Mixed Media Collage by SBB May 2012

It is an achingly beautiful day here in the Berkshires.
And, one that no matter what I do, I cannot soak up the sweetness enough…wake up early enough to do all I like to do before my family hops around me on one foot then the other, waiting for the fun to begin.

They have given me an hour of their time in the garden.
But first there is brunch.
And, then a performance at one.
So, the phlox a-thon will wait to three or so. (My garden is engulfed in phlox)

Today, I am listing things I love about my Mom.
And then some about me as a Mom.
Then, an invitation for you to do the same in the comment section here.
Tell me of a few moments when, like today, you could not scoop up all the goodness flowing in your life so it dribbled over like mango juice down your arm and in to your shirt sleeve.

Ten appreciations for my Mom, Joann Ruth Schauer Schmeling, who died on October 10, 2010.

1. I loved my Mom’s laugh.
2. I loved her hands, big and veined and strong.
3. I loved her gait. We walk the same way, fast and strong and long. We could wander too and lollygag…but same length of stride.
4. I love the baskets she made.
5. I love her slightly sharp singing voice singing hymns in church. She knew all the words.
6. I loved sitting with her in church as a little kid and playing the hand game with her, stacking our hands- hers, mine, hers, mine and pulling them out in order silently, waiting for the interminable sermon to be over and done with, Amen.
7. I love that she always wanted to say “ A-woman” instead, but only did that at home sometimes.
8. I love that she kept her paddle in the waters of her life, even when she was stymied, ill or upset.
9. I love that she found a great love in my stepfather later in her life.
10. I love that she took us out in to the woods often as little kids- picking berries or to find a beach or to get to the top of something.

This is from a camping trip my sister Becky and I took with Mom and Pa, our stepdad, in 1988.

Here are ten appreciations of me, as a Mom… that I embarked on 18 years ago.

1. I love that it was Jonathan and me that started this whole show.
2. I love that my pregnancies were easy.
3. I love that the miscarriages I had brought me to a deeper understanding of how rare and miraculous births are.
4. I love the voices of my kids calling to me in the house.
5. I love the sacred geometry of our bodies and the way then fit in to mine, even now.
6. I love watching them in plays or performances or out in public talking to other people…just a marvel to see them as people.
7. I love what they love about me which they are loath to admit now…I can’t imagine them making a gratitude list for me now, so steeped in detaching from me and all I am today. But one day, they will admit to the tiny things I notice that they do which tell me, we are of each other, no matter what.
8. I love hearing my girl whistle. We both love to whistle.
9. I love looking out over our backyard and having all the tracings of their feet running to and fro over that ground for 15 years in this place.
10. I love yearning for them to crawl in to bed with us in the morning like they used to do, just that sense of us all on the ship of life together, but feeling them building their own boats and really…we will likely never have that sense of tight togetherness in that way again. Our boat is bigger than our bed now…it has expanded to include the bigness of their lives and this…maybe this is why I keep dreaming about ocean liners, huge catamarans and other vessels that I never quite get to in my dreams, but am always moving towards?

Here is an interview I did with Jennifer Boire about Laundry Line Divine and mothering and my work.

Here is a link to a radio clip about mothering that I did with Melissa Rosati.

I am off to enjoy a salad-y brunch they are making for me.

I hope whatever your day brings, that you spend a moment appreciating your mom, either here on the Line or in your hearts.

Yours,
S

Today is my Mom’s birthday.

It is a heavenly day here in the Berks.
My guests are drifting GB.
Roger, my cherished jester is coming over tonight play with our Germans.

Tender song here to keep you each close today.

Great bawdy posts to follow.
Just had to tell you how much you thrill me, here on the Line.

Celebrating the near ones and the far…but never, ever so far.

