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12 Jun
A Post
I’m letting things slide. I don’t even know what that means, exactly – things sliding. Down a hill, maybe? If so, I reckon they are. Quietly and without a lot of dust. I’m here so rarely that the entire interface is different. That’s a little alarming.
I’m reading very few blogs lately but I’m reading other things. Things I’m not recording here. I’m not writing here but I’m writing other things. The Novel that Will Not Die. Which…is really not all that great of a story anymore. Or, rather, I think the story might have some merit in someone else’s hands. It’s depressing but I plug on. It’s a thing I can’t stop doing. Which is not the same thing as creating something worth READING. It’s just….well, some kind of obsessive need to DO. And there’s a much better one in the wings. Pinky swear.
What else? The garden’s going great guns despite a groundhog marauder. I’ve shored up the fence, built a blockade, and so far he’s not been able to penetrate it. I’ve been pulling up carrots and hoping the snow peas recover from being Mr. G’s dinner a week ago. He took out most of the lettuce which is regenerating (something I didn’t know it did! Learn something new every year, I do), and eat up most of the sunflowers. I hadn’t realized sunflowers were tasty. Now I know. I only really miss the big one with the thick stalk. That one hurt. I planted more seeds but it’s practically July almost so I don’t know if there’s still time for them to flower.
It’s been a cicada year – we were deluged with Brood II’s but now they’ve begun to die off and the evenings are quiet again. Sadly; I miss them already. I probably won’t live here 17 years from now to meet their offspring. Now I only hear the regular cicadas, which is still good but not the same.
And there are apples on the apple tree! If I get the ladder up in time, I might be able to pick some. Last year the crows took them all. I watched them, like a sporting event. They’d dive down and pick one, calling out to their friends about the free meal. More would come, dive, steal, fly off. You gotta give it to nature – it knows how to operate. I can only stand back and watch. Say “you’re welcome” and mourn the applesauce that never was.
Dusty’s busy in the kitchen making cheese straws all by herself. I cannot tell you how FULL of happiness I am that my daughter is cooking, without help or assistance, all on her own. Her idea. And she’s a good cook. And they smell delicious. Next week, we head for NYC! Adventures await. I am loving, loving, loving these children at these particular ages.
Speaking of which, J turns 9 on Sunday. After tomorrow, she’ll be a 4th grader. Remember when she was a teeny tiny thing? When I first starting blogging back when she was 8 weeks old? I do. It was yesterday and also a million years ago. One day, that girl’s gonna be famous. Mark my words.
30 May
To profit by these garden days
Each evening, after washing dishes, I step out into the evening of warmth and cicada trilling. This piece of land seems to be the epicenter for cicadas this year. They fill the air and the noise (which I dearly love) almost seems to inject itself into my veins. My body vibrates with it.
The garden is, so far, doing splendidly. I began planting things at the end of March (lettuce and spinach and radishes and carrots and potatoes) and now the summer vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, bean, snow peas, eggplants, squash, cucumbers) are established and flowers are growing. The potatoes are particularly happy this year. One variety has pink blossoms. Another, white. The other two haven’t bloomed yet but there’s still time for that. Bugs are, at the moment, at a minimum.
This is always the period of optimism. What could possibly go wrong? I’ve not yet mixed by sprays (all organic, of course) and haven’t had to do too terribly much watering and that crazy late frost didn’t do too much damage. Serious heat hasn’t arrived. The days are generally warm, the nights generally not muggy.
And then, as I’m inspecting and running my fingers through all the volunteer dill, I discover that one of my two tiger swallowtail caterpillars is dead. His back is blackened by I don’t know what. The other is missing. Eaten by a bird? Do these caterpillars even taste good? I let all the dill grow just for them and now they’re gone. Hopefully, more will show up soon.
Optimism. It won’t last long but I’m savoring it while it does. Caterpillars or no caterpillars.
I’ve discovered a colony of digger bees in the packed red clay dirt that still clings to the roots of the fallen walnut tree. As I walk to the garden, I stop and watch the bees arrive and find just the right tunnel or hole to enter. I can imagine a tiny bee at the control tower waving them in. “Tunnel 27 is cleared for entrance. Tunnel 41 has a slight delay. Please hover in place until the obstruction is unblocked.” And last night there was a bee who went from hole to tunnel to hole looking for the right one. Did he forget which one he was supposed to enter? Do the bees really have assigned holes? Was he at the wrong hive? Bees can’t get lost, can they?
