H is for Half

Pages of the book, on my fireplace. Yep, my fireplace is very rocky.

It's been a long time! I guess I haven't written since it was 2011! Well, hello! This post is about the name of my blog, Both and Neither. I recently wrote a poem, entitled "H is for Half". It is part of a series I am slowly creating for an alphabet book I send out. That's a lot of layers of making and creating but basically, I am making a book. I send it out page by page. It's a book of poems. A is for Ask. B for Butter. H is for Half.

I wanted to share this with you because the poem I wrote for H explains the name of my blog. So, here it is:

H is for Half

She has always known herself to be half,
neatly divided into
two parts
two parents
one one thing
one the other.

Her, as a girl, declared
"I am half Japanese and half Irish,
and whole American."
Explaining herself to herself
Both and All.

Now, she feels,
Both and Neither.
(more Neither than Anything.)
There is no neat description any more.
It takes too long to say:
"I am half mother, half daughter,
half wife, half only child,
half worried, half religious,
half staying at home,
half writing this,
half of all that makes up a woman
these days."

Ancestry and heritage-
just the half of it,
perhaps influencing the look of things,
like eye shape and home decor decisions.
She can no longer sum it up by
Halves,
as if she ever could.