clarity

 there is uncertainty: what to  say 
 even in the dignity of the world 
 preserved  in light,  the  lick  of 
                                        sunlight 
                                       on water
the words that open in  my mouth
                                 are blooming
                                     like flowers
their faces in the breeze, are being
blown back, syllables breaking off
this day is familiar as all days are
                                       a theology 
                                      of forever
I am my wound, I am my healing

                                         --living

                                      surviving

lifting into the day, learning to open 

looped as continuously as  the seas 
the curl of one wave, the shoulder
                                     of the next  

                                      unknown
_________________________

Pic: Burchard Wetlands with RS. My first time here.

MSU solidarity encampment

More than 60 campuses across the U.S. have now set up encampments to call attention to the ever-rising death toll of the Palestinian people and to demand that our government cease aiding the Israeli government.  These protests have been compared to student Vietnam protests; to my friend CMS who was at Columbia in the 1980s, they are reminiscent of the anti-apartheid protests against South Africa. 

McSweeney's has a laugh-cry post about student protests that is so on the nose. "The University administration respects all student protests, just not this one. Students have fought for many important causes over the years, and their right to protest is sacrosanct. In this case, however, we must arrest and slander them. We will not look back and regret this decision. Although we were wrong about not admitting women, abolitioning racial quotas, US involvement in Vietnam, and divesting from apartheid South Africa, we are confident that this time is different."

This week, I've watched with horror as students have gotten tased, teargassed, and shot with rubber bullets, police show up in militarized outfits, and snipers have been stationed on the roof (at OU and IU). I am proud of the faculty who have shown up to support their students across various campuses, forming human chains, and trying to protect their students. 

This is the right thing to do. It's a glimpse of what the student-teacher relationship needs to be in times of crisis. If teaching means nurturing minds, it also extends to defending students from oppression. Faculty have since gotten violently arrested, and the video of the Emory professor being thrown to the ground with two burly police officers kneeling on her back is distressing in a way that is visceral. But it's still the right thing to do. 

I'm relieved that the local encampment at MSU that was set up today is relatively calmer. Police showed up to ask that the tents be removed, but left without incident. Morale seemed to be high and the protestors did not back down. It feels like so much has been lost, that we've lost our sense of fear too.

Pic: Encampment at MSU--about 20 tents and a few hundred people. For the safety of all, I'm sharing only a hazy photo pulled from the video the organizers shared.

my beautiful baby

 It has been a year. Some days it feels like yesterday, some days it feels like a distant dream of love.  

 

There have been tears every day, every day I've journaled has been tagged "ScoutDay." But I'm not racked by sobs as much as I was in the beginning, I don't wail and keen out loud in a way that terrifies the people I'm with. I'm more "civilized" in my grief. And in some odd way, I feel more love. 

Scout was a very special love. Something I haven't mentioned here before is how he was a champion for people. The only times Scout barked at people was if they were being too loud. Big A and Nu tend to yell when they get upset, and Scout would have none of it. As Big A said, when Scout barked at you, it was a reminder to tone things down.

I love you, my darling, my beautiful baby. I wouldn't change anything about our life together except wish it had been longer. 

puppy condo rules

Although I don't spend much time in there, our puppy "condo" is one of my favorite spaces. Max and Huckie dislike being in there by themselves (and Scout would complain SO MUCH), but it's nice for them to have a room in case a guest is uncomfortable around dogs, or they're wet, or got into something stinky. 

I like the puppy-centric art and the family pictures and all that--but my favorite part is the old mat that says "Wipe Your Paws." And I like that it faces outwards as if reminding those of us visiting to be respectful of the puppies' high standards for cleanliness. 

Pic: Max and Huckie pouting in their condo.

etude

1                                               2                                   3

                                        rain runs                            birdsong pushes               all that falls 

                                        like a chant                        music                                here and now

                                        in my head                         out of trees                        is dusk

                                                *                                        *                                       *

                                        making it through           the journey                       in our time:

                                        generations                      will remember                   singers die

                                        from knowing                  we outlive grief                 songs live 

________________________________________________________ 

Pic: Daffodil Hill with L last week. We thought we'd get rained out, but we made it. Daffodil Hill last year, also with L.  And the year before that (also with L). 

the other one

I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Part of it is the usual anxiety of final grading and checking my sums a million times as I'm bad at numbers. 

But it's also a season of sadness and grief. I don't know how we've made it a whole year without Scout, whose anniversary is on Wednesday... 

