My Momus asked me… Oh so long ago now… to post on her site while she was busy writing her book. That is a tremendous honor. Maybe too big for me, because I have been negligent.
Originally I thought to post some haiku under the Scottishmomus heading, but my haiku are so silly. I think it came down to the simple fact that the blank page is more nimble than my fingers to fill it, during Momus’ absence.
But this morning I’m feeling pensive, and pensive has no place on Naptimethoughts.
These words aren’t mine; they belong to Paul Simon, but I could never write such a poem, so I suppose it fits here. Most of the time, the woman behind Naptimethoughts stays hidden behind a wall of words. Not today, today I come naked for everyone to see.
The Rhythm of the Saints
If I have weaknesses
Don’t let them blind me
Or camouflage all I am wary of
I could be sailing on seizures of laughter
Or crawling out from under the heel of love
Do my prayers remain unanswered
Like a beggar at your sleeve?
Olodumare is smiling in heaven
Smiling in heaven, I do believe
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To glide away from the razor or a knife
To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To dominate the impossible in your life
Always a stranger when strange isn’t fashionable
And fashion is rich people waving at the door
Or it’s a dealer in drugs or in passion
Lies of a nature we’ve heard before
Do my prayers remain unanswered
Like a beggar at your sleeve?
Babalu-aye spins on his crutches
Says, “Leave if you want
If you want to leave”
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To glide away from the razor or a knife
To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To dominate the impossible in your life
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To dominate the impossible in your life
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
Reach in the darkness
A reach in the dark
scottishmomus 
Am I out of it or is this a new format for your blog Anne-Marie? Whatever, I like it! And found this post and poem stimulating. I am still trying to figure all this out — must need a nap!
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I was messing with it last week and haven’t finished. You have a nap and I’ll figure out a map or anther new look at the weekend. 🙂
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Naked or clothed, NTT, you’re welcome here. Woman or man coming from behind the wall of words or hidden within them, as I do, as we all do, you’re most welcome. Thank you for bringing yourself out here.x
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Thanks Momus. I’m glad I was finally able to contribute something to your site. Naptimethoughts has grown her own personality, and although it’s always me, it’s always the part that stands out in front, guarding the entrance. Your page is much more brave than mine could ever be. And if anybody hasn’t heard this Paul Simon song, The Rhythm of the Saints, here’s a link:
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I’m, right now, reading of your shitty birthday! Mine is shitty too but not half as shitty as yours. I feel so much better! 🙂 No depth/courage whatsoever there, just plain old glad I’m not on the 26th December. 😉
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Even the poor soul on this planet with the absolute worst lot in life should not have the misfortune to be born on December 26th!
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No they shouldn’t. I completely agree. These kinds of birthdays scar you for life! Everybody else is getting partied and gifted with thought and reflection beforehand at other times of the year. Anytime immediately after Christmas is a bummer with everybody pleading poverty, but yours is a stinker! As suggested by some awesome thinker on your site(!) I’d follow her majesty’s superior example and have two. I’m seriously giving it consideration. I might inform all and sundry when they take me out to wine and dine me tomorrow night. If it’s good enough for Lizzie, it’s good enough for me. 🙂 Belated happy birthday, NTT and thank you for guesting here when you must still be cursing under your breath at the misfortune you had to be born of parents careless enough to conceive in March. Check out what was happening in March with your mum and dad. One of their birthdays perhaps? Or an anniversary? It makes for interesting calculations and discoveries, let me tell you. 😉
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Ummmm…. I think I might be better off without that information, and definitely better off without the visions to go along with it. (Shudder.) (Vomit)
And although I blame them, It’s partially my own fault. I was due december 10th. Now, if my mom were living by todays medical standards, I would never have been left to rot in there for 2+ extra weeks, but in the 70’s, they just didn’t care if a child was born on the 26th of December and had a shitty birthday for the rest of her life.
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My kids spent a spectacularly vomit-inducing evening once, calculating back and discovered that, apparently, the only time hubs and I got down and dirty was on both our birthdays and our wedding annieversary! I was quite shocked myself. Although the thought didn’t make me sick, funnily enough.:)
The seventies, I’ve been told by people much older than my 35 years on this planet, ahem, were a deplorable time to live. Fashion sense was non-existent. I’ve even heard people wore platform shoes or some such thing under enormous flares and permed their hair no matter how stupid it all looked. So I’m not really surprised that no one gave any thought to the plight of the unborn and let them stew to wrinkling. A very self-absorbed period what with maintaining vertical posture and ensuring no sudden breeze caught the trouser bottoms. I’ve read about it…in people’s diaries. Even seen pics from the period. Feckin’ awful they were. I dont know what I was thinking! I blame Abba. 🙂
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I’ve heard of Abba… One of my friends, when I was in high school way back in 2004 listened to them on the oldies station. On their computer, I mean, not the radio. I don’t even know what a radio is. I never owned anything but an Ipod.
I’m very sorry for your children. I refuse to think about it– it’s just too traumatic.
My kids will never have to calculate, though, because I can tell them the precise date and time that they were conceived. They were planned like a science experiment, and both of them were conceived on the very first try. My husband was a teacher at the time, and so we wanted both of them to come in the early summer. With K, my body didn’t quite cooperate as well as with J– born 6/18- but it wasn’t too bad, she came along 7/14.
