Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Addendum to the Absurd Appointment

I don’t usually explain my poems.

Fewer words, no explanation necessary. These are aspects of poetry I appreciate.

Yet it feels as though a few more choice sentences want to follow The Absurdly Beautiful Appointment– a post from a few days ago, inspired by the experience of motherhood.

We all came from Her. Some of us will one day be (or currently are) Her. Each journey unique with common threads.

Myself, I steep daily in the essence of this vast maternal task. Living, wondering, resisting and embracing all of it.

If my poem expressed that mothers are “filled with an endeavor that cannot be given real words,” I’m not sure what I’m doing here in Addendumland trying to further elucidate the unspeakable.

Maybe, you the reader, already got all of this:

That impregnable darkness. It surrounded me when I called upon the saints to assist in delivering my son. Neither atheism nor enlightenment was born of that abyss. Though I was granted a healthy baby, fresh into my arms, my heart filled with hopeful questions.

There is the new mother I know. Set upon a lonely path of living with the father that doesn’t want to be one. Bestowed upon them, a seven pound bundle of purity embodied. A soul housed in a home of shadows and anger. She rests by her mother’s heart, beating with both the greatest joy and deepest disappointment.

And there is every mother’s fear. One that sentences can only stumble through. The heart-searing loss of a child. Hers was only three years old. Death’s blanket hung upon her, though Life insisted she keep breathing. She walked with pain so deep and tender, it hurt to have another touch her skin.

You see, some of these are the mother stories never told.

Though there is beauty, too.

The vulnerable glistening of low tide waters on a mother seal and her baby, resting in morning sun. Their bodies gently rocking in the softest ocean waves.

Or the night when I am witness to the wonder. Firelight in darkness. My boy jumping with his dreams under the stars, whispering wishes near my face with sweet abandon. He wants me to live forever.

And I love this love. And I know I’ll die (this seven-year old does, too, in his own way). I can only embrace the beauty of the moment, bittersweet with understanding that all things change.

Shafts of light dance rainbow prisms in the same room where darkened corners house unknown treacheries. This is the heart of a mother.

You may see her busy about town, though she is often quiet about what it is she’s holding in her chest. Because, of course, how could words describe it? And when would the time be right to tell you?

She’s herding children, running errands, checking off her list. Making sure she meets her appointment.

2013-06-17pacha_mama

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

The Absurdly Beautiful Appointment

mother bodies arc
forming thresholds
that cannot
hold
the immensity
of life
and death

we are but vessels
through which
the deepest pain
and greatest joy
seep and surge

a woman deep
in labored birthing
is asked to call upon the Gods
plea for help in delivering
her baby
though every name
of every saint
she knows is uttered
as she bears down
she merely slips
into a darkness
filled with
nothing

and there is another
the newest mother
her gift
of angelic perfection
swaddled in pink
less than seven pounds
with sweetly wrinkled
fingertips
fresh from the watery womb
now here
in the air
she needs everything
but her house
has a father that stays out late
spits insults in the kitchen
and a mother
who leaks tears
as she is nursing

oh, and there are, too
those written words
that call
from the other side
of grievous pain
one mother’s loss
of her son
not yet four
she is being asked
to hold the burn of searing flames
to the deepest place
within her heart
and still walk
among the living

“seals may bite”
is the sign
at the trailhead
warning of an
“extremely protective mother”
almost extinct
completely defenseless
monk seals
mother and child
loll in low tide
at the far end
of the quiet beach
the small baby
close
one flipper
resting gently
on its mother’s belly
basking
in the sun

in another place
it is night
and he is illuminated
by firelight
and the inspiration
of seven years
culminating to this moment
of making wishes
in whispers
close to his mother’s face
heart’s desires
carried on hopeful breaths
scented sweet with jelly beans
and all things
possible
he gasps
“I wish that the sky would rain hot dogs
that you would live forever
and never die”

we are mothers
living portals
standing passages
for
all
to sieve through
life
death
everything
nothing
and yes
even
the profoundly undefined

it’s everyday
as our hearts curve
around
our absurdly beautiful appointment
we pass you
on the street
filled with an endeavor
that cannot be given
real words
though we hold our lists
buying broccoli
at the corner store
and saying
‘thank you’
when given
change

 

courtesy of glyn nelson
courtesy of glyn nelson
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 11 Comments

In the Cards

“Do you know how to play 52 pick up?”

This question is posed by my smirking step-brother who holds a deck of cards in his hands, circa 1983.

“No,” I say.

With thumb and forefinger he sends them shuffling through the air in random abandon, landing in a chaotic pile on the table.

“Get it? 52 pick up?”

Right.

If my life is a deck of cards, then perhaps 52 pick up is the game I’ve mastered. The airborne shuffle, that is, not necessarily the clean up.

As the Bohemian and I share a four-day reprieve of non-parenting days while Jeb’s away with his dad, I ponder how I’ve done it all out of order.

Honestly, I dreamt of the stereotypical, American life. I wanted marriage, a house, children. But I couldn’t be normal about it. I got engaged (diamond ring and all) when I was 16. Then didn’t really announce it (we’d wait to wed til after college anyway).

But I was on the path to normal. I’d get my degree, get a good paying job, marry the man I loved, and start a family. Seemed a simple formula for happy-ever-after.

Except my fiancé started an affair with the goth-girl at one of the chain bookstores in the Fresno mall (detailed account of this liberating break up in Crumbling Empires and Parked Cars). At 19, my engagement ended and my little ordered timeline was severely jumbled.

Once I left Fresno, I guess nothing really stayed inside the lines of predictable. I attended college for three years but left before getting my degree. I travelled by myself all over north america, working odd jobs and occasionally living out of my car. I longed for true love but questioned the precepts of monogamy.

By 29, I was in Hawaii living in a school bus, up on blocks, with a boyfriend who professed love but wasn’t sure about commitment. Though my closest friends were all married, I was the first to give birth. And nine months later, I had separated from the father of my child and forged into the realm of single motherhood.

By 39, many friends were at least a decade into their lives of married with children. I’d been piecing housing situations and jobs together. Though I’d been doing it in Hawaii, it was still hard as hell- building character, of course. I can’t help but look back and think that somehow, I was simply prepping myself for a future life with the Bohemian.

The announcement of my pending marriage, was often met with great support from friends coupled with undertones of wariness. Like when a dubious sigh meets the words “good luck.” Not sarcastic. More like hopeful skepticism. No one dared to actually express this blatantly, but I could tell that all-too often, ten plus years of matrimony can take its toll.

As I come to my 40th birthday, I’m a newlywed with a 9-year-old. We never had an official honeymoon, so we take the four days this week without a child to just be husband and wife. Niagara Falls is not in the equation. In fact, just about everything is business as usual.

So we work with what we’ve got. Sunset and an empty house. Why not leave the dishes and crawl under the covers before the sun goes down? Make jokes and stay up late on a weeknight? Have an ordinary kind of unconventional honeymoon?

I guess what has not yet been said here, is that for me, I don’t think ‘normal’ was in the cards. Try as I may to keep things ordered and straight, life has tossed my plans about in delightful whimsy. And if I look deeply, I can see that I wanted it this way. I never truly desired the status quo.

But for a long time, I was thinking that my less-than-typical life was a reflection that I was doing something wrong. That if I didn’t fit the mold it was because I was misshapen.

As I move into my fourth decade on planet earth, I’m so glad I did it all backwards. I let the cards fall where they may and found inspiration in the pile. It’s still a work in process, and I’ll probably spend a lifetime sorting through it.

It can be a fun game to play. Especially when you let go of straightening it out.

2013-06-11cards