We visited friends/family in #Oklahoma at the end of September. One of the moments of great import was attending “poetry night”, which used to be what we referred to as “Wednesday night church service”. It used to be much bigger, more well attended, and at the best little bar & grill in Oklahoma City and before that it was at numerous places around the city. Things have changed a lot over the years, but there are still a committed few who continue to carry the torch.
I read at least one piece of work every week for years. Then I had a baby and I pretty much stopped writing, but I continued to attend on Wednesday evenings with baby on my hip. I felt like it would be weird to be #pregnant again and not reading something up there at the mic while we were in town. So, only an hour to go before we headed over to the place and feeling immense cosmic peer-pressure, I scribbled some feelings down and then read them aloud when it was my turn.
It had been a little over 12 years since the people in that room that night had heard me read.
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I’ve spent the last 11 years watching others expand & give birth.
Intimately, at their sides
holding space at the threshold for another Star to be born
The energy & smell of birth in the air. A constant reminder
I’ve waited a really long time for you: past the point of “losing it” and giving up.
And now you are here, taking up room inside of me. A Star, Expanding.
As your mother, if I have one piece of advice to give you it would be: Don’t Take No For An Answer.
If you shake your fists often enough at the heavens & you scream & whine at the Universe long enough, you will get your way!