a new chapter

I've raised A LOT of funds for our Refugee Development Center over the years from generous family and friends, but this is the first year I've volunteered there. I do some adult ESOL in the morning and help out in the toddler First Steps classroom in the afternoon.

It is filling my summer time and it is filling my heart. 

And when I need to process news like Nu saying they may not go back to college, it really, really helps to remind me that there are many, many ways to start over and over again.  

Pic: This afternoon's culinary delight was the work of many toddler hands and combined broccoli, eggplant, and peaches. (I will not be trying this at home.)

I wish I had more patience...

Big A and I worked on dredging the pond all day and he thinks (correctly) that we should let things dry before we repair, but I want to just go ahead and refill it up already.

I typed up a response to the Whistler text book club after dinner, but it seemed too late to text. I'm mentally hopping from foot to foot, waiting for it to be mid morning so we can unpack more delicious details.

The mango pickle I started (based on memories and vibes of my grandmother's) needs time to cure, but I keep opening the jar for just a little sniff.

The submissions to the project with EM are beginning to come in, and I love everything and just want to tell every author their submission is accepted although that won't be feasible.

Pic: Max adores Nu. I mean, he loves watermelon, but Nu, he just worships.

lifeline

for S.L.E.

1996-2025

look--how connected we are, we two

look--how  far  away the stars' gleam

who's to tell tomorrow what life-sized 

event can make us seem separate too

 rain protests like Rorschach shrapnel 

against the mouths of the buildings

 that swallow us, windows watching 

us spend outlawed, ongoing words 

my mind, just a machine of memory

all my notes veering between theory

or grocery lists... and in your mind

life a dimming rhythm of  wrongs

you dwell on answers, staying only 

for the songs: yes, yes, yes, and no

O, though it starts in a field of fear 

my heart was there for you to hold 

_________________

Somehow it's a year since S, At's ex, died by suicide.

(I tried to work with the different connotations of "lifeline" like umbilical cords, palm creases in fortune telling, lifespans, and maritime rescue.)

Pic: Seagulls along a Saronic coastline.

Sunday (five-day) update

The book reading and signing went fine. I worked myself up into a tizzy, and prepped in all kinds of ways, but Josh, the talented interlocutor, was lovely and very conversational and I was able to be myself and tell stories. I might even let family come to the next one! We sold a bunch of books and I signed all the remaining copies at the store (apparently signed copies sell better). Also, Nicole tipped me off that the old discount code didn't work for her. The publisher has given me a new one, it is FORM20.

I took the next day off. Like really off. If I owed anyone a text or a phone call or an email it just wasn't happening.

I've been spending all my time on summer reading... Finished the new Elizabeth Strout, then finished the new Ann Patchett. Both were lovely. I'd love to read The Things We Never Say with one of my bookclubs where so many are teachers. I'm currently almost through Maggie O'Farrell's Land. I get the charm the comfortable familiarity of stories like those of Strout and Patchett exercise. But give me the excitement of something like Land any day. I'm loving the anti-colonial intrigue, the imaginative recreation of bog people, the random snippet that pirates wore gold earrings so they could be used to pay for their funerals...

I spent a lot of time at the garden center. Also a lot of cash. But it's ok--I shop exclusively in my closet, and have no expensive habits or memberships--I can indulge myself. It was mostly flowers, but if the veggies take off, we/the deer will be grateful. 

I had a long and lovely dream about my Amma, sis, and me. We were visiting a fabulous desert palace. (we were supposed to go to Turkey together this year.) We were sitting on a bench holding hands and I was playing a new-to-me song (Niall Horan “Heaven” I bet the title is not a coincidence) because it has some surprising melodic changes in the chorus I thought my mom would like (she did). Then I offered to get my sister ice cream, and my mom said the most her thing possible! "What, Kanna? You’re going to eat ice cream without me?" That's when I woke up.

Pic: I found this hasty scribble from my mom I'd saved. It had been on something she'd sent me via someone who was visiting. A box of sweets, I think. I took it as a good sign for the week. 

Fathers, First Heroes

A long FaceTime with my dad first thing in the morning. Everything about this post is so true and his hair is still so luxurious except strikingly all silver. Hopefully, that's me someday!

The rest of the day was trying to make sure that At and Nu remembered to do something nice for Big A and that Big A called his dad. I'd ordered a custom bracelet for Big A with all five kids' names on it (Scout too, naturally).

Flashback: At our rehearsal dinner, At (whose bio dad died when they were a toddler) asked if Big A could be "dad." And when we were having Nu, Big A legally adopted At so there would be no question in At's mind or anyone else's that he was truly dad. This was one of the things that made my mom love Big A so extra. Maybe me too.

