take frayed and afraid things for wings
be, begin, go
no one judges me for these strange noises
1) of my WGS students who set up 25 wonderful interactive booths to discuss subjects as varied as the female gaze in films, non-binary erasure, abortion access in MI, and mental health for athletes. At this point, all I had to do was backstage manage with tape and pens and flyers and fruit snacks.
2) of Nu who went out with friends for the second day in a row after mentioning their renewed depression. Knowing they understand friends can make you feel better and that they have friends to draw on and the energy to make plans, feels like progress.
Pic: Students making me SO proud. We were all buzzing with that energy that comes from a performance even as we took the displays down.
I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that Steph referenced) must be because of the ceasefire in Gaza making me feel like I could take a personal pause.
Also, I took Max to the vet for his one-year check; he was a champ. I was not a champ. The receptionist brightly asked if I'd brought Scout, and I immediately welled up like a doofus. And then she was so apologetic, I felt bad for her and worse overall.
But I handily completed a paper proposal titled "Extra, Extra, Extra!: Improving Critical Connectivity in Higher Education" and am particularly chuffed by this: "In Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Patricia Hill Collins describes critical theory as critical in a triple sense: as offering critique, as essential, and as expository. In this paper, we similarly draw upon the triple use of the term “extra” to unpack the ways critical feminist practices may be viewed within Higher Education--namely as exceptional, as supplementary, and (in recent slang) as excessive."
Also, Nu's sleepover guests just arrived, and I love the giggly and infectious energy they've brought with them.
_________________
It wasn't always cozy and fuzzy, but I felt connected in human ways today:
gave Big A a (long overdue) dressing down... and then later we took a walk and an ussie...
apologized for being/seeming rushed to two students + three friends...
made plans with my girlfriend group + one friend + two colleagues...
reached out to two people who've been uncharacteristically quiet...
pushed through the daily banter to check in for real on my India fam...
Nu was so quiet at dinner time, and while my first instinct was that they were being surly, I kept on with open-ended questions to hear that they've been depressed again. And in a flash of clarity: "it comes and goes, Mama." :/ I would happily take their pain...
Pic: A sweet, sweet note referring to last week's presentation I found at my office door this morning. There are students here whose kind words feel like a commendation. Also, I received an email about being nominated for a state-wide teaching award. I suspect the nomination came from another kind student... and in perfect consonance, at the end of the workday, someone was singing the praises of this student as a student-teacher. How much each of us hurts... how hard we try to be there for each other... I'm so grateful for the people I know in this life.
Max turns a whole year old tomorrow!
Huckie always looks like a puppy...
TIL that Chopin's Minute Waltz was inspired by a puppy chasing its tail. In fact, it's even known as Valse du petit chien!
It was a cold day, with snow still on the ground, but we played outside under blue skies and sunshine and then napped like champs. (I'd done all my weekend chores in anticipation of being out of town, so there was nothing to do today but make chicken soup and check in on Big A now and then.)
Pic: Max and Huck in conversation.
The snow wasn't going to stop us from heading to Yellow Springs for a long overdue visit to Grandma S tomorrow...
Except Big A seems to have gotten the flu from patients (lots of Flu B out there, people)... so I guess we're not going after all.
My poor MIL! this is our much delayed and postponed CHRISTMAS visit! The post title sounds like an old-timey lament, and that's exactly how I feel.
Pic: Hellebores/Lenten Roses in the backyard before the snow.
When EM first asked if I wanted to go to "Small Island," I thought it was a dramatization of the Andrea Levy novel we both love--it isn't. It turns out to be a beautiful cross-cultural collaboration between musical artists from about 16 islands dotting the Pacific and Indian oceans. I didn't understand a single word... and I didn't need to... the music was so joyous and transportive. I loved the artists' camaraderie and synergism. And their final song about the danger to the Great Barrier Reef sounded sorrowful and (rightfully) angry and nearly brought me to tears.
Things I thought about during the concert:
1) How my last set of season tickets at the Wharton was pre-pandemic and I need to see about getting tickets again. They have Six playing this weekend, and I would have liked to go.
2) Because I couldn't understand the lyrics at the concert, I thought about how much my mom likes Nelly songs (esp. "Hot in Here" and "Ride Wit Me") although she probably only gets about 50-70% of the lyrics (because of slang and accent). The kids find this HILARIOUS. (I mean I do too... my mom has never smoked anything in her life let alone an "L.")
3) I hadn't yet finished The Bee Sting at that point in the evening, but its climate grief really connected with the music in Small Island Big Song. One of the characters in The Bee Sting rages about how strange it is that poets keep writing about birds and flowers and so on as though whole species aren't disappearing every day. That is SO true! (10/10 for The Bee Sting, BTW.)
Pic: Small Island Big Song in concert. I'm off to see if I can find their songs on the internet.
I've been chuckling over that while reading Paul Murray's The Bee Sting--a book both At and Big A gave me copies of at Christmas! (I've since returned the copy Big A gave me.) I was savoring this novel, frequently chortling out loud, as it was delightful in a Derry Girls kind of way... but things have taken a disquieting turn and the sexual violence is quite terrifying... I can't wait to be done now.
Pic: Huck and Max got a Spring haircut and look a bit strange. The bows on Huck's ears make it look like she has ponytails! Outside is somehow snow AND flowers.