The cherry tree blossomed and reminds me of organizing the family to take a picture every year. Last year's picture makes me sob. 

Last fall, a storm took out the pink cherry blossom tree, so it's like a note from the universe that things will never ever be the same again.

 Pic: White cherry blossoms against the sky. I miss our pink cherry blossom tree and the mix of pink and white across the sky.

promises, promises

time slopes

birdsong switches 

from call to answer
and just keeps climbing 

almost lost
in this range of joy

my heart unfurls itself 

and lifts up as an offering

___________________

Pic: I found this funny hybrid (red tail + black body) "fellow in the grass" between meetings and the department's farewell lunch for graduating seniors today. How bittersweet to say goodbye to these people... all these young people who have already done brilliant and difficult work, and are poised to do loving, amazing things in the world. 

in anticipation of spring gifts

somedays

everything radiates
porous with happiness

down to the scatter of stars

I work...

I walk for hours 

I was meant to be lost

here where everything roots

my body

unafraid of laughter 

and sculpted of scratches,

my heart a breathing furnace

in hours 

populous as cities

under every rock, I find life 

hundreds of hopes and longings

I yearn for the ones I haven't even met yet

__________

Pic: "A host of golden daffodils" at the Wharton Center, with EM yesterday.

Spring Awakening

I'll admit it: I booked tickets to go see Spring Awakening because it sounded spring-y and the music was by Duncan Sheik (and "Barely Breathing" started earworming my head as soon as I saw that). I went into it not knowing anything about it, and it turned out to be pretty heavy (violence, self-harm, suicide, child sexual abuse, back-alley-abortion death, etc.). Oy. It took me a while to get into it as it wasn't at all what I imagined it would be like. 

But walking to the theater after a morning working on the pond, and seeing glorious daffodils everywhere, and hearing incessant birdsong, and knowing it was Tamil New Year... all that was suitably spring-like. 

Pic: Intermission pic of the Spring Awakening set since photos were prohibited during the show.

coming along

After we dug a bigger pond in December, the weather got wintry, so we didn't get to work on it. But yesterday, we wrestled the pond liner (it weighed over 300 pounds!) into place and started filling the pond.

Today I spent nearly eight hours pulling the liner tight and anchoring it with dirt. This involved digging a trench alongside the outer wall, lifting and folding the liner, and then shoveling the dirt tight around it. I counted it as today's workout. 

Nu was with friends and Big A is in Milwaukee, so it was just Huckie, Max, and me. But it was SUCH A LOVELY DAY, it felt like a blessing to be outside.

It still looks pretty messy and I still have to find a way to edge it so the pond liner is hidden under more natural elements. Sometimes garden projects take years to look pretty, but I'm not known for my patience.

Pic: The sun smiling on my labors. I love the heart-like indent at the top of the pond. MSU dorms in the distance.

snapshots

3:30 am: Big A and I get to bed and wish we didn't have to go to work in the morning. Not because we're getting to bed late, but because he's working in Milwaukee for the next three days and I won't be around to say goodbye when he leaves.

5:30-ish am: I wake from a nightmare in which I'm in my modeling days and the make-up artist is someone who appears to be a 14-year-old child. They somehow manage to fix my hair so it looks both straight and frizzy and when I demur, they threaten to call their dad.

6:55 am: I'm finishing up breakfast chores and Nu asks me if I could drop them at the school bus stop because it's drizzling and they just blow-dried their hair. Umbrellas and raincoats are too cumbersome to carry around at school (their locker is too far away from their classrooms).

8:30-ish am: I'm crying in the car because today's Story Corps was terrifying and beautiful.

9:15 am onwards: all my favorite work people are gathered to clap for a colleague who has just taught the last class of their career as they walk out of their classroom. Does anyplace else do this? The consensus is "no." I think this is a lovely tradition. Bonus: I get to have little chats with all my favorite people.

10:00 am-ish: I walk AK back to her building and we take in the Gaza exhibit the YDSA has put up.

WORK WORK WORK WORK 

Noon-ish: Two colleagues pop by my office to strategize some advocacy work. We're drinking tea and spilling all kinds of tea.

WORK WORK WORK WORK 

5:00-ish: Mostly work although there is some surreptitious texting during the meeting where I say goodbye to Big A and check in on Nu and then JD and LK are texting about "feeling a breakdown coming on" and how their "soul has left the building."

5:30-ish: I leave the meeting with SD for a work dinner. It's lovely to see all the wonderful work people have been doing. One of my favorite people who now works at the University of Michigan is visiting and has a beautiful handwritten letter for me.

