motherhood – Quixotic Mama

embracing my failures

i’m not living in the past
i’m not living in the future
i’m in the right now
& it fucking
sucks
it fucking
hurts
like hell
but i’m present
i’m here
embracing
my failures.

i was doing “yoga with adriene” last night. the theme was “embrace.” she asked us, her youtube audience, to embrace something.
being one to often cry during yoga
being one who having a hard day has become more of a given than an exception
being one to spend too much time inside my head
try as i might
all i could come up with was, “i embrace my failures.”

then cried some more because i had nothing better to embrace…cried while i stretched & toned in an effort to stay sane & fit.

i wondered at my embracing failure. it sounded like negative to me at first. like a failure in itself. i had not found anything good to embrace…only bad.
but then i wondered if it might be a good thing to embrace my failures.
right?
what else do you do with them?
hide them?
hidden things tend to fester…at least in my experience.
so maybe my embracing my failures is a step in the right direction after all.

embrace
resolve
turn around
try again….

so while that percolates on that flame of my brain, on another burner i have this noticing of a recurrence of the number six in my daily life. i have never gotten around to studying numerology, but i do notice when the same number keeps popping up. like when the clock shows my birthday…or my brother’s death day….
being a good (though recovering) catholic, i especially notice a triplet of sixes–which recently showed up on the odometer of the car i just bought. and although i do not cross myself…i do feel an impending doom when i see it.
however, being a born again pagan, i thought to myself today, what does numerology say about the number six?

i found this on a google. six as a life path number. basically spelling out all of the character traits that i have that i do battle with on a daily basis. i mean, yes, of course i want to change the world & fight for the little guy…but why can’t i just lay in the grass & drink a beer? or be a traveler with no responsibilities, leaving when things get rough? why can’t that be who i am? why do i have to be the ultra-responsible, high morality, wanna-be savior of mankind?
does mankind even deserve being saved?
can’t i take a vacation?

no. because i have actually shaped my whole fucking world around raising four children to be different. to not be like everyone else. to creating a better tomorrow in the only way i know how. by being a good mom. a strong mom. and i can’t run away from it. i have to stick to it and keep trying no matter how much i feel like i’m failing…even though it seems like i am always failing…i just have to embrace my fucking failures, and i have to keep
fucking
trying.

wow, see that?
i came full circle.

happy mothra’s day

i am not the best advocate of mother’s day.

my own mother–my most vivid memory of mother’s day is when the teacher in grade school had us grow marigolds to bring home and when i presented her with the marigolds i grew for her…she said, “ug. i hate the way they smell.”

and then when i became a mom, everyone would turn to dusty and say, “what are you getting her for mother’s day?”
and he would reply, “she’s not my mother.”
not that he got his own mother anything either.
that was one of my first glimpses that our marriage was not going to be a blissful & magical one.

now i have kids who want to do nice things for me on mother’s day, and i just feel uncomfortable. i feel like a fraud as a mom.

i just feel like a fraud.

especially on mother’s day.

sigh.

maybe i will spend the day planting marigolds.

pretty me

i have done a rough of page three, episode three…working title “homicidal mama.”
yay
look at me go.
it’s not easy killing off dusty. just yesterday i looked at old pictures of my dusty…and felt that same tug inside me. and today watching season two of “broadchurch” and seeing the relationship between lee & claire and knowing that like that fictitious relationship…dusty is a drug to me….
i have to kill him off.
i’m sure you understand, dear reader.

but i think all my art therapy is doing me some good. the minions are gone for the week and i’ve doused my hair with manic panic and have somehow tapped into younger me. so she & i are hanging out.
it’s all good.

holy crap, i sure don’t look 48 in this selfie.
younger me can come & hang out more often…as long as she behaves…ish.

MOSES JONES: homicidal mama

the second page of the latest episode of moses jones.
so far i am doing one page a month.
i need to step that up.
get this story rolling.

yes. inspired by online dating & actually part of my profile before i shut that motherfucker down.

i am still off-kilter. drawing this was much more difficult than it should have been. my hands would not cooperate with my head. i can’t say what’s wrong with me right now…other than that i need to put it right.
i need to put me right.

but how to do that?
right?
how do you fix it when you don’t know for sure what is broken? or which part of the massive mess that is you needs some immediate & intensive care?

i listen to music. i stare out the window. i watch the snow fall. i keep the livestock’s water from freezing. i drink whiskey and wait for nightfall.
there it is…some of it anyway. i don’t seem to know what to do with myself when i am not playing the part of “mom.” though i battle with that role in my life…it is somewhat necessary for me to function. if i don’t have four squabbling minions to maneuver around, i don’t know how to collect my thoughts. i don’t know how to do art. i spend my days thinking they are preventing my life…when in fact they are shaping & enhancing my life. they are creating who i am.

if i ever do find that person who is missing from my life. that other part of me. if i ever find him (i think it must be a him,) he will have to be someone who eagerly craves the chaos that is my life.
another shooting star…or someone who has wished on one.

these boots are made for stomping

there is a part of me
that will always
love you
…
that is
until i can search it out
& stomp it
to death.

why yes, i have been doing my yoga…why do you ask?

my minions are in wisconsin with dusty & my heart is breaking & i am promising myself to cherish them every intense moment when i have them back once more in my clutches.

i had a promising conversation with an okcupid-er but the problem was he changed his profile age from 45 to 35 sometime between my messaging him & his messaging me back. when i asked he claimed to be 35…but then i read through all of his answers to the match questions, & he repeatedly referred to himself as being in his forties in the answers (which did not even ask for an age–yet he volunteered it over & over again.) so i politely–ever so politely–asked him about it…and never heard back from him again.

online dating is beyond weird.

in other news, buttercup, one of my two ewes, gave birth last night. i went out to dump water buckets (so no ice in the morning) at sunset, & she was not in the pasture with luke but in the sheep hut. this is not like her. so i went in to check & heard a baby bleating before i even saw the lamb. she went on to have another lamb (twins!) i checked on her throughout the night because last time she gave birth, at dusk, i left her alone and then found a dead twin in the morning. she did fine. the night was nice and dark though. cold & windy.

it amazes me how a newborn sheep can seem fine with this february weather. yikes. but so far so good. they are both active & happy today.
though i feel sad that the minions weren’t here to see the lambs born.
they should be here.
they belong here.
i miss my minions.

i don’t want to be alone.

embracing chaos

embrace me
chaos
make me yours
embrace me
chaos
pull me under
embrace me
chaos
for you are
mine

after drawing this i realized it looks a lot like a portrait of my mother that hung on our wall all through my childhood. a portrait from when she was young & full of hope? was my mother ever hopeful?

anyhoo.
after finding myself so angry at the chaos around me. goats jumping fences. chickens digging where i can’t have them digging. then escaping when i try to pen them. goats jumping other fences. children. children. children being children.
chaos.
maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.
embrace the chaos.
do not fight it anymore.
let the chaos embrace me.

don’t ask about okcupid.
it’s gotten ugly.
that might just be me. feeling the angst of shallow waters. wading around when i want to be deep sea diving.
speaking of shallow places, i am back on the facebook. but for a good reason! remember my illustrations for mistress of mud? (if you don’t, there is a link up yonder)
so i illustrated a book for a friend, and that book is ALMOST ready for me to publicize & promote! yay!
but i had to go back on facebook to do so.
don’t worry…i will do it here as well.