These Days

I translate everything:
extra hour of daylight,
half hour before kids,
come home--
I make up courtesies.

Every place is all
papers and books
(and prayers)
And I'm always telling
my date again.

No. Nothing personal
allowed--
unless it's already on
an official form
a continent away.

What a terrible idea
to tell them everything
to give them my books
to give away thoughts
that initiate my breath

Read on, hoping for
another line that
invents the kind
of caress that
can make you forget.

_

Encircled

We drew a lot of circles in class today because of Martha Nussbaum and the Stoics.

But it reminded me of another Greek:
Euclid

(Vachel Lindsay)

Old Euclid drew a circle
On a sand-beach long ago.
He bounded and enclosed it
With angles thus and so.
His set of solemn greybeards
Nodded and argued much
Of arc and circumference,
Diameter and such.
A silent child stood by them
From morning until noon
Because they drew such charming
Round pictures of the moon. 

A Serious Accusation

These days--and nights--with the kids cute, funny, kinda little, and sleeping under the same roof feel so blessed.

Letting each day go is a struggle, I know I'll look back on now as some of the sweetest times of parenthood some day.

That said, the kids aren't really *that* little.

Just yesterday, the first-grader accused me of treating her "like a kindergartner" :).

_

Those Who

There are those who

just can't hold still for a pic

in the henna/bleach Tardis gear  

(made by an awesome student).

They are the same ones who 

suddenly transform into

a giggly, floppy, silly pile

of puppies in ten seconds.

_

Downcast

1) That mid-morning call from the school--heart-racing panic before I understand that there is some meeting about traffic safety scheduled for Wednesday.

2) The official admission that MH 370 is really lost--do I grieve or conjure alternative endings?

3) Way before we've celebrated the beautiful way the judge struck down the ban on same-sex marriage in Michigan and the lovely way county clerks stayed open on the weekend to enable couples to marry, the expected appeal by the officially installed trolls against marriage equality. The counter-appeal from Equality Michigan is here.

4)  Reading the Good Wife spoiler before I could skip it--reading speed isn't helpful except in elementary school.

Trying not to dwell on these and continue working…

_

Disease Detectives

In the end, At didn't win at the Rube Goldberg machine he'd worked on for weeks and weeks and weeks…

Turns out he's a good "Disease Detective." Perhaps we'll make a doctor out of him yet?

(In the background I can hear the theme song from Nu's show *!!!Detectives!!!* jazz hands and all.)

_

Control

(Fright)
Addicted to rebellion
does it makes it alright?
Warping what you say-
you feel, the way we go.
We'll be okay, O.K?
Go on forever like a
bad spelling of
Mississippissippi

(Fight)
Throw a million arms
in insults crafted like
poems; throw smiling
selfies, "alrights" right
back into the wind;
scoffing like the glint
on a knife, blood falling
through our words.

(Flight)
Thinking through this
tsunami of absolutely nothing.
Then suddenly feel far away,
falling, speeding through space
trying to leave all of this--
the limp flags of you and me
war, anger, surrender, earth,
being awake, everything--

_

With What is Left of the Moon Tonight

I bronze those years as wild
but did we disappear
into shyness
mildly trembling
from undiagnosed gaze
thoughts that ate us whole?

Gone unappeased for weeks
the sun, the day and night
falling upon us
as the road squints
and is growing from tiny,
drowning, reinventing in bed.

You've come with me, silently
your words flickering
peripheral--ghostly
an axis buried
so deep underground
not even breath breaks or stirs.

But you can locate me as if--
as if by a sensuous sonar
just your mouth
closing in with
rush, ache, amusement
wordlessly speaking of touch.

power

Her eyes pool with regret
agrees she really shouldn't
have taken so long for breakfast

now it's late
now I can't walk her
into her elementary school building

now she'll have to ring the bell herself
wait for the double doors to open
line up at the office for a "late card"

and walk the almost emptied
hallways to class.
By herself.

Her mouth is a cartoon of sadness
her hands (still dimpled) tug
wordlessly

I say "no."
I hold out.
I'm very stern.

O.K. Out you get.
O.K. I'll watch till you get in.
O.K. But I'll only come to the door, O.K.?

There--she's ahead of me
smiling small and secret
her eyes at half mast and triumphant.

