The Phoenix: Epicuriousmothering Rising

  I’ve been writing again.  Writing as in writing novels.  It’s both magical and terrifying.  I’m not exactly sure why this is but I think with anything that you love there is the potential of both healing you or breaking you.  It’s the risk of caring and hoping. Last night as I was brushing my teeth and dealing with a very upset stomach, I thought about all the things you don’t write about in your stories.  Upset stomachs and the results of them being one.  Or brushing your teeth or going to the bathroom or burning breath or blisters or BO or a million other unpleasant things.  But in reality those uncomfortable, messy, ugly, smelly parts are what make up a good portion of our lives.  Why don’t we write about them?  I mean, no one wants to read about a good bout of diarrhea do they?   Or do we?   Maybe we do.  I mean, not the nitty gritty details, but maybe we want to know we aren’t alone in our imperfections.  That ...

 There are heavy clouds hanging low in the sky making the green of the trees and grass, what green grass their is, greener.  The air is thick with humidity and each inhale of moisture rich oxygen hydrates me without ever drinking a drop. It is, in short, a miracle. This is the third year of horrible drought, after five years of much lower than average rain fall.  Last summer, there was no monsoon season.  There were no clouds, just endless days of clear skies and searing heat.  I prayed then for rain, but it was an afterthought.  I knew, I believed, that this dry spell could not hold, but it did through the summer.  And then the fall.  And winter arrived without snow to ski even at the highest resorts.  Spring came with days upon days of beautiful unusually warm days and nights without the dark, rainy, cold days that fill up the mountains and streams.  Summer arrived with searing, dry, leaf curling heat . . .and this year, I prayed in a ...

I know things come easily to people. I've seen it in my own children.  Reading for example:  Some children you point to letters, say their sounds, and they almost immediately know how to read.  Others, it's honestly like banging your head against the wall.  They simply don't get it.  Reading makes zero sense to them and no matter which way you teach it, they can't figure out how to make all the sounds turn into words.  It just doesn't click.  And then, one day, one year, everything falls into place and clicks and they literally know how to read overnight. More often than not, they start devouring books and you wish a little that they never learned because that's all they are doing (but not really, because . . . oh the stress of having a non reader . . . blah).  Everyone has their own time table for waking up and learning things. Reading did not come naturally to me. I knew what the sounds made but putting them together seemed so wrong.  T...