savagemama

Last week Seth and I were driving through downtown Portland, when cruising through the digital dial of real-city radio stations I came upon The Weather Girls. Their high-pitched hit took me back, the way only disco can, to college, to a bar called Pugs, to dancing until 3 a.m., to sorority rush.

Humidity is rising – Barometer’s getting low
According to all sources, the street’s the place to go
Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half-past ten
For the first time in history
It’s gonna start raining men.

I’m not sure what horrified Seth more, the fact that I knew all of the words to “It’s Raining Men,” that I was singing them a little too loudly or all the talk of sorority rush which I thought it was pretty ridiculous even in college, but I thought he was going to run us off the road just to put himself out of his misery. [Read More]

On Saturday, Eliza got a new BFF or at least that’s how my friend and I joke about the potential of our daughters’ relationship. (That’s best friend forever for those of you who have forgotten or pushed out of your consciousness middle-school note writing abbreviations.)

Moana was born in the first of a fresh crop of babies on their way into our lives this summer. When I looked at pictures of her, just born, I remembered details about Eliza’s birth 11 months ago on a rainy night. I saw again tiny images I’d tucked away into the crevices of memory. I’d put them there to protect them, to preserve them because they were too fragile, too precious to leave lying around on the edges of everyday conversation. But last week I saw these details again. They were almost tangible.

I remembered Seth holding my hand and breathing with me through every contraction from five centimeters to ten. I remembered the red sheets on the bed where Eliza was born. I remembered being covered with them just a few minutes after our midwife put our daughter on my chest. I remembered the creamy white vernix that covered Eliza from her wrinkled toes to her curly dark hair. It was like glue and she stuck to me in the pre-dawn hours. [Read More]

It’s a season in our house, the putting away of food. And the season is almost here.

A few weeks ago Eliza finished our last bag of frozen peaches. The same week Seth and I finished our last jar of tomato sauce we’d canned, bleary-eyed, last fall.

These days our freezer seems to have limitless space, our kitchen shelves are bare. Last season’s food is gone and the strawberries are in at the farm down the road. In a few weeks the cherries will come in at the farm by the lake, the raspberries will be ready in our neighbor’s patch. Slowly, our own garden will start to produce. In a few months, we’ll pull tomatoes, onions, potatoes, carrots and squash. We’ll pick basil. We’ll pick beans. We’ll freeze, we’ll dry, we’ll can. [Read More]