Separate is Never Equal

Dear Julian and Valentina,

Last night I met an amazing woman! Her name is Sylvia Mendez. When she was just a little girl the local school board wouldn't let her or her brothers attend school in their neighborhood because she was Mexican? Can you believe that, my loves?

 

Her father took the case to the courts and they won! Because of Sylvia the California schools were desegregated in 1947.

She travels the country encouraging children to get an education, and in 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor.

Well guess what? We met her last night! She was excited to learn that I was also from California and said she was just visiting San Jose where mama and I grew up.

We then saw a whole play about her life called Separate is Never Equal. The Rochester Latino Theater Company did a wonderful job, and the city of Rochester issued an official proclamation recognizing Sylvia's efforts to improve education nationwide. Now the Rochester City School District will be teaching their students about her life. Bridget and I hope that the Brockport School District will follow suit.

We bought a book about her life for you to share. She signed it to you both, so take good care of it.  She is a very import person, and when you read the story remember all she did for the Latino community.

With love,
Tia Chrissy & Cousin Bridget

 

Breathe

I have the window wide open today. The air rushes in and I take great gulps.

My friend writes every Sunday. The words flow from her onto the page and she feels lighter. She has processed. She has created.

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When I was pregnant with my children each would shove little feet up into my ribs on the right side. Sometimes it was a hard jab and other times slow, persistent pressure. Either way, my lungs were compromised and air was hard to hold onto. I'd stretch and wiggle until I could breathe properly again only for their foot to once again find that comfortable place that made me choke and gasp for air.

When they were born I could breathe with ease almost immediately.

It is so easy to compare writing to birth. Of course it's been done. Of course it's cliche. Hackneyed.

But isn't it true that you can breathe better after an essay, story, or poem is done? Our  "babies" are out there now, no more foot in the rib.

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Today I imagine my friend sitting at her computer with a cup of coffee. Her window is open and she watches the sun next to the Austrian crystal that hangs there. Words flow.

Poems emerge.

She can breathe.

Trio

Last night I had a small party to celebrate the release of my husband's new book, The Public Universal Friend.  The event was fun, and so many good, kind friends and colleagues came out to support us. But this post isn't about the party or the book, really. It is about my two dearest friends, Kelly and Nadine.

To say they helped with the party is an understatement. As soon as the event was announced they agreed to come, no questions asked. And then they ever so gently pushed..."How can we help?What can we bring? How early should we arrive to set up?" But I pushed back..."No, I want to do this all on my own."

They patiently waited until I came to my senses. They read my stressed out emails and helped review my menu choices. And they were right there when I buckled and said, "Help."

So Kelly shuffled off her children to grandma's house. Nadine told her significant other that the party he was having the same night would have to wait. They brought their own linens and decorations and showed up ridiculously early to help make this event absolutely perfect. Nadine whisked my kids away, so we wouldn't have to tend to them or worry. Kelly and her husband stayed until the very end to help clean and lock up.

Thank you both, I love you. Your support amidst my crazy-making is appreciated more than you will ever know.

Hey there, honey...

My friend Christina gave me some unfiltered beeswax and some honeycomb from her beehive.

 I stuffed the whole mess into an old stocking and added the stocking to the top of a double boiler. I learned this method on THIS website.

 I made sure to have a clean drink carton on hand.  I cut off the top.

I turned the heat to medium and watched as the clear wax seep through the hose. When it appeared all the wax was rendered, I discarded the hose full of dirt, bee bodies, bee bread, and pollen.

 I added a second pair of hose over my juice carton and poured my clear, hot wax through it.

 After the filtered wax cooled all that was left was wax and a little bit of brown watery stuff.

 The dark watery stuff was a little sweet, but wasn't pure honey.  I discarded it as well.

 And now I have some lovely wax to make candles!!!

Flow

There are days when you sit in front of the computer for hours writing, editing, reading, submitting. Your butt starts to hurt so you break for tea. It grows cold, though, because your fingers are simply flying over the keyboard.  No time for sips of tea.  Your eyes strain, but you press on.  Today you have a lot to say.  You have no idea where it comes from or why, but you don't question the flow. You embrace it.

