“What are you doing?” my husband calls through the screened in porch.
Our son’s fifth birthday party ended an hour ago, and I am outside, alone. I am crouched between two of my favorite Spring plants in our backyard: the snowball viburnum nearing its end of bloom and knockout roses nearing their middle. My favorite green sparkly headband holds my naturally wavy hair out of my face, and my wear everyday necklace is still visible under my perfectly worn in chambray shirt. I hold my phone out in front of my face like I’m taking selfies for a Facebook Photo Album circa 2009.
I turn towards the porch. “I’m taking pictures of myself,” I reply with a laugh. He walks away before I can explain.
I snap a dozen photos, one after the other in alternating positions, different grins, profile versus straight on. Afterwards I look through them, quickly rejecting one after the other. Awkward look on my face. Do I really have that many gray threads amidst the brown? Are lines really etched that deeply into my forehead and corners of my eyes?
I finally pick my favorite and join my family back inside. “Do I look like this?” I ask my husband, holding my phone to him.
“Yes,” he replies and goes back to playing cars on the living room rug with our children.
“Ethan, does this look like Mommy?” I question my son.
He barely looks up from zooming. “Yes,” he says and immediately continues to drive his new cars.
Why was my first instinct to notice my perceived physical flaws? I am in fact a 36-year-old mother. I spend the next week thinking about who I am and what makes me, me.
Spoiler: It’s not skin without wrinkles or hair untouched by gray.
This month my Exhale Mastermind Writing group took on Ashlee Gadd’s creative prompt “The Art of Self-Portraits”. The challenge was to photograph a self-portrait and write about it. Scrolling through my iPhoto gallery I find dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of images of my children, seasonal blossoms, myself with the kids, our family, and my cats. However, me by myself? Not many.
April 20, 2024 // 12:42pm
She is a Quilt She is a quilt, the mother. Not only the mother but also the wife, the daughter, the friend, the sister. She uses herself to warm and protect her children from rain and cold, like an umbrella or a sable. She creates magic, a world of imagination, using herself like a fort. She is a soft place to sit, a haven in which to hide. Is she more? Than what she can do for the others? And who she is to the world outside herself? Perhaps she is the stitching holding her whole life together, the pieces of herself each incomplete without the others. She is learning about the thread of herself— her hope, resilience, gratitude, love. She can enjoy the process of patching (and the waiting) as she keeps adding squares. She will not discard the old but sew in the new, a limitlessness blending of who she was, is, will be. The way she bakes her late grandmother’s zucchini muffins and believes in snail mail like her mother. The way she sings Sheet Changing Day and It’s the Weekend. The way she knows when it’s time to trade the children’s t-shirts for sweaters, we need more socks, and the kids are outgrowing all their shoes. The way she rebuilt her body after growing and nourishing two babies and then rebuilt it again after back surgery. The way she journals to start her day and reminds herself “Christ is Light” with her family mealtime candles. The way she hides love notes for her husband and finds his hand at church. The way she’s reconstructed her life after every military move and reinvented herself year after year, more than she ever thought she would (have to). The way she joins a book club before she finds a new doctor and has a signature rice krispie potluck dessert (a hit everywhere). The way she holds her boy when he cries Mama and rakes her daughter’s sunshine hair. The way her body relaxes into her husband’s at the end of the day and the way she knows what’s for breakfast at the start. The way she can make and share a plan, inspire those around her. The way she uses a spreadsheet to make decisions and loves the satisfaction of crossing something off a To Do List. The way she documents her life in words and photos and has just started calling herself Writer and Poet. The way she is learning to name what’s in her heart instead of rushing through it like the junk mail she tosses before even getting into the house. The way she is starting to see herself as important and her feelings as valid. When the mother steps back to admire the stitching, the thread, the squares she doesn’t see the mistakes. Instead, she beholds a tapestry of 36 well-lived years and she thinks, “This is beautiful.”
Gorgeous, Alyssa. I'm so glad you shared this. I tried to take some selfies this weekend too with very similar thoughts and this was such a beautiful read.
You and your words are beautiful and magical, friend! I’d love the Rice Krispie recipe. 😄