What Once Was Will Be Just Fine, Thank You... A Magpie Tales Inspired Poem

I’m obviously feeling much more maudlin than I realized. I can see the genesis of this: it has been seven days since I left my daughters on the East Coast to come back from Bakersfield, so that is a part of it. I’m also participating in a Periscope Challenge that includes a lot of young Mom Bloggers and I’m feeling slightly out of place and worried they’ll find my work and my videos irrelevant. Who wants to be found irrelevant? Not me… so that leaked out and onto this poem.

I apologize in advance and maybe, just maybe, there is something in these words for you. Thank you always to Tess and the community at Magpie Tales, which is where this remarkable visual prompt came to bring my poem to life.

Bright shiny new wooden gate

straddles the old, the used up, the

what once was --

I listen to young moms and think

am I the what once was Mom now?

I don’t feel like it but is that what

the bright shiny Mommies think?

I wonder – not for any important reason other than

I contemplate whether I still a poet now or is that done too?

am I capable of giving advice, telling birth stories

I can still sort of ride a skateboard

I can ride a bicycle like I did, probably not without hands

and I could with practice. I could, yes I could.

I can’t write. This is apparent and evidenced by

this weak excuse for a something but is obviously

not an anything.

This poem is substandard.

I wonder – if I’m all done up if I’m ready to be taken

to the dump or simply left there, a reminder of

What was once

when my children were

little. In diapers. In preschool. Singing in holiday programs.

waving at me as I sat proudly in the audience instead of

graduating from high school and college and working

jobs and now

on to the rest of their lives –

while I sit here

bumpy and pock parked, stitched back together

I’m scarred with tired feet and knees and

concerned, somehow with my mind’s

ever present others assessing me

as leftovers or used up when actually I’ve barely

scratched the surface of the first course

I’m not the gate waiting for removal,

the metaphor of what once was is now done

I’m the what once was is not the

new beginning…

Making myself into a bookshelf or a

merry go-round or a planter or who

knows what specifically

I just know it – and I –

am going to be just fine….

 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in September 2015 and beyond.

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Comments

[Kathe W.]

of course you will be fine!

[Bekkie]

This poem sounds like some I've written recently having many same doubts. Although not mother's so much in my case it's just EVERYONE seems younger than me! Lol! I'm not that old. I'm always so tired now kicking myself in the butt to keep up. Refreshing write thanks!

[Helen]

No need for apologies ... most everything I am feeling finds a way to 'leak.'

[DeeDee]

This is sad, unlike your normal posts

[Michael]

Western culture has a way of deifying youth and its privileges. But I have always regarded youth with a sort of dissatisfaction.

Wisdom appears to come at the cost of youth...but it is the only thing worth having. All that you are is more than you ever were. Celebrate your experiences and all that they have made you.