Category: Motherhood
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Mother’s Day: Disenfranchised Grief
All of this week, I have been going through the motions at home, at work, and everywhere else that requires my participation. My heart hurts. My head hurts. I feel like an imposter feeling a sense of sadness and bereavement about people I do not know too well. These are deaths in the extended circle…
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Mother’s Day And Motherhood
“I’ll get it Amma…” The snippet was part of some inane conversation in the morning as we bustled around getting ready for school and work. I would have missed it had it not been for the funny flips my heart did when I heard Amma instead of mommy. Motherhood, for me, is the destination of…
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Mother’s Day: The Missing And The Worrying
The late evening sun slants through my open window. It is not yet the kind of Spring I long for. The temperatures hover in the 50s, not cold, not warm. Sometimes a wind blows, the wet kind that harks back to the ill wind that the books I grew up on talked about. The apple…
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Ten Years. Many Lessons.
This week marks ten years since we went from being a couple to parents of twins. Each year I struggle with marking the day. Obviously, it is of import to me. It also is of import to my children in ways I cannot measure or understand. I consciously stay away from anything celebratory. I…
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One Walk At A Time
It is growing dark. Pattu’s flashlight bobs up and down in the dusk. I am walking beside her and watching her try to stamp on the beam’s focal point. It is like watching a dog chase its tail. Exhausting and entertaining at the same time. I throw a question at her and hope to catch…
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Mother’s Day: Gratitude
Pattu enters through the garage, her backpack sliding off her shoulder and her right hand clutching a patterned paper bag. I reach out for it and she holds back, her smile leaking through her eyes. She hands me her backpack instead and heads right for her room. Ammu walks in next and brushes past me…
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Mommy Tax
Laddu is on the kitchen island, her legs dangling off the edge. Large sunglasses cover more than half her face. I am feeling reflective and in the mood for conversation. “What is your destiny?” I ask as a follow-up to our discussion on the show Ever After High. She blinks. I go back to the…
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Motherhood, Cleaved
Collected in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). cleave1split or sever (something), especially along a natural line or grain.“the large ax his father used to cleave wood for the fire” cleave2stick fast to.“Rose’s mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth” adhere strongly to (a particular pursuit or belief).“part of why we cleave…
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Mommy, Mommy: The Soundtrack To My Life
My hands circles her tiny body, my face pressed against her back as she sits and turns the pages of the Llama Llama book I got from the library. Her voice falls up and down, the cadence of it lulling me into a sense of bliss. I am almost asleep when she abruptly flings my…
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Like A Wrecking Ball
I look at the dusk setting just outside the window of my dining room. The soles of my feet hurt from standing tad too long in the kitchen. My back aches from all the pots and pans that would not fit in the dishwasher. I am tired. I long to walk outside. To feel the…