nice/surprise

 It's April 1st tomorrow and who knows what the day will bring--here are a few things that took me by surprise on this last day of March.

I woke up from a dream in which I marveled how in a crowd of strangers we unhesitatingly call ourselves "we." It's true, isn't it? There's something beautiful and magic about that.

I was on a walk and 30 mins from home when a neighbor called to say she'd found Max wandering around her yard and had put him in her screen porch. Obviously, I panicked and called Nu to go over and get Max. Nu went downstairs and then called to tell me Max and Huck were downstairs cuddling on the sofa. Ha. The other puppy was reunited with their family soon after.

For the first time ever, a book I put on hold at the library (Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We've Ever Had) came in before I caved and got it myself.

Yesterday, while sheltering from the tornado, I realized that Nu and Big A had ordered an arcade Ms. Pac-Man game for the basement. I thought we were in our frugal era! I'm mad. Also that thing is going to be 5-ft tall when it's put together.

Pic: I commented to Suzanne that I planned to make sushi cups from an insta reel I'd seen. I did! I did not expect them to be as as easy as they looked or come out so well (esp. as I ad lib a fair amount). They look a bit color deficient to me as I want all five colors at every meal, but a blueberry-mango-raspberry compote completed the gap at dinner. 

Bending Meaning: Haiku, P.F.Chang, and "Peelings"

I'll never get used to hearing Big A talking on the phone to his colleagues and casually asking them to send him a haiku. Haiku is merely the hospital's internal secure messaging system, but it nevertheless sounds so charming. Although at other times I'm a bit stern and feel like if they're going to appropriate poetic terminology, they better be structuring their medical notes 5/7/5, you know?

*

Last year, Big A had a recurrent dream where Scout was accompanying him to a bunch of classes at Kalamazoo, his old undergraduate campus. In one dream, it was a poetry class where the instructor had displayed some of their published works on the desk at the front of the class. A can't remember the titles, but the poet's name was P.F. Chang--like the Asian restaurant chain. I wonder if Big A was thinking of Victoria Chang but was also a bit hungry?

*

I've been hearing this catchy Telugu film song on a number of reels and wanted to download it for my playlist. The song is about how the heroine is plagued by carnal feelings for the hero--"vochundai feelings-su" (I get these feelings). So I searched "Feelings" on I-Tunes, and nope, nothing. Turns out it's spelled "Peelings"--all the better to express the way it might be pronounced with emphasis in Telugu, I guess? Not really a word with a sultry vibe for me, however--it makes me think of dinner prep... or a skin condition.

Pic: The Red Cedar right behind L's house. From another walk this week. 

connections

I hear my mother calling

--calling on the phone

(not from the porch)

then she asks for my name
her voice a green flame
of sudden language 

my eyes round as our earth 

I tell her my name 

play her game 

memory, fantasy, truth...

have all gone missing

but aren't missed

_____________________________

Pic: A turtle and some hatchlings sunning themselves on a rock in the Red Cedar. Another long walk by myself

it's going down at the (book) club

Pic: Today my bookclub people were so delighted with the verdict finding Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts--JS brought a grocery store cake whose icing read "34 Convictions" and CD had a bottle of wine whose label had been altered to say "34 Crimes."

(We were discussing The Bee Sting--I could have talked about it for another 24 hours. Our next book is Percival Everett's James--the Huck Finn re-vision.)

Bonus: My WTF dream in which I was upset because in addition to my real life kids, I had twins who were killed in a bus accident. I didn't seem to be grieving them, I was upset because (a) I hadn't put their names on the Father's Day T-shirt I had made for A (IRL, I've put Scout's name on it, of course) and (b) I couldn't remember the name of the second twin. In the dream, I went round and round wondering if it was "Collin" or "Mike" or "Asa--" all real life twins I know. I was so relieved to wake up and remember I never did have twins.

Leap day: local, lowkey leisure

I woke up from a dream in which the kids and I were traveling with bestie KB... but then I got separated from them while lining up for an airport shuttle. I couldn't see them anymore, but I remember shouting over the crowd, "K, do you have my kids?" And she shouted back "yeah!" And then I felt calmer in the dream and as I woke up. I felt even calmer after I texted KB and asked her to check in on my kids if anything should happen to me. And she promised she would but added in characteristic KB fashion: "And FFS, Maya, please don’t die!!!" I'm not planning to!