Love,
S

As you may have noticed, I have been quiet these last 2 weeks. I was in New York City, just a brief 2 ½ hours from my desk and a whole lifetime away. Long ago, in one of my favorite books by Mark Helprin “Winter’s Tale” he described the transition that his characters took from Manhattan to upstate to the region of wild nature and gigantic beauty, as a metaphysical happening, where engulfed by mist over ice they would escape the snares of city life and find themselves tucked in to verdant hills and windy peaks. I think of his words, or the feeling I gathered from those words which I read on West 25th street in NYC, jammed up next to the plaster ceiling on my loft bed, and how true they are.

When I leave my home here, my kids and my husband all capable of days apart from me, though heartstrings twang with missing over time, I drive off either to the train or the Taconic Highway. The train route takes me through a green valley peppered with farms and cleft by Bash Bish Waterfall at Taconic State Park. I almost always see a red fox as I drive and lots of red tail hawks. Once on the train the mists clear the closer I get to Manhattan, flying past long stretches of bogs and watery places before we get to the canyons of apartment buildings.
If I drive the Taconic, the mists last longer. That road was built by the CCC in the 1930s and is a beautiful curvaceous ride, especially appealing to my husband who loves to drive as if he is in an ad for fast cars. It is a sensual road closed in by trees and occasional rocky outcroppings, often edged by deer in the grass and more hawks troll the woods all the way south until I reach Westchester and the spell of the city begins to take hold.

There is magic for me, traveling in either direction.

I was in New York for a weekend of Mastery with the School of the Womanly Arts. I have been associated with the SWA for 5 years now. This session finds me assisting in the leadership of the women who lead small groups within the student body. I am the Fluffer of the Big Sisters. I love to fluff. Fluffing women means I get to listen for how to love women, just exactly where they are and praise them as they take their next steps to greatness. The students run the gamut from full time Moms like me to high-powered executives of companies that operate systems for the state of California. I am honored to be in a place where women are pledging their troth to expanding their footprint of beauty on this planet. We talk about the Divine Feminine and about Courtesans at the SWA. We are a group of women interested in authentic transformation by regular and daily applications of Pleasure, from the sacred to the mundane and back again.

Then, I took part in the Blog World conference that was part of the Book Expo at the Javits Center in NYC. Thanks to my writing coach, Stephanie Gunning of
Abundant Words, I took the plunge in to a bigger world of writers. What a wonderful thrill it was to browse the stalls of publishing houses and hear the buzz of booksellers. I walked with my pal from One Woman’s Eye Joanne Tombrakos and we handed our cards to anyone we thought would be potential publishers for our soon to be published books. We spent the bulk of the day in blog sessions with great speakers like Lori Randall Stradtman, Jodi Beck and Michael Margolis,
Tamsen McMahon and Srinivas Rao. Bloggers are a happy lot of varied people. I was inspired by the interest in each other’s work and the atmosphere of mutual support among the bloggers.

Then, on Wednesday, I presented FeMail as part of the Museum of Motherhood’s conference on Mothering at Marymount Manhattan College on East 71st Street in Manhattan. I listened to another group on bloggers, who happen to be mothers and marketing executives. You will hear more about them as I write this month. I struck up a mutual crush with Lindsey Reed Maines of rockandrollmama.com. She was among the women I led through a short session of making mail art for the Museum of Motherhood archives. You can stop over at www.femailart.com to see what we made. Just not today, I will let you know when that page will be up.

The day with MOM at Marymount was thrilling. Besides finally meeting Joy Rose of MOM, I got to be with Laura Tropp, head of women’s studies at MMM and many of her students. I was honored to listen to Dr. Phyllis Chesler speak about her work as a feminist and researcher in the field of women, mothering and politics. She is a vastly well-written and exciting woman, with a heart that opens as she speaks about her own family, her son and all she has learned as a mother who is a feminist and passionate educator.

