A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece for my writing class and received some great feedback — particularly on how to improve it. I’m still working on it, and I have no idea what will happen to it when I’m done, but I figured I’d take you along for the ride. When I “closed off” this space to subscribers only, and thought about how I’d like to share my work moving forward, I imagined sharing drafts of my book as I wrote it, little pieces at a time. I know much of what I write likely won’t even make it in the book, and honestly I feel like that’s the most thrilling part of all this. Working through it, building it, together. This is a draft that won’t make it, I think, which makes it even harder to share because, you know, #perfectionism.
My teacher said this piece needs more tension about how my childhood compares to my daughter’s. And a few more sentences about who my mother is and what she endured. She asks hard questions, questions my heart and body aren’t always ready to answer. I’m in the process of finding a therapist, mostly because memories I haven’t thought about in decades have been making their way to the surface, and it’s been a lot at times. Remembering isn’t always easy — especially when you’re creating something in the present tense. In this piece, I wrote: “I went to war with where I came from and birthed an entirely new person in the process.” And that is truly how all the years leading up to Rocky have felt: War. With my family but mostly, with myself. I see now how the desire to build a new way of being for my family exceeded allowing myself to linger in the past. And now, I’m being asked to travel back to that past, and that part is challenging, and at times painful, and suddenly makes me understand why this book has taken me so damn long.
As always, your feedback is welcome in the comments. I will be answering your questions next week, so adding the link here again in case you missed it! Ask me anything, advice, personal or super random questions. The random is especially encouraged. ;-)
ONE LOVE,
Alex
Mama, Kiss It Better
“Our house is starting to smell like I always thought it would,” my husband says jokingly as he points to the overflowing compost bin on our kitchen counter. I chuckle as I empty the rest of the dishwasher, fill our compost bin with more cracked eggshells and apple peels, and notice all of the tinctures on our countertops. Little brown glass bottles, everywhere, out in the open, like they’re a part of the decor, like they’re a part of us. I guess our life has changed a lot, I say to myself. Long gone are the days of popping Advil for debilitating menstrual cramps, ordering negronis to impress men and soothe the past, lighting chemical-filled candles as a form of self-care, and trusting that the medical system gives a fuck about us.
My husband’s friends call me mama moon, and when men in white coats told me I couldn’t conceive a baby outside of IVF, I did so anyway. When my daughter has a cold, she sleeps with half-cut red onions on her nightstand and potato peels in her socks. When she has a tummy ache, she pulls on my pants as she lifts her shirt and asks, “Plant medicine, mama.” And when I lay my head next to my husband at night, my face smells of aged beef and my lips are sealed with neon blue tape. It’s quite a sight, and you’d think my husband would mind, but I overheard him the other day proudly confess to his 50-something year old coworker, “Ya, my wife is kind of like a witch.”