Breath Song

Your breath's so imprecise in meaning
I can barely make sense as it swells
like lichen or love, the secrets it tells 

in its hard-earned and happy prison

Drawn between its vague borders

I learn by tracing the link of veins--

times, tie them to how you hold me 

sweet/safe for a heart-beat/a life-time 

[Picture from my perch where I was reading in the afternoon sun; wearing a faded, stained--but still favorited--summer blouse; marveling how the cherry blossoms are here practically overnight.]

Plants (they're also what's for dinner)

Everything is coming up! Daffodils and pansies here, and cherry blossom, roses, and honeysuckle elsewhere--being outside is an olfactory treat this week. It's also getting to that point in the year when I'm in danger of spending more on plants than food at the supermarket.

A vat of spring-y green soup for dinner--used up most of the fennel, celery, bok choy, cilantro, and curly kale + cannellini beans, a dash of parm, and lemon zest. It was ok, I'm not likely to recreate this again--my choices were dictated by what was in the veggie box and needed to be consumed. 

In classes I sometimes like to ask when the last time people learned something and changed their mind was. For me, it was yesterday when CJ posted this Dr. Sarah Taber Twitter thread from a couple of years ago. The Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market boxes have felt like extra work lately; learning how I'm not really "saving" anything gave me permission to cut the cord there. At the height of the pandemic--MI is doing so badly, so I guess I mean at the height of the pandemic panic--it was a comfort to have these delivered, so I say goodbye with gratitude.

Now

a suddenly unscripted day
disappointment like a slap
the window yawns 
alive--also awake

summing up the end of day 
admitting only small things
the clasp of malaise
the wake of a stare

for my old, younger self 
the rest is baited prayer 
speaking forever
holding peace

Steal

Jasmine and bougainvillea are blooming in the tea garden. Also, gloriosa, geraniums, violets, and begonias which have wintered safely inside for years now. (Not in this shot, cyclamen and pansies from the grocery store earlier this year.)

I'd gotten into a pattern where most of the time I spent in the garden was maintenance time.

There really wasn't time or much sunshine today, but I found a spot (of time and sunshine) and sat there with a tall glass of lemonade quietly by myself (no work, companions, books, music, crafts, etc.). 

Would recommend. 

Trying for the Buddha's "attadīpā viharatha attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā" (“Look inward; be a refuge unto yourself; seek no other refuge.” AM's translation.)

Hello, Sunshine

Sunshine and an all around golden day. 

At had headed home after his vaccination yesterday in case he needed cosseting (he didn't) but we had him until brunch today.

Nu got to spend time with At watching video clips and playing Goose and generally realizing that their older sibling needs clear requests and communication or else all their time together might be spent hearing the good news about socialism... or something.

The human kids did an Easter egg hunt in the backyard while the puppy kids followed me around for treats (pictured). It was fun making rhyming clues and hiding presents and generally babying my babies. 

Savory casserole and store-bought Easter cupcakes for brunch and biriyani leftovers from yesterday for dinner. I got to read a Mary Stewart AND fall asleep in the sunshine, so that's two things off my let's-get-happy list.

getting by

I was thinking a lot about neighbors after I saw those two nests side-by-side yesterday, and the weekend was quite neighborly...

This egg carton had gone to MR along with the rest of the stack I'd saved for them, and it came back to me with this absolutely beautiful set of eggs from their girls.

Then the alchemy of cooking turned some of those eggs into this garden frittata with the asparagus and cherry tomatoes LB gave me (if you squint, my frittata kind of looks like a patch of blooms?) and a portion of it went on to BS and CL for their dinner...

I didn't get to kick back and reread Enid Blyton/Mary Stewart or rewatch an episode of Felicity to self-soothe like I wanted... but OTOH, I don't have that sickly feeling of being behind on stuff. 

And I got lots of chatting in with the Bangalore bunch and the cousins and some quality couch time with Nu, Scout, Huck, and Big A and a nice dinner-time FaceTime with At.

So... a fair weekend even if not a freaking fantastic one.

In Prep

 

I love my huge blue-light glasses, I feel like I'm in disguise... well, not quite disguise... maybe it's more like a carnival mask that obscures me so I'm not displaying every emotion as obviously as an octopus.

