I am a person
I used to scream into the abyss
Asserting myself to faceless demons
I am a PERSON
Now, 7 years later
My pants around my ankles
Boobs never quite tucked away
(Motherhood seems a little undignified in these moments)
As my baby cries for the only person, it seems, who can settle her
Those words come to me again
A bit glumly, yes.
I am a person.
And thinking back to the last time I had to say it
I feel a bit smug
I AM a person.
And now I must go nurse my baby
Author: excusemymusings
Writing my way through
Example
I confessed, and before I finished my confession,
He had me already in his arms
He told me he was so sorry
He told me he loved me
He told me he understood
He told me not to feel shame because I was forgiven
As I leaned my head on my husband’s shoulder
Gratitude seeped through me
Like light through a window
How have I been given someone who knows how gently to wield fully encompassing mercy in this way?
I realize
As I recall our interaction
That my husband
Has learned from the best.
My husband knows Christ.
baby
I am my daughter’s wardrobe
She stretches my stomach out
To fit around her little body
In a way, my womb is a big sweater
That she rolls and flips within
My body is a big cloak
That she bends to her shape
She doesn’t know she’s doing it
I like that my body isn’t my own anymore
Glad it’s being used for some other purpose than display
Glad that I’m no longer the one wearing it
And everyone knows it’s her.
I’m so proud
Sunlight + Shadows
The light from the windows isn’t exactly streaming in
It’s beaming in, blowing in, sifting in, flying in
It’s bursting gently at the seams of the blinds
and I feel a sudden and new urge to pull the cord
pull them up
unblock the light
Let it fly in
Dampened spirits accompany this bright white light
(light bereft of warmth, but brightening and cheering nonetheless)
Dampened spirits used to be my cloak, my birthright, my identity
I chose my music on its guidance
For today, I bear the sadness well
because this damper is a temporary guest.
No long-term imposition do I have to anticipate
Tomorrow will be warmer, happier, freer
Today is but a temporary foray into an ocean of dashed hopes
How lovely that my life is a walk in the sunshine
With temporary stoppages in gray shade
What a gift this sadness is revealing to me
I am so blessed to have a green garden with a small section of slime and maggots
Rather than an enormous cesspool
with only succinct tableaus of beauty
“There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother, Into my garden come! “
-Emily Dickinson
Be Safe
My husband tells me to be safe. He says it with his eyes intent on mine, brows raised and serious. “Be safe.” I run alone, in heavily trafficked areas, and occasionally in the dim light of dusk, so the refrain is a common one before I leave the house.
Tonight, his parting words, a plea and request and demand all wrapped in one, choke me with emotion. Of all the times someone has told or asked or absent-mindedly wished me to be safe, this one reminds me of the many times I’ve harmed myself.
I’ve always thought someone telling me to be safe was their way of excusing themselves from responsiblity if I, for some reason, was not safe. Recusing themselves from liability, Pilate washing his hands of the whole business. Otherwise, it was selfish – they wanted me to safe because they couldn’t live without me, needed some further utility or service I could provide. As in, be safe, we can’t hire your replacement with such short notice and it’d be a real hassle.
My husband tells me to be safe because my pain would hurt him. My impairment, agony, jeopardy, would cause him pain beyond compassion. I am the most important person in his life, he tells me, and it is at this juncture that these words make shocking sense. We are tied together, and my loss would almost certainly hurt him more than it would hurt me. Were I to mistreat myself in the ways I was wont to do at 18, it would hurt him. In short, he wants to be safe in as selfless a way as I have ever understood, and it is that understanding that makes me vow internally and instantly to guard my safety better than I ever have before because I have a responsibility to care for the wellbeing of this person my husband loves so much.
“I will,” I say, and I shut the door behind me.
Sleepy cemetery
Walt Whitman professed to containing multitudes
So I laid myself inside of a tomb to see if it fit
But the more lives I try to squeeze into
The sharper my outline becomes
And I only become more distinctly myself
Branches weave together in a sweetly green canopy
Blocking the sky
I taste the names on the headstones
Savoring the taste of their sound in my mouth
Who am I?
I don’t know them at all
Mute expectation flickers out and up
Dancing into a fantasy
Wraithlike
Smoke trailing from my heart
Silent twisting, breathlessly explaining
This is who you are
There it goes!
Something falling into place
Collapsing bones crash comfortably
Soundless thud of satisfaction
Sometimes when I sit still
I imagine my lips
Pointing to the world
Saying everything on my behalf
Utterly still
Posed
Like me
Anticipation
Waiting to be observed
Waiting to be liked
Waiting to be scooped up like whipped cream
Light and frothy and dispensable
Gone in an instant
Hold still, precious
Mama’s taking a picture.
