Three Poems

September 12th, 2013

Obviously I haven’t kept up with this blog, since it has been four years since I last posted. I wrote half a post in the middle, that I just read and wished I’d finished writing, but never did. It may be a decrepit blog, but really big events require poetry, and sometimes poetry wants to be shared, so here I am.

It has been a big few years: Dave and I moved to Seattle, got married, and I finished my dissertation and became Dr. Cristie. But the very biggest event happened in April, with the birth of our first baby. I understand a lot more about parents now, because it’s true that your life immediately changes when that baby enters the world and becomes your world. I also understand more about mothers, because wow, bringing a baby into the world takes an immense amount of effort, however you do it!

So. I birthed a baby (at home). The baby needed a poem. The birth needed a poem. And then the midwives needed a poem. It may have taken me five months to birth these poems into the world, but here they are. To everyone who helped with the experience that made these poems possible: thank you. You’re amazing. I can’t imagine having done it without you.

Zephyr

You are a maker of entrances
arm-raising victories
of waiting and drama and intensity

You are a bundle of warmth
a curled puddle in my arms
limp-limbed and full-bellied

You are forty-one weeks and five days of anticipation
five hours of strength and pain
one moment of determination
one moment of flying

You are my crackle-skinned joy
molting into kissable cheeks
plumping fingers and toes
bright eyes widening at windows

You are milk-faced distractibility
an epic of squirm
with a final chapter of melted satisfaction

You are my challenge
my new meaning
my wonder
my forever-changed.

4/17-4/27, 2013

Zephyr at 1 month and 4.5 months



Sixty Seconds

So much nestles in that moment
filling it to over brim
expanding the walls of temporal possibility

I curl around my belly
clutching my feet as if I can kiss my toes

I have worked so hard
my body’s preparations smoothing the passage
between my bones
until betrayed by my flesh

Can I be too healthy to give birth?
Can I be too strong?

In that moment I strain
wondering if this is possible
until I hear words floating toward me
baby and heartbeat and episiotomy

She says I have to do it now and
I suddenly find the impossible
as if I am more than my body
as if I have been given the strength
of a thousand mothers before me

I pull on my feet
clenching my belly
roaring with strength and pain and desperation

And in that moment
he arrives
with his own roar
his own essence
his own possibilities.

-- 4/30/13

New Zephyr

My Midwives
(to Taylor and Christine, with gratitude and love)

I want to write a poem for my midwives
like I did for my son and my self
I want them to know they are worthy
of my words and creativity
of my occasional attempts at eloquence

I want to write a poem for my midwives
to capture their meaning inside verse
to somehow disentangle my thoughts and memories into words

But how can I possibly describe the primal trust
sourced so deep in my belly that
I remember it even when I have forgotten myself
when my world has condensed into
this motion
this pain
this sound
this pattern
and I can still hear a voice and listen
trusting

How can I explain the space where
I no longer believe I am capable
yet I must believe because they do
and because they believe in me I do
so I find the strength to
move this way
rise that way
bend there
push here
as she tells me and I listen
believing

How can I express the comfort
in knowing they know me
that I will be heard
that my desires
and wishes
and hopes
have been accepted
that I speak and they listen
comforting

I want these words to fit together better
to birth a complicated loving completeness
like I birthed a complicated loving being

I want to honor these women
and their work and their love
that they spread to enchant so many new lives
and somehow
I want them to know
deep down in their bellies
how special my memories are
because they are here.

5/23/13

Midwives Extraordinaire

On Grandmothers and Blogging and School

October 19th, 2009

My grandmother mentioned to me a few months ago that “none of the grandchildren blog anymore,” and while some of us do on occasion, she was also quite correct that we’re not as regular about it as we were. And to be honest, I’ve never been good at writing regularly here - too many other things going on! But I thought maybe it was time to write a post, and especially since I’m starting a whirlwind of writing academic material, my brain might appreciate some expression that’s more creative rather than scientific.

But I’ve also been a little bit caught in thinking that every post I write has to be eloquent and well-structured and thoughtful and perfect, and I’m starting to realize that if I hold myself to that standard, I really will never get around to writing anything. And if my grandmother wants to know what I’m up to on occasion, who am I to argue? So here I am, to give you a little update on me and my life, and to state an intention that I would like to write here more often, even if it’s only a paragraph or small thought at a time.

It’s hard to say whether teaching or “dissertating” is a bigger thing for me right now. The dissertation of course casts a longer shadow, and I am slowly but surely trying to actually get some momentum going on writing it. Everyone seems to believe I’ll be graduating in June, so somehow I need to make it happen! This fall, I managed to finally get my dynamic state variable model working, which was ridiculously exciting (one of my favorite things about modeling is that there’s suddenly a point at which “it works,” and it’s a much more obvious milestone than writing a paper is), and then I promptly realized that my understanding of how to go about exploring the model and its outcomes is extremely limited. So my next step with the modeling is to learn how to explore the model, now that I’ve coded it and gotten it to work. And here I thought that part would be easy!

