Day 54: A Rise in the Tide
I felt it today, a slow swell and increasing,
leaning against me
and swaying
nothing’s changed
but everything’s better
you came back to yourself and I saw.
Day 52: Losing Focus
there was something I was close to
and it was good
there was something I was near
and it was whole
there was something I could walk on
and it was solid ground
there was something I could fly from
and it always let me land
I feel it going
and am filled with sorrow for not knowing
what it was
what it is
what it could have been
it’s on the other side of glass.
I can see it.
out of focus.
and getting smaller.
Day 41: Centering Stones, Part 3
Because sometimes the heart is heavy.
Because the things inside it can be hard to swallow,
and jagged to the touch.
Because the heart,
even with those rough bits,
is still lovely
to behold
and
to be
held
by.
*I know!!! Vertical video taking (again). Argh. I feel the shame…
Day 37: Hummingbirds & Hard Cider
The smell of dirt in your nostrils and the feel of grit in your nails can solve just about any melancholy. Especially when the sun is just a little hotter than comfortable and the breeze comes quickly to your aid. So today, I planted. The pretty things. Not the eating things. The front porch baskets and the staircase urns. The green hibiscus that you bring in every fall, convinced you can overwinter, and throw out every spring, dried and brown.
I made sure to place them where I’ll see through windows, the things I’ve helped to grow.
It’s good to know you help things grow.
And when it was done – when the soil was swept, and the weeds wheelbarrowed, the hose wound round, and the petunias dead-headed – I grabbed myself a cider and sat, quiet and still, watching new petals play in sturdy draft.
Good things happen when you stop moving.
The first hummingbird I’ve seen this year came by to sample my new wares. The first thing you hear when a hummingbird pays you a visit is, well, the hum.
It’s a solid beating of air like a B-52 Bumblebee with a Bose Bluetooth.
The second thing you hear is the beep. (They beep if they like you.) And if they REALLY like you, they stare at you, midair and close, beeping and hovering like a freaky sentinel from The Matrix.
Yes, there is always the millisecond that I panic, thinking this little hummingbird is going to turn rabid and peck my eyes out, and I’ll be left groping for the front door, all Oedipus like and tainted.
But that soon passes and
I just try to hold as still as I can.
so he’ll stay a little while longer.
Eventually, my restrained smile forces it’s way out upon my lips and the hummingbird darts away at the change in expression. (Perhaps he knows he cannot peck my eyes out when I’m squinting in smile style, and he leaves defeated, ready to attack again another day…)
These are my good things today:
flowers on the front porch
cider in hand
didn’t die by proboscis impalement
Day 34: House Rules
As a parent, I am appalled by the many rules I enforce, yet fail to live by.
(Don’t tell my kids… Oh, who am I kidding, they totally know.)
Simple things like:
share.
(no one will ever find my secret chocolate stash)
practice your instrument.
(I barely eek out 10 minutes in a day…)
do your homework.
(how many of my goals lie dormant for lack of research and time management?)
be nice.
(my second language is “BARK”)
Out of curiosity, I asked my daughter: if SHE could make up the house rules, what would they be?
Her response was concise and noteworthy.
I’m adopting it as my own personal “life rule:”
…out of the mouths of babes.
Day 29: Centering Stones, Part 2
Because light is found in all sorts of places…
Day 27: Memory & Milk
Today is my first born son’s birthday.
And on any of my kids’ birthdays, before the cake batter is mixed, and the donkey is violated with aggressively aimed tails, and the once-a-year-candle-powered-wish is issued into the ether, I purposefully spend a minute or two reflecting on what their birth day was like. It’s hard to forget (though some try to!) the events that transpire in and around childbirth, but for such a momentous event, we rarely recollect it. I liken it to the car wreck that didn’t kill you, the bullet you took for a buddy, or the stew your kid made that you ate anyway ‘cause she was watching.
For the squeamish among you, fret not. We will not be going to gory, childbearing places. (But I dig that conversation, too. PM me.)