7:00-ish: I'm on my way home and chatting to my mom.

8:00-ish: I get home. Big A has left for Wisconsin, Nu is out with friends, Max and Huckie are so happy to see me. 

The day is almost over for me at this point. The puppies and I share a banana--our evening treat--and then snuggle up on the couch. I finish up the book I'm reading and listen to music while I wait for Nu to get home. Their deadline is midnight.

Pic: YDSA's informational Gaza exhibit. I assumed that the rain had done some damage, but it seems some of the uprooted flags were human mischief. 

Eid Mubarak

Showed up for moral support at a student advocacy meeting with the powers that be early in the morning. (I found myself picking pants over a skirt as I got dressed because I feel I'm taken more seriously when I'm in pants. This is probably true, but I hate the internalized femmephobia of this.)

I was so proud of and so moved by the students who showed up, spoke up, held space for others, held their ground, and held us accountable. I may have cried a bit when it was over--they were so brave and amazing. And also, so young and so deserving of not having to spend their time and energy and wellbeing on meetings like these. How is it that we're still working so hard for basic freedoms decades into the 21st century?

I got so much support from the fam on this. From BD supporting my decision to prioritize conscience over diplomacy and career security, Nu's disdainful anger and outrage, and At's organizational chops and doc review. I'm a lucky duck.

Pic: The moon at sunset yesterday. So much celestial activity this week! Growing up in Chennai I remember the Eid date determined by whether the local imam sighted the new moon or not. So friends wouldn't know if they were ending their fasts that day or the next!  This year, I'm celebrating the end of a successful Ramzan with friends across the globe. May there be hope and joy and goodness and good works. 

solar eclipse of the heart

I'd never seen a solar eclipse before... I've watched live coverage on television, but haven't looked directly at one. 

Like the Hopi Indians, Hindu Indians believe the eclipse is a time of meditation. So usually, I just sit in a dark room. But we were in the path of near totality (96%) and this could be my only chance in this lifetime unless I chase one down through travel (unlikely). So I decided to get solar eclipse-safe glasses and peek out.

I'm glad I did; it was pretty cool. Through the glasses, the eclipse progressed as though a set of illustrations in a science textbook. But when I tried to take pictures, it looked like a normal picture of the sun. 

I felt tense in the moments before the eclipse started... Big A was in a meeting with students and residents, Nu was in school, At was at work... I would see them all later in the day, but it was weird being the only human in the house knowing an event of cosmic significance was taking place. I sat with all the drapes shut in the rumpus room so Max and Huck wouldn't accidentally sear their retinas. L and some other GFs were texting to share our experience.  Nu came home just before peak totality (around 3:00 pm) and (superciliously 😛) helped me understand why my phone camera wasn't picking up the eclipse.

On social media people have been raving about how it was a transformative experience for them; I must admit I was underwhelmed. Since I'm transported by even fairly low-key natural phenomena like new grass or birdsong in the city or a regular sunrise, I was really expecting the eclipse to unlock something in me... but nothing happened. So that's my eclipse story: 4/8/2024; I was there.

Pic: The sun is about a quarter of the way through the eclipse here. (Not what I thought my eclipse picture would look like.)

because now is everything

our day loosens itself from 

a cocoon of cold 

step by step the earth opens

to push us beyond

sacred oblivion, for here lies 

a heathen hope 

this dance--survival or riddle 

whose time is come

in the surreal syntax of seasons

the ones you love

have heart-to-hearts, break hearts

uncatchable as rain

__________________

Pic: Geese on the Red Cedar... they're vicious when I meet them on the path, but so graceful in the water. The light was just lovely today.

[pause]

I have answers at the beginning, of spring 
as breezes lift my thoughts

restless with birdsong vicariously, leaving
imprints of desire in the air 

and shy things are whispering, in the hedge 
questions lost in their play

enclosed in the diamond of my legs, a book
for me to read now and again

while refrains fold and fade to close, I learn

to love myself, with your mind 

_________________
Pic: Eastbound along the Red Cedar on the new bike path. Big A in the distance. I simply had to stop to take a picture of those fluffy clouds in the open, blue sky. How beautiful is the every day, ordinary world..

the calling

some days everything is sacred
the name is the thing

on days Aaron said he had to  
"go run some errands"

our toddler thought he was saying
"go run some Aarons"

those were very Aaron things after all 

I think of how we all

could heed the call to run away, freely

doing things for ourselves

_________________

Pic: The Red Cedar on a bright and breezy day on a walk with Big A. Trees are beginning to visibly bud! We stopped midway through the walk to call in our sushi orders to pick up on the way home. It was very nice timing!

