Bless Me, Anneke*
My FaceBook post a couple of weeks ago.
“y’all, my grandmother died last night. The one who taught me through actions and words so many things, one of the biggest that it is totally possible to earn a living as a local wise woman/alternative health practitioner. If you have felt her love through me, could you give me a thumbs up, a hell yeah or hands in the air? She was awesome like that. Like me. Like You.”
I got a 133 likes, and over 50 comments. Wowzers. I’m thinking about all the things she taught me, either healing specific, “Those thongs, I don’t like them! How are you supposed to be free with that all up in there?” or about life, “Let your husband be the head of the household, so what?! Let him! You be the neck, what is he without the neck? Nothing.” And as I’ve been writing on Labor Whispering, MapBook for mamas, I kept FEELING her here with me, so strong, looking over my shoulder, “say more about that, no take that out” and then just had this over whelming sense of, “How can you teach them to get the baby out, its not even in there yet.” To which I say to the grandmother in my head, “UM, maybe they don’t need a lesbian to tell them how to get pregnant.” Her reply? “YA, well maybe some do.” So what I know is that the only way to guarantee you will get preganant is to be underage in the back seat of a car with someone you haven’t known all that long in a parking lot after a rock concert. That’s pretty much a done deal. So I shoved the Labor Whispering Mapbook for Mamas onto a back burner, got looped up on allergy meds, went on a writing marathon, and finished the entire first draft of a redo of some notes I had from a past workshop. I shot it over to a friend for editing. 3300 words, 9 pages, Prelude to Fertility, My GrandMothers’ Wisdom. Boom. Next step? Story boarding for the PDF.
And the friend I shot it over to for editing? Yeah, she already shot it back, in less than 24 hours, she’s good like that. Alejandra Ortega, mucho smoocho to ya. So I’ll work it over some more, apply my fancy PDF class knowledge from Jewels Branch Creative, and get it out ASAP. And I think my work is focused on folks who want some natural support for fertility, maybe they are not getting pregnant as fast as they hoped, wanting to try some natural options before heading into the fertility specialists. Perfecto. Here are 15 plus tips that you may not have ever heard of that will help you get that bun in your oven. xo, Rowan * Bless Me, Ultima came out this week on film. I had the great fortune to have Ms. Gwendolyn Green as my high school English teacher in the ’80’s. She had us read the book as an assignment, and then invited Rudolfo Anaya to speak to our English classes. It was awesome, and he said that as he kept writing his book, he HEARD Ultima say from over his shoulder, “You’ll never be successful with this book until you put me in there.” Grandmothers, sheesh, they think they know everything.
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