“Swimming in the Wind of This World”
I have to learn alone/to turn my body— Adrienne Rich*I wasn’t born in the boat, but within its long shadow. Not like my friends, who talked about the boat and told me I was strange for not living on it. Or the boys who came in pairs some Sundays with tiny envelopes for us to put money in, or the two men who knocked on our door every December to tell us that Jesus wanted us to come to church. I didn’t know they saw me as a drowning person, flailing with my parents and sisters in ice-cold, shark-infested waters. On […]
“A Woman, Mowing the Grass”
On a deep-green April afternoon, Oriental poppies at the height of their orange perfection, my daughter draws with chalk on the driveway while I begin mowing the last section of lawn. I turn a wide arc around the maple tree, the mower’s metronome thrum silencing the paws of the neighbor’s dog. She races to the curve of my calf and sinks in her teeth.I yelp and kick away the yellow lab. Her owner rushes across the cul-de-sac and grabs her collar, hauling her back and apologizing. “But, you know,” he says, the dog whimpering at his tight hold, “this wouldn’t […]
“Motherhood Is Not Your Only Making”
October 29, 1987Dear Amy (on the dark porch thrusting up your sleeves):I am writing to bring you your name. Fifteen years old, you know the letters, but all your life is left for you to learn its meaning if you don’t leave this early. You can find my name in novels and sacred texts, printed in encyclopedias and etched on stone: Atalanta, Saraswati, Ix Chel, Seshat, Cerridwen. My gifts are distinct and thus my names — Guanyin, Olwen, Maat, Saraswati, Sophia. I take many shapes so some call me Hecate, Kali, Hestia, Branwen. I have many tasks and so, many names: Freyja, Innana, Hathor. I […]
