decade, and to get to that place the universe basically had to shatter all my illusions.

So, with only a few pangs, like memories of who I was, I find myself trying to explain to all of you why I don't feel any urgency about selling my book...


...and then a day later, I hit 50 copies sold.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or shake my head... so instead I'll do the one thing I know I feel: say thank you, thank you, most deeply. Of all the blessings my writing and art have brought me, the most durable and the most astounding has been the opportunity to interact with so many wonderful people: all of you.

And I will go buy the chocolate, for sooth, and photograph it for both our enjoyments. :)


Stardancer Home.

Tags: books, life, writing
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: some Celtic guitar thingy

For as long as I can remember, I've been able to dream myself out of nightmares. My subconscious and I... we have a pact. I pay attention when it speaks and in turn it declines to press the point once it's made.

But now... now I have nightmares I can't wake from.

A couple of months after the baby was born I put her in the baby carrier, nestled against my chest with her face resting on my collarbone, and went to the chocolate shop. The curb leading up to the door is very steep. I misjudged it. Completely.

For the first time in my adult life, I fell. Not just tripped. Fell. Both of my feet left the ground.

There was no time to acknowledge there was nothing I could do. A two-month-old baby landing on a concrete edge with 140 pounds on top of her was not going to survive, and it didn't matter that I didn't have time to brake my fall.

We stopped.

I was on my knees. My right palm was flat against the ground. My left was wrapped around her, cradling her head... which was less than a foot from the ground, the length of my bent arm. She didn't even blink. When I looked down at her she was staring at the world with mild curiosity, unperturbed.

And I, I shoved myself upright, stepped up onto the curb and walked into the chocolate shop. I shook while I drank, and the heat of the chocolate scalded my scraped palm through the paper cup. I could feel the bruises spreading on my knees.

Once upon a time, I'd thought vanity would be enough to spur me to exercise regularly. It was... for a while. But it never kept me at it, day after day. Running until my ribs feel like curved knives. Lunging with sword, point-out, my legs burning and arm trembling from exhaustion. Biking uphill, pollen stinging my eyes.

When vanity wasn't enough, I thought it was over. The only thing that could possibly motivate me, I thought then, was the romance of a cause. But what cause could possibly obtain, in a modern world? I was never like to be the heroine of any story.

More fool I.

To be quick enough to dive for her. To be strong enough to hold her. To be fast enough to race her. All my nightmares are of her coming to harm. I know inevitably she will. But if it is in me to prevent it, I don't want my body stopping me.

So I run for her. And as my heart expands and I feel the love of those around me, I run for them. For all of the people I have failed to understand need me. Need me to be strong. To be healthy. To live and laugh alongside them for as many years as my heart will beat.

I don't think the mother's nightmares will ever go away... but then, my duty won't either. So I no longer try to dream my way free of them. The point has to be made, again and again and again. When I wake I lean forward and rest my brow on my arm, and then I renew my resolve.

Live now. Pay attention. Grow strong.

Grow strong.

Tags: health, life, mom in spots, philosophy
Current Mood: quiet
Current Music: Gabriel & Dresden - Dangerous Power

age and changing roles
ablate the inessentials
...yet some things abide

Stardancer Home.

Tags: haiku, life, mom in spots, photos, poetry
Current Mood: tired

Unless she's totally exhausted or very hungry, Wigglet will smile at everyone. And if they smile back, she will smile harder, wiggle and sometimes giggle. Thus, one of my favorite things to do now when I have the energy is to toss her in the car and go... somewhere. Anywhere. As long as there's people. I will hang her in her baby-carrier facing outward and wander around, and she'll look at people and beam at them and they'll light up like lamps.

I've only run into one or two people so far who can't smile at a baby who's smiling at them. I'm sure these are the same people who are grinches at Christmas.

Sunday the baby turned six months old; Monday I took her to the doctor for her check-up and her first shots (she's fine). While I was there waiting for them to come back with the immunizations, I bounced her on my knees and thought, "Wow, I've been a mother for half a year... when did that happen?"

Because I don't feel any different. I caught a glimpse of my silhouette in a darkened store window walking back to the car a couple weeks ago, and I don't look any different either. I'm still within the same 30-pound range I've been all my adult life. I've had silver hair since I was 16. I've basically dressed in t-shirts and jeans for years.

hyanan tells me being a mother has made me change for the better. I've certainly learned a great deal, very very quickly. And all those things they say about the smile of a child and the laughter of children and the trust of your sons and daughters... all that's true. I don't need to tell you again. If you're a parent you know it already; if you're not, you won't get it. I certainly didn't.

