Happy Five Years, Listen To Your Mother!

On Mother's Day today, LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER celebrates its 5th anniversary. I celebrate four years of having Listen To Your Mother in my life. I wonder if Ann Imig, the National Director and founder, ever gets used to hearing how LTYM changes lives -- but this is exactly what LTYM did for me.

 

In May of 2011, I found my voice when I auditioned and was cast for the Madison Listen To Your Mother Show. By saying I found my voice, I mean that the words discovering me would be better. I never even knew I had something to say until I stood behind the podium on Mother's Day, four years ago, and the words flowed as if I had been in solitary confinement for the past 50 years.

 

I'm a story teller now, because of LTYM Madison. Because of Ann Imig and what she began five years ago in Madison, my life has become one of challenge and rewriting the script that I thought was my life. My world now is one of possibilities and I have gone from feeling alone to feeling held up by love, support, and connection.

 

Motherhood is defined as anyone who takes a nurturing or caring role in someone's life. This is why I wish you, Ann Imig, and the nationwide movement that you've begun with Listen To Your Mother, a Happy Mother's Day. You have been pivotal in my life, in how my children see me, and in how I have come to see myself. These are priceless gifts, and I am so grateful.

 

I want to say thank you, as weak as the words sound, but Thank You, for everything. For the honor of being part of Listen To Your Mother, and for the opportunity you've given me to be involved with LTYM. My life has become something I only envisioned for others.

 

Happy 5th Listen To Your Mother! So many lives changed, so many voices encouraged, so many readers who took that step and flew. Thank you, from the audiences, readers and production teams.  LTYM has inspired transformations!

"Tomorrow we celebrate our 5th annual LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER Madison. When 12 of us took the stage four years ago, we had no idea that this show would turn into a nationwide phenomenon..."

 

~Ann Imig, National Director/Creator Listen To Your Mother Shows  

 

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An Abundance of All That Is Good

Driving my youngest child home after he's had a full day of school is better than winning any lottery could ever be. I settle our black van in the school pick up line early so I'm one of the first cars he sees, and then along with my mid-afternoon coffee and a book dog-eared to the page from the day before, I wait.

I spot his curly head run for our car, and the way his backpack bounces against every disc in his spine makes me cringe with sympathetic pain. His eyes never leave mine once he's locked into my gaze, and when he's almost at the car, I push the button to open the automatic sliding doors. He falls in like he just made it onto a lifting helicopter.

The backpack is flung in first, followed by his all-legs body lunging across the middle seat. With his head tossed back against the headrest, he exhales a big sigh. His sets the stage, his first words are always the same, "What a day."

And then he sits up, animated, he buckles his seatbelt, and the words pick up pace as he realizes how much he has to tell me. The unbelievable events, the surprise twists, the triumphs, the challenges, the happenings of his day in his 5th grade classroom that YOU WILL NEVER GUESS BUT GO AHEAD TRY, MOM, TRY!

He dares me to see if I know who held the court at foursquare at lunch, to guess who finished the math quiz first! And then, who do you think forgot their homework again!

I guess, and most times, I'm right... and the short ride home is over way too quickly. We pull into our garage, and the chattering stops. He scoots out of his seat and runs into the house, not able to wait one minute more until he can peel his school uniform off and ball it onto the living room sofa. He opens the refrigerator and rummages for a snack, our conversation from the ride home already left echoing in the car.

Except for me, his voice lilts in my head like the first chirping of birds after a much too long winter. I replay all he's told me because I never want to forget the sound of him, still so bell-like and clear, and young.

My children are what make Mother's Day what it is for me -- a time for me to celebrate this role of my life. I need no more than the gifts I already gloriously have, that of their love as they greet me with the enthusiastic retelling of their day. What more could there be, than how this child of mine saves and gathers his words, until the time of when he sees me again.

 

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Something Smells Like Pee: Classy Observations

I am dedicated to humor: finding it, reading it, celebrating it, sharing it. A few years ago I found a website passionate about providing a platform for women and their humorous writing, it was FunnynotSlutty. From that day on, I have followed one of the talented top writers there, Blythe Jewell.

An example of how funny she is? Click here and see what I mean: "Five-Year-Olds Just Don't Get the 80s"

Blythe Jewell has just released her first book, Something Smells Like Pee, and as the title promises... it is full of the things in life that with a sense of humor, can make us laugh instead of cry. Reading her poems, musings, thoughts, are like spending time with that treasure of a friend you hope to never lose.

 

Learn To Merge

 

You want to Merge?

Why yes, of course.

Here, let me just ease back.

 

Why don't you merge?

Can you not see

I've left room on the track.

 

Okay, I guess

You've changed your mind

and want to come in

from behind

So, I speed up

But you do, too...

and cut in the goddamned line.

 

I'm forced to slam

upon my brakes

so hard my coffee flies

Now my car's a total mess

and I'm fit to be tied.

