Momfulness by Denise Roy

 

I have already ordered three more copies of this book, because as I read different passages, I was reminded of different people and rather than just saying “go and get this book” I thought I would ensure readership by actually handing it to them and therefore removing that necessary step of getting it themselves.

    That’s how good it is.

    Roy starts out with a simple definition of the title (a word she coined): “Momfulness is the spiritual practice of cultivating a mindful, compassionate, mothering presence.”

    As I noted in the open letter to the author - this spoke to me in a moment when I felt this was exactly what I was looking for. Obviously I feel that other mothers will benefit from her wisdom - but I also feel that ANY caregiver could learn and be reassured by the meditations and reflections put forward by Roy.

    She starts with meditations to help bring your into your present life and actually be present. Recognize the happiness of simple moments and stop taking them for granted. She moves us to gently reminders to be attentive, compassionate, to embody grace by embracing (literally) the bodies in our lives, and to find the sacred that so often hides in plain sight. Finally, we are reminded to include the community in our lives and as part of our family.

    All of the meditations and reflections naturally follow memories, anecdotes, and confessions - because again Roy allows us to be flawed humans who are forgetful, short tempered, remorseful, and hopeful.

    I have a feeling my little copy will be dog eared and well-worn before my child’s first birthday...unless I keep giving it away and replacing it.

    I think an entire collection of “-fulness” books is warranted: “Dadfulness,” “Childfulness,” “Teacherfulness”… none of her teachings would be lost on these groups. But then, I hardly feel that grace and compassion  would be lost on anyone. 

PS: I've already implemented some of her suggestions. This one is my favorite so far.

The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen

She opens beautifully with "I love Vegetables....Call me a leaf geek if you must....I simply want to spread my enthusiasm through recipes rather than through telling you You Should, as so many magazines and medical studies to these days."

Ask and you shall receive. I ranted about the mean magazine and the library then pinged me with this gem. Chock full of comfort food (grilled artichokes) and things you'd never thought of trying before (pickled brussel sprouts) and cheerfully illustrated and described...I must add this one to my collection.

Bonus - she lives in Berkeley. Think we could be friends?

It's only NSFW if you say it outloud.

My sister sent me an old Chinese Proverb in the email today:

Confuscious say, if you're in a bookstore and you can't find the book you want, you're obviously in the:

Happy Wednesday!

My Monastery is a Minivan by Denise Roy

***I published this on my other blog - it's only vaguely a review, but I was moved in this manner by this book, which is more honest than me just saying: "it's great. Read it." ****

Dear Denise,

    Can I call you Denise? We’re both adults, and after reading My Monastery is a Minivan, I feel like we’re friends.

    My son is 3 months old. 15 weeks. It’s such a short amount of time - not a full season for any sport, not a full semester, only a 3rd of the amount of time it took me to make him. And yet in that time I realized several very disturbing things. First, I am psychotic. I’ve worked with a lot of young children over the course of the past 20 (egads!) years and the one thing that every mom has ever told me is: “it’s different when they’re yours. You’re more patient.” They. LIE. After twenty years of what I considered to be “helping to raise” children I thought I had the baby thing IN THE BAG. It took ten days to knock me off that horse. Second, I am not nearly as calm and composed as I’d like. I know there are hormones, but the tears, the frustration...it’s like puberty all over again only this time it’s being triggered by an infant. These two things left me feeling very out of my depth.

    So I started to look for some guidance. If you want to lead a more calm and balanced life there is a guide for that - many, actually. I started with mommy blogs (perfect window dressing but few willing to actually post that their child had them up all night for God-knows-why and what they really want is a martini) and moved on to montessori review (I’ve studied this as education and child care training, but not as a mother) and it’s still just as dry a read as it was when I was eighteen...I watched a documentary on the Dalai Lama (I follow him on facebook as well) and that was helpful and inspirational...but he’s not a mom. He doesn’t get it.