Other days you'll sit in front of that same computer and nothing comes.  You screw around on Facebook.  You read the dumbest news stores.  On-line shop. Text your friends.  These are the days you'll get mad and hate yourself and wish you decided on a different life and feel defeated.

But those days are also part of the flow. Like it or not, it is best to embrace that part of life as well.

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Today my fingers fly and so does my heart.  Tomorrow...who knows?  But no matter what I plan to simply go with the flow.

Craft

I stand in the craft store looking for wire and the little clamps that you use at the end of a beaded project to hold the whole thing together.  But I don’t have my instruction book with me. I don’t know what I’m looking for, not really. My daughter stands beside me exasperated and eager to just get out of here so we can go to the mall. But I’m determined.  I want to make prayer beads for meditation.  So far I’ve collected a pink skull bead, a rose quartz bead, a cowrie shell, an evil eye, and a small pomander ball filled with osha root.  I’m keeping my eye out for a small cross and a bumble bee.

I stare at the wall of supplies and realize that I’m totally at a loss.  Do I need those fancy jewelry pliers?  What about the cowrie?  How do I wrap it? Or do I drill a hole in it? I’m clearly confused, but I try to maintain my cool.  I’m not sure if I want to be like the other moms in there buying scrapbook supplies and puff paints or if I want to be like the cool Bohemian twenty-somethings buying steam punk beads and modge podge.  Maybe I don’t want to be like either.    

 I distract myself with candles. There is an audible sigh from the teen.

“Why do you always buy so many candles? It’s weird.” 

I ignore this comment and ask her if I should get scented or unscented white votives. 

“Unscented, of course.” 

She knows I’ll cover each in perfumed oil anyway.  She knows that the synthetic fragrances in the scented candles won’t mix with the smell of incense and sage that permeates my house.  Two of my best friends say my house smells like a hippie, but they like it.  I just secretly thank god it doesn’t smell like a dog.

I’m back at the beads. I pick up various bags of wire.  I simply have no idea what the hell I think I’m doing.  Prayer beads?  What kind of new agey jerk have I become?  I feel silly and like I’m grasping for something totally out of my reach and beyond my age and absolutely trendy. 

Screw it. I’m going to do it anyway. I grab a bag of generic “Craft Wire” in various colors and toss it in the cart with my unscented white votives, three empty bottles that I’ll later fill with Four Thieves vinegar, and a tiny purple stuffed octopus that my daughter urges me to get.

I buy my random assortment of treasures and head for the car.  My daughter puts the new octopus toy on the dash board and we name him Periwinkle. At home, I stash the wire with the beads I’ve collected. I set my candles on my table and put the vinegar jars in the cupboard.

I haven’t begun my prayer bead project yet. Sometimes I’ll take all the beads out and look at them, study their shape and size.  But I don’t do anything with them besides keep them in a pretty box my mother gave to me that I keep right next to the sage and scented oils. 

Resolved

I am not usually one to make New Year’s resolutions.  I usually make my big yearly changes back in October when the nights are getting longer and endings are in the air.  But this year I think I’ll make one.

I resolve to further embrace the life of a writer.

I realize that it sounds pretentious to don this label and pronounce it to the world, but it is real, from the heart, and a resolution that I intend to keep.  But what, exactly, does that even mean? What is “the life of a writer” exactly? 

To me, being a writer means. . .

. . . being at peace with the fact that I will never make the kind of money others around me do.

It means turning down jobs and opportunities that don’t feed my soul.

It means letting snide comments about liberal arts degrees and people’s jokes about maids and housekeepers slide right off my back.

It means writing every day.

Every.

Single.

Day.

It means coloring mandalas at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

It means having a house that is always slightly messy and is perfumed with incense. 

It means that I probably won’t travel as much as my wealthier peers.

 It means that it is ok to grieve over that but not to let that grief stop me from writing and push me towards work I don’t love just so that I have more cash in my hands and plane tickets in my pocket.

It means creating a safe, special, and loving place to live right here in my own small town.

