Wednesday, May 28, 2008

some poetry on this rainy rainy day

i started reading a book today...a poetry book. "A Maze Me" by Naomi Shihab Nye. i usually don't pick up poetry, but the cover was pretty and the name interesting. it's a book from the juvenile section. one day, i will get back to the adult section. but right now, i'm making up for all the reading i never did as a child.

the poems speak to me, or the girl inside of me. but one in particular spoke to the present me. it gave me a lot to think about, to try out.

Sometimes I Pretend

I'm not me,
I only work for me.

This feels like
a secret motor
chirring inside my pocket.

I think, she will be so glad
when she sees the homework
neatly written.

She will be relieved
someone sharpened pencils,
folded clothes.

i just keep thinking about that. how i do things for my kids in this way. i wondered what it would feel like to do things for myself like that. i don't mean the "taking time for me" sort of doing for myself. but just the every day things. and the pretending. do the dishes as if i were not myself, but someone who loves me so much they want to do it for me, so i'll be happy and relieved to find them done. isn't that something to think about, to try. i just like it so much. it gives me this comfortable feeling.

i used to write a lot, when i was younger. i think i probably stopped sometime when i was in college, maybe i wrote a little when samuel was a baby. i guess i just got busy with all that having a baby (and then another, and another) requires. so i'm thinking about how i have so many little pieces of thoughts all the time. how i think to myself, that would make a blog post...maybe. but usually it's just too little a piece of a thought and i let it go out of my mind somewhere. so i got out a notebook and put down these words that were in my head as i was passing the door to my room on my way to the bathroom. and here it is:

i did not make the bed today
every time i pass by the room
i know i did not make the bed.

and i did not sweep the floors either.

as i'm writing this down
i wonder,
will i come back later
and make the bed after all...
and then maybe sweep too?

and make all these words
just not true anymore.

OR will i want to and refuse

just to see if i can...Share

4 comments:

Ren Allen said...

Ooh, you should go read one of my favoritest poems ever: http://collexartsinspirations.blogspot.com/2007/05/advice-to-myself-by-louise-erdrich.html

Your musings made me think of it.:)

Keep writing. You have lotsa good stuff to share!

Ren Allen said...

Let me try that again:
http://tinyurl.com/6ct3zw

laura said...

wow, that was a really powerful poem.

at first i was actually cringing as i read. you know me. i like to pick up. have a hard time just leaving things. really.

but as i read, i relaxed into it. opened my mind to it. are there more important things that get left undone in order to do the less important things i find necessary? i'm sure there are. i'm positive.

but still, i want to be that pretender. be the helper to myself. today might be a good day for that. but i've started drawing again and well, i just might have to do that all day instead...oh but first i need to sweep!!! LOL!!!

no really, i do!!

Ren Allen said...

I like that idea of being your own "helper". Great concept to explore. I talk a lot about self-kindness at the conferences and about being your own support. I need to quote you.