Pic: A robin in a tree along the Red Cedar River. Father's Day walk with Big A. 

"drive safe"

Our TWENTIETH anniversary today! It feels both shorter than that and longer than that...

We went to dinner by ourselves where they presented us with some delicious champagne and then I ordered a sangria on top of that. Given how rarely I drink, it all did go to my head. So it made me giggle when our very young, very sweet, very attentive waiter wished us well at the end of the meal and looked directly at me when he said to "drive safe." I wasn't driving. 

Pic: Big A, me, and our ring bearer, At, 20 years ago. 

"with a friend"

We took a boat trip across the Saronic Gulf to Aegina and Agistri today. I'll be looking at pictures and videos of the sea and skies for a long time... the blues are fairly incredible. Even in the moment, they seemed unreal. 

Hunting for the perfect pistachio ice cream as one does on Aegina, Nu and I stopped at a beautiful Byzantine church. (I light candles for Scout and my mama everywhere I go.) 

The elderly woman who had been cleaning some pictures stopped and marched up to me, and I got a bit nervous wondering if I'd forgotten to take off my hat or was sitting in the wrong chair... but it turned out that she just wanted to confirm that I was Indian and give me compliments and appear thoroughly devastated that we were there only for the day. (My conversations with Greek people are in the 100th percentile for sweetness, I swear.) 

She kept referring Nu as "my friend" although we both explained how we were related a couple of times, so I kept reminding Nu to be a good friend for the rest of the day. 

Pic: Big A's candid of my "friend" Nu and me on the boat. #Greece

"greasy dudes in Greece"

Trip to Delphi today. I don't think even the Oracle could have explained why the tour company gave us more than three hours at various convenience stops and and then just an hour at the ruins... and LESS THAN AN HOUR at the museum. I could spend an hour just on The Charioteer alone. 

On our way home, Nu and Big A decided to stay outside while I picked up some stuff at the grocery. But suddenly Big A was at my elbow asking me if I needed help to carry stuff out. I did not, but A did not like the guy who'd let me cut the line and was talking to me. Nu and A think I talk to too many "greasy dudes in Greece." I just talk to everyone is all.

Pic: My judgy crew. #Greece

"I am lucky to wake up and meet you today"

I don't want to jinx it, but I just have the nicest encounters in Greece. 

The first time I was here (by myself in 2019), my taxi driver in Athens was so excited to find out that I was traveling to Olympia the next day. He said that he was from Olympia and that I should go to the cafe right by the museum and let them know that Giorgos had sent me to say hello and that they would take care of me. In some places this would have been a prank, but he was so earnest and insistent, that I did indeed (diffidently) stop by the cafe the next day.

When I told the barkeep that Giorgos had sent me, he stopped what he was doing, and announced it to the whole cafe, and then everyone proceeded to cheer and drink to my health. The more I think about this, the more likely it seems that they may not have known who Giorgos was (and it's just George in Greek, so such a popular name too), but did not want me to feel stupid.

Today when I wandered off to find a cash machine (as the monasteries in Meteora don't accept cards), the woman whose shop the ATM was at, made such a fuss of me. "I am lucky to wake up and meet you today," she said after she gave me a small bag of cherries to share with Big A and Nu. 

Hospitality and unlooked for kindness every where I see here. 

I think often also of that 2018 Joanna Kakissis story on NPR where she talked about how her Greek family in Lesbos was trying to help Syrian and other refugees coming in across the Mediterranean as "the rest of the E.U. won't take them." 

Ancient Greek history has so much war, but all that's left now is the legendary Greek hospitality.

Pic: I'm up on a ledge, with an Omen-like sunbeam slicing me. But then, I have monasteries perched to my right and left. #Greece

Ah, Athens

Lots of adventures on our travels, yesterday: a canceled flight, being rerouted to Heathrow, 24+ hours of airports...

But we're here!

We checked in to our apartment, stocked up on food, unpacked, and got a good night's sleep.

This morning, we walked to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. I will never, ever get over how small and excited I feel to be here.

Pic: Also, I didn't realize how tall Nu has gotten. #Greece

pere c'est police/Persepolis

The first text Big A sent me this morning was about how Marjane Satrapi had died. Over the course of the day, I came to learn it was probably from a broken heart after losing her partner of thirty years last year.

Persepolis changed my mind about so many things... including the graphic novel genre. I always thought I'd meet her someday, and might have if she wasn't gone too soon.

This quote really says so much: “If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

And because of the pun in the title, I found myself muttering Persepolis, Pere c'est police (Father police) under my breath a lot.