It means filling my space with objects that may seem like clutter but are really inspiration—candles, and glitter, and children’s crafts, and postcards, and magazine clippings, and feathers, and herbs, and crystals, and photos, and plants, and art. . .

 It means surrounding myself with people who support my craft and actually read my work and show up when it counts.

It means letting go of people who have belittled me or been unkind.

It means failing. A lot. Some of what I write will be crap. That will have to be ok.

It means accepting that some of what I write will also be absolutely amazing.  It means knowing that without apology.

It means that I will sometimes get rejected when I submit my work.

It means that sometimes I will get accepted.

It means seeing the world with my heart and crying too much and dreaming quite a bit and never feeling bad about any of it.

It means being free.

Mama

Three years old or thirteen, it doesn’t matter--you always want your mama when you’re sick in the night.

I hold her tight as she trembles.  I spoon against her slight body and realize that, actually, she’s not so slight after all.  She’s curvy and womanly and almost as tall as I am.  But right now this girl-woman is shaking with illness and fatigue. She snuggles closer and I wrap my arm around her waist.  My neck aches; her bed is too small for the two of us. I consider moving to the floor and realize that she doesn't just need me in the same room; she needs me right next to her like when she was a baby.

 Earlier in the night I heard her desperate call of, “MAMA!” from my room. Every imaginable boogie man swam in my head.  I stumbled down the hall only to find her bed empty. Instead I found her in the bathroom, sobbing over the toilet bowl. She finally let it all come up and out, and I got her back to bed where we are now.

I feel guilty as I silently pray that no one else gets sick before Christmas Eve.  I stare at the bottom of the top bunk while I whisper a mother’s incantation. . .

Let her be ok. Let her feel better.  Spare my boy this.  Spare ME this. 

I look around the room and see all that makes her my daughter: Chap Stick on the night stand, candles on the dresser, bookshelves two deep, messy journals, tie-dye socks, posters of foreign lands, sea shells, crystals.

 She sprints from the room and I race behind her. She dry heaves again over the commode.  I notice she is gripping tight to her glasses, the cute turquoise and black pair.  She is afraid they’ll fall in the bowl.  I slide them off of her face, and she empties her stomach again.  I sweep back her hair and hold back my own tears.  It makes my heart clench to see her so weak.  I cover her in towels and watch as she lays her cheek on the tile.  I remember moments when viruses or beer or heartache put me in a similar spot.  I remember that all I wanted was a clean towel and a cold tile floor and my mama. 

She decides on a shower, and I let her have her privacy though every cell in my body wants to sit on the toilet lid and make sure she is ok and that she doesn't slip in her shaky state.  But I don’t stay. I go back to her bed and nod off to sleep.  I have fitful dreams of lost babies and an absent friend.  I dream my daughter is driving a car.  I dream of an empty museum and yellow flowers with wooden stems.

At some point she comes back and I help her dress in fleece PJs and warm socks. I tuck her in and slip away, back to my own bed. At eight-o’clock my mom calls and I snuggle under the covers with the phone and pretend she is with me, keeping me warm in my big empty bed. 

1973

2011

2014

Writer

Several months ago I handed my husband a stack of  Poets & Writers magazines and told him to get rid of them.

"Recycle them, take them to the library, leave them in the English Department.  I don't care, just get rid of them"

I had declared--rather childishly, I admit--that I was done with writing. I was no good at it, I felt, and the local writing community did not support my writing efforts or the literary reading series I host. I felt lost and ridiculous and tired of trying. I was done.

Several weeks ago I woke with a start and tears filled my eyes.  I needed to write again.  I couldn't contain the words roiling in my brain and belly and heart.

With the help of a professional writing coach and editor I began again. I've written almost every day for four weeks. I've submitted one creative non-fiction piece and have several others earmarked for either editing for future submission or inclusion in a book.

Today I found that stack of magazines hidden under a shelf.  I showed them to my husband.

"I couldn't do it.  I would just have been wrong."

