stay unruly

In a recent post StephLove mentioned how when she visited her kid at Oberlin, she was "charmed by paper snowflakes in the windows surrounding a “Free Palestine” sign" because it made her "think about what it’s like to be in college, close enough to your childhood to make paper snowflakes, but old enough to be politically engaged."

I've thought about that image often since reading it, and it always makes me smile. It is particularly endearing. And it describes young people and their hopefulness and creativity perfectly... 

And in some way it also describes everyone I know. 

All of us making time outside of mandated work to create something or reach out to someone or share thoughts or start a conversation or make a difference are pushing back against a system that's built to keep people in narrowly-defined and isolated channels. 

I love the unruly nature of this. The system cannot rule us.

Yesterday, I looked up from typing just in time to see Nu (probably taking a break from homework) pick up an old party-favor-bubble-bottle that has been sitting on the table forever and blow out a stream of bubbles. I'm glad I caught that. That bubbling moment of playfulness in my child and the unexpected bubbles in my day.

Pic: Outside the window, are the icicles I think of as "the fangs of winter." Inside, my jasmine is budding profusely. Last May, a single bloom was so fragrant I nearly went mad with happiness. Fingers crossed for these buds.

fallout shelter breakout

there must be someplace where life takes place

outside the snarl and rattle of tyranny 

and everything else just waits

life could just be... beautiful even if useless 

longing could maybe be merely distance 

growing wordless, not mindless 

but my teen just doesn't yet know what happens  

to the Emmett Till Monument... doesn't even

know what they've done to Stonewall 

it feels like we've hardly caught up with history 

while events range--like mountain peaks

just absurd in scale and spilling over

so here we go again searching for surest shelter 

after gasping out how we'll never return 

just... going back and forth like that  

_____________________________

Pic: Serendipitously, a shelter I spied at Sleepy Hollow Park yesterday. 

a stranger sonnet

I let the ecologue in my head be interrupted
for it is also right there and alright
ready to wait for these letters 

that make all these words

that then go on to make

so many meanings

and things

watch how

it is wayward

and a bit word weary 

and yet bright as a ribbon

tossed up, a road trip through 

options: what is / what we wanted /

how we find our way as we brake for beauty

_________________________________

Pic: A hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park with work friends (none of whom I'd ever hiked with before). Also four new-to-me doggos. Would repeat. In the proverbial heartbeat.

"avoiding time travel"

My people showed up! The potluck went great! 

Everyone picked five songs for the playlist so everyone had something they liked to groove to and it turned out to be a neat icebreaker with people bonding over artists as disparate as David Gray and Rupaul. And also, there is a song called “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other” (with Willie Nelson), and isn't that a great title?

Funniest thing: SD is no longer a work friend, but continues to crack me up. He submitted ten songs (instead of five)  on behalf of himself and AH and quipped, "Married filing separately, bitches!" This makes me giggle every time I remember it. 

Smartest thing: "Avoid time travel," DG told us--"don't dwell in the past, don't obsess about the future; just live in the present." Sounds like something well worth trying. 

Sweetest thing: DV's chocolate-raspberry torte was wildly popular and was polished off before too long. But after clean up, I kicked back with a bowlful of her whipped cream, dipping hothouse strawberries into it.

Pic: The zucchini and carrot rosette tart I made based on the picture I fell in love with on this recipe website. (At some point, I got tired of rolling carrot peels into rosettes and instead layered circles of mini peppers to look like the core calyx and sepals.)

the drumming in the wilderness

by the time this day ends 

I've  run  out  of  prayers

but  I've  made  an  altar

where  I grimly offer up 

my  pride,  my  surprise 

other  words  are  missing

(we'll  always  miss  them)

there is also indifference

its easy caress like a hook

escaping edicts, their edits

dim redactions--it's official

it's artificial--how we are all 

desperate as gossips--telling 

and listening at the same time

__________________

Pic: Store-bought chocolate cheesecake bites, store-bought valentine's day picks; assemblage 100% me. Max still doesn't know chocolate Valentine's Day treats are not for him--it's a good thing there are other treats he can have. Several long meetings today, but I somehow managed to power shop for our Post-Valentine's potluck tomorrow. We've already had some cancelations from long-distance friends due to the winter storm though... I think local friends will still be able to make it. Let's see. 

killing medicine

Big A posted this publicly, and I'm sharing a part of what he wrote here. The whole thing is basically a valediction for the medical progress he's seen over the course of his career and the reverses that are already beginning to happen. 

