A Million Mothers.org

I was advised by the good man who oversees my blog and the A Million Mothers website…Mike…that I should title my blogs. It’s challenging to me. I come up with some really crazy ones before I realize that this is actually going to be read. I can’t seem to find one at the beginning of [...]

Woke with a heavy heart after sleeping with one all night and dreaming from inside it. I also woke with a raging case of conjunctivitis in both eyes…not a coincidence, I’m sure.  Backed-up tears looking for their tributary, dammed-up by day to day life here. I’ve been here a week now.  For some reason I [...]

Moved into a villa with Liz the first day I was here. I am surrounded by rice fields on 3 sides. It’s spacious, quiet and austere…my favorite…nothing to keep up with, keeping all my energy for the clinic. Liz offered me this spare room. It adjoins hers by a terrace and the customary outdoor kitchen. [...]

Beloved and dearest friends, (written 5 days ago on March 19) I wrote to a friend this morning, one week after returning home from Indonesia and realized that I wanted you to know.  So I’m forwarding it on.  I will follow it with the last writings from Indonesia.  Blessed weekend holiday to you.  My heart [...]

At 7 a.m my door bust open and Robin crawled under the blanket with me. It’s something midwives do—crawl under the covers together.  It’s a fringe benefit of staying up all night together…sometimes days. It’s the best fringe benefit I know…the sisterly entwining of lower legs and feet under the covers that comes simultaneously with [...]

Early morning is my favorite time. My little room is about 8×8 feet.  I sleep in my sarong and white tee shirt under a thin blanket.  Usually by 4:40 I’m awake and wrap my shawl around me.   It cools off some in the night. I spend time straightening my room, getting laundry ready, writing and [...]

“Monkeys Free From Prison in Bali” I sit very straight on my motorbike. In my white Hanes tank top I don’t look Balinese. But you’d also not know how to place me anywhere else, really. After the prison this morning I don’t see the monkeys with wonder. I just wonder how they run free after [...]

“For Esther” I It’s harder without you but The Work continues. Today I went to the prison to visit the new mom and her babe and Musician Tony, the boy with bad teeth a young man who will become a father in prison. I came home and had lunch without you. I drank coffee alone [...]

All the way to the internet cafe, I was writing in my head.  I sometimes wish my head was a keyboard. Today was up and down.  It’s just never any one place long enough to feel any one way. Truly. And that makes this work exhausting if the chips land a certain way at the [...]

Notes on a cold shower: I have yet to write about my Cold Showers.  Here in Bali, that is all that is easily accessible, unless you’re a Tourist.  With Money. My Cold Shower obsession is now a Thing that I’m pretty well known for after a birth…how to get clean. This Obsession…this Thing.. Some of [...]