Memes Part II: The Rest Is Still Unwritten

A while back, the marvelous wreke asked me to share a favorite quote and dedicate it to three other hopelessly dreamy inspired bloggers who keep the love going. I finally got to meet Ms. Havoc today for the first time, despite being fed a steady diet of wisdom and craziness (only the good kind) from her for the past five years via DC Urban Moms.

There's a thread up at the DCUM Forums tonight about random acts of kindness and I really think that wreke should be up at the top of it. She's had a looong week and I think dragging out in the rain to meet up with a virtual stranger (heh, heh) probably rated low on the list of things she just had to do today. But as an early pioneer in the world of blogging, much less mommy-blogging, she knows the power of the community she helped to create. We talked about it today; in some ways, finding sympatico peeps via their writings and commentary online is a hell of a lot easier than hitting paydirt on the street. Heck, she's found lifesaving community online.

It was great to meet Ms. Havoc - I will tell you that she is just as dry and hilarious in person as she is online. Maybe even a funnier storyteller if that's humanly possible. Let's just say she and her DH have a good falling-in-love story. And her life? Despite the fact that she's slated for a doozy of a (routine) treatment tomorrow (IVIG - please send her good thoughts), and self-deprecatingly knocks herself for her dark humor? She's a big marshmallow at heart, and one with a deft sense of the marvelous to boot.

That's why I know she will appreciate the fact that when I pulled out of the shopping center where we had coffee over by her house? and got in line right behind a giant Chevy Tahoe with the vanity plate JRZGRL? not that there's anything wrong with that! and also? could I really make that up? I really didn't need to pull up next to the woman driving to realize that it wasn't wreke with that very very blonde 'do. Thanks, wreke, for sending me this song as I drove off in a soft rain:

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

from Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

This quote is dedicated to a few people I know who, as far as I can tell, are reinventing and still defining themselves, some of the many women in the blogosphere I read avidly who are still searching for their voices. They are women who reach out to create a conversation and community that transcends their individual blogs: Doodah (who is outside in the beautiful spring and may not blog until winter, which is inspiration enough); FoodieTots (who shares her savoring of life with her young son, delicious recipes, and her thoughtful consideration of the origins of her food); and BeanPaste (who balances feeling weird about blogging given how lucky we all are to even have time to focus with being the funniest tosser-around of the word stigmata and often the most poignant writer I know). Those of you who know me IRL will know that I mean for this tag to be a love tap. As the spirit moves you...

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Things I Love About Moms I Know

I love this thread on DC Urban Moms and Dads. My contribution's below - add your own in the comments (consider it an early Mother's Day homework assignment if you like, only you get to appreciate every mother under the sun, not just yours! no limits!)

Things I love about moms I know:

I love the stay at home mom with 3 kids under the age of 5 whose little boy peed right out the leg of his shorts in the feed store who did not even get one iota of upset with her boy or even try to clean it up, just moved right along patting his head. I love laid back parenting.

I love the mom with a little girl who had unexplained seizures for days when she was one that only showed up like a little frozen blip in her expression. This was a working mom who asked her nanny if she saw them (she didn't) and then pressed on even though everyone she talked to thought she was imagining things. When the doc confirmed it -- when he gave her the meds-- he said how astonished he was that she picked it up, that most kids weren't diagnosed until age 7 or 8 when they can articulate themselves better. I love moms who are so in tune with their kids and don't doubt their hunches.

I love the mom who called her own mom, sobbing, from the ambulance when her kid was on the way to the ER because his bronchitis made his lungs collapse and her tiny one year old baby was in danger. I love moms who need and love their moms *and* their babies. Also stories that turn out well (the baby is fine).

I love the mom who's agonizing about whether or not her child is struggling with a physical/developmental barrier to writing, who's not sure whether she should push her kindergartner or even do anything about it because she believes so wholeheartedly in play and social/emotional growth but also is competitive and the other kids are writing! writing words! why isn't my kid writing stories! and yet she has the most amazing imagination! I love moms who are smart and empathic and love their kids and realize the part our adult egos play in parenting.

I love the mom who's raised her one child solo and vents to me about how her daughter argues with her constantly or worse, ignores her and doesn't visit or call (I am the one with daughter's remorse, trying to explain the madness of being an evil, unappreciative child) and still does things like quietly take a second job just as she could retire ("just for 8 more years") so she can send her daughter to graduate school, or help her buy a house. I love moms who sacrifice uncomplainingly and continue to love their kids even when their children are ingrates (thanks, mom!).

I love the mom who talked me into sharing her community garden with her even though I fought tooth and nail telling her I didn't have time, the mom who calmly got me down there with my 2 kids in the dirt and sat back, smiling, as we all got to plant lettuce seeds and muck about. Who cares if we grow anything? I love moms who reach out and connect with other moms in the fog of parenting.

I love the moms in my neighborhood I barely knew who brought me meals and hand-me-downs when I had my first child.

I love the dad who lives by the dog park who, when we walked by with our newborn (mind you we'd walked by 5,000 times with our dog before this) in the bjorn, RAN out of his house, yelling, "Congratulations! I'm Sam's dad!" like he was welcoming me to the friendliest subculture on Earth, which he of course was: kind parents.



Photo courtesy of Garrison Photography/sxc.
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