Flashbacks

I taught Natasha Trethewey's poem, "Myth," this semester.

I was especially struck by the way that it seemed to resonate with so many of my students, whose stories I don't really know, but who have perhaps seen more grief than I personally had when I was nineteen years old.

I wanted to write about it, and then I remembered that I wrote about this poem a couple of years ago, after reading it for the first time.

Looking back at that entry had me doing something I rarely do--trolling my own archives to see what I've been doing in month of April over the past seven (!!!!) years.

I'm quite certain now that Coco will be my last baby, so it makes this post from April of 2014 all the more poignant.

And when I look back at my pregnancy with Zuzu in April of 2012, I remember why I'm relieved to not be seriously considering another one. (Also I was recently having a conversation with a friend who's just over halfway through her first rainbow pregnancy and she was asking me how I got through and I realize that I have totally blocked the most vivid memories of anxiety and fear, and also I was seeing a therapist weekly.)

It was also in the month of April (2011), when I wrote the first version of "Violets in the Mountains," which eventually became the essay that was included in Three Minus One.

Ah, and how about April of 2010. Wasn't pregnant yet and defined "catastrophe" as nail polish on the carpet. (I mean, that is kind of a catastrophe, but obviously my perspective had shifted dramatically a year later.)

And what did I spend much of 2009 writing about? My fur babies. I love this photo series of Little Mac. We still miss her special brand of crazy.