This gesture was more loving than any bouquet of flowers or fancy piece of jewelry. I think I'll keep those magazines indefinitely now.  I'll look at them and remember that someone special loves me.  I will look at them and remember that I am a writer.

Ekphrasis IV: The Artist's Studio

“You have something pent up inside.  You are frustrated.  You need to create.”

For a crazy moment I think she is a bit drunk and has lost all sense of who she is talking to. But I look in her eyes and she is serious, her beer nowhere near empty. I feel shaken, like a fortune teller has just read my cards and showed me Death.  But an educated querant knows that the death card only means change, not demise, so I take a deep breath and say, “Yes.”

                                                                                                                                                           

We go to her art studio after the beer is gone.  One by one we switch on the lights to reveal nude figure drawings on every wall.  

There is a static buzzing in my brain, yet I can’t figure out where this electricity is coming from. Why does it feel like a heated spark is bouncing around inside of my skull?  I realize, crazily, that the nudes are conduits of energy, and I’m picking up a charge just being near them.  I want to feel this power all the time.  I suddenly decide I will go to art school and  immerse myself in charcoal and pencils and pastels.  But do I want to be an artist playing with shadow and light or do I want to be the nude figure, face turned to the wall, pubic hair and nipple boldly exposed? When the static calms I realize that I want neither.

 Vitruvian Man Leonardo DaVinci

We talk of discipline and education in art, of how if we want to challenge convention we first have to learn the rules.  This makes me think of my writing, and I fight back hot tears (am I sad? tired? inspired?) and hate myself for being such a crier, a personal trait that annoys me and so many others.  Keep it together, keep it together, I chant in my brain. I focus on the objects in her studio in order to calm down. They are so simple and perfect and loved. A poem in 3D. I take stock of what I see.

1. Yellow and brown paper coffee cup.

2. Rubber band, fat.  The kind that holds your broccoli stalks together.

3. Bottle of German mineral water: Gerolsteiner.

4. Pencils of all sizes. 

5. Charcoal. 

6. Stoneware mustard bottle holding paint brushes of various size, bristles up.

7. Two saints candles.

8. Reclined nude pencil drawing.  Her legs are up the wall, head and arms resting on an oversized pillow.

9. Hoosier cabinet:  light sage green with enamel-top work surface.

10. Lemon juicer:  ceramic, white and blue.

Jan Veermer,The Art of Painting 1666

 Time to go. Walking into the cold air feels good and sobering though I've had nothing at all to drink. I'm ready to create now, give birth to what she saw pent up inside me.  I say a little prayer to the cold stars thanking them for this night.

Winter, 2012

Coffee Talk: World Book Night 2014

When my daughter was small I’d throw her in the umbrella stroller and head down to Java Junction.  Java is a quirky-cool coffee shop in my little town in Western NY.  It is a place where you can grab a cup of coffee and a fresh baked scone and settle right in.  Kids and babies are always welcome.  So, when my, now thirteen year old, daughter was just a wee thing, I would escape to Java.

I could nurse her without being looked at sideways or being asked to leave.  I could sit for as long as I wanted while she slept peacefully in the stroller or squirmed in my arms. As she grew, she didn't just want breast milk though, I could get her a bagel or a grilled cheese and a lidded cup of juice.  I was given cookies and smiles and boxes of crayons for her active little hands. It didn't matter if she was fussy or quiet; she –and all children—were always welcome.

Fast forward a few years and my son came into the picture.  Now, I had new infant snuggled in the sling as well as a slow-shuffling toddler. The five minute walk now took what felt like twenty years.  Yet still, we went and the years passed swiftly by.  Soon, strollers and slings and wagons were abandoned and we would walk and skip and sometimes dance to our downtown destination.

We’d meet friends or have coffee with my husband. We’d have prolonged breakfasts that eased into leisurely lunches.  We’d run in for a cold drink in the summer or a cookie and hot cocoa in the winter.  Today we still go to Java, though everyone can get there on their own steam, and my girl can now go there all by herself when the urge calls to her.

