still life with Claritin

Headed home from Yellow Springs today...

I love how vibrant this little village is; I dislike how much the Miami Valley messes with the kids' airways.

here we grow...

Antioch School nursery mates just nine years ago... on the cusp of various high schools now. Nu and the other kids loved their ambles across Art on the Lawn and Glen Helen. Us mamas sprawled out on the lawn with cold drinks sharing how we had felt "lifted up" by each other for years. And... RK remembers me every time she cuts watermelon into wedges 🤗.

a solidly socialist... snuggle

 

Scout + At + Paulo Freire.

of darker days

> Torrential rains last night and then a pretty innocent-looking morning. Yet at my all-kids-pre-breakfast cuddle/huddle, At remarked on how it already looked darker at our regular wake up time.

*

< Started Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies. FML, I didn't expect so much of that first chapter to be about Trumpfzzzz. It has been such a relief not to have to deal with that din on the daily.

Out + About

Back to school shopping at Hot Topic and Culvers' for dinner.

#TeenInChargeTales

a time of discernment

My humans are each engaged in a personal time of discernment...

Nu is figuring out being 13, their gender, and responsibilities and anxieties around high school...

At is experiencing post-graduation life and making meaning of his impromptu gap year...

Big A is dealing with a change of employer and the potential loss/depletion of research funds...

I appear to be panicking at will and slipping into periods of sadness routinely... None of it is inexplicable--if I think about it I can pull up tons of reasons why I should be sad. But it's not particularly discerning or meaningful.

Anyway, something that brought me a momentary chuckle today: I'd switched Siri to "Indian voice" recently. And good thing I did too. When I turned the phone's flashlight on by accident today, I was both faraway and flustered and slipped into Indian/British mode, asking Siri to turn off "the torch." And... it was done even before I stammered out "I mean flashlight." Nice discernment, Indian voice Siri.

Pic: Waterlilies at MSU Horticultural Gardens.

broads

A bright blue, sunny, HOT day and I spent much of it with JG in a belated joint birthday celebration visiting the Broad Museum (another item off my summer list), discovering a brand new restaurant with outdoor seating, and walking down the riverwalk--just us two broads (ha!) talking, talking, talking.

(I noticed the return of masks--mandatory at the museum, prominent at the restaurant, and intermittent on the riverwalk.)

I didn't find time to dedicate to exercise, but if the goal is to sweat everyday, I certainly achieved that on our 90-degree day.

an answer

so what if scars seam 

my body, it holds 
together

wherever I feel untaught 

I risk transparence

today

you should know how 

defiance clears
my throat

why I quiet in the face

of an ongoing

spectacle

so well trained, when

blossoms happen,

I'm reborn

Pic: Phlox!

walking the walk

I've been walking with the kids fairly regularly--pictured here are three of four. 

The human kids frequently "take turns" walking with me. Not in an eager way--but more like one is busy today so could the other step in, etc. 

For some reason, it sort of makes me happy because it makes me imagine that when I'm elderly and need their care they'll negotiate a mutually compassionate and equitable way to make that work too.

The puppy kids are, naturally, happy to walk any time.

escape landscape

first: sun on high smiling down

then liquid, drenched in luster

leaves, trees, all this causality  

deciphering futures/scriptures

from beauty, I'm still interested 

to learn how to drift with light 

outside lies the anthropocene 

like moths lusting for a glow   

here I'm only: oh's, aw's, noes

mouth heavier than ever before 

I go after words and find sounds:

songs of sobs, verses of laughter

Pic: Baker Woods this morning with L. 
(Not pictured: swampy-slippery paths, at least one spill, and swarms of mosquitoes.)

movie heavy

It was my "Boss Day," and Netflix said Kal Ho Na Ho was available, so that's what I picked for the fam to watch. Feels so weird to think that movie is nearly 20 years old already. 

The songs made At remember dancing in the kitchen in New Jersey 🥰. There's a fair bit of queer baiting in it and the kids picked up on that right away 🥰🥰. Big A and At drifted away after an hour, but Nu watched the movie all the way to the end with me 🥰. 

At and I girded up for a second movie and went to see The Green Knight at the movie theater. Although there was only one other person at our 10:00 pm showing, I think it's going to be our last movie for a while unless things get a lot better. 

I love Arthurian re-visions and The Green Knight delivers sumptuously. Also, it's an era frequently coopted by white supremacists and their narratives, so Dev Patel as Gawain was so satisfying. And I guess it's about maternal machinations, so very apropos for me to see it with At. Ha. 

calibrations

 

I suppose, I suppose

it wasn't you who called me 
from the bottom of the stairs
it was my prayer

my god O my god

I cannot find my way home

as crows fly / as fish swim 

I might disappear 

here while learning

how to gerrymander choice

hung up on nomadic words 

whispering diaspora

Pic: At has been coordinating canvassing for the socialist candidates. I left him a note as the primaries were today...

bits of the day

Out early today to Alma for a seminar/workshop and it was so good to see and be with people--many of whom I haven't seen or been with for a while.  A few people were wearing masks indoors and although we're nearly 100% vaccinated as a college community, I wore mine too out of respect. 