This is just one of the many, many, many stories from people like him who have devoted their lives to making a difference and are now seeing everything they've worked for being dismantled in a matter of days.

"As a premed at the NIH in the mid-90s, I volunteered at D.C.'s largest HIV clinic during the ongoing AIDS epidemic, and got a tour of Tony Fauci's lab from one of my co-volunteers who also worked in Bethesda. One of the most astonishing changes in the 30 years since is that we rarely see complications of advanced HIV infection in the ER.

As med students in Cleveland, we were regularly awestruck running into Fred Robbins, who received a Nobel prize for their contributions to the development of the polio vaccine, in the hallways,. I have never seen an acute case of poliomyelitis, but it's suddenly plausible I may. (Until 2024 I had never even diagnosed whooping cough; I've already been exposed twice in the past two months during a recent pertussis outbreak triggered in no small part by the number of unvaccinated children.)

I'm eternally grateful for having trained at Bellevue Hospital during the era of Lewis Goldfrank, who always put the needs of the marginalized and afflicted above those of corporate medicine and the capitalist healthcare system. And I'm lucky to have had support from the NIH as a postdoc, which has allowed me to devote some of my hours outside the ER to helping prevent fatal opioid overdose among my fellow Michiganders.

But the grants that pay for free naloxone come from the HHS, now led by an infamous anti-vaxxer and conspiracist (while, simultaneously, an unelected far right-wing industrialist is rapidly dismantling pieces of the global public health safety net)."

And so it goes. Sad and scary times. And it's happening all over, in the National Park Services, the Kennedy Center, and all across the federal workforce.

_________________

Pic: Huck and Max aren't ready for me to take this picture. Max is like: Mom! Do you mind? I just want to pee! We had a massive snowstorm--Huck is wading in snow.

steps to space

I am five and a "flower girl."

In the nativity play. 

(It must be one of the roles they give out when the real parts are gone quipped someone recently.

It's probably true.)

I have a new dress with flowers on it. I have flowers in my hair. I am so excited. 

My mother wants to know if she can help me rehearse "my steps." She means my choreography/step-by-step moves on stage. 

I have no idea what she means. 

(I have nothing to do in the play. I merely stand in a line with the other bit players and throw a flower or two out of my basket.)

It becomes a small "thing." 

Do you know your steps? she keeps asking. 

I have no idea how to respond.

I have a brainwave and tell her that I can't say them but I can draw it for her. 

She's confused. But ok. 

We find some paper and crayons.

I proudly draw her a series of descending interconnected "Ls" to make a picture of stairs...  they begin and end in emptiness.

*

At is nearly five. This child is my life.

It is summer, my favorite time of the year. 

At is an easy, happy child. We've spent hours cuddled up,  painting, reading, exploring in the community garden...

In this moment, At's health status terrifies me. "Failure to Thrive" a medical resident said with a smile once. (I know they were smiling because they'd solved the mystery diagnosis and not because my child might not live, still...) "Failure to Thrive" makes mealtimes and food intake strenuous and stressful. 

It is summer, my favorite time of the year. 

It is summer and At has no school.

I am in grad school. I am newly widowed. I have spent the day parenting alone. 

I owe my advisor a dissertation chapter, I owe a colleague a book review, I owe the IRS what seems a lot of money.

It's finally 7 pm and I put At to bed. After reading and singing and talking (At has always LOVED to talk), it's 8 pm and I'm getting ready to slip out of At's tiny bed. 

"Stay!" At says. Hopeful eyes, cheeky smile.

And I (will forever regret that I) said the tired thing in my head. "I have to go, Kanna... I need to make some space for me." 

"Wait-wait!" the lonely child says--tiny, triumphant hands eagerly sweeping up books and stuffies to make room, "I'll make more space for you!"  

____________________________

Pic: Rainbow-tunnel-carwash. Stuck there, it seemed both grim and hopeful at the same time. 

easy hero

Sarah was so right about that feeling when you can "swoop in" and set things right for your older kids who are usually so independent, but are also... kids.