The sense of home and love and family is why I chose to pass out Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City to my friends at Java Junction for the second year in a row.  There we all sat with coffee and bagels and tea and cookies.  Several of us sent our kids off to school that morning, and others came with toddlers and infants.  We passed around little baby Phin and I looked at his sweet face as he swatted Cheerios on the table.  I saw my girl and boy and every “Java Baby” in his eyes, and I knew I had chosen the right place, the right people, the right book; a book that could take us far away to the other coast to visit with Mona and Mrs. Madrigal, and Mary Ann. We could close our eyes and see a city bright with life in the not too distant past.  Each and every one of us needed an escape and a gift, and I was thrilled to be able to hand over those books to some very happy women.

The best “thank you,” though, came from Bobby, the owner of Java.  She is a business owner and baker and mom to three lovely children.  When I handed her that book, her smile was the brightest I’d ever seen, and my heart was glad.

Thanks to World Book Night 2014 for making this all possible.

On Not Writing

Last week, all the literary "things" happened.  I gave away books on Shakespeare's birthday, read poetry at a local bookstore, hosted a literary reading at an art gallery, and attended and read at an open mic.  I offered advice to a friend as she chose a cover for her new book.  I helped form a local writer's group. I had a Tiny Poem published in a wonderful magazine.

But the one thing I didn't actually do was...write.

I haven't written in a dog's age, as they say.  I sit down in front of my computer or with a pen and my journal and nothing comes.  Nothing.

I do everything but write, actually.  I meditate and practice yoga.  I work, of course, and run errands. Countless errands.  I volunteer. I lift weights.  I make healthy meals.  I balance the check book.  I walk the dog. Watch TV.

But I don't write.

There was a time that I would wake in the night with an idea fresh in my mind.  I would get up and write and write until it was all out and I shook with relief.  Something was created and purged and spoken into the ether all at once. I would sleep deep and feel refreshed. Other days I would form whole stories and essays in my my head as I ran. When I returned from my jog I would have to type furiously lest I forget my ideas.

But not now.

Perhaps my Muse will return. Maybe not.  For now, I think, my role is to watch others as they write and help them when I can.

Maybe I'll write tomorrow.

But not now.

Ephemera

Burning the Old Year (Naomi Shihab Nye)

Letters swallow themselves in seconds. 
Notes friends tied to the doorknob, 
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn't,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn't do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye, "Burning the Old Year" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

When Sarah posted Nye's poem on Facebook I felt a keen, driving need to touch, feel, hold the ephemera of 2013.  I should count my stones instead, but there is an urgency to this, a voice shouting, "Take account.  File, save, treasure, or burn the hand written petitions of the year gone by."

I take heed.

Artist's postcard. I took a snowy January walk to her art show.  Snow drifted in the streets and flakes stuck to my hair and scarf.

"Patron Receipt" from a quick library trip. Cloaked in Red.  Did I read that?  No, one of the kids, I'm sure of it.

 Ikea sales slip.  I recognize only one item on the list and realize it was a friend's receipt, not mine.   She bought me a Skydda mattress pad.

Date book entry, April 7: "Write thank you notes" (for what? i can't remember), "Pay bills," "Balance the budget."  What isn't written: "Mary passes."

Yoga practice created by my friend Stephanie.  It's on lined note-book paper with little stick figures demonstrating how to perform the poses.  At the top is written "Stability."  She underlines this word twice.

Fluorescent yellow post-it note.  "Sheets, drawers, E. BD, camping list, $ store, B. library."  Only B. library, sheets, and camping list are crossed out.

Broccoli soup recipe.  The grease stains suggest that I've used it several times this year, and it's true.    A note at the top tells it like it is: "It's easy and fast!"

Stack of cards from my surprise birthday party.  The top one reads, "#40, You Go Girl! Love, Amber."  There was so much love.

Newspaper clipping. "Club prepares for Brockport Giftaway with Toy Drive." Thousands of toys.  Tears.  Fatigue.  Joy.

Christmas card.  The very last holiday card of 2013 reads: "Wishing you much Peace & Love in 2014."

