Motherhood Cliches: The View from the Summit
I've been thinking alot about figurative language recently. I can't tell you if this is because I'm an editor or because the fifth grade has a laser focus on it this year. At our house we tend to go from one person's project to another's pretty seamlessly. Call it a lack of boundaries.
Our most recent study seems to be cliche. I am a cliche, you are a cliche, he, she, it is...no, that's my other daughter's Latin. Those other numbers and genders are not the cliches, I am.
The multi-tasking mother. You know the one. Carpool, groceries, business meetings, lunches, dog poop, dinner, school meetings, out of town trips: is this week the editorial trip or the choir trip? And who will take care of the puppy while I'm away?
The minivan ads make it all look so beautiful, and at it's core, it is: how fine for a woman to have a strong family life and fulfilling work. And if it's a little chaotic sometimes, well that's where Folger's in your cup can just smooth out all the rough edges.
Last week I went to the Mom 2.0 Summit, a conference of bloggers and marketers, all focused on the power inherent in this mom life, rather than its potential for frazzle. Several of our authors were participating--Joanne Bamberger the wise PunditMom from D.C.; Karen Walrond, author of the blog Chookooloonks and The Beauty of Different; Mimi Vance, whose wonderful Words by the Handful books are coming out later this year; Jennifer Randall, one of the four teachers who have created Answer Keys for parents; Elizabeth Irvine, whose books on wellness are just what I need to pay heed to right now; and conference organizer, Laura Mayes, Kirtsy.com co-founder who is responsible for our amazing Kirtsy Takes a Bow book. That crowd alone was enough to get my teeth off the motherhood cliche bone I've been working and get me on to some more nutritious fare.
Beyond the Bright Sky crowd, the conference was filled with even more women who were putting all the pieces of motherhood--of womanhood--together in ways that worked--for them. Isabel Kallman, the AlphaMom; Tracey Clark, one of the visionary ShutterSisters; Kristen Chase, the Mominatrix; and of course, Jenny the indomitable Bloggess. Nurturing, sexy, sweet, wild, virgin, crone, whore, madonna: everybody was there; everybody was inspiring.
I noticed strong commonalities: motherhood, creative drive, authenticity, But more importantly, I noticed uniqueness. It was visible in the outfilts--everything from flowy maxi skirts to FM gladiator pumps, wicked witch striped leggings to Mad Men cocktail attire. But, more importantly than in the trappings, the spirit of individuality was tangible in the conversations.
The theme of the Mom 2.0 Summit this year was "Defining a Movement." As Katherine Center's powerful video proclaimed: What you're doing matters. I dare any mother to watch it without crying.
And it's hard to think back on my experience last week without some of the same emotion: the Summit (interesting word choice, but the view was indeed clearer) , the photography exhibit at Fotofest, the three day coalition of women refusing to be bound by cliche--no matter how appropriate some aspects of it might be.
Today, I'm a little off my game: the antibiotics haven't kicked in yet, the sink is full of dishes, the email in-box is screaming at me, it's supposed to snow and no one could find her jacket this morning. I'm tempted to say, Calgon, take me away. As if it could. But, instead, I'll take Katherine's words to heart: What you're doing matters.
As for the motherhood cliche? I think I'll throw out the figurative language and write my own definition.
If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?
~Milton Berle
When I was a little girl, my brother told me I couldn't carry a tune in a U-Haul. So I hit him.
I've been contemplating the concept of the edge. The leading edge, the bleeding edge, the edge of darkness. And there's always the possibility of going over the edge--being pushed, losing my grip or aligning too closely with the crowd and rushing off terra firma into the abyss. Like the 
syn·chro·nic·i·ty : \ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\ noun : circa 1889
I'm desperately trying to manage all my communications resources. When to email, when to call, when to meet, when to tweet, when to blog and when to throw my hands up and sob. And then there's Facebook. Not to mention submissions. I want to be accessible, but I also want to be productive.
The writer's life is an endlessly glamorized affair that is riddled with assumptions of one sort or another. Writers are [choose one of the following] dark, tortured, drunks, inspired, touched by angels, different, geniuses, crazy...you name it.
The party's over.