I spent way too much time prepping the talk--I said as much to Big A this morning while I spent another hour tweaking, tweaking, tweaking... But he said that I should spend all the time I want because it's something that matters a great deal to me. I thought this was the perfect response and philosophy.
Pic: My kids are excited to be... delighted to be... doing some Easter prep. (I don't think anyone would accuse them of spending too much time on prep. 😂)
It's only my fourth year of knowing my birthday doubles as "March Forth Day," but I'm carpeing everything I can out of the diem.
It's the Monday after break, so there was tons to do. Plus, I had to send an overdue change of schedule postponing everything to both the publisher and editor. But I owned up and did that like a grown-up. Then I found some time to take myself out for a long walk and a long soak and read for an hour amidst my plants.
Evening was dinner with the fam at Ruckus Ramen, and then back home for presents and cakes (pistachio-raspberry-lemon + a Whole Foods Chantilly cream with fruit as At is allergic to pistachios.)
I am ever so grateful for every minute of this.
Pic: At's friend H took this picture of us (Big A, Nu, me, At). H also drew me a "three-legged cat" for my birthday, which I know I will hang on to for a while because... memories.
Burchfield Park--new to me--was an easy eight-mile loop and scenic all the way through.
Pic: Big A my navigator + water and snack carrier ahead of me.
2) Almost too much love. Just kidding...
3) But actually, I was late getting home because a workplace chat went on and on and then late to book club because Big A kept on prolonging our soak-and-chat and late getting home to dinner because there was pre-birthday cake and jollities at book club and then late for a friend's pooja because the dinner I made (couscous salad with almonds, felafel, and a ton of veggies, + the spicy feta dip a book club friend insisted I take home) was amusingly deemed merely "a side" so Big A got some shawarma wraps to top it off. At that point, I decided it would be best just to send my regrets to the pooja people. And so I did.
4) I also got all the plant care, cleaning, and settling done today so I can take the rest of the weekend off to relax and luxuriate in birthday love and prep for reentry into the work week.
5) Pic: A snapshot of my very whiny FB post. Soc med circles are so weird. I bet if this was on Twitter, someone would have told me to STFU already.
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.
I still managed to renew my Driver's License, arrange catering for a campus event next week, and finalize the speaker series for Women's History Month.
I feel sad and helpless, and I told Big A that I was going to take my emergency prescription medication, but I didn't (I'm always "saving" it in case I have I bigger crisis). I drank a lot of tea instead, clung to him like a baby monkey, and then rallied to make up and make an amazing dinner (rice with arugula, five-color veggies + beans braised with miso, sesame oil, and nori).
And then as a reward, I found birthday cards in the mail! They were such a sweet surprise and such a cheery pick-me-up.
Pic: Also immensely cheering, my fuzzy welcome committee. Max and Huck always pop up to say hello as I unlock the back door.
Overwhelmed by the sacrifice of Aaron Bushnell, which I had barely begun to process yesterday.
Heartbroken/Awestruck.
What an empathetic, sincere, radical, and idealistic soul... What a lesson in being true to his conscience and his long history of mutual aid. He had recently been deployed to Israel as a U.S. airman, and I want to question why we're getting involved in the fighting rather than the peacemaking too.
Speaking of which, nearly 100,000 people in Michigan voted "uncommitted" today to challenge U.S. complicity in the Palestinian genocide... the goal had been to get 10K votes. I dislike how the media has painted this as an "Arab-American and Muslim" issue when it's really a humanitarian issue. So yes, Dearborn, which has a large Arab-American population, voted approx. 75% uncommitted, but Washtenaw, which has no significant Arab-American presence, also voted approx. 25% uncommitted. I don't have numbers for Ingham where Big A, At, and I voted. The "Listen to Michigan" campaign was started just about three weeks ago, so this is impressive.
Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice and the uncommitted votes are also a hopeful sign of humanitarian solidarity and moral clarity for me. It is difficult to go on day after day knowing we're actively vetoing ceasefires and sending arms to kill civilians but having to act like everything is normal.
Pic: I was at work today, and wanted to get a closeup of the "touchstone" LK made me--it is actually beautifully planed wood with copper insets that are almost like constellations. But then I got a bit distracted by the sunlight filtering through my office plants. The "toys" are a miniature Freedom Rider bus that KB gave me from her visit to the Legacy Museum and an auto-rickshaw my mom gave me after Nu and I had an adventure in one last year.
I love these people so, so much and am so grateful for this life with them.
Pic: A big, squeezy hug at the end of dinner. Nu, Big A, At.
It was so rude of Big A to cheerily text me "one more year" on New Year's day and then explain that in 2025 Nu would be off to college. I swear he has been dreaming about child-free living (precisely what I dread) for a long time now.
But we're on Winter Break at work and Nu had all-day plans with friends, so Big A and I took off by ourselves. We walked to the Breslin Center to watch the MSU women's basketball team post a 93-57 win over Rutgers, detoured to the horticultural gardens to see the orchid show, and then ended up at our favorite Sushi place before walking home to Huck and Max with our leftovers. I have to admit it was pretty nice and I can see us doing some version of this for a few decades after the kids are independent.
Pic: I gave Big A matching Spartan hats at Christmas and promised to go to a game with him (he loves basketball). He got us tickets for a women's game because he knew I'd want to support the women's team.
A full weekend! Lots of people: foraged for more morels with work friend TR; met Baby R with the whole gang of girlfriends today at lunch; ...