So, my wish for a hive has come true except I don’t imagine it’ll be possible to extract any honey from this tree. I need a bear to do that part for me. Anyone have a spare bear they could lend me? I’ll pay you in honey.
1 May
One of these things…..
I’ve been doing a lot of organizing and purging lately. Getting ready for the next chapter in my life. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve held onto, things I enjoyed revisiting before tossing them in the recycling bin (really, all those clipped articles from newspapers? I can find those again), and a tidy pile of things I must always keep. One of those piles contains photographs.
There was a time in my life – pre-motherhood – when I collected photographs of people I didn’t know. My favorites (and I’ve yet to find that group yet) are of small old timey children posing with their pets. There’s something wonderful about a vintage cat or goat, don’t you think?
Anyway. Here are five photos I found in a file. One of them is an actual family member. The rest are “strangers”. Can you pick out the relative? If you are related to me and read this, you cannot play this game.
One of these things is not like the others….
25 Mar
Forcing Pump to Forgiveness
A few weeks ago – almost two months ago now – I went to my now-annual writer’s retreat in the mountains. I work and work and work on whatever novel I’m trying to finish and then it’s time to go out and stretch my legs. I don’t know if this is a sign of doom, but today there are three wet inches of snow on the ground. Back in February, in the mountains, there was a brief dusting and then it was fairly pleasant. For winter.
On the property stands an abandonded, burned-down house. I’ve walked past it before on my walks but I’d never approached it before. Mainly because it’s hard to get to, up on a rise of land and hemmed in with overgrown bushes. But the retreat owner confirmed that not only was the house on her property but that I could walk around it as much as I wanted. So I did.
Just inside, I found a piece of paper, crumpled and muddy and insect nibbled. I picked it up. I like to keep little momentoes of places I’ve been and walks I’ve taken. At work, I have a very small collection of shells and pebbles that have called up to me. I looked at the sheet of paper. It was from an old dictionary.
On my way out I saw a dirty round rock on the ground and took that too. I walked back to my little hermitage on the third floor of the farm house and placed the items on my desk. Inspiration or remembrance of people I never knew. People who owned a dictionary. Which is what writers need. Not just words but the right words. Forcing-pump.
Forgiveness.
20 Mar
…it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter…
I don’t usually post videos/music here. But when I realized it was the first day of spring, this song popped into my head.
Despite the snow and the continual bouts of cold downpours, it dried up just enough yesterday to allow me to start puttering in the vegetable garden. I pulled weeds and added new composted soil to the raised beds. No matter how stressful things are right now – and I’ve got so many unresolved balls in the air I’ve come slightly unhinged in recent weeks – digging in the dirt helps immensely. It might be the cheapest, best therapy there is.
Red has taken over Dusty’s old DSi and they were out in the yard last night taking photos and recording audio bits and laughing. I can’t tell you how happy I feel when I hear them giggling and being together. I hope they always stay friends. It’s the whole reason I wanted two children in the first place, that hope of a camaraderie born from a shared upbringing, shared memories. It seems to be working so far.
***
And I recently learned something about myself and my brain.
A few weeks ago, I was in Pittsburgh. Two days spent on trains and two days in between. I dragged my suitcase up long staircases where the escalators were unoperational. I came home to a snowstorm that knocked out power for a day and a half. I shoveled the driveway (solo) because I had to get out and appear at work for however long it was possible.
I pulled every single muscle in my back from the base of my skull to the bottom of my bottom. I scheduled a massage with a new massage therapist at my chiropractor’s office. She introduced herself and we shook hands. I left half an hour later and realized I could not for the life of me remember her name. It’s a thing with me. I know faces but never names. Or I know names but not faces. This woman’s name started with a P, that much I retained. And of course I’d recognize her instantly if I saw her again but….what was her NAME?
Polly. I had grabbed a business card on my way out and stuck it in my wallet. Don’t even remember doing it but there it was. And it occured to me that when I’m introduced to someone, I’m focusing on their face. I’m a visual learner and I was learning her face. My ears weren’t actually working at that point. All of my brain power was being used to memorize her face. And I remember that at the very moment I was introduced, my ears were muffled. My brain had turned them off. It was weird. And now I know why I never remember names: my brain isn’t processing the information. It’s working strictly through my eyes.