But what no one told me, and what I find interesting most of all, is that children teach you that you're not the center of the world. I love taking the baby out and watching her make people smile and knowing that I'm not the one who made them happy. I'm not the most important person in the world. I'm not the only person in the world. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be "on" all the time.

Sometimes, things really aren't about you. At all. And... that's a relief. Part of the peace of letting go and knowing one day you, too will be dust... is understanding that. You can know it intellectually, but nothing teaches your heart that lesson like being a parent.

Now if only I could get some sleep around here....


Stardancer Home.

Tags: life, mom in spots
Current Mood: quiet

"Okay," I say. "More practice talking!"

The baby watches me from the swing, intent, leaning forward.

"Baby," I say. "Mommy. Daddy. Doggie!"

She grins. I grin back. "Again?" A giggle. "Baby-Mommy-Daddy-Doggie!" And then I say, "Let's sing that, okay?" So I sing it to her while she listens, eager. And then, when I get to the end, I go backwards. Doggie, Daddy, Mommy, Baby.

"Why don't we do the family?" I tell her, and she waves her arms. I sing again, spiralling outward in order of how often she sees them. "Baby, Mommy, Daddy, Doggie, Grandma, Mota, Papo, Papi!" And then backwards again, ravelling the family back to the heart. Twice more I do this.

Then I say, "How about the extended family?" And then I begin again. Her immediate family, her grandparents, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins. And then backwards again.

I realize: I am not the last person in the chain anymore. As I sing the generations, I see all the people who came before her, some already gone to dust; I wonder at all the people who will come after her. And I pray, I pray there will be more so she can sit in front of them and string the men and women on the chain like pearls, one after another, so she can see herself in context, one more generation between the past and tomorrow...

...just like me...

I am crying as I sing and I don't remember when I started.

"Doggie. Daddy." I pick her up. "Mommy." She laughs and touches my salt-wet mouth. "Baby."


Stardancer Home.

Tags: life, mom in spots
Current Mood: ...

This morning, I was holding a print of "Ghost" in my hands and cackling because it looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade gallery.

And then I realized... it looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade gallery. Not in the "it's a colorful painting of a cottage with pink and blue lighting" sense. In the high fidelity "will last longer than the person who buys it" archival "hang it in a museum/gallery" sense.

And then my head exploded.

The long-term fans who watch trends will have noticed that I used to do a lot of marketing of my prints. I went to conventions, had a nice separate website for them, had sales, did matting, had quasi-limited editions, did the whole online auction thing. And then... I stopped talking so much about it, until these days, if you know I have prints for sale it's probably because I've mentioned it in a desultory, "I'm having a sale!" way, once a year.

There's a reason for that: setting up to do fine art reproduction is time-consuming and costly, and spending several hours to make $10 wasn't at all compelling. What can you buy with $10 today? You'd be lucky if that got you lunch at a cheap restaurant.

And that was when my time was cheap. You know, in college? I had no idea how free I was. I could spend time like air. Then I got a job, but even then I was free. Working full-time I still could goof off and play World of Warcraft a couple of hours a night while still writing a novel a year and painting two or three things a month.

Now... I steal time from every available corner, in one or two minute increments. I'm doing it now to write this, while eating and keeping an eye on the baby. I can't game if I still want to draw. I can't read if I still want to write. Right now, every moment is precious, because when I collapse around 10 PM, I'm done. There's no more work in me.

And I think about how my father quietly told me once, "We wanted to make sure both of you had a college education and a servicable car before you left home," and I know my minimum standards for my daughter aren't going to be any cheaper.


So I look at this thing in my hands then and wonder, "What am I thinking? Look at this thing! Look at how much time it takes me to paint, scan, color-correct, test-print and print it! I need to drive somewhere to buy the paper. I need to drive somewhere to mail it. How many hours of my life does this represent when I literally count my free time in minutes now?"

--ten minutes, quick, paint a couple more lines--five minutes, quick, edit one of the Admonishments, one minute, quick, jot down some notes or a thumbnail for the next project--

Pricing my art used to be part ego, part philosophy and all abstractions. But now... now it's precious. Every minute I spend on it. My life has changed. If I'm going to do this... I can't low-ball it for fun anymore. Not because I don't want to. But because I literally can't afford to.


Stardancer Home.

Tags: art, life, marketing, mom in spots, news, technology
Current Mood: !