Pic: Max and Huckie wonder about my muttering.

belated birthday

It's still technically May 

and we get to celebrate At's 27th!

I love how pretty and happy she looks <3 

 

Chicago!

Off to Chicago to see At...

Here's our obligatory Cloud Gate/Bean photograph.

The last time was for my birthday trip right before the pandemic! Scout's there!

https://www.pocobrat.net/2020/03/notes-on-camp.html 

 

circus

In time, I begin to think 

of the award I did not get 

as just three men in a coat 

pretending to loom over me

they'd all claim niceness

say they are good people

not at all sexist or racist 

would say they're smart

then they should have seen  

my 18 is more than his 2

my 14 is more than his 0

his 1 is smaller than my 4

I watch them tumble again

 into unreason, juggling 

 lies and tangled excuses

fairness and easy truths 

they know and I know

they know that I know

what if stopped to laugh 

--it's as if they're clowns

___________________

Pic: Max is not buying it either. 

 

from another angle

The weedy, wild phlox season is upon us and it always reminds me of Scout.

I usually take pictures walking up towards where I would find him on the other side of the patch...

Today, I took a picture of what it must have looked like from his perspective, what he would have seen before he was so delighted to see me...

https://www.pocobrat.net/2021/05/baby-story.html 
 

songs move away from me

There was a time when every song was about me, sung to me, spoke to me, referenced me, made sense only in the context of my own life. 

I knew I was in a different phase of my life when songs became about other people in my life. Once upon a time, I would have been the "little girl" in a Depeche Mode song. But when toddler Nu was in a timeout, this part in "Enjoy the Silence" seemed so much about them:  "Oh, my little girl/All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm.

More recently when my amazing student KS did a thesis on The Power of Protest Music and Cosmopolitan Themes in Hozier Songs, I kept imagining meet-cutes for them and Hozier.

And this is so weird, but the Ariana Grande song whose second verse begins "And I know, and I know, and I know she gives you everything/ But, boy, I couldn't give it to you" has a chorus that reminds me of Scout and brings me to tears since the time I first heard it on the radio and paid attention... "So one last time/ I need to be the one who takes you home/ One more time/ I promise after that, I'll let you go." What I wouldn't give for one more time with Scout!

Pic: The Red Cedar. 

baby back

Managed to help Nu unloft their dorm bed and jenga everything into Bluey. I'd had tea with JG earlier and she'd offered to help with bringing stuff to Lansing, if necessary...but as it turned out, Bluey could handle it! So excited to have Nu back for the summer!

Then I made it to bookclub. I hadn't read the book beyond the online sample, (Chloe Dalton's Leveret), but I wanted to see everybody. L had made everyone copies of my poems to read for the next meeting. L has just been promoting my work to people! I've tried asking her not to, but she is genuinely happy and proud of me, and that reminds me a bit of my mom, so I'm shutting up. 

Then Big A and I went to get drinks, apps and see Is God Is--compelling with some cute vibes, but more violence than I needed.

this dystopia

I dreamed that I had a cache of  diamond nose-pins I needed to sneak past customs for the revolution and also that I had come by all those diamonds illicitly.

So I took a second look. 

I'm watching The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale sequel) on TV, reading Julia (based on 1984), and just finished The Secret Agent (not the Conrad novel--it's last year's intentionally disjointed film about incidents under Brazilian dictatorship in the 70s)... 

Aaaaand I live in the right now, so it's not surprising, I guess, that my dreams would take a dark turn.
_________
Pic: Max and Huck explore their new "boarding school." 

think like a woman

yesterdays heads nod agreement 
though still refusing sleep
or dislocations of night

we are more than what they allow

imaginations far fiercer 

than stolen tyrannies 

you can't tell the angle of attack

but I know, I know

how I know

other women's children are also

children... even if they're

too old to cry 

_____

Pic: A cardinal in the driveway, spied as I walked home from hanging out at the East Lansing Art Festival with the girl friends. (I didn't buy a thing.)

our ways

you  have a right  to know everything

I promise you--in  this  dream where 

no one has died yet--one more precise 

than light, picture, or any kind of fire

it's the one where we are wading into

the grasses in the deeps of the prairie

following only the swell of the song

tracing failing light and falling night

which is the same night as last week's--

a future passes from one week to the next

and we meet up now and then, the living

and the lost... before we carry on and away

____________________

Pic: We've had a few trees come down last week... I don't even recall any big storms or high winds, but I may have been in my own head and not paying attention. I snapped right back to attention when I heard estimates on how EXPENSIVE it is to have trees removed. At the end of the first day, there was this Stonehenge-y installation Max was delighted to pee on.