I don’t have obsessive thoughts
It’s my inclinations that run frantically in a maze
Pointing, orienting, exhausted
Headlong
Leashed
They can’t exceed the tether’s length
Jerked abruptly back
Circling tirelessly, tiredly
Run around the ring around the rosies
What if I did that?
I ask myself, looking at a pile of dead branches
What if I did that?
Chewing a mountain of red dust
What if I did that?
Car crash, startling smack of impact
Shattered hands, crushed bones
Smashed skull
Sharp stones pressed into my belly
Metal slicing my shoulder open
Crushing rocks between my molars
Swallowing the crystal dust
Yum.
What if I did that?
I have a good memory
And the last time I hugged a tree
That good feeling slipped between my ribs
Prodding my heart, like a cat nosing a hand
Seeking love, awakening it accidentally
I doubt this recollection
I definitely made it up
So I do it again
I didn’t make it up
Tree hugger.
Protected: failure
Protected: forgiveness
(clean) laundry
Whenever I wash and dry laundry, I get one solitary thrill –
I
LOVE
cleaning out the lint trap.
It’s like a fun, fast, satisfying experiment. What mysteries escaped from my laundry today?
This week, red dirt and tiny rocks lined the lint trap, a sneaky reminder of our trip to a red clay and rock national park.
Last week, when I washed the couch cover, the lint trap was thickly lined with white and orange reminders of our two little housemates.
Two weeks ago, the lint was deeply tinted navy blue, a reminder that I had never washed a dark blue towel we’d gotten for our wedding.
The lint trap is a fun reminder, a succinct condensation of our life together.
I spend a lot of my time in this little apartment. It’s fun to find the tiny mysteries within it.
FOR SALE: Your Self-Image!! Please don’t inquire within.
A craze has swept the nation – The weight-loss craze! For one low, low price, you can buy self-esteem. You can buy energy! You can buy beauty, love, friendship, admiration, respect, dignity, and influence, all for the bargain bin price of this brand new diet. How long will its effects last? Oh, that depends entirely on you. If this diet doesn’t work in the long-term, it’s all your fault, you know. You weren’t strong enough, not disciplined enough, not hard-working enough, not diligent or patient or gritty enough. But don’t worry! You can try the next one. That one will definitely work. Do you want to hear something very interesting about diets? About programs that you pay for, to help you lose weight? About products that you must continually purchase, adhere to, restrict for, and penalize yourself for deviating from? They don’t work. They never have. They screw up your baseline metabolism, they reduce muscle mass, and they make each successive diet that much more appealing to you because you gain so much weight after you stop that you are convinced that you don’t know how to eat normally, that you are out of control, that you simply cannot control yourself unless you’re on a diet. That’s the magic of the industry. With every failed diet, the weight loss industry gains a new lifelong client.
Some brands will try to avoid this unfriendly truth by promising, SWEARING up and down, that they ARE NOT A DIET. We are a lifestyle!! We support healthy living! We make people feel better!! Scores and scores of researchers have attested to the fact that this simply isn’t true. Most leading diets rely on extreme calorie deficits, prepackaged foods, tracking points, macros, calories, or carbs, and other unsustainable tricks to peel off pounds in the early days of the diet. Longitudinal studies show that “in reality, 97 percent of dieters regain everything they [lose] and then some within three years.” (Slate.com) This isn’t to say that weight loss is impossible, because it isn’t. Moderate lifestyle changes, exercise, consistent sleep, and increased water consumption can aid long-term weight loss.
Don’t be deceived by the promises of diets. Don’t be deceived by the excited babble of friends and family in the early stages of the deception, the part of the magic trick where the illusion remains hidden. Diets don’t work. They are a scheme to make money. And they do.
Take this fact: “The global market for weight loss products and services should grow from $254.9 billion in 2021 to reach $377.3 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2% during the forecast period of 2021-2026.”
Billions of dollars are spent to entice you into becoming a dieting addict, and by 2026, that spending will overtake the fast-food market as a whole (Fast Food Revenue in the US is $278 Billion, as of 2021.)
Think about that, and think about the revelations that emerged a decade ago about the rampant corruption and corporate greed in the fast-food industry. The same people that profited off of the industrialization of unhealthy, fast food production are profiting off of eternally dieting consumers.
Don’t fall for the lucrative promise of diets. I promise – they’re literally just trying to sell you something.
Excuse my Musings 