***
What else? I seem to only be able to force myself over here once a month at best these days. Life lurches on. The valleys are deeper than normal, the peaks not as high as I’d like them. But that’s how it is sometimes.
At least it’s spring. Something to clutch onto to keep me falling off the cliff, Wile E Coyote-style.
22 Feb
Little Compton
Gosh, I’m just not here much anymore. There doesn’t seem to be much to say these days. But, I did spend my valentine’s day in a fun and unusual way. I did another past life regression with a woman I found through a mutual connection. She mainly focuses on ghost hunting, but she does other new-agey things as well.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember, couple years back, when I took a past life regression class. There’s an interesting parallel here between those visions and the ones I had this time around. Last time I saw myself on a farm I was a boy. Still barefoot but similar situation.
I’ll pause here to say this: I’m not sure I entirely buy the whole “past lives” thing. I’m much more willing to believe in reincarnation than the whole heaven/hell/whatever business that religions peddle, but it very well could be that the subconscious is more amazing and powerful than we give it credit for. Either way, I experienced things. They helped me. And, when I got back to work, I discovered a very eerie coincidence.
Vision #1
Again, like in the previous experiences, I fell to earth barefoot. On a wide grassy knoll that was a bit too much like the scene in The Sound of Music where Maria spins and sings about the hills being alive. Yeah, that’s kind of where I was. In a dress with a long apron. Female this time. I was about 12 years old. I’d run off to be alone for a bit, enjoy the sun on my face, get away from the drudgery.
But, then I had to go back home where my family lived in a greyish-white farm house on a small farm. The scene manifested itself around me slowly. There was the house. Then there was a little boy – about three or four – sitting in the dirt by a puddle getting muddy. He didn’t acknowledge me. He just passively sat there hitting the mud puddle with a stick. Then I could see the white fence and the gate. I knew my father was out with the cows. I knew I was supposed to get back to my chores but I was loathe to. I was bored and hated this life. When prompted for a year, I said “1927” but it didn’t feel accurate. Or we were living well beneath the standards of the day.
I walked over and petted a goat’s head who’d popped up on the other side of the back fence. I needed to get away. Run away. I squatted down, picking up the hem of my dress so it wouldn’t fall in the puddle, to speak to my brother but he wouldn’t respond. I stood up and looked in the window – just a dark hole, no glass, no screen – and saw the back of my mother in shadow. She was washing dishes or baking. Doing somethng with her back turned to me in the kitchen. Suddenly, I decided to leave. I had a small bag of things that I slung across my shoulders. I opened the gate and began to walk down the road to…whatever lay ahead. The vision ended and I rose back up.
Vision #2
Okay. Back down again. Harder to pull the image into view this time but eventually I realized that I had on tall rain boots. Serious yellow galoshes. And a thick yellow raincoat. And a hat. Like fishermen wear. It was pouring and I was standing on the edge of cliff looking down at the rocky edges of the land and ocean. Waiting for a ship. I was a man. About 50 years old. I was waiting for the ship that held the woman I was going to marry. It was an arranged marriage. She’d been promised to me. The ship was supposed to arrive today but the weather was bad and I was concerned that the ship would run aground. It didn’t come and it didn’t come and I was cold and soaked despite the rain gear. I was a fisherman who’d owned a fairly respectable business at one time but now I was down to just one boat. And me. I was scaling back. My name was Bruce. My fiance’s name was Sarah. I wasn’t sure where I lived but I knew it was along the coast of the eastern U.S. or possibly as far north as Nova Scotia. I wasn’t sure.
Eventually I realized it was ridiculous to keep standing there, waiting. The town wasn’t much of a town, just a small grouping of buildings with houses farther out and scattered. The land was rocky and hilly and I had few friends and no neighbors. I walked to the ship chandler’s office – they kept up on ships’ coming and goings because there was no one else to do it – and up the two wooden steps. The bell over the door tinkled as I went in. Sure enough, the ship had been delayed due to the storm. They thought it would arrive the next day. Possibly.