Okay, this isn’t a picture of me dissertating, but that looks pretty boring, so it’s a picture of me helping on an archaeological excavation up the coast over the summer!

Teaching, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a looming deadline at the end of the year, but must happen at least three days a week, and requires all the relevant prep time and energy on a regular basis. I love the teaching, and I once again have fabulous students this quarter, just as I did during summer session. In the summer, I taught Introduction to Archaeology, and was glad I knew the material really well since it all had to be taught in a five week period (an 11 week quarter’s worth of information). It was exhausting, but the students were champs, and I think we had a good time together. And judging from my teaching evaluations that I just received today, it happily seems like they agree with me! This quarter I’m teaching North American Archaeology, material which I know pretty well for some geographic regions, and very little about for other regions. Once again, my students are participatory and engaged and enthusiastic, which is both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because I really do have to know my stuff, and it doesn’t take a lot for them to catch me on things I don’t know. Rewarding because they’re making me learn the material as best as I possibly can before going in to lecture, and I love that they ask me questions and interact with me - the back and forth is one of my favorite things about teaching. I have three students that took Intro to Archaeology with me in the summer, and four students that had me as a TA in previous years for other classes, so it’s nice to know I haven’t scared them off, and even, in a couple of cases, that I got them really excited about archaeology.

Students from Intro to Archaeology walking a transect on the field as they learn how to survey an archaeological site

So I am happy with what I’m doing right now, amidst being overwhelmed and frustrated on a pretty regular basis. If only there were 48 hours in a day, if only academic writing weren’t like pulling my own teeth, if only I didn’t like to do so many other things in my life as well, if only I didn’t have to eat or sleep or shower... The “if only’s” stack up sometimes, and I just try to remind myself that I do what I can, and what happens will happen. Usually all it takes is one really good night’s sleep, and I feel like I can tackle everything head on again!

And that’s all for now, folks. :)

Dave and me, on our one-year-since-we-met anniversary in July

A poem

In Memory of Jim McGough, 1948-2009

Jim

I didn’t see Jim every day
not every week
nor even every month

But over six years of living here
Jim would occasionally walk through my life
always with a smile
always wondering how was I doing
what was I up to
how was school

Perpetually early
he was always surprised to find me at home
and when I was packing to leave
he would be adamant I not worry about him
and be on my way

When I had time though
we would talk
about me
about him
about my research
about the book he was writing

I would leave him cookies on the counter
he would insist I share his pastries

I didn’t see Jim every day
not every week
nor even every month

But now I think of him every day
and now that he’s gone
I realize how big of a presence he truly was.


-cmb, May 7th, 2009

Recent moments

April 16th, 2009

Moment 1.
The fields on campus are blooming purple, small flowers blanketing the hillsides with my favorite color. Christina tells me the flowers are called “stork’s bills,” and I almost don’t believe her until she brings in one of the plants to show me. A purple blossom adorns part of the plant, but incredibly long, pointed, green spikes also extend outwards. “Stork’s bill” suddenly becomes appropriate and understandable. I’m sad to learn that this little flower that covers the fields in purple is an invasive species.

Moment 2.
It’s early in the morning, and I’m biking to the shuttle to get up to campus. The air is thick with fog, salt, kelp, and cold. The ocean often intrudes like this, reaching inland and reminding us that we live on the edge of a vast expanse of water with its own climate. The fog will burn off by mid-morning, but often returns again as the sun sets. On those nights, while lying in bed, I can hear the lighthouse calling warnings into the darkness, accompanying the regular chorus of sea lions.

Moment 3.
She’s so close to the shore, this particular sea otter, closer than one normally gets to see. She’s doing sea otter things, rolling around to stay wet, diving under water to get food, splitting it open to eat. But after several moments of watching, we can also see that she has a baby sea otter on her belly. The little otter seems to cling plenty well enough to stay attached during the rolls, but also keeps jumping off to swim around on its own. Occasionally it tries to follow its mother on a dive, but doesn’t appear to have learned that skill particularly well yet, as it arches into the water over and over until it finally gets under for a brief moment. The mother lets the baby swim around, but big waves lead her to swim over and swoop it back up onto her belly with her tail. The interaction is endearing and mesmerizing, and hard to leave behind.

Moment 4.
Red has overtaken the previous purple, and the cows lounge around in their self-cropped fields. Across the road, where the cows will be moved next week, the plants have grown a couple feet high, and are dominated by white and yellow gangly flowers. It looks like rich eating, and I imagine the cows thrilled as they’re let out of their well-grazed pasture and led into belly-deep food. I don’t think it’s such a bad life being a cow on the UCSC campus.