the wild taxonomies of family chat

"Baby deer," read Big A's title of his portrait of Hucky on the picnic table faking a height advantage. 

Not to be outdone, Nu (a.k.a The Chicken Daddy) titled a group picture of their growing chickies--"dogs."

This happened

We got our picnic after all...

Nu and I got At to smile by asking about Mark Fisher 🤣...

our times

I felt like I was in a real live Yelp review. 

I had just invited At to go to the farmers' market with me over breakfast. 

He turned to Nu and asked: "What's it like going to the farmers' market with mama these days?" 

Nu said (and I quote in full): "It's ok." 

At turned back to me and agreed to go.

Is that even one star? I mean...

Summer again

 

Finally, another summer day. I took advantage of our first no-rain day in over a week to putter around the garden and prep for a picnic with Nu and AC--a wonderful former student who babysat Nu years ago. I was so surprised to learn that AC is turning 30. They grow up so soon!

One of this year's WGS guest speakers (KH) mentioned how they were doing social work because as a WGS student they'd been inspired by AC's presentation as a guest speaker--I loved that so much and enjoyed passing it on to AC. 

This last year has been tough.

[Pic: Robin with cherries]

child

"Guess what I am," says the child

snuggling next to me

fists under their chin

trying to--"look cute."

And so I guess: A baby bunny rabbit?

A kitten? A puppy?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I'm so wrong.

They are, "A Baby Praying Mantis."

I guess I've always 

known they'd keep  

making me smile.

Words: Nu; July 31, 2012. 

Pic: The trans-flag kandi Nu made today.

feeling--recursive

I take the photos in this family
--every time I send one 
to you, sister

you demand to know where I am.
I'm behind the camera,
I travel back

with the sticky facts of tenderness.
What could ever replace  
you reminding me 

to burn like fire, like diamonds
the beloved coal of my body 
hybrid, haptic, whole

[Pic: An indoors kind of day; the kids have to delink settler colonialism and Catan for me every time.]

Fathers' Day*

The kids and I called my dad last night (already Fathers' Day in India) while my sister was making him a "full English breakfast." Everyone was super excited and happy and talking over each other and couldn't hear very well. My dad legit couldn't hear us, I suspect 😞.

At and Nu took Big A brunch in bed and got him a couple of cans of the beer he likes and a very VSCO beer cozy. They said all they knew walking into the store was that the kind Big A likes had fish on the logo... they nailed it.

Pic: My one fancy nursery planter splurge didn't make it too long before it was colonized by a family of house sparrows in the most beautiful, mossy nest I've ever seen. But now the baby birds have flown and I am going to see if I can rejuvenate the planter.

* I'm going to punctuate it this way and not this.

starting summer

No working stove yet, but I'm getting quite good at making do with L's electric skillet... I might even be thinking of getting one. Luckily, picnic-style food works great right now.

Finally got the kids' to share their summer fun lists. After weeks of begging 🤨. Maybe that's more of a "me" thing?

Lots of other little traditions are making their way into our lives. At, for instance, will share a reading and then schedule a long walk to talk about it. This happened quite organically, and I LOVE it. Right now he has me reading Shawn Wallace's The Designated Mourner. 

newcomer

 

our day is burning,
silence like smoke

light seems machine
in interim and enters

anyway, opens the door
to our histories of hope

in arrival--we are blessed
death is certain someday 

we get to live out survival
tithing... tiny happinesses 

sorry...

I have to go. Someone loves me very, very, very much, and I need to go pay them attention.

(Oh. Also: In a post-pandemic first, Big A and I rode our goofy tandem bike downtown and got a pitcher of margaritas at a new--to us, anyway--restaurant.)

my *every*thing people

 The fam does their thing. 

🏡🏕

Also: we watched Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave over a year ago at least, and we're still using so much of its dialogue as a shorthand for family jokes.

At's graduation redux!

At is in graduation robes again, the sibs are wearing ties, we got grandparents and family on FaceTime/WhatsApp...

It was a bit chaotic and didn't go completely as planned, but this international photoshoot is the closest we're getting to a graduation party this year.

out in the world

The right to be angry, be anechoic...
Cool: a quiet, erotic, irate interval
Do you know what that was about?

Am I willful? Were you not warned
of fracture and ephemera and erasure
What if I expunged my loud laughter--

Would you still call me an emergency?
Would you call me into queer songs
fold me into arms, siblings-in-arms?

If not, why do we come here then?

Can we only come through like pain

--or can we walk into welcome again?

[Pic: Patch of blooms--from yesterday. Today is cold and rainy and I got into my pajamas right after I showered because I'm not planning on leaving the house.]

baby story

I was just admiring the wild phlox growing everywhere (and the path I raked) out back...
 

when along came Falkor Scout!

at tension

petition that pinch of admiration
tighten this twinge of distraction

pick dimensions of your denial:
arms are a bow, fingers quarrel

I think you may hit or miss now 
I think you may miss... this love

far is not unlovely, come beloved
fling open my arms and this exit

whisper confidence(s) like a seashell
maybe send postcards, wish us well?

* The bittersweet task of getting the eldest ready to leave the nest.

[Pic: lilacs and wild phlox from LB and TB]

easy like Sunday afternoon

For decades, the best summer afternoons have always been about lemonade, chatter, cards, snacks, sunshine, novels... Now I have puppies underfoot to make it even better. (And it's not even officially summer yet!)

(I needed this interlude today--I made an impulsive grocery trip to get some ingredients for Big A's Boss Day dinner and OMG all the unmasked people.)

Over on Scroll, a shortlist of seven philosophers who can help us build back a better post-pandemic world.

passing/passage

The blue blob is me with Scout's face wedged into my hip and what seems to be his preternaturally elongated body is actually part Huck. 

At went to Alma to visit friends (he's post vaccination and also an adult ¯\_(ツ)_/¯); Big A went to work; Nu had been irritable and took themselves off to bed early.

So this was me for the rest of the evening as I started and finished a novel--Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half--in one long gulp. I read the parts about passing breathlessly--racial passing + gender/trans passing. And it began to feel like being an immigrant is also somewhat like passing--in the sense that you leave an old self behind, propelled as much by necessity and accident as by some form of selfishness/self-centeredness. 

context

breath is a hymn 
accomplishing joy
surfacing tree brown
I come back to my body
through the sacred,
absurd landscape
of patience

[Pic: Scout and Huck hanging out with me in puppy pose.]

perspective

I'm reeling today from finding out that someone I knew as a kind and overly chivalrous person is in prison for sex crimes. Multiple 16- and 17-year-olds had accused him and I absolutely believe them--I'm just shaken (and shaking my head) about how different (and misleading) my experience of this person was. 

He was famous/semi-famous, and I expect the case was media fodder in the UK for a while. I feel awful that I've sometimes used his early English music ensembles in classes... I will not do this again.

(Pic is of our only east-facing window; I wish we had more. The tradescantia and pothos cuttings I pinched off and stuck into candleholders have rooted and are taking off. Funny how that works.)

focus

Lots of stuff going on--including working in my office, office visits at various doctors etc., but a walk with JG and a porch hang with KB and... hours of jabber and banter are the points I want to remember from today. 

(Spot the bunny in the picture!)