SO MANY meetings. But I'm now DONE for the week. There'll be some grading and a student-housing fiasco to attend to over the weekend. But first, I'm going to read a Mary Stewart or Enid Blyton or something else soothing I've read a million times in every decade. 

And then, I'm going to fall asleep with Nu and Scout and Huck later. Friday 'sleepovers' with the kids have become a pandemic tradition.

Way

One way: I watch you ask 

each hunger for a name, 
then stay masked

and shy away
 

One more way to your woe
from the jinx of diaspora
its sudden tomorrows

and kind decay

They say the universe's

reasons are mysterious
but that's not reason--
so... anyway

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

I made myself go outside for half-an-hour this afternoon because it looked so beautiful and temps were all the way up in the 60s. It was lovely. I watched cardinals and robins and finches drinking from the pond... The water looks so dank; I'm a bit worried for them. 

Mothering

Scout finds his water dish 

empty, he reminds me to 

fill it by batting it around.

Like every other toddler 

he eagerly loses himself

in all the glorious noise:

he's cocking his head

and bouncing his dish--

my little drummer pup.

Now I bring him 

a new bowl of water 

and he flings himself

into it, lapping, slurping, 

I'm stroking his head,

and my old body forgets 

it did not birth him--breasts 

spread like wings, tingling

like they did when I fed babies. 

The Incredible Giant Effing Crybaby

I'm starting this post at 2 pm--there's a departmental meeting in < 30 mins, and I wanted to say I've already had two crying jags today + (merely) teared up a couple of times in a drafting meeting. Yay, me. 

I can't even attribute something expansive/altruistic/noble to the last jag. I've had an infected spot that remained even after a two-week course of antibiotics, and I'd made an appointment to see my doctor on April 20th, which seemed far enough in the future that I didn't have to worry about it for a while. Big A thought that was rubbish and said we needed to go to urgent care TODAY. That was terrifying. He promised his hand to squeeze if it hurt and to buy me Taco Bell if I went. So I went. (He wasn't able to be in the room--Covid rules--but I got lidocaine and it didn't hurt as much as I had feared it would.)

I've discovered Taco Bell late in my immigrant life. People were raving about the return of the fiesta potatoes on my social media and earlier this week, I finally understood their adulation. Fiesta (potatoes) forever!

[Pic is some rainbow flashes on the library walls from all the crystals in there.]

Evening

I relive volumes about preserving all these hours
as though a summer's worth of sweetness swims

under the surface in the hopeful brine of memory. 

What if there are instructions to make the moment?

What if I practiced each moment before it came--

in the long, lonely present, folding in love, alone...

Open to my destiny as a nomad in this desired body,
understanding? O, I would say in wonder and dismay, 

returning over and over again like a peal of laughter.

Three Little Puppies (2)

HD, Scout, Huck (L to R)

 

Scout, CS, Huck (L to R)

Puppy playdates are the fun pandemic-approved hangout time I need.

Arrangement

I am buttoned tight inside a world

made mostly of sounds and words

for my name will soon get forgotten

you may add small tears to the sea,
to the wind, all the liminal seasons
don't wear out my name with wails

I started my own tribe of wanderers 
who'll need my name for new ways,

promises, festivals, and kindnesses

I'm Coming Up

Woke up not at 100%, but knowing I just couldn't take any more time off. My email box was terrifying, and it took hours and hours to take care of things that had piled up in 48 hours away and get back to a zero inbox. Did I use my "BinBox"™liberally? You bet I did.

Getting things done helped me keep my energy levels up and I'm glad I work with caring/forgiving colleagues. Tons of advising, opining, advocating, celebrating, and mediating on the student front. 

An invitation-only workshop that was postponed last July has been rescheduled for this July, and despite being vaccinated, I just didn't feel ready to commit. My response surprised me, because I thought I'd be excited about travel... I'm a mystery to myself.

Oh. And I made sure to enjoy the surprise hyacinths popping up all over the house from the bulbs I pressed into assorted planters at the beginning of winter. 

Out of it

 It was a fever haze. 

Hearing "FedEx broke your Little Free Library, Puppy" did not make sense.

Also did not make sense: "I'm going to ask your mom to use her video to make it right" "What will you do for food in the holocaust" (Think that was meant to be "apocalypse" not "holocaust.") "Step out of your comfort zone like a kite live daringly." (Did not know "daringly" was a word, but no squiggly line.)