I did a ton of work all morning from the moment Nu left for school. In the afternoon, I felt like a lady of leisure from a long time ago, or perhaps a lady of leisure in my future retirement. 

It was cold but sunshiny today, so I walked over to our local public radio station to help pack reading-literacy kits. It was repetitive assembly-line work and nicely freed up my head from extraneous thoughts--because you had to stay focused to get it right.

Then I walked home again with a nice long detour to finish the album I was listening to. 

I stopped by L's for a chat and to pick up the lemons I had asked to borrow from her... and then headed home for dinner with the fam.  

Sounds boring, but it was kind of blissful. 

Pic: Reading kit assembly station.

dreams and hopes

Another day of sunshine! 

At breakfast, I asked Nu what they were going to do for Dr. Martin Luther King Day. They didn't even hesitate: "I'm going to eat my breakfast, then I'm going back to sleep, and I'll probably have a dream."

It was so irreverent, but it came so pat, I had to laugh. When the kids were younger, I'd take them out to some service project or other on MLK Day--but I'm happy for them to make their own choices now. 

Of all people, my mom--universally known by every person who knows her as overprotective--was reminding me the other day that Nu might soon be at college, so I was going to have to let them make their own way. (Where was all this permissiveness when I was growing up?! She's absolutely right though.)

Pic: Max and Huck mistrust the robot vacuum. "Rambo" comes out so rarely. My back still hurts, so I've been outsourcing work (and reducing my standards).
 

hiding in plain sight

At the lovely dinner party this evening, no one spoke of Gaza although I know that every single person at the table is agonizing about it, whether because we've been talking about it (Big A, Nu, LB, and TB) or because I know from their socials how upset they are (AH, KG, LV). It's like we have a disease and everyone knows about it, but we have to bravely carry on without discussing it at the dinner table. I played along beautifully.

I was all full of effing holiday cheer in my Rudoph the reindeer overalls with the jingly red nose. And every time someone remarked on it, I was hard pressed not to sing this song. 

Because that would also be inappropriate for this group--some of whom I know from work. Something very much on my mind, because after years at this point, last night I dreamt about the person I brought a Title IX case against. No current students remember him probably--he was asked to leave on the cusp of the pandemic--but in my dream an alumnus visiting the department was curious as to why there was no picture of the abuser in the faculty "gallery." I let it go on for a while, and when the alumnus asked again, I burst out: "Because he was a serial abuser. We don't have his picture up because he abused people." 

And then my dream veered off into a seaplane ride and since the only time I've been on one was near Seattle, that's how it looked. And the only point of the ride was to ooh and aah over some baroque Christmas decorations visible from the air. 

Speaking of which, I am almost ready for Christmas! In fact, I was almost ready last week, but I wasn't happy with the way I'd wrapped some presents, so I went in and did them all over again. No one will notice except for me. But it kinda makes sense to me. I'm so excited to give people their presents.

Pic: A blue tit (I think?) hides among the red winterberries along the Red Cedar. Walk with L. 

an unfolding

I have been dreaming of people
invisible mountains I exhaled 

into existing

twisting, quickening and though 

short-lived as grass, are seeds 

spiraling in space

are tendrils--of time and desire

opening and expanding

nodding, knowing

a  presence  here to make up for

an absence there, everywhere

the whims of distance 

I... wonder at the un-being before, 

after--the gasp of busy-ness now

marks how life slips by 

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

Note: I did not expect when I started writing that in writing about the space we occupy, I would slip into--and invoke--ideas of galaxies. I think some of this came from dreaming last night--vividly--of people who were important for a season but I may never see again. And I miss Scout so much... my irrational search for him certainly spans every interpretation of "heavens."

Pic: I found this perfect and early autumnal tree in the grocery store parking lot!

but I haven't told all the stories yet

It has been a month.

I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, but I can't say it out loud to other people (except Big A)... I miss Scout. I miss Scout. I miss Scout. 

I do keep telling stories about him to everyone... and sometimes if the person I'm telling the story to is a stranger I might never see again, I tell the stories in present tense as though he were alive. 

I have so many stories. How we called him the 'writing wolf', because he'd wake up and hang out with me to write. Or how we called him 'wolf puppy' when he'd writhe on his back and bare his teeth. and how--we don't have a name for this--but how he'd get upset at raised voices and bark at the person who was being mean. 