I stopped at the Genius Bar after work to get Nu's phone fixed. It would take them 90 minutes. I didn't have to make dinner (it's Nu's Boss Day and they were ordering Pokè), so I walked around the "lifestyle mall." Maybe I'm at a point where I really do have all I need, because I wasn't even tempted to buy anything. (Hero!) I'm sure I have a version of everything in the quarter century of colorful, curated stuff in my overstuffed closet. (Hero!)

Nicole and Lisa talked about laughing while listening to their podcasts on walks and wondered if people thought they were silly. I have the opposite problem--it was so cold, my eyes were streaming as I walked and people in cars kept giving me concerned looks or averted their eyes and twice stopped to ask if I was ok. (Heroes don't cry!)

Anyway, the Genius Bar charged me 0.00, Nu's phone was fixed, I picked up some tiramisu to be extra, and came home to a hero's welcome.

Pic: While I was waiting, it occurred to me that Nu's phone is attired in characteristic Nu fashion: ink-dark for the most part, but with plenty of sparkle, and a laconic sense of humor.

my tiny domestic tragedies

Big A seemed a bit better yesterday. But he didn't think so. I think he likes being taken care of. It makes me think of my hero, June Jordan, saying "None of us has known enough tenderness" and how Big A is usually the one taking care of people. Today A says he's better... but not well. Tomorrow he's scheduled to work. He plans to go for it despite my misgivings. 

Last year, when he ended up in the hospital for a week it was because of complications from the long Covid he got when he went to help out in NYC at the peak of the pandemic in May 2020 (way before any vaccine). So this third round of Covid terrifies me on a deep level--I keep imagining the effects lingering on even after things seem normal.

In the hits keep coming department: Nu's extensive filling came out, they slipped and fell on the ice, and their phone stopped working. Guess which thing made them cry? I'll have to get things fixed for my baby tomorrow.

This piece by Mhawish "I Spoke With 20 People in Gaza After the Ceasefire. My Heart Broke 20 Times" is as heartbreaking as it sounds, and is searingly poetic and will live inside me forever. This is massacre delicately uncovered to help us understand how excruciating the human loss in *each* of the hundreds of thousands reported dead, injured, and bereaved. How domestic tragedies multiply into humanitarian disgrace...

Pic: It's still icy, but there was some fresh snow, which made it easier to walk on and brilliant blue skies and sunshine. Max, Huck, and I are easily pleased, I guess.

but not yet...

It really did take them two and a half hours to fill the prescription for Big A's anti-virals at Meijer. I did the weekly grocery shop for 45 mins and would have lost my mind having to wait for the remaining time if I did not have a book on my phone (William Dalrymple's The Golden Road; recommended).

I was meant to be in Detroit poking through an art warehouse with LV who was sending me pictures of his finds from said warehouse and started to have serious FOMO. So after settling Big A in with meds and snacks and checking to see if Nu needed anything for the school's winter dance (they didn't), I took myself off to the Horrocks Farmers' Market and the thrift store. I reveled in all the growing things and got some hyacinth bulbs at the first place and found some things I plan to use as planters at the second and returned home feeling more rooted (ha).

I wish I could feel like A is doing better, but he isn't yet. Maybe tomorrow. 

Pic: Tulips... at the Farmers' Market. Not in a field, not yet... but surely Spring is on its way.

it's not novel anymore?

After weeks of  warning everyone around us to be careful out there as there were all kinds of respiratory illnesses out there in the ether/E.R., Big A has developed Covid-pneumonia. He had this weekend off and we had all kinds of plans and I'm so sad and mad about him being sick and me having to quarantine. He gets antivirals tomorrow, so hopefully he'll start feeling better. 

This is round #3 of Covid for him. 

Also, if that wasn't enough, he accidentally got stuck with a needle from a patient with Hepatitis-C as it was being disposed. That's counted as an active exposure and so he'll have to get tested and keep getting tested for a few months to make sure he doesn't develop that too. Hep-C is very serious, and the more I read about it, the the more it feels like I'm looking down an abyss.