Work, work, work, and then I headed home with JG on the phone to keep me company on the commute home. 

Low: Heart heavy with the looming eviction of millions of families in the middle of a pandemic.

High: Hearing The Foo Fighters' cover of The Beegees' "You Should be Dancing" live from Lollapalooza on the radio. Apparently it's something they've been doing for a while? Anyway, it was the bit of disco silliness that helped me get through the day.

Pic: An early bird posing for me with their accessory worm (yesterday at the Horticultural Gardens).

the week ahead

L snapped a picture of me down by the Red Cedar on the first of my three hikes (sequentially with L, BS, and EM) today.

I'm scheduled for a work seminar Mon and Tues and a professional webinar Weds and Thurs, so it seemed like a good idea to get all the hiking I wanted in today. 

Also a good idea... scheduling a massage for Friday. 

what goes around

I'm in despair with the pandemic rubbish all over again. Thank the universe for people making creative memes...

In other not news, August starts tomorrow, and a look at my summer list tells me that we're doing alright. I even got to do one of my big maybes--sit by the ocean. But things I threw in there thinking we'd definitely get to them (hammock camping, firepit nights) haven't happened because it has been such a wet summer.

 Still a few precious weeks left...

today in vignettes

An early morning walk with L after SO MANY days. Between her travels and mine, it's been way too long. The Radiology Gardens (where I snapped this pic) had a fundraiser, and we bought a giant planter of coleus each and lugged it around with us.

At took me to the car dealership earlier in the morning to drop Bluey off for a two-year service. When the check-in person asked if I needed a loaner or a ride back home, I felt so proud telling them that I "brought my son." The son in question was amused that when he stopped to get gas, I hopped out to help him, but was so lost around all the slots and buttons after two years of plugging in Bluey.

A boozy cousin B called as we were getting dinner on the table. A bunch of cousins are getting together at his new beachhouse in Pondicherry and he MISSED me. I've been seeing pics on cousin chat since, and everyone is talking about a big reunion in December. Today I'm pretending (even to myself) that this might actually happen.

And today is officially the day Nu picked their new name. We had tried a name that started with "N' for a while. But then one day as I was getting dressed, I saw Big A's money clip with his initials, and the thought that At would be able to use it one day slipped into my mind...  I wanted that for Nu too. Nu's new name begins with "A" too, so they'll still be the "Baby A" who debuted here in 2007. And even better, it kind of starts the same way as their old name, so I can course correct before I reach the end and avoid slip-ups. 

edit

I will not fail fall falter--
what is history but 

a storm that left 

us all bowed

although not forever long
I watch waves touch

shores and ships

--be calmed 

(I remember how old colonizers 

told us of monsters on maps

even--while wielding:

their sword-gun-pen)

_______

Pic: Flying home--skies never fail to fascinate me.

"still life at the conference"

 

some more (travel)

Once more into the skies and on to D.C. where a long postponed conference-workshop awaits. 

Big A took me to the airport at 5 am, the plane took off at 6 am, and when I got to the hotel around 10 am-- they gave me a room right away.

Like me, it seemed everyone else too was grateful and eager for connection and collaboration after the pandemic hiatus, and people at our table lingered over half-full glasses of wine long after our formal welcome and orientation concluded. It turned out that one of the new people I met is an IRL friend of the fabulous Sarah from Harry Times. We were discussing academia and motherhood, and I had mentioned how seemingly effortlessly Sarah excels at parenting FIVE kids with an academic job and a spouse with a high-profile job--unsurprisingly perhaps, it appears there's only one of those 😀.

Speaking of kids--I haven't missed my kids since I kissed the human kids sleeping faces and the puppy kids furry faces at 4:30 am. 

[Pic: A nearly full moon at sunrise.]

an ordinary happy

why not stay awake           

watch                                

today's felt blog post         

become                              

just yesterday's ghost        

to a moment, wonderful

right now

becoming extraordinary 

as memory

as witness, totem, story

-----------------------

Pic: Nu and At playing Super Smash Brothers, a game they acquired the weekend Big A and I were away in Seattle. They had so much fun pretending they were going to invite someone called "Smash" over to the house while I was gone, and I had so much fun pretending to be horrified by the idea. It was only later that I discovered that they didn't know I was pretending. "How did you even know it was a game?"--they asked. I don't know.