Midnight Madness

With four children, all virtually learning from home, during a global pandemic, I get very few minutes to myself. But every once in a while, the house is quiet and I find myself musing about the times I used to be able to write. And I sulk and sometimes I resent this life that I've chosen - putting up imaginary delineations mother/wife/teacher/writer. Compartmentalizing these aspects of myself, as though I have to choose one and not all. But now, slightly over 40, I am finally realizing that this amalgamation of selves is what contributes to my parenting, my teaching, my writing. And so my poems have become just that - snippets of motherhood, anecdotes of teaching, a musings of staying up way too late - waiting for quiet.