My middle child, Magdalen, turned three this month. We decided to throw her a nice, big birthday party, the theme of which was: “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright…” You might remember these words from the first line of the famous William Blake poem. Here’s the original which Blake illustrated and printed in his self-published, “Songs of…
These children are not worried about output. There is no pressure for them to make anything, or to have anything to show for what they’ve been doing with their time. But they will. There is something within themselves which they are carefully, instinctively building.
I am slowly beginning to realize that there is still some kind of false choice being proffered here. There is some sort of repulsive-charge between the ‘self-as-artist’ and the ‘self-as-mother’ images I hold simultaneously in my heart. A mother is supposed to be someone who can’t do art. An artist is supposed to be someone…
It was another “medicine walk,” as I call them. These have become indispensable. I’m not able to describe what goes on during my medicine walks in pictures, though as a painter, I sorely wish I could. That’s why I’m stuck with words. Words in English. Words, words, words. Words like worms beneath my feet in…
The bond with one’s own pre-born baby is a bond more basic than fondness. It sits deeper than personality. It is a bond made irrevocably but not yet fully realized. The satisfaction of loving is in knowing the other, but I can’t really know Doloran as I know my living children. And that is perhaps…
Her name is not really “Laurel” but I’ll call her that. She’s a Catholic friend of my midwife who has been an invisible helper to me in various ways since my hospitalization last year. For one thing, it was she who brought Thanksgiving Dinner to my dad and girls while Krzys and I were languishing…