CYCLICAL LIVES

I picked up my copy of the book, A Living Room of Our Own, while searching for stories written by a friend who recently passed away. The book is an anthology of stories written by the Wednesday and Friday Writers groups led by Elizabeth Fishel. I have belonged to Wednesday Writers since 1993. Until the pandemic, the group met every Wednesday during the school year at her home to write memoir pieces. When I joined, I was the mother of a young son. Being in the group has been a way to reconcile my life as a mother and my life as a woman with dreams of my own. From Elizabeth's house, I could see the young mother who lived next door, and I fantasized about what she was feeling and thinking while she tended to her children. I wrote of the moments when young mothers can feel overwhelmed by the caretaking of small children. But I also came to realize that women have cyclical lives and that motherhood and dreams are not mutually exclusive.

THROUGH THE WINDOW

Our writing class sits in Elizabeth's living room in her Arts and Crafts style home in Rockridge. About a dozen women have met together for the last three years to write about our lives. We are all ages, but we share common experiences as mothers and women trying to find our place in the world. Our group sits intently reading each other's writing or discussing pertinent ideas regarding our shared pieces. Next door to Elizabeth is a dark brown shingled house. Elizabeth says, "There's Tera with her two babies," and we turn to see a young woman busy with her children through an open kitchen window. The mother is intent as she feeds, diapers, dresses, and talks to them.

Elizabeth has asked us to write about her neighborhood. I looked out the window and wondered what I could write. Today is the first day of spring and much outside is changing. The plum trees that line the street burst with blooms. Each house has a small front yard with many flowers ready to appear. The yard next door wraps around the front, up the driveway, and cuts to the back. It is filled with new plantings with seeds sprouting in straight rows their shoots carefully protected with copper caps to ward off the snails lurking in every California yard. A new drip system has been laid to sustain all the plants, and the dirt is dart and crumbly, ready for plants to surge forth.

I look again at the window and see the woman standing there with her baby. She reminds me of the many times I walked, cradled, and hugged my son when he was that age. We look at each other and I smile slightly and nod in recognition of the time she is spending. But then I go back to my writing about Elizabeth's neighborhood as the morning passes us outside.

TERA IMAGINED

Tera had two babies right in a row. She had been part of the more free-flowing world, teaching painting classes, taking long treks around the world on her own, and getting involved in the political games that circle Berkeley like mad yellow jackets. Now her life was different. She was a full-time mother -- an often isolating existence of diapers, baby food, naps, and play groups. She hadn't painted in months. When she went out, she met other mothers at the park and other places where babies were welcomed.

Her next-door neighbor led writers' groups for women. They showed up in the neighborhood every Wednesday morning, briskly walking to the grey stucco house that squatted so closely to her own. She often saw the women stop to talk with one another before they went inside. Their faces lit up in animation, their arms filled with papers and notebooks. How she sometimes longed for the carefree, yet purposeful days before her babies came.

Tera looked down at her clothing. She had been wearing the same things for the last three days. Colin, her oldest, had a cold and she had been up all night, comforting and rocking him. Tera stood in the kitchen, leaned against the sink, and quickly ate a graham cracker before she walked to a chair so that Salina, her youngest, could nurse. She looked through the small kitchen window to her neighbor's and saw the women writers sitting in a circle in the living room. Their heads were bent over, busy writing. When one woman finished, she looked up expectantly as though what she had written had given her a natural high. Then the woman caught a glance of Tera in the window looking at her. Their eyes locked in recognition of their many roles as women. The writer was the first to turn away.

Tera walked to the overstuffed chair with Salina in her arms. She lifted her blouse and Salina went for her breast, and Tera began to float away in her mind to that place where nursing mothers go.

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Wednesday & Friday Writers now meet on Zoom

We all have stories to tell. Julie Cameron's book, The Artist Way, and Natalie Goldberg's books on writing are excellent sources to help you get started writing. 

Or join a writers' group. Check out Elizabeth Fishel's website here:

https://www.elizabethfishel.com

Though A Living Room of Our Own is no longer available,
these two anthologies are available on Amazon.
All proceeds are donated
 to two breast cancer centers in the Bay Area.