present

these evenings: concerts, movies, friends

open beach, live oaks, flowers spilling

bells with no alarms

the cherry tree dropping shade to make 

a room, bowing to the fullness 

and newness of moons

the rain and incense of the morning

to awaken with earnest relief 

to know--it's still summer

 

though should you let the faucet run 

long enough, a revolutionary 

shock of cold water 

pulled well deep from inside earth

--as if from memory, reminds you 

of the tablet of days

the year's cool capsule of seasons

 ricocheting, recalling summer

as late blooming laughter

Pic: From the A$AP Rocky concert, live helicopter and all, 7/8 in Detroit. 

I had to cram the setlist the day of, because I wasn't familiar with most of his work.

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.

memoriam

I feel like          I will always be looking for you          don't know where to look for you          but I know every word           to your favorite song          I look at my body with some hesitation          but your favorite cake is now mine          at least these things will live happily ever after          it's an odd game, the going--          to be here in the brain's chorus and words          and so gone from the world

__________________

Pic: I haven't been to UU on Sundays since Scout (because sitting in silence makes me think of him and I prefer not to cry in public). But RDC, where I've been volunteering this summer, meets in the UU building. It was a "blast from the past" (as the family chat termed it) to see all our badges still sitting up there on the carousel.

born on the fourth

Happy fourth to anyone celebrating!

I was born on the fourth (of March), so today is my "Boss Day." I decided to protect my sanity today and take a news break to avoid having to see the people in charge. 

As if to cement this, yesterday's storm gave us some felled trees. The one across the driveway effectively walled us off from the world. No one was getting to us, and we weren't going anywhere.

Big A and I had a meditative retreat planned for today. I even wore all my crystals, expecting to find transcendence... Nothing. But I still had a peaceful good time though.

Another tree that fell in the back seems to have broken our pond and all the water is slowly emptying out. I'm so worried about the creatures that lived in there.

Pic: I felt like Sleeping Beauty when I woke up this morning to see I couldn't even see into the street. 

because I was raised by her

today I went back to dying

to falling down in places... 

in pieces, my eyes pitching

bones separate like solitude 

tears won't ask me questions

(they have seen inside me)

just don't call me to witness

as I travel to how I used to be

________________

Note: Inevitable comparisons with last year this time when I was so excited for my mom and sis to visit. My mom had already started her shenanigans, much to my delight.

Pic: Our water lily bloomed! (Not allowed to talk about algae right now.)

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. 

hello, this is tomorrow

It's a good thing, I suppose, that I spent all day at my new volunteer gig at RDC (Adult ESOL + First Steps) because I didn't have time to panic about the book reading and signing tomorrow. 

But now dinner is done, Nu is in their room, Big A is at work, and I'm ready to panic. (Max and Huck just don't get this kind of thing.)

I've done poetry readings before but that's with other people. This is my first book reading. What if choke or OMG... what if it's the most boring thing ever?!

I've forbidden Big A and Nu to come. If I'm going to flail, I'd rather do it in front of people I don't know, you know? But I think friends are going to be there although I have not (yet) shared this anywhere.

Pic: Flyer from the bookstore. I was happy to be asked. Really, really, hope it goes well. 

book news!

My book (first monograph!) is out. 

Here's a publisher's link. Click on "sample" to see some dear, familiar names (alphabetical order of first names) pop out in the acknowledgements (para 5). If you'd like to order, please feel free to use "MAYA30" (without quotes) for a 30% discount.

 Pic: SD reaching for it on a display table. This may be the only time I ever share a space with the likes of Ada Limon, Jeanette Winterson, and Rebecca Solnit, so I better make the most of it. 

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. 

"Ammu, feeling vomitty"

Strong nausea all day yesterday, even through our anniversary dinner and I got through it all without spoiling it for Big A. But I was so bewildered by the timing of it, because no one else at home had it, and I was otherwise fine etc. 

Then it hit me this morning... I had been looking at our wedding album yesterday... and of course seeing all the pictures of mom must have triggered my grief nausea. (I still have it most mornings, but not in the evenings.)

And then I pictured myself telling her. Except, inexplicably, the words that popped into my head were the ones that Estha uses in The God of Small Things (in the scene that never fails to bring me to tears): "Ammu, feeling vomitty..." he says as the train pulls away from the station. So there I was in the middle of Meijer, crying... Big A holding me to him while I was telling him NOT to look at me.

Pic: A series of her walking hand-in-hand with my stepmom-in-law whom she'd met for the VERY FIRST TIME that weekend. This is so her. 

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.

layers of unhappiness

UDL teaching workshop this morning--I was learning a lot, and contributing a lot. After watching the short documentary clip about kids with ADHD, I told a story about my babyhood that made the classroom go "aw" and chuckle. Except that after everyone had returned to the work at hand, I kept seeing my mom as an earnest new parent and I just... shut down and had to leave the meeting early. 

(The story goes that I was not a good sleeper as an infant. I was hyperactive--and from six months onwards--very talkative. When my parents brought it up to the pediatrician, they said that it was probably because I was very brainy and constantly at work. That was so smart of the pediatrician, because it immediately mollified my parents and they never complained about my weird nocturnality again.)

Pic: Long walk-and-talk with JG in the afternoon. I inscribed two books (the Trans book and the poetry anthology) for her. I updated the annual report last night and was struck by how my scholarship, mentorship, and service for this one year would be a decent tenure-deserving record in most places. And the reason I'm having uncharacteristically braggy and uncharitable thoughts like these is because I'm so disappointed at work right now. 

THIS is still happening

I got tagged about the award on FB, and now everyone I know there thinks I'm verging on sainthood.

So embarrassing!

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.

awards all day

Gratiot County CASA Awards Luncheon in the afternoon, where they very kindly gave me another award... I'm both moved by the acknowledgement, and self-conscious--I'm just doing my little bit! In the last two years, I've received three awards for CASA work. For someone like me, it's a lot to hear people say stuff about me, make an acceptance speech, etc. The real heroes are the children, IMO.

And in the evening, we were guests of CD and JD at the Refugee Development Center gala for a tour of the new facilities and the ribbon cutting. Big A could see my immediate impulse was to give up everything and devote all my time to teaching refugees English language skills, and began counseling prudence. I'm going to volunteer over the summer, at any rate. The testimonies from the kids brought me to HAPPY tears over and over again. Among the awardees for good citizenship were a pair of third graders--one giggly, one serious, a ninth grader from Chad who dressed up for the occasion in a suit, and a high-schooler who shouted out all the suffering countries including Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon. 

Pic: The actual ribbon cutting. It was so fun to see people from different spheres of my life up there--church friends, legislators, our family physician's spouse, colleagues, etc.

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."