The baby is sleeping, so I'm drowsing in bed next to the baby monitor... pondering whether I have enough energy to get up or if I should just lie here until she wakes. Leaning in favor of 'just lying here.'

And then the baby monitor lights up.

"....aaaaarrooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

I stare at it, wide-eyed. What-the-heck-barbecue--

"...RROOOOOooOOOOOOOO!" Pause for breath. "Awp-awp-aaahROOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

And then I remember when I left the dog was sleeping next to the baby's crib. She's definitely not sleeping anymore! Talk about sounds you don't expect to come out of a baby monitor...

Definitely time to get out of bed!


Stardancer Home.

Tags: humor, life, mom in spots
Current Mood: amused

I am tense, mask under one arm. "Forgive me," I say, quiet but without hedging. "It's been over a year. I have forgotten all that I know."

"Let us see," he says. We salute one another and then he says, "Let's start with a simple exercise. En garde. Keep your distance, now."

And then--

--I remember. Everything I thought I'd forgotten. How to stand. How to move. How far away I have to be for a lunge to succeed. How to parry. All my fancy disengages. I even remember obscure rules--"That wasn't my point, was it." "No... you're right. I attacked first and you didn't parry."

But there are things I'd forgotten--

--the smell of sweat and steel and nylon. The way five minutes of this has me working harder than twenty minutes of jogging. How good it feels to make no excuses for aggression or cunning. How much you laugh when you fail... how much you crow when you score the unexpected point.

An hour later, I am ready for another hour. For another two hours. I am perched on the concrete ledge just off the strip, sucking down a bottle of water and panting like a wolf in the summer sun, watching other people assemble for the group practice I can't stay for tonight... and I feel at home... as if I'd never left. I never want to leave.

There is exhiliration in running. Solitude has its pleasures, and you should know who you are when no one's around. But it's nothing to this. This is a fierceness of joy I wish I'd known about as a teenage girl, when I misspent my youth's most resilient years hiding in dark libraries, thinking that flesh was a cage I had to rise above in order to reach more spiritual aims. How I wish I could go back and tell myself that you can't rise above your body by ignoring it. Like a crack in a dam, the longer you neglect the flesh the more power it has over you, until at last it is your master and you drown in the tide of its demands.

"Are you staying?" one of the other fencers asks.

"Not tonight. Next time, though," I say. And grin. "You'll have to be nice to me, though. I just got back from being pregnant. Hey, coach!"

"Yes?"

My eyes have caught on their uniforms. "Do I get a patch now? I have my own gear."

"Ah! Of course." He hands it to me. "You didn't forget so much as you thought, eh?"

"No!" I say. "No."

"It's hard to forget these things," he says. "The body remembers. And of course, it helps when you have an excellent teacher!"

I laugh. One foot behind the other, plié into a curtsey, hands folded over the grip of the foil I hold against my chest. "It is the truth." I straighten. "I will see you Saturday."

"Very good."

Once I get home I assemble all the necessary tools and sit, light gleaming on the needle as I stitch. Fleetingly I think of getting this done by a professional seamstress, because it's no small work to sew a patch onto the arm of a jacket... but only fleetingly. I will do it myself as a commitment, written in cloth, sealed in steel. I will not be that girl again.

As I work, I sing.


Stardancer Home.

Tags: fencing, health, life
Current Mood: fierce

"You need help?" hyanan calls from the kitchen.

"No," I say around the nail in my mouth, "I'm good now that I'm on the dresser. Let's just hope it's weight-bearing."

"You're fine," she calls back.

I pound the nail in for the carousel picture that christoff bought from hbruton for the baby and hang it, arching back just a touch to make sure it's straight. Ow, I think absently, and even more absently as the massage therapist part of my brain engages, Wow, my QLs hate me. Wincing, I clamber down off the dresser.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," I say, sensing the lack of resilience in my knees and ankles. As I walk onto the tile, the ache communicates up into my hip joints. I sigh. "I'm not as limber as I was a year ago."

"It'll come back," hyanan says, bouncing the baby. And then, eyeing me, "When was the last time you had a bath?"

"Um...."

"You need a bath," hyanan declares. To the baby, "A bath! A bath! Mommy is stinky, she needs a bath!"

"Hey!"

"I believe in the power of baths!" hyanan declares.

"Do you have a bathtub?" I ask her.

"Yes!"

"Well, then," I say. "Tomorrow I will take a bath at your place."

"It has jets," she says, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Even better."



Stardancer Home.

Tags: art, life, mom in spots
Current Location: nursery
Current Mood: apparently stinky