The Pregnant Process of Writing

I'm in the last few weeks of my pregnancy and I wish I could write like I used to. I've heard some women measure the differences pregnancy has made in their lives by their physical bodies, the hours of sleep they used to get, how their emotions change. One of the biggest changes for me has been my writing voice.

Perhaps it's the draining of my memory or the lack of focus on one central issue that has prevented me from writing as I used to. Perhaps its the inward-ness I've experienced as a pregnant women. The lioness in me to outwardly roar into the ear of the world has been sleeping with her cub. Instead of love projected into activism, travel, writing, and conferences, my life is love put into daily self-care, methodical practices to prepare for a child, mental quiet to adjust to the radical life changes happening.

My writing is deepening and the evidence is not public. Writing has always been such a private locket for me; a small beautiful thing hanging close to my heart and writing, before it's released to others, has always first transformed me before I let it out. This pregnancy, how I have come to grow with a life within me, has changed my perspective. All of the things I were before I still am, just in a profoundly different way. The awareness of another human could not be more pronounced than in the glowing and growing underbelly of a pregnant woman. There is not one step I take now without effort, not one night where I am restless and drained, not one breath I take that is not shared.

That awareness is a new writing tool, a new gift that I am still marveling in its sheath.

In the next few weeks, a new chapter of my life will begin and I am deliciously terrified of how that will unfold. I worry that I will not be able to write as much, or as well, ever again with new parenting responsibilities. I am afraid that my life will move in a direction that closes the spaces I once reserved for writing. To some extent, I'm sure that is true - a childless schedule typically lends itself to more freedom than a woman with a newborn - but if there's one thing I have learned from the past eight and a half months is that there are some things in life, there are some things that simply call for trust.

And love always leads the way. Love led me this far to birth this child.

Love will lead me back to writing well.

The Revolution Will Be Blogged!

If you want to know the difference between the feminist blogosphere and radical womyn of color, read this beautiful article by Lex. Not many can say it better than Alexis Pauline Gumbs:

The energy transmitted through the radical women of color blogosphere (a.k.a. those of us who are seeking to build community and create transformation across space and time, bringing ancestors and babies every step of the way) is a life-giving force. This magic, this potential is also why we are punished for loving each other. This is not the glorification of a scene, this is a distinction between scene and community, a reminder of what is at stake.

Speak! Album is Released

There's a cut and paste version of explaining what the Speak! CD is all about,

Speak! is a women of color-led media collective. In the summer months of 2008, they created a CD compilation of spoken word, poetry, and song. After months of hard work, they are excited to finally share their first self-named album with the world!

With artists and poets from all over the country, the Speak! CD is a testament of struggle, hope, and love. Many of the contributors are in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names to you. Instead of just reading their work, you’ll be able to hear their voices.

Proceeds of this album will go toward funding mothers and/or financially restricted activists wanting to attend the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI this July. This is our own grassroots organizing at its finest with financial assistance from the AMC. Here it is, ready for your purchasing!

but I thought I'd give you another version in case you already read that...

In all the juke and jive I've encountered about how people want to raise their social consciousness, in all the complaints that online interaction and threads don't really do anything, amongst all the bemoaning the road that mainstream music has traveled, and all the talk among folks who want to "help" but don't know how...Here is a musical, artistic collection of work between scholars, activists, poets, mothers, warriors, students, sisters, and partners which does one thing: it speaks truth.

Each track, as I listened to it again last night, is piece of truth of someone's life. You may not understand it. You may not get it. But, there it is, twenty tracks of spoken truth reserved to fill the spaces and ears of those willing to listen and engage.

Be a part of it.

How a Feminist Got Married: A Radical Manifesta, I

Tales from the bedroom are considered sacred, but tales from the corners of marriage are even more forbidden. Why is that?

As I sit on a tender marriage of almost four years, a love ignited for ten years, I often wonder how isolated and crippling that silence can be. Why are married people so quiet? What's with the secretive nature of disclosing details about the primary relationship of one's life? Is it, hold your armrests, it might come to pass that marriage goes through volatile stages of frustration, silence, asexual eras, and betrayal?

Well, we certainly don't want to let THAT cat out of the bag.

Psst...sometimes marriage tastes champagne and sometimes it tastes like rotten arugula.

Well, now that we have shrugged of those nuclei of fear, we can proceed forward.

One of the biggest misconceptions about marriage is one of the biggest misconceptions about primary and committed relationships: it consistently and unfailingly feeds and meets our personal needs of fulfillment.

Read: False.

We all realize that one person cannot meet our every desire, conscious and subconscious, and yet, when we marry, we often fall into a capricious state of allowing community to slip away once we have transitioned into a partnered identity. As children and young single adults, we flourish in groups and find a sense of belonging and purpose. While we grow and develop our sense of self and our yearning for intimacy and partnership root themselves, the communities we once were once active become things of the past, dust on our floors.

Read: Common Mistake #1

As feminists, it is common that we seek out fellow activists, artists, and writers who possess a cosmic understanding of our drive for justice, our commitment to vision. And yet, when it comes to our personal relationships, they often falter because we assume that a 1:1 relationship, especially marriage, is and should fruitfully build on its own accord, heal on its own gifts, and reap harvest from its own soil. That is, you know, how you define a healthy marriage. You don't need ANYONE else.

Read: Facetious.

As a married feminist, I find it ironic that I can clearly understand my need for community when it comes to my career. Writers must write alone in their room, but that room must be heated by the same pipe that warms the entire house, other rooms occupied by thinkers and philosophers. However, when it comes to a growth bump in my marriage, I decide to ride the bridle alone, convinced my balance will come with experience, temporary panic attacks, and large amounts of wine.

Before the village helps raise the child, the village needs to rebuild itself to recognize the needs of radical marriage. One that is built safely on the precipice of equality. Marriage will guarantee times of roaring fire and dying amber. You need to know how to tend and control both. The point is not to avoid getting burned, the point is to learn how to build the fire.

And the fire does not represent the love, the fire represents the soul.

In this harsh winter and cold recession, intimacy between partners can be strained for a whole slew of reasons. But a radical manifesta is not a guide for putting together a broken marriage, a radical manifesta is for piecing together a radical love of self and the other that feeds the often neglected part of our deepest hunger: authentic identity. Something that is often lost in the compromising of life partnerships.

And to build that authenticity in the space of marriage, to create a sustainable and passionate bridge, let's first begin by agreeing to dish the silence. That's not a call to irreverence or ranting about domestic burdens. It's a call to speak into the quiet loneliness of a working companionship that the marrieds often fight alone. The manifesta stands to speak into the radical joys and struggles of authentic identity, evolving love, and awareness that grow in marriage.

Break the silence. You can be in love and outraged at the same time.

And to practice what I preach, this is a poem I wrote yesterday about marriage. A day scattered with temper, short answers, and angry blanket hogging.

Love's Decision

I love you
as surely as I swiftly walk in the winter
and toss my shirts into a bloated floor heap
I love you
as neatly as the cable wires behind my tellie
as conveniently as city parking
and as comforting as a broken compass

I'm yours so long as you continue to lay there
snoring your peace into my side
and my knee kept warm by your palm
I'm yours
without my porch knowing death's arrival date
or the bloom of children

Our chances increase every night
We'll make it
says the meatloaf
and even pillowcases that need changing

We'll make it
thinks the leaning garage and scrappy drive
I hope so
prays our mantel

You are mine like the songs said you'd be
and you fit right beside my cheek
Like how the dandelions flutter
and the dog pulls right of the leash
With the yellow sun filling the sky
on an art paper saved by my mom

All things are as they should be.

I love you.
-LFB, 1/26/09