I trudged back home. My house was one large room with a Franklin stove in the center. My dog was asleep on the floor and barely lifted his head to acknowledge me when I came in. I peeled off my rain gear and hung the coat on the hook by the door. I sat by the stove and warmed/dried myself and realized that the house was much too small for two people. That, when Sarah arrived, she’d be very unhappy with the place. That, I should have begun building the additions – at least a bedroom! – long before now. But I hadn’t been able to muster the energy for it. I wanted this wife but wasn’t sure I was cut out for companionship.
When asked for a date, I hesitated and then said, “1682? No. That’s a date of significance but the time I’m in is later, much later than that.” It felt like 200 years after that date. I didn’t know why 1682 popped out at me.
The vision went away.
When I returned to work, I had to research someone who’d recently bought a house in Little Compton, Rhode Island. It’s on the coast and was founded in 1692. Seeing that date made me jump a little in my seat. Coincidence? I have no idea. But, it was quite an interesting one.
18 Jan
The Things I Carry
After a conversation about purses and handbags and why we carry what we do, I thought, hell, if my sister can blog about handbags, why can’t I?
I’m not all that into purses per se. I like something that reflects my personality but I only use one at a time. I can’t switch back and forth from one to the other as the mood strikes me (mainly because I never have that mood) but because switching out all the stuff I carry around with me from one purse to another is a monumental task.
But, my main requirements are that the purse is nice to look at. I prefer cloth, in general, over leather or pleather. Two, it has to have a strap long enough for my shoulder or across my body. Three, it must be big enough for my crap AND a paperback book. Four, it can’t be so big that I’m weighed down by it and get yelled at by my chiropractor. I carry a separate bag for things like my calendar, large books, food, etc. Five: it has to be hard for a pickpocket to get a hand into. I like a flap that folds over the front rather than something that opens at the top. In big cities, I can wear it backwards with the flap against my body and not worry that someone’s sneaking in and taking my wallet. Does that make me paranoid or smart? I don’t know.
Here’s my current purse. I bought it on Etsy. I added the little crocodile button to the front flap. I like the idea of a one-of-a-kind handmade purse:
Here’s what’s inside at present:
The list:
– wallet – purple leather from Target. I’ve had it for years and will keep it until it falls apart.
– address book with pictures of old timey phones and phone booths on it. Because I miss those days.
– black bag of stuff (see below)
– pack of tissues
– comb (doesn’t fit in black bag; I rarely use it anyway)
– bottles of Airborne and Zicam to stave off illness
– bottle of lotion from a hotel room (doesn’t smell all that great but it’s good in a pinch)
– Burt’s Bees lip balm. I’m really a Chapstick gal. I have tubes and tubes of it at home but one day the store was out of Chapstick Original and I just sucked it up and bought BB. Once it’s used up, I’ll buy more Chapstick.
– phone. It sucks and I only use it for emergencies.
– house/work keys with a variety of keychains I seem to accumulate. Car keys are either on the kitchen counter or in my coat pocket.
– measuring tape. Because when I want to order clothes online (at work; ahem), I find it helpful to be able to take my measurements right then and there. Doesn’t everyone do this?
– two useless coupons to Justice. This is Red’s fav store and we were given these to tempt us back. They’ll expire and I’ll throw them away.
– two AA batteries. For my camera which I don’t usually carry with me. But, nice to have on those occasions when I need to take pictures and the batteries die.
– two samples of “Hard Night Good Morning” “facial cocktail serum” I got in Austin back in Oct. Haven’t used them yet. Maybe one day I’ll remember.
– four ink pens. One cannot have enough pens. Esp when one writes.
– pair of Dusty’s mustache earrings.
– couple of loose paper clips.
If need be, I can also carry my camera and a book or a sandwich, if I arrange things just so. Also, I sometimes carry a little notebook too. Right now it’s in the car on the passenger seat. The last one I had in my purse was filled up by Red.
In the black bag:
Inside:
– small bottle of Beano To Go.
– eyeglasses repair kit
– sewing kit from a hotel years and year ago. Can’t tell you how handy this is.
– three premoistened toilettes for cleaning eyeglasses. Clearly, I’ve never used these but feel compelled to carry them with me. Just! In! Case!
– tweezers used mostly for removing chin hairs
– small round hand mirror for seeing chin hairs
– two flashdrives. One with the current novels on it, the other with old photos.
