Spring Forth

If you’re in Baltimore and are looking to connect with other parent-writers, check out the upcoming dates for my (FREE) writing circle at The Womb Room. I would love for you to join me.

Thanks as always for reading and for all of your support!

Most of the time, writing comes to me in bits and pieces.

Often, I’ll let a story develop slowly in my mind over several days or weeks (sometimes months) before I even begin to start writing it down. A poem will grow by a line or two here and there, coaxed into being by a great deal of tinkering and rethinking.

But every now and then, a piece arrives quite suddenly and fully formed. Maybe a little revision is needed to tidy it up, but for the most part, if it gets published, the version that is out in the world is the same as it was when it first hit the page.

The two pieces I’m sharing below are examples of born this way pieces.

Lessons in Geology

I spend a lot of time reading picture books. When my older son was little, I got frustrated by having to read the same books over and over again with him. I was always trying to coax him into reading something new and different. But little kids love repetition and making demands, so it was really a lot of wasted energy on my part. This time around, with my younger son, I just read and read and let my mind wander as I repeat the same words again and again about trucks and whiny llamas and quiet, comforting bunnies.

My older son’s school will often send him home with a pile of old books that have been donated and that they’re trying to unload. (It always makes me think of the Mitch Hedberg joke about whenever someone handed him a flier it was like they were saying, “Here, you throw this away.”) We are house that loves books, which means we are a house that already has lots of books. A bunch of old random books about bugs or volcanoes, or a naughty puppy who loves to eat shoes are perfectly fine, but we only have so much room and it doesn’t take long for books to start piling up on every surface. Too much clutter makes me feel chaotic.

Anyway, one of the books that made its way from the school to our house was a picture book about rocks. My toddler pulled it from a pile one day, held it out to me and said “Read this,” so we read it. Then we read it again. And again. And again. You get the idea. Eventually my mind drifted away from the actual rocks to what the rocks reminded me of, which was motherhood, the ways in which having a child hardens you, strengthens you. The ways it breaks you down and builds you up. How it turns you into something different, something new.

I wrote this story in my head while I was sitting there reading again and again about rocks and then when my kid was finally satisfied that he had fully absorbed the book and was ready to move on to letting his big brother entertain him for a bit, I quickly typed the story out and it stayed pretty much exactly the same from that first draft to publication.

You can read the rest of “Lessons in Geology” (or listen to a recording of me reading it) in Frazzled Lit’s Spring Warmer issue.

Equinox

Today is the first day of spring. Last year it was the first day of spring when I wrote this poem.

My in-laws were in town and had come in large part to spend time with my younger son who was getting ready to turn one. They have a very close relationship with my older son thanks to his having been the only grandchild for six years straight, but hadn’t had as much opportunity to spend time with this new grandchild. They were supposed to spend the days while my older kid was in school bonding with the baby. We were all supposed to celebrate his birthday together. Instead, he got sicker than he’d ever been up to that point in his life. Fever. Fatigue. He slept for about 18 hours a day, waking for very short periods before being too worn out to continue on and needing to rest again. He clung to me and cried for me, his body hot and slack in my arms.

Thankfully, the weather was nice enough that we could be outside and I would take him in the evening and walk around and around in our neighborhood, gently singing to him. It was exhausting but also, I have to admit, a bit lovely. My baby was about to be a year old and my heart ached from how quickly the time seemed to be passing. It was nice just to hold him and comfort him, to have him all to myself.

We came back from one of these walks and I passed him into someone else’s arms and I wrote down this poem in one go and it stayed just as it was.

You can find more of my writing & contact information at clairemtaylor.com. If you’d like to further support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books, or a copy of Little Thoughts Press. I also have a ko-fi page.