_

Diagnosis

Their eyes tell me about my future
how they grow up soft
in my heart

Their hands travel like my past
muddied innocent
grown lean

Their touch keeps books of memories
to listen, turn, learn
and cry out


_

O Lorde, it was amazing!

Is it odd to have so much admiration 

for someone years (decades even) 

younger than one?

I wish I had been as nonconformist,

outspoken, confident, and powerful

 at seventeen, any time in my teens,

Or--heck--now.

I wish I had taken the kids too…

_

Eat your Bath!

I made Bisibele bhath for dinner.
And Nu thought it was hilarious
saying stuff like:
"This bath is delicious!"
"I've eaten all my bath!"
You get it.

A snuggle before work

Big A dropped the older kids off at school
but there was still some snugglin' goin' on…

_

New York

take it as proof

make it a prayer

memory 

around earth

beyond desire

learn its anarchy

discern distance

lost

in indecision

and questions

_

Meditation

I wait for the sun.
The first golden
sliver

A fingernail's
paring
of light

A coin that
scribbles
exchange

Glittering
the day
with

More than
one-sided
coherence

_

Sometimes...

one needs to nap *at* dinner

-

Snow Mail

Retrieving mail
from the mailbox 

apparently requires 

mucho teenage bravado 

and action-film acrobatics…

_

Golden

_

Guess Who's *at* Dinner

Huckleberry: I'm all done now. Thanks!

_

Double the Cute

I'm so done…

-

New Baby Madness

 Scout would like you to meet Huckleberry.

(He isn't sure we ought to keep her though.)

And here are all four kids…

(Nu is Huckleberry's special big sister

--and raising Huckleberry is clearly tiring work.)

-

Cue

Filling hands decorously
with design
undone by words so porous
they're refined

Here you are, your hands
wide open
their words worried, wrong
so often

_

By the light of the moon...

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.
(In Ann Arbor)

_

Three Valentines...

_

Lens

an unused diary
ephemera

an empty page
asking

risen yeasty
answering

bruiting
newborn quiet

_

Tense

The river is
then has been
erased by snow

The snow was
plaint and now is
obdurate

spreads diamantine
skirts upon ground.
And no one

knows--nonsense
or treasure or
madness

_

Amends

this mouth is madness
madness

is eaten by eyes
rent by hands
rent by words
that are noise

I fold it like a kite
fly it closer to my sky

_

Impertinence

Our pronouns are wrong
unfashionable
collective

Our tenderness grows oddly
strong, parking
in spaces

The best one was yesterday
a decade ago
the first

Everyday another escapade
ordinary, brighter
impertinent

The Horror

At just finished reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness and wants to watch Apocalypse Now.

Why? Because he heard that those were the cultural artifacts that inspired a video game he loves called Spec Ops. It appears to be a first-person-shooter game, but At assures me there are more peaceful ways to play the game. We had a long car-conversation once about "it teaches that killing people is wrong" (At) and "you didn't already know killing people is wrong?" (me).

Whatever. I've assigned the Conrad to college students multiple times to complaints of "too hard to read." So currently, I'm a proud mama to a 14-year-old (less-than-stellar report card notwithstanding).

_

White-out-side

_

Traffic Controller (Dinner Prep Time)

Rapt. Playing "Rush Hour."

This set is almost ten years old,

and initially used to be At's.

(The Ya-Yas gave it to him.)

Terrifying Beauty

Surprise Portrait

This showed up in my message folder...

There usually aren't (m)any pictures of us

Another thing I really like is how we're  

flanked by a portrait of Big A as a kid…


_

A Moody Goddess Kind of Day...

and crowded too.

In the Compost

Corpses wait
orange peel
egg shells
sliver of skin
hothouse scraps

Leavings
iced over
in furrows
hatch plans,
sharpening

The first
green spear
of spring,
terrifying
with constancy

_

Snow Secret

The snow like a balm
blanketing, quieting
wanting

An incomplete dragon
intermittent, young
uncertain

Raising itself as if
on a leash
to elegy


_______________
In memory of S.M. (1996-2014)
[From a memory of the beginning of Silas Marner.]


_

When Father-in-Law Gives You Peppers...

Make stuffed peppers…

_

"Two Beds, One Fight!"

Game developer: Nu

_

All I remember from the Road Trip...

Dog fight!

_

Puppy's First Hotel Stay

Aloft Hotels, Chicago

_

In the Middle of the Night...