Ick and Yay

ICK: Something Engie mentioned in yesterday's comments made me wonder how I know of John Ruskin. It's almost all second-hand (save a few anthologized passages here and there), and from knowing people like William Morris, Tolstoy, and Gandhi revered him. I knew he was radical and sort of a socialist precursor and that he was a friend of the working class because Ruskin College in Oxford offers adult education. (Ruskin was an art prof at Oxford, Ruskin College is not part of the Oxford system, however.) I thought I'd read his Wiki to learn more... there were no big surprises except about his statement, "I like my girls from ten to sixteen" and learning he'd asked women whom he'd met when they were preteens to marry him. What is it with Victorians and the fetishization of prepubescents? That's already ruined Alice (Lewis Carroll) and Little Nell (Dickens) for me. And hurt who knows how many children in real life?

Pic: YAY for yesterday's egg hunt: Huck, Nu, At, and Max. 

I... we all.. missed Scout so much. We were so, so lucky to have him last year.  This was Max's first, and I hide puppy treats in the eggs as well, so he really got into this new game. 

This year the easiest clue rhymed "...arboreal" with "...Scout's memorial." They had a tough time with "...you could"/ "...birthday dogwood" (the dogwood tree my dear friends got me for my birthday). They didn't get it even after I explained it. "DOG WHAT? DOG WOOD?" They kept asking me. How do they not know what a dogwood is? Should I have taught them better? It made me laugh so much because they sounded so clueless! They're so sweet for still being all in about the egg hunt though.  

a Wilde arrow

Other people probably already know this, but TIL John Ruskin taught Oscar Wilde at Oxford. In my head, they're very unlike each other: Ruskin a socialist political economist, and Wilde a socialite playwright--but ultimately, I guess, they're both social reformists. (It's a pity how much the whole homophobic case against Wilde weighs on my internal summary of his history.)

I looked Wilde up because of the beautiful lines "And flashing down the river, a flame of blue!/ The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air." in his poem "Magdalen Walks." It made me want to check if Wilde had attended Magdalen College. (One of the first and lasting things I learned at Oxford was that you're supposed to pronounce it "Maudlin.") He had. He'd had three years in Trinity College, Dublin, and then another four years at Magdalen--which makes this the longest undergraduate journey I know. 

It kind of connected with my own day... EM joined us for dinner and one of the things we talked about was how we each got interested in Greek mythology. Someone EM knows got into it because its pansexual worldview was different from their own social environment, EM herself got into it because the women in it can be powerful, and I got into it because at some point I followed some childhood book about comparative mythologies and became enamored of Greek culture. Wilde read classics at Oxford--so that's how I'm going to close this loop.

Pic: Redbud beside the Red Cedar from a walk yesterday. Today was grey and rainy all day. (I didn't see a kingfisher, but I will think of them "wounding the air" the next time I do.)
 

this darling of a day

I whisper a blessing into my cupped hands 
take frayed and afraid things for wings
be, begin, go

no one judges me for these strange noises

desperate like hopeful prayers, like fish 

the river receives 

my phone is far away and anyway, all 

I have to tell you, you already know

it's just as well

I've made a keepsake of this week forever 

I've saved myself from words that spring

are we there yet?

_____________________________

Pic: The Red Cedar on a glorious, brilliant-blue-sky day. Walk with Big A.

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that Steph referenced) must be because of the ceasefire in Gaza making me feel like I could take a personal pause.

Also, I took Max to the vet for his one-year check; he was a champ. I was not a champ. The receptionist brightly asked if I'd brought Scout, and I immediately welled up like a doofus. And then she was so apologetic, I felt bad for her and worse overall. 

But I handily completed a paper proposal titled "Extra, Extra, Extra!: Improving Critical Connectivity in Higher Education" and am particularly chuffed by this: "In Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Patricia Hill Collins describes critical theory as critical in a triple sense: as offering critique, as essential, and as expository. In this paper, we similarly draw upon the triple use of the term “extra” to unpack the ways critical feminist practices may be viewed within Higher Education--namely as exceptional, as supplementary, and (in recent slang) as excessive."

Also, Nu's sleepover guests just arrived, and I love the giggly and infectious energy they've brought with them.

_________________

Pic: The Red Cedar from the new walking bridge. (Photo's from my walk this weekend. It's another grey and cloudy day here today, so it probably looks the same. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)