Both these things are exposure because of his being in the E.R., of course. We joke about how his job is apocalypse-proof and he'll get paid in potatoes and eggs because he delivered people's babies or set their bones. But I'm ready for him to find another job. (Nu too, probably. They weren't happy about having to cancel the sleepover they had planned for tonight and they were going to hang out and get ready for the school dance with friends here tomorrow too.)

Pic: Everything is frozen and this morning Max and Huck decided to play right in the center of the pond we dug last year. I know I could wade in and rescue them, but I do worry about the ice cracking and dunking them into the water... 

pre-fight hype song

armed with the sindoor of sunrise 
smeared over my morning 
even the soft grey skies feel holy 

as the ash of vibhuti

today it doesn't seem to matter 
that the thing 
we made of history has caught me
I try hope, I try anger

it seems I'll try anything, everything 
in this tumbling world
accidents, things constellate my past
hope peoples my future

my muscles and brain are flexed 
with the good fight 
I use my imagination to succeed 
...or survive 

_______________________________________
Pic: Snow, trees, and the squirrel we call Kylo Ren because of his black garb. 

"Ladies' Liquor and Cake"

I am lucky to know JS, the wonderful poet and human, whose brainchild "Ladies' Liquor and Cake" is.

When the invitation to this "essential frivolity" came a few weeks ago, it urged: "These are desperate times and we must cut to the quick: good company (essential), cake (of course) and liquor (naturally)."

I was happy to attend. Now I'm full of good company and cake, sushi (it's my Boss Day), I made time for a yoga sesh, I'm deep into a couple of good books, and also At came by and I got a good cuddle in with the best human cuddle baby I've made! What I can control is going really well.

Outside is still a mess.

Pic: JS had a place for people to post uplifting upcoming events at "Ladies' Liquor and Cake." Her baby's name is Scout too, and that's yet another reason I like being at her place.

things I did I can be proud of

I called my political representatives about the government coup by Musk. I used 5calls.org and it's really easy as they hook you up with the relevant reps and provide a script if you want to use it.  

I tried something new... I applied to a medical  humanities conference over the weekend, and... I got accepted! I think I can use professional development funds to attend this one. (This reminds me that I ought to submit poems to journals. Some poems got picked up by anthologies last year, but I didn't actually send out any all last year. That's terrible. I shouldn't be so afraid of rejection that I never get accepted!)

I tidied my closet... and everything looks so bright and boutique-y. I catch myself going in there like a dork just to look at it. 

I got so many recommendation letters for students and support letters for colleagues done. I was talking to Big A about how I spend too much time on these when the prevailing advice is to get them done as quickly as possible. Reason #457865 to love him, he said of course it makes sense for me to do things in a way that leaves me feeling satisfied. (People depend on these things; I never feel like I can just dash them off.) 

Pic: A sord (I had to look it up) of mallards on a floe on the Red Cedar.

while the chudail puts me to bed

with witchy fingers she traces me

she doesn't say I'm here for you

she says, I'm there for her 

--to eat

                            her hunger is growing in her

                            like a child, but she hates it

                            her rage blooms instead

                            like a storm

 turning on me, she challenges: 

just who do you think I am? 

--I answer quietly to myself

"an asshole." 

*

                             Her anger is pointed, many-pointed 

                             like the sea. There are many things

                             to be angry about right now

                             so I understand

inside my body's cage she tests 

my plumpness, then lights me 

up and tells me to shine 

I'm not fine

                             I am bad and blood soaked but only 

                             on the inside... like her, another 

                            woman, I try to smile, and say

                             goodnight 

_____________________________

Note: Weirdos are all up in everyone's financial info and we have trade wars with the neighbors who sent firefighters to help with the California fires. Things are getting testy all around, and I'm trying to stay calm.

Pic: The Red Cedar River is frozen except up by the rapids; walk with Big A.

uneven thoughts in uneven times

I break the trail     with an ice pick of panic      winter is removal       after all      and carry on      as if      I don't care     I don't want anyone     to see     I care

as it grows dark        with unwritten books      the ink shrinks     into ripples     of edict after cruel edict          they've called this chaos

shock and awe     rising to the center      into centuries    the injury       piercing the moment      everything swelling    out of reach     I witness     what is made--     

--for other people      watch it      come for me      I wait      as the wind loses its way     and wake to the wound     through which     the poem comes

_______
Pic: Max dares me to chase him on the icy snow. Look at his lope, he looks so lupine! 

prepping < resourcefulness < generosity

According to this article in the New Yorker,  many Americans are prepping for a second civil war. Anecdotally, I've certainly encountered my fair share of people talking about stockpiling canned goods, taking selfdefense classes, and buying firearms and so on since the election. Some of this seems sensible.

