Poem

A little extra this week: a friend of mine surprised me the other week by telling me that "you make it look easy on that blog!" [having two kids]! I was thinking about that, and the "Real Baby Book" that Grandpa Ruane talks about making (one that captures the tears and fits and mess, not the smiles!). And then I saw a poem on our local parent list-serve that is just wonderful. And I wanted to share -- I love the feeling of this poem, because it captures the chaos and craziness of life with kids - even though, of course, in the end, it is all worthwhile. :) Enjoy!

PS The photos here are a nice visual, too!

"Advice to Myself."
-- Louise Erdrich

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs at the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew in a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls under the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzle
or the doll's tiny shoes, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic.
Go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementoes.
Don't sort the paperclips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience.