Doubtful Usefulness of Twitter Lists

I'm always up for trying something new. So when the Twitter people offered a Beta chance to create lists, why I set right to it over at @llbarkat.

One day into the endeavor and I'm already doubting the usefulness of Twitter lists. For me anyhow. Oh, I see that marketers would find it very useful and journalists perhaps, for targeting and scanning and so forth. But my Social Media life is quite organic. I hang out with people I can put on lists (and I have already done it), but the truth is I like to see these people all in the same place...

...poets talking to businesspeople talking to Moms talking to authors talking to artists. You get the picture.

In fact, the birth of @tspoetry and Twitter parties happened as a result of a conversation between a teacher, an executive, a Social Media Director and an author (um, me!). I'm guessing that if I'd only been hanging out at a list (say, of "authors"), this might not have occurred. In fact, I'm 99% sure it wouldn't have.

So. Today I've got my lists. But I'm not promising to keep them around for tomorrow.


Alternate Perspective picture by Sara. Used with permission.

Stumble into Loveliness

Girls, sweet dark-haired girls, are out of the house. It is my time to slow. Moving from room to room, I drink in silence, breathe. Alone for a few hours, but...

...still, I find them, stumble into their loveliness. It is loveliness they have found in their own private moments of quiet. Loveliness of line and vision.

Standing here, I can hardly take it in. The moment stretches. My sweet girls are with me, even in silence.


Designs Drawing by Sonia, 10. Figure Drawings by Sara, 12. Used with permission.

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Turn and Turn Again

I feel life's first turn within, like a heartbeat in the wrong place. Baby flutters in womb. And I think I understand something of love.

This heartbeat gathers force, grows, some nights kicks me in the ribs. I smile and touch what I imagine to be an elbow, heel. Before I know it, months pass; she comes, a warm bundle and I wonder, "How could they let me take her home? Don't they realize I'm not wise, not strong?"

Still, she is mine. I hold her close. Suckling bleeds me, cracks skin. I cry. Say, "I can't do it anymore." But I do, somehow, day by day.

These days stretch into months, then years, and it always comes 'round again. Pain, pleasure, thinking I know something of love, wondering who thought I could ever be wise or strong enough to love these babies, girls, young ladies...

The years unroll. Light, dark, confusion, understanding. A gathering of annunciations.

I'm supposing Mary, with her sweet Jesus, felt the same.

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Roses 'n Pitcher photo, by L.L. Barkat.