This, on the other hand, IS me…

Deborah, who blogs at Pipecleaner Dreams, just posted an interview with me about being Jake’s mom, at 5 Minutes for Special Needs. Deborah’s been a longtime supporter of the Disability Blog Carnival I organize (twice a month since fall 2006), and her own blog is always quality stuff, so I gladly agreed to be featured. (But I still think I sound daffy.)

I love you, Sandra Tsing Loh

I always have, always will. I keep months of The Loh Life on my iPod. I started supporting KPCC because they picked you up after KCRW dropped you as a commentator for no decent reason. Your older daughter, my younger kid, born the same season. We saw you at 24th St. Theatre last year, and believe me, us leaving the South Bay to see a live performance–that doesn’t happen much.

But now I love you even more.

Work … family—I’m doing it all. But here’s the secret I share with so many other nanny- and housekeeper-less mothers I see working the same balance: my house is trashed. It is strewn with socks and tutus. My minivan is awash in paper wrappers (I can’t lie—several are evidence of our visits to McDonald’s Playland, otherwise known as “my second office”). My girls went to school today in the T-shirts they slept in. But so what?

Shadow poem, for Anarcha

I am no kind of poet. But I was involved in a few rounds of the Anarcha Project as a “cyber participant,” and some of that involved writing poetry (cyber participants were given “gifts,” or prompts, to respond to each day–which sometimes requested a poem–I believe this one requested an engagement with our own shadows). The Anarcha Anti-Archive is up online now, and I found this one, below, there–I had completely forgotten it. (Hmm, two posts in a row about my forgetfulness–that can’t be good.)

Springtime and Shadows with my Kids (April 2007)

Our best shadows don’t sit in carseats

They prefer smooth sidewalks (with curbcuts) to freeways

So we walk, and roll, and scooter in the sunshine

Where our shadows can come along for the fun.

Our shadows project us into the movement of planets

They sketch complex geometries across driveways and onto walls

So we dance, and experiment, and learn in the sunshine

Where our shadows enact the universe of light.

Penny Richards