Even as I recycle and shuffle and file these feather-light tokens of the last twelve months I realize that these *are* the stones.  If each one erupts in flame and is reduced to ash they will still be gems, still golden, still treasures. Even those things that go up in smoke carry supplications and griefs and gratitudes to the heavens, perfuming the air with prayer.

Snow Globe

Today was one of those days that makes you want to capture each scene and trap it in a snow globe: winter play, cookie baking, sleeping in, reading, goofing off.  Days like these both exhilarate and frighten me since underneath it all I feel shaky like the whole pretty snow globe is built on tooth pick legs. Beneath the joy is so much grief and fear, but I worked hard today (harder than I should have to) to let that go and "live in the moment," as they say.  

My friend Sarah said that December is the month to feel all the feelings, and it is true.  Every little thing feels so tender and momentous and wonderful and rocky all at the same time.

It's exhausting maneuvering these ship-swaying December waves of emotion.  These one moment excited-and-giggly and the next moment teary-and-scared feelings. 

I miss my mother and my sister who live far away beyond mountain ranges and states.  I miss my deceased father and grandmothers who live beyond even the sea and sky now.  I miss my far-away friends who are everywhere but here in my tiny little town. I miss friends who are only streets away but who have grown as distant as if they are in foreign lands. 

But despite this heart-sore missing of so many people I do recognize that I am surrounded by love.  My good, kind, sweet friends and family, near and far, shower me with light and affection, and I know I am blessed and lucky.  I want to push this feeling of happy gratitude to the front of my life and to feel those feelings more deeply than those that pull me down with sadness.

I try.  God knows I try.  And sometimes, on days like today, I win this little battle, and I will crawl into bed contended and warm. Tonight I will sleep the sleep of the fortunate, and I will dream of the sea and the mountains and I will taste sea salt on my tongue and smell redwood in the air.  I will wake in the morning to the sound of the snow plow and ready myself for another day.

The Light Ekphrastic

I have a couple of poems in The Light Ekphrastic today.  Please head over and check it out.  I worked with the amazing photographer, Lynne Parks.

How to Clean Your Sink

9:00 AM

Tell yourself that you will write for one hour straight, no interruptions.  It is your Writing Day after all.

Make a cup of tea.  There may be grease and grime and some weird food-stuff stuck on the tea kettle.  Clean it.

As you wash the tea kettle you will see that the sink is gross.  Gross as in you need to get out an old toothbrush and the bleach gross.

Since you clearly cannot write while your sink sits in the kitchen all dirty and gross you must postpone the beginning of your Writing Day. This will only take a minute anyway.

To make sink cleaning more “literary” you should find a lecture by Lynda Barry on You Tube to listen to while scrubbing. 

While Barry talks about “creative concentration” and how to transform images and memory into stories run your paper towel covered finger nail around the metal edge of your old 1950s sink.  It’s really the only way to get out the grime.

Your buddy Lynda will mention “imaginary friends" and "imaginary enemies” and you will cry thinking of an old friend who has dumped you unceremoniously and unkindly.  Not to worry, tears bring up the shine on the porcelain.

Use the toothbrush on the faucet and handles.  Wipe off the soap pump.

Your tea is now cold. Stick it in the microwave to revive it.

Do you know what goes well with tepid tea?  Pickles.  And cheese.

After the pickle-tea-cheese snack return to the sink.  Buff it dry with a clean rag.

While you have the rag and toothbrush out you might as well clean the counters, too.  And the stove.

Have another piece of cheese.

Scratch off the words “Writing Day” on your calendar. There is always next week. 

10:00 AM

Winter Chill

December is just two days away, and I'm not prepared.  Oh, I have gifts purchased and Christmas cards ready to send.  I have the calendar full of parties and events.  But, still, I feel a dread that quickens my pulse and tightens my throat.

