By late March, the buds start to open, revealing delicate pink and white petals. We hop in the van and drive toward Showa Kinen Park, stopping on the way to pick up a conbini lunch of fried chicken, onigiri, and egg salad sandwiches. We walk familiar paths to a grassy field surrounded by trees heavy with blossoms—an ideal spot for hanami.
[The Beauty of] M[otherhood] // Motherhood is messy. It’s mounds of mac ‘n’ cheese and macrame art. Motherhood magnifies mere mortals, makes Marian martyrs out of mall rats. Motherhood is a masquerade, a mission, a mirror. It’s the ministry of missing mittens. It mutates and metabolizes, muddles minds and mesmerizes. It’s the merging of meek and mighty. It’s malodorous and melodious. It’s midwinter mud pies and midweek mayhem. Motherhood is maniacal and methodical, mysterious and mischievous, modern and medieval. Motherhood is morning musings, mid-afternoon make-believe, and midnight melodies. Motherhood is the madrigal and the marching band; it’s major keys and minor chords. It’s minivans and movie marathons, a mash-up of the mercurial and monochrome. Motherhood is moonshine: a mixology of the molecular and metaphysical. It's the murky middle, muscle memory. Motherhood is a marriage of the miraculous and mundane. It’s a metamorphosis, a mosaic of the mystic and material. It is equal measure milk and marrow.
Jennette McCurdy's memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, is compelling, interesting, and brave. McCurdy lays everything bare with her raw, honest storytelling about the challenges of being a (reluctant) child actor, having an abusive mom, and many other traumatic events and circumstances. As far as content warnings go, this book would need a list a mile long, and I would especially caution anyone who has struggled with an eating disorder that there are sections which might be very triggering.
Melissa Kutsche 