– a small container with antacids in it.
– pair of very uncomfortable earbuds. Comes in handy when I’m writing in a public place and need to block noise with music.
– ziplock bog with many bandaids and a couple one-use flossers
– sanitary napkin. Don’t want to be caught without one.
– house key for my mother’s house which I haven’t put on the key chain yet
– stupid smelly lip gloss that I never use and should throw away. (Revlon Colorstay Mineral Lipglaze). Smells like rancid candy.
– bottle opener. A must have.
– bag clip
– emery board
– 8 tablets of famotidine (generic Pepcid) – yes, I have stomach issues.
– collapsible sewing scissors. Always in use.
– blue and yellow samples of PostIt flags
– nail clippers
– one cherry Tums in its wrapper
– random assortment of binder clips and paperclips
– short little IKEA pencil.
I used to have a couple Imodium ADs but they expired so I tossed them and haven’t replaced them yet.
What’s the oddest thing you carry in your purse?
11 Jan
A New Thing
A new year, a writing shift….I haven’t completely abandoned this space yet but right now, it’s my fiction brain that’s working hard. Follow me on Tumblr: http://cbrookman.tumblr.com/
31 Dec
A Year in Which I Classed Up The Joint
Well, I suppose I need to sum up 2012. I’ve lately felt here….a writer’s block of sorts, that feeling in the gut that I have to write an essay and I haven’t attended class yet. So, this will not be a stunning piece of poetry. Most of my insights will remain within. It was a good holiday, as those things go. Restful, illness-free (though Red’s under the weather today with an asthma-related something or other), with just the right amount of family togetherness and silence. I took not a single photograph of either Xmas Eve or Xmas Day. Chalk it up to having too much fun and distraction to grab the camera and force people to smile, I guess. I understand why I have so few Christmas photos from childhood apart from the staged torture of Christmas Card pictures.
I’ve been transferring numbers and notes and dates from the old calendar to the new, rather than attempt to go through a year’s worth of posts (Wanda? Who’s Wanda? And why did I have an appt to…OHH! Now I remember!), to find the highpoints. Here’s what I’ve got:
1. Pets. We’re down to one lizard but we gained two feisty and adorable guinea pigs. Santa brought them last year and though they’ve had to move into separate abodes, they’ve been enjoyable to have around. Pokey likes them too.
2. Travel. I did a bit of travelling this year. In April, I took Dusty and Red to DC during Spring Break. We had a blast. I could link to the post but I’m afraid if I make this too complicated and back-and-forthy, I’ll give up and just join my kids in the tv room to watch Despicable Me. So….if you need refresher, look up the posts in the beginning of April or search via the Washington DC tag. We met many historical celebrities at Madame Tussaud’s, ate pizza and discussed the merits of golf, walked our dogs off, and enjoyed in-room movies at the hotel.
After that, I went off to my writer’s retreat in the mountains and met a fabulous young British writer who was getting ready for the publication of her first novel (Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne) while furiously writing her next one.
I went off to Northern Virginia in June to speak at a professional conference and met up with a couple of friends. Went to the beach in July and then in October sped off to Austin for a fun whirlwind trip to visit Lass. All good.
3. Writing. Still working on this damn novel. I should really get a t-shirt with that on it. I’d wear it every day for the rest of my life until it fell off my body in rags. And it would never stop being true. It’s hard, this writing thing. And I’m trying to finish the current draft (number three, if you must know) before my next retreat in February. In May, I attended a yoga/writing workshop in the city and did another shorter workshop in Sept.
4. Personal. Well, a number of things aligned in my life this year that will help me move in a different direction in 2013. Much of which will be painful in the short-term but will hopefully lead to a happier, more content place. I began seeing a new counselor. I did The Artist’s Way book with a facebook group. I started Vein of Gold, Cameron’s next book, but ended up abandoning in half-way, right about when I was supposed to make a doll. Which….stymied me and then it was autumn and life was too busy to sit down and make one. And I say that with full understanding that I was purposely missing the point. I am hoping to begin that process again. Just not yet. TAW did help, got me thinking in different ways. I built a pen for the pigs one day in June. Nothing I did in this realm was for naught. A tarot card reading (self-administered) told me that. My gut, my instincts, the signs and portents all point in the same direction. My body began to change and my doctor is now officially calling my stage, “Early Menopause.” It’s good. I’m ready for it. I also found a new massage therapist who does reiki. His findings also jive with the other signs, which, considering he knew nothing about me going in, and to whom I’d said nothing of a personal nature, I find interesting. I’m going to start seeing him once a month. Even better: he knows someone who does past life regressions, something I’ve done in the past and which still fascinates me. So, that’s on the horizon for next year too.