I’d like to say my memories of that day are sunshine and roses and “the best Christmas present ever” etc, etc. but the truth is – I had it all wrong. And I learned that day what helplessness really is.
I was obstinate about a few things:
- No drugs. I was doing this old-school.
- No formula. I was going to fuel this kid with super DHA, omega 3, immunity boosting, bone building mama’s milk from day one.
- No doctors. No c-sections. It was going to be ancient midwifery practices and keep your scrubs at home.
I got schooled.
- After I-have-no-idea-how-many hours of labor, and three hours of pushing, it was discovered that he was upside-down and would not come inside-out.
- By the time I kindly asked (reality: loudly begged) for drugs, it was too late to administer them.
- When my midwife looked at me and said, “I can’t do anything more, here” two things occurred to me:
- First, if I didn’t live in a time and place where medical amenities are as abundant as they are, my child or I would’ve been added to a “maternal mortality” list.
- Second, you do not care about the tidiness of your signature when signing consent for an emergency c-section.
- When all was said and done, my body went into shock. There was no milk. Nothing would come. Here, I had this beautiful, ruddy baby, getting thinner before my eyes because I had nothing to give him. On day 3 of no milk, we had to start formula.
And I think about the moms who don’t have that option and resource. What do they do?
Sometimes, you WISH to give, and cannot.
The heart’s DESIRE to give, or be, or provide
cannot always override the body’s REFUSAL.
The memory of this helplessness stands out to me as something to remedy for someone, if I can.
So in honor of the day, to do something good in it, my son and I are donating funds to The Milk Bank, getting mother’s milk to fragile infants in the US, and to World Vision, helping moms in natural disasters and refugee routes have access to safe places to nurse.
AND! To sweeten the deal,
for every “like” or “share” on this post,
I’ll increase the donation $5, up to $100.
That’s a Happy Birthday.
Yay.
Day 23: Fried Eggs at Midnight
When I was a kid, I remember my dad would make two things exceptionally well: spaghetti and poached eggs. (No, not together.)
There was a day – I was young, seven or so – when my mom had gone into surgery to have her kidney removed. I remember being scared. Really scared, and really quiet. I remember sitting in the kitchen with an inflatable, pink-polka-dot, inner tube around my torso because while everyone else was going swimming, I wanted to stay by the phone. Just in case.
My dad came in the kitchen. He looked at me, paused, and started boiling water. In the fog of childhood memory, I really can’t be sure if he said anything or if I did, of if, in fact, the inner tube was striped and blue, but I can still see that poached egg he made me, as clear as day. If I try hard enough, I could probably still smell it.
Toast. Butter. Egg cut up, all over the top, with yolk pouring out, and WAY too much pepper for a seven-year-old kid ‘cause that’s how he liked it.
It was the best egg I’ve ever had.
And I still can’t make a poached egg worth eating, so I cheat and fry ‘em.
My good thing today was coming home from a late rehearsal, aware of the scared and quiet that still lingers in me, and making myself an egg.
My stomach was grumbling but it was my heart that was hungry.
Toast. Butter. Egg cut up, all over the top, with yolk pouring out, and WAY too much pepper for a grown, adult woman ‘cause that’s how he made it.
Day 22: Centering Stones, Part 1
Today, we walk down gravel roads.
but it’s the stopping that makes it fun…
* I call this “part 1” because it was so enjoyable, I’m bound to do it again.
** Forgive the rookie mistake of vertical video taking. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.
Day 17: Long Sentences
Sometimes, 547.5 days seem so far away I worry my heart could not possibly mend without going numb or falling asleep or forgetting what I learned or unfeeling what it felt so I remind myself that everything will someday be alright and even when the hurt hurts more than hurt should hurt, I know I’ll keep going because all the things that were hard in my past are now over and have colored who I am today, I think for the better, and so one must keep getting to the next day or even just to the next word, because some sentences are too long but eventually they end and you’re on to writing the next one.
Which will not be as long.