I spent the afternoon with a small group of women, including Amy Simon looking at Ali Smith’s photographs and talking. Well, talking and crying. We all shared our stories about being artists and mothers and the challenges of modeling to our children and to the young women we spent the day with, drawn to expressing ourselves, stymied by success and an ever present awareness that there is so much to be done. Passionate to do it well and have our work seen in the world. I was thrilled to meet Ali. You may recall her video here : http://66.147.244.128/~laundry2/982/momma-love-and-my-mamafesto/

What I thought about as I drove back north on Thursday to kids with soccer schedules and laundry, tomatoes and seeds to plant was how very fortunate I am to have the appetite to be in the world. I love to connect with other people about my work, about my perspective. And I love to listen to others. That interchange of ideas and views about life and the world is what draws me forward. It is why I read. Why I love to dance. Why poetry moves me so. It is why I started my life in theatre so long ago in The Pied Piper of Hamelin at Potowatomie Park in Chicago.

Whether or not Laundry Line Divine becomes a book that you will see on every women’s arm next year, I know that the gifts in the journey towards those printed pages are these connections to other women deciding to live their lives differently, to live out loud and be the beacon for another woman who is convinced that there is more to life than one straight role.

And like the drive to Manhattan, this journey of motherhood is full of misty patches and boggy sections, thrilling vistas and tearful passages. I know no other thing than to just continue, to put my pen to paper, my glue stick to postcard, my lips to your cheek and say, Yes. Yes. Go on, your voice, your unique voice is required here in this conversation of life.

Thank you for listening.
Yours, Suzi

Here’s me and Mom in 1990. We are sitting in a tree stump. That is reflection on my chin and cheeks. I am so happy to be with Mom.

I have quite a story for you about me, mothering and an apron.

Come back next week, dear cherished readers, especially you Marilyn,

and I will tell it to you.

First, I gotta go to Miami with the School of the Womanly Arts.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone.

Hugs, S

On a day like today, with the groans of making room for my 15 year old to spread his wings…with Mother’s Day on the rise and mine lives in a nursing home…with the press of time, panting at my calves salivating…I take a walk.
I talk to my Mom as I walk. This is what I saw.
What do you do?

I like my town. We have the best library though the ladies there are not so indulgent with out-of-towners like me. I no longer have the power of my Mom beside me to still any questioning of who I might be and where from. I have been a card-carrying daughter of a local for many more years than I actually lived there.

My Mom is living in a nursing home now. My Stepdad does not believe in reading, so he had no card to offer me. I did get to check out some books by way of a gracious gentleman who shared a table with my Stepdad. Looking up from the jigsaw puzzle he labored over, Bud raised his bushy eyebrows to offer me the indulgence of his card privileges, as long as I pledged to return the books in a timely fashion. So, I went home with a stack of art books to keep me company by the fire. I dug around at home to find Mom’s library card and tucked it away for next time.

I was in the UP for my Stepdad’s 90th birthday. We had quite a party complete with wine over lunch and a wonderful long story of his life in the UP. He is a forester and one of the earliest graduated from MSU. He and his cronies know the landscape with an eye for profit for the paper companies in forest products. They also know how to land walleye and survive the black flies. We celebrated Pa in the grandest fashion he would allow, balloons on the table and everything.

I visited my Mom. She is in a home with all sorts of people her age and older suffering from the rainbow of maladies the elderly endure. Mom has emerged from a 9-month bout with seeming nearly dead. Now, it is possible to have a bit of conversation with her and delight in her laughter, which makes all the hassle of getting there effortless. She is impish in her wheelchair and naughtily unlatches her seat belt, causing alarms to ring down the hall. She loves to read whatever she lays her eyes upon. I consider painting her walls with stories, because she would read them, one word at a time. Some moments were better than others, but it was a visit all the same, and much better than sitting next to what I thought would soon be her dying body. This was much more fun.

I like my town and I like my family. I like the friends I made when I lived there. They are among my most precious treasures. So are the memories of ice-skating way out on the bay to see fisherman working or walking the alleys with Mom collecting dandelions for our guinea pig. Kids I grew up with terrorized people by stealing carrots from backyard gardens. This weekend it rained on the snow and ice, so skating was dismal, but romantic all the same. The Upper Peninsula yields its beauty to those who can endure the flies, the weather and the nicknames, even if you are a visitor.

Snow and Ice are very nice