The year brought sadness as well. I lost a good blogging friend, Turquoise (aka Violet White), who lost a battle with cancer. She was a patron of Dusty’s and I now have the cat Dusty made especially for her. I miss her but seeing the cat on my bookshelf….a little part of her is still here with me.
5. Dusty. My word. Dusty graduated from 5th grade and entered middle school with abandon, shedding much of her elementary interests, including Girl Scouts. Which meant that next year I will no longer be Cookie Mom, a role I had for four straight years. It was hectic and stressful but I liked it. It was a way to give back to the troop. Dusty’s now a Cadette, and earned her Bronze Award in 2012, but will slowly work on her Silver Award on her own as a Juliette, a troopless scout. She’s not sewing as much these days but still enjoys photography and making videos. She got her braces off just before Halloween and is now being constantly reminded to put her retainer on. She got a shiny red mountain bike for her twelfth birthday. I bought a rack for the car so next summer, the kids can ride their bikes around. She is glued to her iPod. And has a boyfriend. So….she’s slipping through my fingers. Or, rather, the girl she was has left the building but I’m seeing a happy, confident, though very private, young woman approaching. The change is exciting and frightening. She’s taken up the flute and will continue band next year. She’s no longer going to the Y’s after school program. Instead, she’ll just be taking the bus home to a sometimes-empty house. I trust her and I haven’t seen any reason to distrust her yet. Did I mention she has a boyfriend? God help me. Her big Xmas gift is a June 2013 trip to New York City.
6. Red. Red is consistently herself. She turned eight this year and is sassier than ever. Her interests have adjusted to match many of her sister’s – in terms of music, at least. She still believes in Santa, still enjoys her Barbies, but I’m detecting an end to that soon. This was the first Christmas I haven’t had to construct a Playmobil house. The first one with almost no toys at all. Her big gift was a new bed and a room re-do. That has turned out very well. She’s very pleased with her more grownup room in which there’s more space for her to move around.
These children are growing up very fast all of a sudden.
7. House stuff. I refinanced our mortgage and changed to a different (and cheaper) home insurance so 2013 should mean a bit more money in the bank. I finally had the living room redone (taking some of that savings). The work was done while we were at the beach and we came home to a lovely floor (bye nasty pink carpet!) and a newly painted room and fireplace. We left 1978 and came home to 2012. I also replaced two dreadful junk sofas with two “new” ones. Feels like home after 10 years in this house. Classed up the joint.
8. Driving Around. Sold the Passat (got 180k miles on the thing before I had to shoot it) and bought a shiny 2005 Subaru Outback (with, uh, 143k miles on it). I love it though it seems to be a deer magnet. I’ve never seen so many cross the road in the evening! I think the car’s got a cloak of invisibility around it or something. Lucikly, the thing I did hit was not a deer. I never saw any evidence of it later so it’ll remain a mystery. I think dog. My mechanic thinks coyote. I think he’s nuts.
9. Culture. Took the kids to see the Symphony’s Peter and the Wolf this fall. It was a lot of fun and not too long for Red, who always worries that any public event will be “long” and also “boring”. It was neither. So I bought tickets to see Sheherazade in February. Once again, my dad took them to see The Nutcracker just before Christmas.
As for next year, plans include speaking in March in Pittsburgh at a conference and possibly reprising it in Baltimore in August. Spring break trip will be to Natural Bridge, Foamhenge and all kitschy touristy things in the mountains. We’ll stay in a cabin in the woods. I hope to finish this novel so I can work to sell it and start working on something else. My only hope for the near future is that the imminent changes will bring only good, positive things. I hope my kids remain happy and healthy and confident, able to weather any storm that hits them. It’s still not easy being a woman in this world but I hope to heck their journey is slightly easier than mine has been and that I can continue to be the best mom possible to them. Really, there’s nothing else I need or want than that.
Life in Scribbletown 