Mother Love

My daughter is the most amazing two year old in the world. She can sing songs, play drums, and behave herself for short periods of time. Not to mention she is stunningly beautiful.
But of course, I'm her mother. I would think all these things are mind-blowing.
Child-rearing is at once the most transcendent and most mundane act in the world. The majority of women end up doing it, with varying degrees of success, and it provides an instant bond. Whenever I meet another mother whose child simply did not sleep, I want to embrace her as we laugh at all the futile advice we got and crazy methods we tried. It is repetitious, as you sing songs over and over, discipline infractions continually, and draw one thousand and one circles on paper with purple marker. There is the daily grind of feeding, clothing, and diapering a child while handling life's other obligations, whether from an external job or the household job. And then there is transcendence.
It's the moment when you watch this small creature make a joke. Or when you see her share food with her doll for the first time. The complete miracle that your body created a tiny little person who is now feeding herself and talking in 4 word sentences. That somehow life came into the world through your own action.

Subtext

So my writing assignment this week for Alice Osborn's class is 2 pages of dialogue, with particular attention to avoiding "said" tags and using subtext. She sent us, as an example, a short story by Hemingway. In the story, a couple is discussing an operation, which according to Wikipedia, is abortion. Now, I didn't get it. I was completely flummoxed and had no clue that it was abortion they were discussing. I was so distracted by trying to figure out what they were discussing that I missed a lot of the imagery. Am I stupid? I like to think I'm not. But this subtext was just too "sub" for me.
What I've learned is that I am probably too obvious in my dialogue. I'll be working on that. I'll post my assignment after I've gotten some feedback.

 

White Elephant?

Little Fascist Panties

The icon of the Virgin Mary

Hides the wormhole vagina.

Princess Diana dressed in anarchist underwear.

Doris Day modeled Mussolini bikini briefs.

Audrey Hepburn donned Benedict Arnold boyshorts.

Mother Theresa wore angry g-strings.

Hidden, disguised, covered:

Our sexual cleft

Will emerge,

Will betray.

*The phrase “little Fascist panties” comes from the Tori Amos song “Precious Things.”