This Mama’s Dharma

Now that the worst of Sami’s feeding issues are over - I hope - I am a lot more relaxed. I enjoy motherhood more when I am not constantly worried about my son getting enough food. In retrospect, I wish I had had more compassion for myself, and more equanimity while going through all that. [...]

The way he…
smiles with his eyes and a wide-open mouth, sticking out his tongue (see above)giggles when his dad or I kiss him repeatedly on the neck or tummysnorts when he is about to cryfalls asleep while nursing“phantom nurses” while asleep by working his little mouth every minute or sostretches like a kitten after a [...]

Hi there Mumma,
You would have been fifty-six years old today. If you were alive, I would have called you in the morning to sing happy birthday. Or better yet, you would live near us and we’d celebrate in person.
Oh, mumma, if you were alive… I know you would have been crazy about your grandson. I [...]

Six days ago, I gave my baby formula. I now occupy that space in the great divide between breast-feeders and bottle-feeders, and it feels weird. But I know I’m doing right by my babe, and I’m still a crunchy mama, damn it!
Before Sami was born, I always thought I would breast-feed effortlessly. My breasts would [...]

I feel like I’ve been in a fog since Sami was born. Mommy brain is real. I know it must go away, because there are a lot of smart moms in the world, but man do I feel stupid these days.
Yesterday I locked the keys in the car — with the keys in the ignition. [...]

I had a bit of a setback with my book today — long story, don’t really want to go into details, but my agent told me that the proposal isn’t wowing editors, let’s put it that way.
My friend Yael and I were talking about how I vaccilate between wanting to give up and being [...]

Last night I went to Cheryl Strayed’s reading at AU. I read some of her nonfiction work in a workshop I took last year, and was deeply moved by “The Love of My Life,” a memoir piece she wrote that got published in The Sun, about the loss of her mother at the age of [...]

I am on the down-swing of the roller coaster again. Yesterday should have been sad, because my grandmother died. But I didn’t feel any grief. Maybe I am just in shock at having lost two of my grandparents in two months. Grandma Sylvia is the only grandparent I have left.
Yesterday was [...]

When Sami smilesThere is an alchemical reaction–I turn from solid to liquid to air,All that is leaden becomes golden.A smile between us dances, so sweetly.For precious evaporating moments,I am happily lost in the curve of that wide-open mouth.I see myself there, shining in the lights in his eyes.

Impermanence–anicca–is one of the three characteristics of existence, according to Buddhist teachings. I have been thinking a lot about anicca, and as far as I can tell, it can be summed up with the mantra “the more things change, the more they stay the same…”
I hung out yesterday with Debbie, a new friend who is [...]