Luckily, I guess, only the FedEx thing was true. 

So many neighbors offered to help fix the library though and that was lovely.

#CatchupPost

Run Run

I am taken in welcome, the other side beckons, 

but this side waits: like picnic, parachute, seed 

for the perfect moment of expectation and need.

Will you go with me and be my love, be a love?

--The blur of the future is just our pasts outrun

come, the world turns bright for many reasons,

the way is notable, though earth lies wrinkled--

Little beasts; running thundering and carefree,

When will you choose? Would you choose me?

____

C with Scout and Huck on a pandemic-style puppy playdate.

Happy Birthday to me!

My birthday usually falls right in the middle of Spring Break... Except we started a week later this year, so for the first time I was teaching on my birthday. I got all excited about this and stocked up on birthday treats like I was in elementary school. And my students, for whom the treats were meant, were so sweet and wrote happy birthday notes on notebook paper and asked if they could sing for me. 

I love my students. 

I was supposed to go home after that last class, but I was hoping to get a birthday hug from At before I left for home. I sent two texts--including one that read fairly desperately: "Birthday hug: yea or nay"--because it's At and he's completely capable of forgetting my birthday in his gentle, absent-minded way. He texted back that he was very busy, couldn't meet, but would explain later. I was pretty crushed, and remember thinking he could have at least said "Happy Birthday" before he brushed me off. 

Yes, he's in that picture--he'd driven home to have birthday dinner with us. 

I'd asked to be surprised for dinner and it seems like Nu, At, and Big A had each picked three things I like to eat so there was an incongruous all-you-can-eat buffet situation with sushi and green curry and poke* and pao* and a glorious olive oil cake* with raspberries, lemon zest, and pistachios (the last asterisked three by Big A and his kid helpers). AK and KB had dropped by at work, LB and EM dropped by at home, so I have more presents than I deserve.  More books to read, notebooks to write in, so much chocolate, and so many bath bombs.

At had parked at the end of the cul-de-sac because his presence-present was a surprise, so I got in a magic walk by starlight when I walked him to his car. And then some magic--albeit smelly--cuddles with Scout, Huck, Nu, and Big A to end the day.

Mad at Mama

Big A locked them in their room because their paws were wet...  but I'm the one getting the glares!

 

Weekend Magic

Three long, snowy hikes (with LB and BS), one long-ish run (5 mi), two short yoga sessions. I can't remember when I've had a weekend so full of physical activity before. Two raucous and movie-heavy sleepovers with Nu and Scout and Huck; sadly, not much contact with At--I mean, a picture of a nice omelette he made himself on family chat--but he seems to be mostly ok.

Finished Oona Out of Order--which was meh at best, and frequently irritating--but I grew to care about the characters after all although I didn't care for their idea of gentrification as a beneficial development. Started Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings. Again. I couldn't get into it when it first came out and I remember being roundly castigated for it by world lit friends. I've been humming and channeling a lot of Bob Marley (because I MISS my mom so much) recently, so I'm giving Seven Killings another go. It's intense. 

Also intense, Judas and the Black Messiah, which I watched with Big A. Fred Hampton--especially how much he did at so young an age and how much he could have gone on to do had he not been assassinated has been a trigger for me--but the film was oddly heartening. Especially as Akua Njeri and Fred Hampton Jr. seem to have been such a central part of the film's making.

I disengaged from most work all weekend. And something that helped was that I didn't get a single work email! Is this everyone deciding to institute strong boundaries since we work from home so much these days? On Friday, which was a "Reading Day," I sent out an inquiry on behalf of an advisee and my senior colleague reminded me to "take the day off." Knowing everyone is doing it, and that it would be rude and interruptive not to, makes it so much easier for me. I still have some grading to catch up on, but hope to get it done by Tuesday when I will have to face people in real time again. That's not magical thinking, although I did wish on the beautiful and magical wishing tree BS gave me this weekend. 

Alright

Everything feels too much all the time. Right now, staring down three classes worth of grading, fresh off yesterday's QPR training, the inexorable weather, the continuing pandemic, etc. etc. etc. make me worry about all the things and I wonder if every little thing will ever be alright.