Gone the Past

We came home for me. So i could take a break, rest, and heal. It turned out that work, going to school and more work were the "pills" that await me here in my home land.It is not bad though i still cannot get to go out anytime i want to. Motherhood is wrapped around me with the edge tied to the home. The housekeeping skills i learned in Libya has turned me into a maniac for clean and order it makes me want to throw up. My house help gives me a little freedom. I can go to school on saturdays, treat the kids out to the mall while i can shop alone...husband and i do get to spend time together, alone. The bed always catches me exhausted. Husband says i snore. I am getting old.
It's semestral break in school, so we are all home for the rest of the week, except for husband who sometimes drives off to "work" which is basically only errands for the family business. I resume my thesis writing next week (getting data from private preschools within the city), Sami and I go back to school which means "back" to this daily sked: 6am wake up, coffee, quiet time. 630 kids wake up, tv (while i finish whatever i'm reading or writing) 7 shower, breakfast, change,. 730, some free time for boys to play or fight while tarek takes a shower and i clean up their mess (the house help does the dishes, laundry). 8 i shower, rush-change, off with the boys and husband to take sam to school. 9- to the city for errands, printing jobs, grocery, etc...11, pick sami up. 1130 home. 12 lunch, 1 kids nap. 230, when they are all asleep, i write. if i can't i plan on what to prepare for their afternoon snacks. i bake or cook...4, snack time. 5, outdoor play. 6, i cook dinner (or i write from 5-7 while kids play beside me) 730 dinner. 8, wash up and get ready for bed. kids usually sleep at around 9 or 10. from 10-2am i write. sometimes im in bed by 11.
So what does husband do? he is "on call", meaning when the boys get really annoying, i tell on them and off they scramble into the corner of their playroom, and keep really quiet. they fear their father. or respect. or revere should be the word. i am a pushover mom, destined right from birth to be pushed around and manipulated even by babies. i admit to be lazy when it comes to discipline but i know they love me as much as they love their papa despite of his "not sparing the rod". I can only "not spare my tongue" and it can get really bad. So gone are my ideals on child rearing, eaten up by the new kind of mundaneness here in my home country as different from the dailyness back in Libya.
Husband is right beside me asking if we can go out somewhere. Yes, after all it's vacation time. He's thinking of going swimming...maybe, if the weather permits.
What else are down the drain? In my TESL class, I was making a portfolio and needed journals for my materials. When i opened my plastic chest box of memoirs, i realized that my recent journals, about 8 of them, from year 1996-2003 have been burned by myself. Because my "other self" told me to. Because this other self was asked by fiance-now-husband to get rid of them. So gone is the past- poems, laments, litanies, thoughts...I realized that i came home for something that i ran away from. And that i ran away from something that did not actually chase me. I have been fooling myself.
I needed to embrace the truth about motherhood: that LIFE is NO LONGER ABOUT ME BUT THEM. Not that i do not have a life, but that my children are my life now. I cannot unlearn that and no matter how strong the impression of being "some kind of woman who makes a difference"...some ideal, they remain only impressions. I admire, appreciate, occasionally envy these "impressions" but i am happy with my NOW. My dreams are not on hold anymore. I transformed them into PLANS. They give me a sense of normalcy and something to look forward to - with my family.
I thought, why look for a lost needle in a haystack when there are a zillion needles in the world? Why cry over spilt milk when that milk is sour? I tasted sour spoiled milk, and know better what to do now. Make milk myself.

Newness

the old rings back
as newness it brings
how can this be?
or t'is just fancy musings?
for words that go lost
along with memory trail,
for dreams that insist
as my Holy Grail?

i want to write but cannot,
weeps my yesterday
the girl who fears fear
the road that has no way...
the poor excuse
of a block
that writers strive to knock
out of a mind
that need not think
and heart with too much
to drink.

not knowing how to begin
with newness spilling in
yet lines and rhymes
keep filling
the blank sheet that was

my dark age now has light
once again i write.

Happiness