By Note: That photo up there was taken post-tattoo, post-book, long after the moment below happened. In the following, I was just trying to do and finish the project, feeling like I sucked at everything, trying to do what I said I would do, all amidst the core of being a mother.
An Excerpt from The Oat Project
JOURNAL 11.21.2012 Last night, I sat with my mom as she struggled through the worst night of pain thus far in her fight with cancer. Her abdomen was sore from throwing up, the morphine was not working well, and her thirst remained unquenched fearing more nausea. I felt completely helpless. I
The Spiral of a Party: On Friendship
Last night, as I stood at the stove at my own birthday party and created, stirred, and spiced the soup, I listened to all of you (my children included) talking, laughing, connecting. You thought I was fussing over a dish, but hearing all my people meet and love each other
A Birthday Poem
Fundamental, by Jene’ Jackson on her birthday, today, as she drove home down Colorado Avenue after writing all day. Perhaps, pungent as the cut onion’s night after night spray in kitchen curtains pervasive as the toddler’s goo griming the minvan seats tenacious as the smoker’s film of brown on bedroom walls,
Life: 0 to 60 in Fourteen Seconds Flat
You know how Life can go from 0 to 60 in fourteen seconds flat? I’m clocking in at 74 with an eye on 90. Before I tell you why, thank you, so very much, for walking through this life with me, for supporting my efforts as writer/photographer/singer/speaker/etc=Artist. I’m still going!
Happy Birthday, Mom
Dear Mom, Happy Birthday, mamadear, on what would have been your 69th. I’m sitting here about to watch an Agatha Christie movie, whom you loved, eating beets then pecan shortbread, which you loved (as do I), end-of-week tired from work you would have been so happy to know I was
Forest Fires, Drama Queens, and Authenticity
This is an excerpt from The Oat Project, from the rock concert chapter. It may or may not make the final version (coming this summer!!!). Enjoy…and now, back to it. It’s like World Wide Wrestling. What is that fake-fighting impulse? Do we all have it in one form or another?
The Gifts of Empty
The kitchen is where my inner science geek and slapdashing artist get to dirty dance…pure alchemy. Cooking has always given me energy, yes; but it also requires a focus, effort, and sense of play that I haven’t been able to muster often over the last year and a half since
Out of the Blue, a Poem for You
Some days, writing is like a laser beam: sharp, focused. Other days, it’s like a flood: deep, dense. This day, this morning, I woke with an emotional hangover. Yesterday–my second Mother’s Day without my mother–was heavy with unexpected grief, conflict, and affection. My children saved it, of course, as did
A Story of My Mother’s Last Gifts, at The Story Project – TONIGHT
A little over two years ago, I told a story from the summer I wrote The Oat Project for a program here in Colorado Springs called The Story Project. Like The Moth Radio Hour out of New York City, it’s live, local storytelling without a script. Tonight, on this Mother’s