 

I honk, but you

do not respond

My temper starts to burn.

 

I honk again

Because if not

however will you learn?

 

*you'll have to order the book to see what comes next! *TEASER!*

Something Smells Like Pee is 91 pages of poetry and illustrations by Blythe that reflect on the sometimes unbelievable ridiculous of life, which is also its beauty. Whatever Blythe does, she does it well, and leaves me with a smile for the rest of my day. Along with the comfort that maybe I'm not that odd in my thoughts -- and that my coolness factor hasn't seen the last of its days yet.

I'm happy to offer Something Smells Like Pee here as a giveaway.

In part, true, because I'm a big fan of this author, but also because good work needs to be recognized and put OUT THERE -- Blythe's writing here, is indeed, clever, smart, subdued, and entertainment like this shouldn't go unnoticed.

Congrats, Blythe, you have a winner of a collection here.

Please leave your name in comments to be entered in the giveaway of Something Smells Like Pee, and order your copy here so you don't have to wait.

Good luck, everyone!

 

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ICYMI - Best of the Internet

Fun discoveries on the internet this week:

--Like this site: Astronomy Picture of the Day. A picture a day of our universe. Holds me in awe and my children, even more. Click and see.

--This one blows my mind: different kinds of rainy day music from rainymood . com. Really. I work best to nature's sounds, like rain, and with this, I can choose heavy, light, sporadic: SO COOL.

--A free download from sarahselecky . com on the ten most common mistakes short fiction writers make when they submit their work. Sign up and read this guide before you send your story out. I subscribe to sarah's free newsletter that includes a daily writing prompt... I get a lot of writing ideas from it.

That's the best of the best. I wish you a good week, with some fun, some production, and some just do nothing moments in it.

xo

Story Warriors

What a sight -- our awe inspiring cast

Milwaukee celebrated its 2nd annual Listen To Your Mother Show on Sunday, April 27. We shared a stage with ten unique community voices, brought together through the spirit of motherhood. Not all of our stories were of sunshiny days and blissful times, but all of our stories were a capture of human spirit.

It takes strength and a belief that your words matter, to stand on stage. Something that many of our readers have never done before. Some of our cast readers have never even written before and LTYM is the first time they've put their thoughts to paper... determined to speak them before an audience and to be heard.

Throughout my life, I have been quiet. I didn't start out this self conscious. When I was  little, I laughed raucously when it felt good and loud and freeing to do so. I said the things that came to my mind when they came to my mind and I remember asking the questions that I wanted answered. But then I started school and children poked fun at my accent, my name, the way my hair curled and the kind of lunches my Abuela would pack for me. I learned that if I was quiet, I'd escape notice. And so I did, I was as invisible as I could make myself. But with every year that passed, I felt stories -- my words -- welling up inside and I was running out of room from holding them in. I began writing them down, first on the inside blank back of coloring books, and later on the half empty notebooks left over at school year's end.

The urge to be heard and share what is my life has never left me... it's why I have read for Listen To Your Mother Shows, and why I now help produce and direct LTYM shows in Milwaukee. I want to be part of the movement that gives our life stories a safe place to be spoken and be received.

Listen To Your Mother Milwaukee alone has thus far in two years time, helped 24 women share their story, with a podium, under lights, and out into the world via microphone. And there are 32 cities across America, right now, giving motherhood a voice in celebration of Mother's Day.

It has been a privilege to be part of this empowering process that gives motherhood a microphone. I have worked with and gotten to know some of the finest people I would have never known otherwise.

Through hearing live LTYM shows and watching the videos of other cities and their shows, I see how each of our voices is valuable. The best asset a community can have is support, and a community needs all of its voices. Voices to help us with life's pressures and doubts just by being there to say, "You're not alone." Even on any bad days, if we know we have been heard and that someone has listened, then we become a part of something larger than only ourselves.

Strength and character, that's what  a Listen To Your Mother Story Warrior is. How I love each and every one of you LTYM readers across America. And I thank the creator and national director, Ann Imig, for what she has brought into the lives of over 500 LTYM readers and 80 LTYM producers/directors.

I am so proud of you, Listen To Your Mother Milwaukee cast of 2014:

Elizabeth Braatz

Christi Craig

Linda Dindzans

Colleen Hayes

Rebekah Leger

Nancy Ellen Martin

Mel Miskimen

Sini Mulloy

Lane Pierce

Mandy Reilly

I also want to say that you are stronger than you ever imagined, and your day of sharing your story, makes you part of the LTYM family forever.

**special thanks and appreciation to Milwaukee LTYM co-producer Jennifer Gaskell.
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If you'd like to learn more about LTYM, please click here.

"Listen To Your Mother is a series of live staged readings in 32 cities nationwide in celebration of Mother’s Day. The mission of each LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER production is to take the audience on a well-crafted journey that celebrates and validates mothering through giving voice to motherhood–in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor–in the form of original readings performed live on-stage by their authors."

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