I have lovely memories of golden roasted turkeys, holiday carols, and frosted cookies. Yet, scattered between these are darker memories that still chill my bones:

1. Nana: She becomes ill and enters the hospital right after Christmas. I wait to hear how she is, but I'm scared.

2. Daddy: He dies, suddenly, one December day as I prepare for college finals.  Everything changes.

3. Momma: She gets terribly sick and is admitted to the hospital. I am too far away to get to her.  I am helpless.

4. Grandma: She dies, after years of suffering, in a nursing home in St. Louis. I hadn't seen her in over a year.

5. Sister: She is admitted to the hospital in San Francisco after her water breaks six weeks before her due date.  She gets an infection and my niece is born pre-mature. She is forced to spend Thanksgiving day in the hospital.

My mother and sister are fine now.  They are healthy and well as is my sweet little niece,  but every year as the holidays approach I begin to panic.  I find myself grinding my teeth and my neck tightens with anxiety.  I have trouble sleeping, and I become nervous and twitchy.  I jump when the phone rings, and I find myself thinking, "What will happen this year?  Who will it be? What will we have to deal with now?"

I dream of my father and grandmothers and wake with tears in my eyes and my head aching.

I know this type of thinking is irrational especially considering that the majority of the holiday seasons I have lived through have been pleasant and uneventful. But I cannot help it.  My heart has scars that itch when the weather turns and the days get darker.  There is no salve that will calm the irritation or soothe the pricking of fear I live with this time of year.

All I can do is watch the snow fall and hope, hope, hope, that this year will be a good one.

Scraps

Today I found a fragment of the wallpaper that hung in our living room when we first moved into our house nine years ago.

The day we closed on our house our friends came over with a bottle of champagne and a gift card to the hardware store.  We drank and laughed and toasted, "to our new home!" as we all peeled at corners of the wallpaper that I said had to go.  The paper in the living room, to our surprise, came off in long, thin, easy-to-peel pieces. Soon everyone had a glass of bubbly in one hand and a strip of wallpaper in the other.  Our two-year old toddlers raced around ripping paper and weaving between our legs, and I felt so happy to be here in this place with those I loved so dearly.  I felt so secure in that love, those friendships.

To my surprise I found a working phone in the dark, dirty basement.  I snuck down and dialed my mother in California.

"Oh honey, your first home! Daddy would be so proud!"

I cried with her, a little drunk now, and wished my father was there, so I could have told  him about how I had saved and scrimped in order to buy this house.  I'd have told him how we ate lots of cheap macaroni and cheese and didn't buy new clothes for months and only had one car.  He would have applauded my thriftiness and, like my mom said, would have been so proud.

I look at the wallpaper shred now, and it makes me sad and nostalgic.  Why didn't I take pictures that day?  Why aren't there snapshots of us with our friends, arms around each other in goofy poses? Where are the pictures of us all standing in the empty kitchen or waving on the front porch?  Why didn't we have a camera to take shots of the kids  being crazy and enjoying themselves in the wide open rooms that smelled of cleanser and dust and other families?

I don't have those photos, but I do have this wallpaper scrap.  It's something.

Abundance

With spring beginnings come promise, hope, renewal and a thousand other cliches about what might be right around the bend.  We shake off the crust of winter snow and toss the boots in the attic and march forward into the sun wanting more.

Ever and always wanting more.

But now, in late summer, the basil plants are hanging weak and thirsty, and the tomatoes drag their vines so low you want to yell, "get up you lazy things!" The early September light is white and glaring and almost garish, and the squirrels are as fat as piglets.   The pepper plants are bursting, and you sigh deeply because what am I going to do with all those peppers?  The jam is made and the canning done.  The school supplies are purchased. The new clothes are laid out carefully for the first day of classes.  

Before you know it the harvest will be over and the fresh fruit gone.  The pumpkins will turn orange, and the new clothes will be stained.  All the tomatoes will be mealy and imported and utterly disappointing. Everyone will have to buy their basil in depressing little plastic clam shells that hide the brown leaves in the center.

All of these things--the riches of late summer and the barrenness of the coming fall and winter-- make me feel heart-achy in way that makes me grateful and honest and raw and tearful and ready all at once. I'm ready to say good-bye to summer. 

I'm ready to say good-bye to so many things.

summer cairn

Tiny Poem

Words leak from my ears at night.

In the morning,

I shake out the pillowcase to see if

Sentences

Fall out.