Gertrude Stein said, "We are always the same age inside." I know exactly what she means. My mother once told me that no matter how wrinkled she got, when she looked in the mirror, she saw her five-year-old self peering out. It's like in the movie 
Guy Kawasaki
When I was little, I would wait until everyone had gone to bed, sneak into the living room and plug in the Christmas tree lights. In the dark, I lay underneath the tree and looked up through the branches. The pockets of piney darkness illuminated by the conical colored lights were doorways that promised entry to the same places my books did--lands beyond reality, havens where life seemed more perfect than reality--
My mother made a mean shrimp creole. Whenever she fixed it, even though shrimp were pretty dear, she made about twice as much as our family could eat. She swore that there were a few neighbors on our block who had an antenna for shrimp creole, and if she cooked it, they would come.
For twelve days now, I've been focusing on what--and particularly whom--I'm thankful for at 
When I was little, Sunday night meant watching the 
At one point on my winding path, I taught Middle School English. I've always felt that there were many similarities to being an English teacher and being an editor--both jobs are essentially about helping people find their strongest voice as a writer. You just get the writers at different points in their own journeys. Although one group is just discovering ways to express themselves in words and the other has decided to make a career or at least an avocation out of it, both groups demand the same understanding, both need to be listened to with equal sensitivity in order to trust that an editor/teacher person really gets what they are saying and will be able to bring their writing consistently up to its highest level.
Day Nine, and I'm feeling fine. Thankful for thankfulness. Refocused on gratitude in the face of the Infinite Unknowable that is the publishing industry these days. But hasn't it always been that way?
Eight days ago, longer than some people think it took God to make the whole entire world, I decided to give Thanksgiving its due and not get all Christmassy until I was done with 12 days of giving thanks for cool stuff at 
Christmas is coming; the geese are getting fat. Please to put a penny in an old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do. If you haven't got a ha'penny, well, it's the economy. As a country, we've done much without foresight, and things don't look pretty..jpg)
So it's officially over. Everyone is out shopping, grabbing bargains and .jpg)
Twelve days of giving thanks: not near enough to capture all the cool, make me pause, make me tear up, make me smile moments that happen around 
On the Fourth Day of Thanksgiving my true love drank the whipping cream for the pie in his coffee and left to play golf..jpg)
It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving, everywhere I go.
Once I decided to really spread out the Thanksgiving love, I realized that there are and endless supply of things that make my cranberry sauce jiggle. A dozen days can hardly do justice to all the delightful people, books and experiences around Bright Sky.
Before I was editorial director at Bright Sky Press, I was a teacher. Before I was a teacher, I was an editor. Somewhere in the middle of those transitions, I became a mother. These days, I am simultaneously teacher, editor, mom, wife and not a day passes that I don't get some sort of epiphanic blessing, insight or chuckle from someone I have been lucky enough to walk with for a while on my winding journey.
I have lots of memories of college: some are from my classes. My school prided itself on its ranking as the number one non-professional party school in the nation (Rollins College was considered the number one PPS at the time). But as the thrill of doing 12 oz. curls with 3.2 beer soon wore off, I realized that I was smack in the middle of an academic wonderland, and I started to pay close attention to the stuff they were teaching. At least in English class.
I have strict rules about when I let myself tweet. It's a slippery slope. Without self-discicpline, I'd be tweeting all the time, tweeting instead of reading more nutritious fare, sneak tweeting with my orange juice, and staying out until all hours tweeting. Self-control is important here, because it is so easy to do "just one more," instead of getting work done, picking up the carpool on time, or filing paperwork. I'm old enough that I still generate paperwork, and stuffy enough, too, that if I am with someone and want to tweet, I'll say "Excuse me while I tweet." 
When I was in fourth grade, it seemed like everyone in my class went skiing for spring vacation. I told my parents at dinner one night that I wanted to go to go on a trip. To Vail. I wanted to go on a gondola, drink hot chocolate and wear enormous furry snow boots. I wanted to go somewhere wonderful, somewhere not 
At our warehouse, which we call the Bookspace, we have events. One of the wonderful things about being an 
For almost 25 years , I wanted to be a man. But my husband needn't fear; I didn't want to be just any man. I wanted to be 
I met a fascinating man on a plane recently. He was a university professor on his way to a meeting where he was going to get further funding for a study his department was doing about a style of teaching called .jpg)
Now I am deep in the heart of New Mexico, in the snow—lots of snow.