Extreme prepping seems like a lot. I'll never forget watching Cloverfield Lane with the kids long ago and being horrified by the John Goodman character. My At sagely told me that that was kind of the point--if you accidentally live through the apocalypse, the people around you are likely to be dreadful.

And here I was patting myself on the back, for being resourceful because I had a stubborn salt stain on my black boots that I disappeared by using a black Sharpie. I think I picked this up from the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman. She might have used a black eyeliner, but it's basically the same thing--we just have different tools of the trade, I guess. 

Pic: This is Mr. Arlo who was a welcome gatecrasher at my meeting with the MacCurdy students. I am so proud of my students' generosity and proposals on how they could use their house (a women's resource center) as a safe and welcoming space given the possibility of federal freezes, raids, etc. This is the mode that makes the most sense. 

seeing red until

Red Note: I tried the new place all the kids are decamping to in the wake of the potential TikTok ban--just to check it out. It was kinda confusing.

Red Book: Someone said: "Did you know that RedNote actually translates into "Little Red Book" as in Mao's Little Red Book?" That does not faze me. The Little Red Book has its moments. It's not like it's something written by Kim Jong Un. C'mon. I kept thinking about that person's outrage all day, and it was a bit funny.

Red Card: An international student wondered if we should be giving other international students "red cards." At first I thought it was something to do with the Lunar new year, but it was actually about how to prepare yourself for immigration raids. I was by turns sad and angry about this one. 

Red Envelopes: At the end of the day, dinner was with EM, whom I haven't seen in weeks and it was lovely to catch up. And of course she gave my grownass kids red envelopes with money in it for new year luck. Neither A's only sibling nor mine live near by so I'm glad and grateful for all the people who treat our kids as their niblings. 

Pic: Red envelopes for Nu and At today. Happy New Year of the Snake!

even the chipmunk does what it can...

One of my favorite bits in childhood retellings of the Ramayana is when Rama is building a bridge from the peninsular tip of India to Sri Lanka to rescue his partner Sita from Ravana who has kidnapped her. He has the help of his semi divine siblings and the Vanara army under the ace engineer and architect--Nala. But he also has the help of a little chipmunk who carries pebbles in its mouth to supplement the work of the huge army. Rama is so moved by the chipmunk's altruism, that he picks it up and gently strokes its back... and that's how the chipmunk got its stripes!

But the real point is that everyone does what they can to right a wrong. In fact, in some versions of the story, the chipmunk's pebbles cement the gaps between the giant boulders and are actually crucial to the structural stability of the bridge. I am reminded of this in so many ways. Two examples stand out for me today. One is StephLove putting her body on the line by protesting near the White House at the freezing of federal grants (the freeze has since been blocked by a federal judge). The other is a student who has been using their skill sets (English and Political Science) to annotate three significant executive grants so people can read and understand them more easily. 

Heroes. All the hearts. 

Pic: Huckie and Max, who clearly haven't eaten in days at the dinner table yesterday.

time after time

Time is remarkable. I was overwhelmed on Friday and the things I had to attend to seemed immense and insurmountable. Today, not only was I able to catch up to everything, but the things themselves could be despatched with a few breezy strokes of email... or so it seemed. Perhaps I've just punted everything to the near future? Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, it was busy, busy, busy. And part of that is pre-planning for my biennial travel abroad course to the U.K. And it's exciting and nerve-wracking. And some parts are icky. We're currently in the ticketing process, and I get to feel like a jerk asking people for their gender "as stated on their passports" like that has anything to do with anything. 

Pic: View from the bridge--this is the Red Cedar River frozen solid--people have been skating on it as the tracks show. Big A and I walked to breakfast to celebrate yesterday's anniversary this morning since he was working yesterday. That was quite apropos, because twenty years ago, we met up at a breakfast spot, and then walked across a bridge too.