Pic: Scout running to meet me--just about two years ago. This may be my favorite (grainy, fuzzy) picture of Scout.

springing

I got an hour of sleep last night. There are inscrutable little comments and emails from me with time stamps ranging from 1:30 am (when I headed up to bed) to 4:30 am (when I fell asleep) all over the place. 

Then I had a dream where Nicole and StephLove visited me--I lived in a flooding basement apartment, the leak from the street-level windows springing up like tears. Happy times. But I remember smiling because Nicole asked, with gentle curiosity if "the seal would hold"--and I remember thinking how like her to address an issue without alarming everyone.

EM and I did a 40-minute version of our "Hope as a Cognitive Process" workshop for the WGS Consortium out of the U of Wisconsin this morning. It feels like we have enough to turn our spiel into an article. For the first time, editors have been sending us queries for an (as yet) unwritten article. That feels kinda fast track; kinda high pressure. 

My breathless delivery of all this news = my high because Scout is having a good day after the okayest day yesterday. 

Pic: It's spring everywhere and seemingly all at once--on my walk with Big A this morning, both the forsythia and the willow were in rival shades of yellow along the Red Cedar.
 

complex bedtime procrastination: am I up early or up late?

I'm putting it out into the universe that I need to get better at sleep hygiene. Is it even revenge bedtime procrastination if what I'm doing obsessively at 3:00 am is work-related? (I was Spring Term visioning last night.) 

I make a lot of excuses: I need to spend time downstairs with Scout and Huck (Scout cannot do stairs anymore and does not like to be carried); Big A works nights and has a messed up sleep schedule and I'm sympathy messing up my sleep schedule (but he can sleep during the day and I can't); I seem to be getting by fine with 3-4 hours in bed (but surely this cannot be good for me?); when Big A is at work, I'm a bit too anxious to sleep (and then we text a lot in the middle of the night and I like doing that); the afore-mentioned revenge bedtime procrastination after long work days (when I'm reading or scrolling with heavy eyes and fingers).

Stuff's complex, but I'm sure there are hacks to deal with each element of this. 

Pic: In other news, I didn't leave the house at all today--a combination of exhaustion, midday work meeting, rainy day, eyebrow zit, weekend, Nu on Spring break, etc. So this picture is from last week's solo walk on the MSU campus. I love the simplicity, vagueness, and the enthusiasm. And I heart exclamation points!

translation

I've been dreaming:
of three mosquitoes 
bouncing on a page

Oh sad, sleepy brain!
Did you just envision
"musketeers" wrong?

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

Pic: Dreamy visual courtesy Ziibiwing Center trip with my capstone students. 

Note: Did my brain not want to use "MUSKeteers" because of the Twitter implosion?

as I lay me down to sleep

childhood nightmares never go away

the roaring lions and underground hollows 

the things in corners, cupboards, under beds

I force myself to wait until it is morning 

to call out to my parents--on a phone line 

to hear them tell me everything will be okay

In every country a small goddess runs away

refuses worship, says she wants to be normal 

asking: surely, it's better to take than to just give

I see how she forces herself to still in hollows 

as animals stare, scatter, screech in importance 

I see how she wills her silence, says she'll be okay

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

Pic: Scout tells me this poem is bunk and sticks out his tongue.

bedtime story

I mean at some point we're going to have to talk about why I'm awake at 2:22 AM, goofing off like a goof... when I know I have an alarm set for 5:30 AM so I can do my green tea and meditation time before the high-schooler wakes up at 6:00 AM for their morning cuddle and breakfast.  

And this is not at all unusual--I've been averaging between 3-6 hours of sleep for years now... and put like that, I'm worried there's going to be some spectacular comeuppance for this. 

In some ways I'm a perfect candidate for fractured sleep because I have family from other continents and time zones--so no matter what the time, I have people on hand to have heart-to-hearts and to text links to hilarious songs like Rowdy Baby (no babies were harmed in the making of this video). 

But also Big A works nights, so we're usually texting and chatting about stuff and keeping in touch and being silly as well. And if he's home, his sleep schedule is messed up by working nights, so I'm hanging out with him then too. And tonight At seems to be up and feeling chatty and is sending me Langston Hughes poems about Lenin and I sent him that clip of Paul Robeson singing to Scottish miners (cross cultural solidarity is my favorite and my boy knows me). 