And one day they will thank me for giving them good birthdays. And also for an in detail analysis of their conception, because really, it’s only our parents doing the deed that grosses me out. I’m sure they won’t be nearly so disgusted at the thought of their parents playing hide the salami.
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I spluttered my coffee! Half an hour from now that could have been a perfectly fine whiskey. Unforgivable. I like to freak my classes and my own kids out telling them about the old days pre-video let alone dvd. The horror in their eyes that all I had was board games and books is worth it and more sickening to them than even hiding any sort of sausage. Where the feck do you get them?!
I’m sure your kids will cope with all information imparted with the same panache mine do. I never solicit these conversations. My weans are all freaks when it comes to conversation. I swear they wait till we’re sat at dinner to discuss the most wide-ranging, embarrassing topics. I have no idea where they get their openness from. I’m a prude. 😉
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And by the way, you need to let the old trouser snake out to play a little more frequently. Birthdays and anniversaries? My husband would max out our credit cards buying tissues and moisturizer.
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Do you want my weans to freak further at the idea that there was ever any more than seven times?! Divide 27 years of marriage by seven kids that’s an average of one bonk every four years. They can just about cope with that. I sure as feck couldn’t, credit cards and husbands aside!
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You know, I’m just getting over bronchitis, and you made me laugh so hard I nearly coughed up a lung. One bonk every four years. I had to wipe my eyes.
Here’s a story for you, one that I’d blocked out for many years… I was sneaking out of the house to go drink beer and boff some guy in my late teens, (you know, relatively recently), and I had to sneak past my parents bedroom in order to get down the stairs.
I think you know what’s coming next. They were so loud and so old, and so my parents. My feet wouldn’t move, the world swam before my eyes. I was so horrified. Needless to say, there was no beer or any of the old in and out for me.
My boyfriend found me on the porch, blank eyed and rocking slowly back and forth. Gah, I can’t bear even to think of it now.
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Speaking as a decrepit old bastard, I would like to respond on behalf of your parents. While you young buggers think you invented sex let me tell you, you’re way off the mark. Do you think we never did the business behind the bushes? (not me personally, you understand. Jaggy arses ain’t my thing.) I could tell you a thing or two but then I’d have to gouge out your eyes and inflict shock therapy to aid your healing. In my day….
Well actually, a few months ago, hubby and I were becoming reacquainted (slightly before the four year mark but we figured we were worth it and were good to go. Nae weans in. An empty! Sunday afternoon.Just setting the scene here to inflict maximum damage.) I don’t recollect if there was much noise above the normal panting – you pant a lot at my age – and we had each hoisted our wrinkled bits and bobs into position for maximum and slightly hurried (fearofweansreturningophobia) pleasure when boyo number one returned from work, unheard, obviously wondered why the house was apparently empty but unlocked and investigated. Without so much as a knock to my boudoir. I don’t know who got a bigger fright. I think it might have been him. He moved out shortly afterwards.
I still have four at home. But I know what to do now when the time comes and they show no signs of leaving.
Needless to say, like the old troupers we are, we marched right on. 🙂
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Before the four year mark? Good for you!
It’s your house, after all. I don’t think you quite understand “old”. When I say my parents are old, My mother had me when she was almost 40, so by the time I was in college, all her jiggly bits and Dads…Gaaaaaaah, I can’t think about it anymore… were a horrendous thought for a pert teenager.
Besides, you’re only 35, right? I’m 26. We’re spring chickens.
What I cannot believe, is that you managed to finish after your son walked into the room. I think I might never have sex again if my kid walked in on me.
Mine are still very young, though. They’d need some… explanation.
Perhaps we were wrestling, and it got so warm that we took all our clothes off.
No, then he’d want to join in.
Maybe we were taking a nap, and it got hot, so we took all our clothes off, and were just waking up when he barged in, so why doesn’t he go play while we wake up fully?
Ugh.
Perhaps we were trying to figure out exactly how much taller Daddy is than Mommy, and it got hot, so we took off our clothes.
We lock the door, because I hear phantom tiny footsteps constantly.
It’s kind of a mood killer.
Good one getting the kid to move out of the house! I’ll have to remember that when J and K get to that age. By that time it leaves a scar, but a good puke and some distance can get you over it. Sort of.
You’ve never seen my parents.
(shudder)
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His response, at 24 yeqrs of age, was, ‘Aw, for gawd’s sake. It’s a Sunday afternoon. Could you hurry up and finish.’ So we were really just obliging his request. Well, that and, once you get to the tickly bit, there’s really no going back. We were buckled laughing, giggling like a couple of teenagers caught on the hop. I really need to get a lock for the inside of my bedroom door. Shifting furniture is such a bugger. I’ve seen us just ‘fix the bathroom’ up sometimes. It’s the only door with a lock. Well that one and the other two rooms for ablutions but they’re not so big and I would feel a bit strange in fixing things in the bathrooms the kids mainly use. Spice of life and all that.
The best one I heard to explain was of a kid writing in his school diary what he did the night before.
‘I went to bed but I was thirsty so went downstairs to ask for a drink. Mum and dad were sunbathing in front of the fire.’!!!
Now, for that, I’d definitely be sure the doors everywhere were locked after weans were out. A scar too far I’m thinking.
P.S. I had my youngest at 46 and she’s now 7. Poor bugger will have pensioner parents by the time she’s in her teens. Not that I look it right enough, if I do say so myself. It’s all the shagging. It keeps you young! 🙂
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