Funny Valentine

Sibling Valentine's Day call for the kids. 

Valentine's Day yoga for me and Big A.

Fin.

in carnations

Yes, I am almost lost in

this small, intimate forest 

from the supermarket florist

(carnations I bought myself).

I embrace their candy beauty

how gracefully their economy

aligns ( just so you know--

they must have cost <$7.99).

I address their bodies with 

eye caresses, knowing the dears 

may last for weeks--or for ever 

(if you're counting in flower years).

WFH*

I didn't meet the health-check requirements at work, so I declared today a WFH day. I had to. 

Pre-pandemic, it would have been a day where I talked myself into showing up, because canceling three classes over flu-like symptoms would be "weak." But in the pandemic, it was the responsible thing to do, and I talked myself into assigning asynchronous work and emailing an FYI to my chairs in ENG and WGS. 

I'm likely experiencing side effects from the first Moderna shot I received yesterday. But what if it isn't? What if that doofus, with his mask worn as a chinstrap who came up to talk to me at the store this weekend and was so upset I told him to back off, gave me Covid already?

I ended up monitoring the important stuff and sleeping a significant amount. But up until about 4:00 pm, I felt a fair amount of anxiety from knowing I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Then I peeped Big A and Nu taking a walk in the backyard with Scout and Huck, and the day shifted into home-mode. 

__________

*Everyone uses "WFH" to mean "work from home," but it'll never not look like an abbreviation for swear words to me.

cozy and kind

I stayed cozy today. The temporary wallpaper in the little alcove is new... I'm still inordinately pleased with the fake stove-space heater and fake sheepskins.

Long run (for me, i.e. 5 mi.), Challah from L, marveling about Fred Hampton with At, sleepover with Nu and the puppies last night--those are some of the highlights. The rest was work--finally got acceptance letters and contracts out to the poets we'd picked last week. 

Big A is at the end of a longish break (12 days) from work in the ER. He's been working--on papers and paperwork--but he's been home and it has been extra cozy. We were reminiscing about how "when we were younger" and he worked in the ER so much more, a break like this would invariably start with a giant fight about something inconsequential. We seem to have gotten better about managing hopes and expectations and overall, we're just... kinder to each other.

afterwards/afterwords

our arc bends 

from the brutality 

of everything we

carry, when only 

fragments of story

are ours to control 

We know we are every

-one, belong every

 

place, matter some

-times in epilogue

Blues

I still thoughts 

by will alone

I carry sadness

into February

sky stays blue 

as I grieve you

Parent Yawp

Just after I bragged about Nu, they're off-track with schoolwork and all of their attendant accountability/integrity issues again. 

Is the lesson that I bragged to soon? Bragged at all? Will Nu be able to get past this? Will I? UGH. I feel so helpless watching this child squander so many chances. 

Pic is to remind myself of a less complicated, cuddlier time... 

understory

I reach for the halo

orbiting our moon

lasso and escape

loops of memory

I enter at beauty--

of enflamed skies 

chevron trees stare

back, draw me stars. 

Snippet

It looks like Nu found a snow house in the backyard and Scout plans to visit with them...

 

Briefly

That's Scout curled up with his nose touching the last place he'd seen me. He used to do this when he was a baby too...

Everyone seems to need me today.

Must go!

At Last...

Four years ago, At and Nu were newbies to protest and I had a houseful of students. So much to love then and now. 

What will I do now that I don't have to be horrified every SINGLE second that we've Twittered our way to some new calamity? Huh?

I didn't get to watch the inauguration in real time, but took in a few texts here and there and then a Zoom to toast the new admin so "things feel more real." 

I really missed my WGS folks who have helped me keep my sanity in the last four years, mostly by making ad hoc traditions of marches and protests, and linners. 

I so wish we could be together in solidarity and community again. 

Side Eye

At sent this picture--in which Scout appears to be eyeing At a bit judgmentally as he packs to leave for college--to family chat. Surely offering At the book about doggies is Scout's attempt to make At reconsider his decision?

Talked to At on Twitter and chat today; and gosh--I miss him fiercely. Spent some time settling things in his room and ended up clearing out a decade's worth of video games, Popular Science, and Make Magazine. We've been in this house only four years and only four years in the Alma house before that, so this stash somehow made it through three moves. Yikes. 

Also yikes, as I leaned to get another piece of mail from behind At's bookcase, I twisted something in my knee and it has felt progressively weird. It feels... feeble now, although it didn't when it actually happened.

Finalizing all the syllabuses and diagnostics for first week today. And I'm laughing at myself because the smallest things get me excited sometimes.  My latest tweak is so superficial--I changed all the font to Garamond--and I'm so inordinately chuffed about it. 

