francesca lia block writes baby magic

My cousin Ryan (also known as Ry, Ry-Ry, Shadow, Ace, and Boo) gave me a book by Francesca Lia Block for Valentines Day. The book is called Guarding the Moon: A Mother’s First Year. It took me a while to finish it because my book reading time is limited to ten-minute blocks every few days, but I really enjoyed it.

Guarding the Moon is a memoir about the author’s first year as a mother. The book is raw in its honesty, but not in a down in the trenches way. She speaks of the brutal realities of motherhood: the exhaustion, breast infections, fears, both real and imagined. But, while many motherhood memoirs seem stuck in the point-of-view of a victim, focusing heavily on the sacrifices we make, Francesca’s perspective is always blanketed in gratitude.

“I prayed to be pregnant with a stomach round as the moon. Now my arms are twiggish and the skin on my belly hangs loose. Blue veins mar my legs. My hair is still shedding, my eyes tell how long I have waited for this child to come. And yet, cuddled with the most beautiful moon girl in the world, I do love my body now. Look at what it has survived. Look at what it has brought to us.”

Block’s prose dances across the page like a fairy tale, but tells a true story that mothers know even if we cannot always articulate it. The author is in permanent awe of her daughter and the magic she brings to everyday life. And she openly admits to needing her daughter to heal her own childhood wounds.

“Watching her move her body in these new ways teaches me so much. It teaches me not to be afraid to fall. It teaches me to grow in front of others, to struggle and then accept loving comfort when the struggle fails.”

This is exactly how I felt as a new mother and still feel now as a mom of two. Motherhood has given me countless opportunities to be brave, patient, humble, silly, and adventurous. At times, my children call for me to be the opposite of what I once was. To be social, when I’d always been shy. To follow my heart, instead of my practical Capricorn head. To quit a good-paying job I despised, rather than settling. It’s a wonderful surprise to find your children to be the biggest dare devils you’ve ever met. And it’s an even greater surprise to find yourself taking on the dares, one by one, to be the example you want them to follow.

Guarding the Moon is posted on MerchMama.