Anyway, this will all work itself out, or won't. If I'm going to be up all night anyway, I feel like there ought to be a cuddly baby to keep me company at least 😁. 

Pic: The Red Cedar was flooding its banks on our walk yesterday.

as I lay me down to sleep

it's time for me to be embedded 
into the dark

it's time to kneel at night's altar
quieten thoughts

to swallow answers into silence

and survive 

for I'm too wild for sleep to be

anything pure

appearing overnight

I used to climb black trees in my childhood

knowing leaves then as outbound beacons

who taught me places I know only now 

I twisted my braids with longing 

My arms become spears of bewilderment

they branch into wild whitenesses

prickle open rooms of secrets

stake it all so I can see

This morning I reached into another day
to eclipse gravity, light, and language
beloved, who is this wild animal 
with its tiled back turned

mouth around your moments of darkness
whisper to me the place it came from 
why does it watch for you to sleep
creep glances to your chest

[unfinished]

Note: Woke with the image of a beast looking down at something it held in its hands. Unsettling. Had two hikes canceled (snow + wind) and people's moods at home went up and down all day... I'm glad today is done. 

keeping it real

Nu has been watching a show called Arcane (based off of the League of Legends video game) this weekend, and although I've been assiduously working on the chapter due to the editors tomorrow, I must have imbibed a sufficient amount of it. 

I came out of an absolutely horrifying dream this morning in which I was on an escaping spaceship with a ton of children I'd never seen before... and my mom. The children were being taken to a safer place and I was there as some kind of consultant? (Not sure). In any case, I was supposed to be there, but my mom had just stowed away, and I was trying to shield her from the guards. I remember asking her to sit on a bench alongside the children, but she stuck out so she had to sit on the floor and try to be unnoticeable. I was going to pretend to the guards that she was there to take care of the kids, and worrying about saying that out loud, because my mom is quite elitist and would hate that role. And then my irritation with her elitism became this horrible disloyal question: why did I pick my mom and not my kids/dad/spouse? Poor mom!!

In real mom news, she seems to be recovering from her Covid... albeit slowly.

Pic is from this morning's tromp in the woods with L and Nu. I kept wishing the sun would show, but that didn't happen. We did get to see our favorite tree, though. Lots of weekend chores, reading, writing, homework, leftovers for dinner, and tai-chi (from a Mirror teacher) to round out the weekend. 

our mother would hate this poem

I dreamed I was listening to my
parents' fight from decades ago 
when they were fighting always
and always passive-aggressively

my father sounding patient
my mother sounding smart

neither of them listening to each other...
from our room: my sister and I listened,
grading them--not on how right or wrong 
they were, but how not mean they were.

our mother lost our ratings
for our father lost the fights

afterwards, he wouldn't talk to her for days...
every time she happened to be in the room,
he'd be whistling or humming something 
to show how he didn't care and didn't hurt--

like at all--not even a little bit

even we kids didn't buy it

mixed

Had a welcome breakthrough on a work project and managed to meet a proposal deadline one whole day ahead of deadline.

Took a nap. Woke up because of a horrifying moment in a post-apocalyptic-style dream (someone had tumbled down some stairs because I bumped them and when I went to check on them, I was captured and they started pulling on my clothes... also, my dad was supposed to help me keep watch, but he fell asleep and didn't hear me when I was shouting for help).

I'd planned a "Summer Celebration" to celebrate the end of Nu's 8th grade year.... it literally got rained on after we set the picnic table. 

Ah well, watermelon tastes almost as good indoors too. 

simmer

I'm stopped at the traffic light at on my way home and it turns into a wait for the slowest train in the world to pass.

There's a rap on the window and At's face beaming down at me. I unlock the doors, he pops in, I hug him so hard. He takes off his mask; I tell him to keep it on; he's all "but we're vaccinated;" and I'm all "you haven't had the second shot yet." Then he's referencing something about Bill Gates and vaccines--maybe this? 

I begin laughing because it's so random--and as I told him, in a couple of days I'm going to think I dreamt this whole sequence of things.

And I'm laughing because I'm so relieved to see and hold him on yet another day when to be the mother of a brown-skinned man is a day for a slow simmering fear.