Wednesday’s Bloom at 525 weeks: My audience of little dreamers
/// multitudinous mothering entity /// A mother who moves through the world and navigates spaces while attached to or in close, physical proximity of her children. Italicized words expanded on in the Glossary.
Wednesday’s Bloom at 525 weeks
My audience of little dreamers
by Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy
The munchkins enjoying breakfast in Mommy’s room. Unseen, a sleeping baby sister beside Mommy on the bed.
For Mama MTM— thank you for instantly seeing my bright light all those years ago and encouraging me to stay with my dreams, always.
Bloom says I still have to do today’s Wednesday’s Bloom because it’s Wednesday. When he says this to me I’m nursing the baby and my eyelids are growing heavier by the minute. It’s late, and 4 out of 5 munchkins are wide awake. I’m beyond tired because the accumulation of labors—over the day, the week, the month, the year, the years—has brought me to this specific level of exhaustion. I tell him it will be a very short post. He says he will read it in the morning.
Earlier that morning we had started our day in a new way. I surprise them and invite them to “breakfast in bed” in Mommy’s room. This is a treat because up until now only Revelation, the newest munchkin to have been bumped up to big brother, has been able to eat upstairs with me in these afterbirth weeks.
It is a sweet moment for all of us. I am relieved to not have to split myself between the two galaxies of the kitchen and my room where the baby is finally back to asleep after being up since before the sunrise. I gather bowls, and food and cups and silverware on trays. I serve them after we shuffle the seating arrangements so that no one’s knees and arms have to be touching anyone else. They sit in a semicircle facing the stage that is my bed. I feel like performing some part of myself for them. What can I share about my life that they don’t know?
I start rapping. Once upon a time, when I was an invisible mommy, I made up rhymes for my voicemail messages. Instead of just the standard, “Hi you’ve reached Binah…” my callers had to indulge me and listen to a few lines of verse about my life. These little tunes have not been on my mind in years, let alone on my tongue. But in the delicious now of my children’s eagerness to hear Mommy rap, the lyrics come back to me in full.
My children are bright-eyed and delighted by my ability to transform and jump on the invisible mic, without even changing out of my pajamas. It excites me to revisit this moment of creation with them, to revisit, if only in those few minutes, a piece of my story before they came to be. After the first song, more long-ago raps start coming back to me. Some of them are recorded and I play one for them. It’s met with rave reviews from my audience of little dreamers. What else can Mommy do, they ask?
When the bowls are empty, and the trays are stacked for their return trip to the kitchen sink, I suggest we read some stories. Luminous Glory begins to stir. Someone hands me the bucket and we collectively rejoice that we caught another pee and saved a diaper. I put her to the breast and lay her across my lap so I can still hold the book and turn pages. Creative questions and alternate universes spring forth as we take adventures inside each book. We carry these tiny sojourns of collaborative curiosity with us, tucked snugly away in our hearts and memories. They stay with us, threaded somewhere deep and unshakable I pray, as the day moves on and into whatever else it has for us.
Wednesday’s Bloom: Moments in Motherhood is Mother Mother’s weekly-ish, textual experiment in capturing moments from her mothering journeys in 1000 words (or thereabouts)…
Originally birthed when her first born was 8 weeks old, the first iteration of Wednesday’s Bloom: Textual Portraits of a New Mommy lived for about a year and a half in another blog space, and then Mother Mother let the series rest for more than 8 years before beginning this second iteration, Wednesday’s Bloom: Moments in Motherhood, here inside of Notes On My Life As A Multitudinous Mothering Entity. Journey inside Mother Mother’s process of revisiting and archiving the first volume of Wednesday’s Bloom as an emerging constellation in Mother Mother’s Reading Room. Read on to try out Mother Mother’s Seeds & Sprouts practice inspired by her labors of crafting this week’s post.
Seeds & Sprouts
The Flesh Made Word
Seed Prompt
A seed prompt is a short activity that initiates multiple openings for continuing exploration. This is designed to be something you can do in 5-10 minutes.
Whether seated, or standing, or lying down, rub your hands together vigorously to make some heat.
Take a deep breath and then place your hands on a part of your body that needs warmth.
Breathe and feel the warmth transferring from your hands to that part of yourself.
Notice what thoughts, images, memories, or feelings arise.
Rewarm hands and feel the same place, or choose a new place, as you feel called to do so.
When you are ready, get your journal and make a list of the words/phrases that came to you from touching that part of your body.
Sprout Practice
A sprout practice is an opportunity to expand on whatever most stirred within your heart during the seed prompt. Save this practice for when your time is soft and you can take your time being with the discovery.
Choose one word or phrase that has taken root in your mind and heart since writing it down.
Remember where you were touching when that word/phrase appeared.
Imagine that part of your body is a dear friend you can confide in. Compose a question that that part of your body wants to ask you.
Write the question that comes down in your journal. Write or record a response freely and honestly, even if it means you have to start and stop, and return to the same question again and again. Here are some supporting questions to be with:
What else do you need to admit to yourself?
Why has it taken you this long to confess your truth?
What else is possible now that you’ve said this thing that you’ve always known?
Revisit this expanded practice daily, or as often as nourishes you, or until you’ve lovingly sat with every word/phrase from your original list.