All three of them…

_

All I remember from Christmas...

YSO

_

Some Days Begin Well...

_

Nom!

ButterCheese&Blueberry Fly

(Created by Ms. Nu)


_

"Summarizing"

On the way back from At's band concert we're discussing movies we'd like to watch over the Holiday break and Big A, newly 40, claims that Saige Paints the Sky, The American Girl Movie, is his pick.

It's not. He's doing it to make At and me giggle.

But Nu watched it twice and loves it.

So she decides to tell us the story.

+
+
+
+

Five minutes later; she finishes.

And then makes everyone in the car giggle again when she announces that--sadly, she had to leave out many details.

It can't be easy being the youngest.

_

Four Hours Before Newtown

Camille Dodero's compassionate account of a "suspected school shooter" What Kind of Monster Wants to Shoot Up His School.

(Made me miss doing CASA work.)

_

It's been a Year...

There hasn't been a single day I haven't thought about those kids, those teachers, those parents, those kids.

A list of 194 children who've died since then in Mother Jones.

And a list of mass shootings in 2013 on Reddit.

It has to get better in 2014.


-

Bathtime

Scout's gotten so big

At can barely carry him.

(So…  my Nu offered 

to carry both her brothers.)

Cliches, Glitches*

Sometimes…

the dog…

does eat homework…


* English is weird. In any other language, words that look like that would rhyme .
_

New Nu Notes

1.      [While helping me make dinner]
My best friend is Michael. His name's also Letrell. He said that his favorite color is pink. He said sometimes people laugh when he says that. He said I could laugh too if I wanted to. But I didn't. I think he's lucky to have a strong friend like me. I'm going to eat a good dinner so I can always protect him. (Michael is half the size of Nu.)


2.      [When I walked through the door; sitting me down in the living room]
Mama, if you're not there, I'm not there. [?] I want you to eat whole meals, [?] sleep well, and get lots of treats so you'll be happy and healthy.


3.       [Dinner with grandparents. At had just admitted that at a "Power of the Pen" sleepover at school, he had slept right through a fire alarm. Most of us at the table laughed at him. Fresh from a fire drill at school, Nu clutched her brother's arm tightly, then this in a voice wobbly with tears.]
Guys, [Mom and Dad] I know I said I'd live with you forever, but I'm going to live with Nana forever. He needs me to help him wake up if the fire alarm goes off.


4.     [Communing with Scout...]

Look: I'm a "huppy" (half human; half puppy).

_

The Last 12 Hours

Groggy from a long chat that ended after 2:00 a.m. A chat that started with Big A awake and frustrated at being awake since he has to work till at least midnight today.

A rendition of "Big Dogs Don't Cry" didn't help, so I started talking about Virginia Woolf and Martha Nussbaum. (What? It puts students to sleep?)

Meanwhile:

Trying not to think of how it was the anniversary of him smashing his wrist while skiing. 

Skirting the topic of why on earth does he have to start work at 7:00 a.m. doing stuff as part of an additional job he interviewed for in Feb and isn't being compensated for in any way. 

Finding out that fake yawns can't make your companions sleepy.

Thinking about Nu saying "people look at me weird"--which is worrying whether it's real or imagined. 

Finding out we were talking too loudly for Scout who sighed at us loudly and went to At's room for the rest of the night.

Then I woke up a little later because At was riffling through all his things because he couldn't remember where he put his inhaler and he had been reading about the 12-year-old in Canada who died at school without his inhaler before bed.

And students in and out all day, jittery with finals panic and juggling everything from cancer to toddlers.

_

Schooled

I was just browsing Shakespeare's Sister on a break and literally had my life interpreted for me.

In an article about high-heels, Melissa McEwan explains that for fat women, heels (which have been criticized by some feminists as a form of self harm) may seem a necessary defense:

Fat women have all kinds of narratives about sloppiness, laziness, dirtiness to overcome. Sometimes heels are a crucial part of looking "put together" in a way that sufficiently convinces people that we care about ourselves, that manages to counteract pervasive cultural narratives that fat people don't care about ourselves… I get treated completely differently at a $20 hair salon if I'm dressed up or dressed down. Two totally different experiences. I get treated differently at the doctor's office, and at the emergency room. I can't go to the ER in sweatpants, because I'll get shittier treatment. In an emergency, I have to worry if I am dressed up enough to prove that I deserve respect and care.

