listen to your mother

this mother' day, i attended madison's 4th annual "listen to your mother," a local show billed as "giving mother's day a microphone." this clever show was. totally. awesome. 14 local women--most of them mothers, all of them daughters--wrote an essay, story, or poem, auditioned to read it, and became part of an organized presentation on mother's day afternoon. i sat in a crowd with hundreds of other women listening to powerful stories about mothering for 2 hours on sunday. there were hilarious stories about illegal mother-daughter-escapades smuggling margarine across the wisconsin state line in the 1950s. there were heart wrenching stories of disease and death. there were poems that touched the deepest place within a mother's heart. it was incredible. PLUS....it was a total gift to myself to sit quietly in the dark without someone asking me to refill their sippy cup.

as a testament to the power of "listen to your mother" there are now 25 different cities across the nation that heard about this little but huge show in madison and wanted to be part of it. cities like minneapolis, new york, austin, spokane, raleigh-durham, st. louis, kansas city, providence, boulder, chicago.....they all have their own local production, featuring local women willing to share funny, sad, heartwarming, and touching personal tales of motherhood. it really is powerful stuff. check it out:
some archived storytelling and their homepage.

but even more powerful than that? these little dudes. oh how i love them. even when they are ROTTEN to the core, oh how i love them. they make me feel necessary. they make me feel mad and sad and angry. they make me feel crushing and overwhelming joy and love. they make me feel whole.

me and my little buddies on the impossibly best mother's day ever.*

  *shout out to david staple for general awesomeness at all times, for providing me with the best mother's day, and, most importantly, for making these little babies for us. they're awesome because of you.