Snapshot

Here I am, bookended by the two human babies who showed up randomly in their matching Christmas jammies for some Olympic-standard cuddling.

It snowed all day, so this was perfect.

(Nu and I are crushed that At will be heading back to college this weekend...)

Pongal 2021

Most years we're already back at school before Pongal comes around and the usual celebration is something hurried when the sun is no longer high in the sky.  

This year, we got to celebrate in the sunshine and make our offering at a reasonable daytime hour, with fragrant narcissus and paperwhites rounding out the pongal rice and jaggery laddu on the offering tray. To the millenary vedic sun salutation sloka*, which I was translating for the kids as I went, I added a prayer for enough Vit. D to help us through the pandemic. 

Cousin P had sent the cousin groupchat a set of truly lovely pics of their traditional celebration replete with sugarcane, outdoor hearth, and silk-clad kids. So I sent this pic back to balance things out. 

Not pictured: The very un-Pongal looking kids, one in the Phoebe Bridgers limited edition Punisher sweater they got from their older sib and the other human kid in the pink Mean Girls/Karl Marx mashup tee I gave them.

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

*Japakusuma Samkaasham Kashyapeyam Mahadhyuthim,

Tamorim Sarva Paapagnam Pranathosmi Divakaram

[You radiant as the Japa flower, heir of Kashyapa, the creator of days

destroy my darkness and all corruption I pray to you, O Sun.]

Spoke too soon...

There was so much sunshine yesterday--it felt brilliant and I thought I was handling things ok, but today was a bit of a BIG crybaby day. I disappeared to cry in my closet, I cried and looked for cuddles, I cried through some cuddles. I couldn't get it right; no one could get it right. I did the usual things that cheer me up (walk, star, snack, cook, bath, chats, distance meet, etc.), but nothing would take. At least I can say I tried. 

Kinda like I did with this holiday card, which I had printed but didn't mail... and probably will never mail at this point.

Apartment Therapy's astrology section forecasts that I will have a "fruitful social life" this year, so perhaps not all is lost? Ha.

Peace Out

It was a peace-keeping kind of day around here: mediating between people who hadn't done their homework, people who'd fallen behind on housework, tracking down errant dishes (Scout and Nu, and At), errant books (At, Big A, Nu) providing emotional support for assorted causes from grad school apps to DnD character building, and trying to fake an interest in topics like conspiracy theories and eye boogers, etc.

Thankfully, my flu-shot site doesn't hurt so much anymore and I made some progress with work and teaching projects + got things arranged around the house in preparation for the crush of the oncoming weeks as term gets going. Excited! Anxious! 

Notes from the Weekend

• Here are At and Nu in their matching new year shirts from a unisex brand--I love the silky patterns and their very distinctive cut and fit.
• I started Duolingo-ing Spanish this week--I'd like to keep it up. And I'd like to walk the Camino de Santiago someday...
• I downloaded WhatsApp to my laptop and can now send pictures and links SO easily to mom and sis.
• Big A built me a long sofa/console table to store projects, books, and work material so I can take meetings in the living room. I love our communal study/rumpus room, but sadly, we can't all be in meetings in the same room.
• And.... I had a poem accepted today. This one! about the people in this photograph!

There and Back Again

This is what I saw when I woke up this morning and I took a picture of the backyard--through the window--because I didn't think I would go outside.

But... it's At's 'Boss Day' and he picked a really simple dinner--but we didn't have enough bread to make veggie melts for everyone, so I put on my big girl winter clothes and set off for Whole Foods.

I soon realized that the roads HAD been plowed, but Big A had abandoned his car in the middle of the driveway when he came home from work this morning and was taking a nap. So either I could drive the car that has "DEFUND 50" on the front plates (I have a feeling I'm too brown for those plates) or walk. 

So I walked.

Beginning as we mean to go on

A walk in the snow with these loves... one practice I've hoped for at the beginning of many new years. 

(Yes, it was just down the street to wish TB a happy birthday before curling up cozily for most of the evening--but I'm counting it as a tiny win for today.)

"But Different than the Day Before" (Part 3892772)

Ha. How many versions of this 2020 day can there be?

It was icy in the streets and a very homebound day scaffolded by all kinds of media. 

A long yoga session on Mirror, hours of reading, syllabus prep, an adoring Prince retrospective online, and then stringing a video-list of Nirvana-Bikini Kill-Foo Fighters for Nu (the Nirvana and Bikini Kill were kinda for the WGS class). Nu has very limited screen time these days, so accompanying me on rabbit holes of 90s nostalgia is ok with them. (Evil parent laugh.)

Big A's "Impossible" spaghetti sauce for dinner, some Veep with At (from whom I received this puppy pic) and now I'm going to give Bridgerton a try by myself.