All round horrible. Points I completely empathize with without having experienced them myself. (Or so I think.)

And then the part that changes the way I count my life. Melissa McEwan continues:
I am speaking to my own experience here, but many women with other marginalized bodies have the same experience. Women of color, trans* women, women with disabilities, and other marginalized classes of women may strongly relate to the idea of having to be "put together" in order to be treated as human beings.
That would totally explain why after years of dressing in jeans and homespun tunics and putting a lot of thought into looking like I didn't care how I looked in India, I've become--after years of living in the West--consumed by fashion. Because looking like a vagabond* is cute only if people know that you're playing and know you're not really one.

*(as the nuns at my private school may have said)

_

Ain't it Grand(parents)!

_

The Kids Are Documenting My Lapses...

Turns out that when I promise 

to watch movies with them,

I end up falling asleep instead.

They have the pictures to prove it.

Realizing she'll have no one to boss around...

When big brother takes off for college.

(Big A assumes that the kids will be doctors. 

So far At--design; Nu--Art/Art teacher.

Even if Big A were really an Asian dad

--and not merely an Asian dad by proxy--

he couldn't be more disappointed.)

_

On the road together (5:00 a.m.)

It's always good to have a chubby-cheeked companion.


_

What she made for her teacher...

 Go and play!

(or--presumably--I'll spank you with a spatula?)

Hungry Games

Before we set off to Catching Fire with our 14-strong viewing party: Brunch!

 "Gale" (HA!) and Chickpea salad and President Snow's Rose Cupcakes

"Peeta" (Haha) chips and Katniss Hotness. We're so hilarious.

Take that, Goldieblox!

Read this article at Shakespeare's Sister if you want a respectful, comprehensive read about why Goldieblox is more of the same old in new pinkified packaging. The comments are wonderful too!

And in that spirit, here's something the kids 6 (F) and 14 (M) made this morning.

At (L); Nu (R)

_

Trying to get this done

with a mouse and many, many elephants...

_

Briefly

Skipping from fire to fear
the colors beyond mathematics

From innocence to indifference
telluric, ludic, dead like this


_

A Kind of Rhythm

Highrise
Skyscrapers thrust through my heart
hope rising floor
by floor


Freefall
Then an ocean, breaking every day
retreat, put myself
back together

_

Mixed Media/Metaphor

Life is a juggling act / Life is a blur

A Man's Job...

At work, hanging out with the kids.

(They're off from school because it's

the beginning of hunting season--seriously.)

Does Nu look like 

a(n) (in)famous historical character 

from Germany--or is that just me, Godwin-ing?

_

Après-Laundry

Hide from your siblings.

Knowing What to Say

Do you choke on the cold
let it cut you open

Do you use love
as a lasso

Romance experience
Experience romance

I build it
by taking it apart

smothered bruised
and seething like music

_

Prayer in the Storm

Today is
an avalanche

The night is
upset desert

packed light
snack light

Bring
morning

Sing
morning

by light
or not night

_

Improvising

My heart operates on battery.
Yes, you can read it two ways;
neither of them will make sense.

Somedays, you are my soul and
it's your ear I want to hug most.
(A testament--not much better.)

Although, your hands--do save me.
Sometimes their higher purpose is
to idly hold my tired, dripping face.

Many thousand feet above us, perhaps
stars dance ever slowly, unconcerned
their void filled with winking emoticons.


_

Lest I Forget

I don't speak to our dead everyday
even today, I'm just... just listening.
Listening for the way they whistle.

Mostly the dead never disappear
I can sweep up the dust and papers
and know they never appear either

Still the weight of their stare lingers
on my eyes, in smiles, the limit where
my breath slices my lungs like apples

And my freedom, this pulse I carry.
I close my eyes, every time the last
Holding in glances, instead of arms

_

I've been working like a dog...

and 

I'm beginning

 to pant like one 

too.

_

Mornings

Puppy and me at 4 a.m.

he yells at me if I move.

So I just sit here and work.

Cutest + toughest boss ever.

_

Location

Turning the stars with spatula arms
skies spill stars and mosquitoes

thunder like sprays of flowers
like dead deer, typewriters

hinting like a children's book
foretelling surprises, defeats.

Darkness is the little treat
lying in the womb

I wonder what it means
to share: I'm here

Yet know it means
something to you

in the slow interior
of your mood

Devout Puppies

_