    And then, I’m in our local children’s bookstore just browsing and I see your book. On the shelf directly below “Once Upon a Potty” is the exact word I didn’t know was missing from my life: Momfulness. I picked it up and allowed it to fall open in my hands. This is something I often do with books - allowing the universe to guide me to recipes, essays, inspiration - and it opened to the Thich Nhat Hanh prayer*. Needless to say, I purchased it.

    But I read My Monastery is a Minivan first. I’m just starting on Momfulness, and I so far I’m glad I’m reading them in this order. I needed to know more about you as a mother before I started to learn from you. Although, really, I don’t think one needs to be a mother to enjoy your stories. One just has to have a mother. One just has to have a family.  On 35 separate occasions I was moved to tears, laughter, and deep contentment. I am inspired to be more present, to recognize that we are happy, to have more patience with myself and my son. Just hearing your experiences helps me find peace with mine.

    I do want to particularly address the story entitled “The Mother of Men.” For reasons too lengthy to go into here, I was (and am still, to a lesser extent) very apprehensive about raising a son. Everywhere else I looked were platitudes but you got to the heart of it: what men need is a rite of passage wherein the older men say “you are important and what you say is important.” I finished the book and immediately re-read that essay. In 13 years my husband (and our close male friends and relatives) will take our son into the Redwoods for a weekend and they will welcome him to manhood.

    Your 35 stories (and now your second book - so far, at least) has given me hope and reassurance that even though I’m not perfect, I don’t need to be. That as long as I practice compassion and mindfulness and respect - not just for my family but for myself as well, which is often harder - that it will all be ok.

    So really, I just wanted to say thank you.

*
Breathing in, I calm my body
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.

Noah's Garden by Sara Stein

 

   Way back in January I read a review of this book here, at a garden blog that I follow. I am I glad I took her advice and read it. Even though Stein wrote it seventeen years ago, it still has relevance today. It’s maybe MORE relevant today, considering the state of things.

    From chapter one, where she “unbecomes” a gardener, you know that the woman who wrote this book loves her land. And not really just the land that she and her husband own properly, but the American landscape as it used to be before everyone decided they needed English gardens surrounding their homes. Her attitude is one that New England should look like New England and California should look like California - it’s what made our country so appealing in the first place.

    If Stein had her way, the only foreign plants that would be allowed would be the ones who could get along with the natives and be contributing members of their habitat. And that’s where the unique part of her recollections lies: her yard isn’t just a place for a flat of emerald grass, some roses, and a shade tree or two - it’s a place for the entire circle of life to take place under her interested and caring gaze. The lowly aphid is just as welcome as the ladybugs who eat them and the birds who then feast on ladybugs.

    Like Pollan’s approach, Stein arrived at her present opinion through a series of trial and error. She didn’t set fire to a woodchuck’s home, but she did take part in the wholesale spraying of trees which led to the destruction of more than just the pest she was trying to save the trees from. Now (well, seventeen years ago) she doesn’t preach that you completely let your lawn go wild - what appears will not always be what you want to see - but that you understand the stages at which things happen, plant judiciously and with a vision of what it will look like in seventeen years rather than seventeen days (or months, even) and know that once you’ve restored the habitat to the balance it knew before the developers had their way with it...well, then you can sit back and watch the party. (By the way, I found the chapter in which she used the “Lawn As Party, Gardener as Host/Hostess” metaphor particularly charming.)

    It’s not quite “Zen” gardening because even that feels like it requires more maintenance than Stein’s garden probably needs today. But it is certainly more relaxed in its upkeep (though not in its establishment) than what my house is currently surrounded in and I am truly inspired. Unfortunately, as renters, we can only do so much; no prairie grass will grace our front lawn...but then, that wouldn’t have been what graced this valley when it was inhabited by Ohlones who embraced it’s natural resources.  I can say that the snails will live in the succulents so that the birds can have something to feast on and their shells will disintegrate to enrich the soil with minerals. I also have a new respect for our compost heap.

    PS: I tried to google to see if I could find a picture of her garden now, but to no avail. I would love to see how it’s grown.