he stands there

he stands there as if

 the most popular boy in pre-K 

the other kids clustered around
exclaiming at his new clothes

           that's my old T-shirt said one

           my old rain boots said another

           those pants will make you itch

          ask me how I know, said the wag 

he stands there dull

the shape of shame in his mouth

pushing up the smile that wants 

to droop, thinking up a comeback  

           in years to come he'll be bemused

           that his kids aim to shop vintage

           and give clothes away seasonally

           that his wife wants to thrift... and

he stands there, still

when she invites him to come 

lifted like a ship in a calm harbor

surprised he finds welcome in this

_________________

Pic: A magnolia tree in full bloom. (On a walk with L.)

comfortably numb

I got my Taco Bell. And I did the damned thing. I got the surgery under the local anesthetic. I could still feel pressure and pulling and tugging, but it didn't actually hurt and it was over in under half an hour.

I'm comfortably numb and really grateful for anesthesia.

Yesterday's freakout reminded me of when I went to have my wisdom teeth removed twenty years ago. The new and very kind dentist went over the procedure and the probably standard spiel of complications like nerve damage, bruising, etc...  I started crying. I still have all my wisdom teeth. I still wonder if I traumatized that young dentist. 

If I'm navel-gazing, I think it's not so much the needles and pain I'm afraid of (although that too) as much as all the talk of what could go wrong, because I will imagine every detail and I will imagine it happening.

Anyway, I plan to be on campus tomorrow, so time to prep or rest or read... Grateful for pep talks from the fam and friends today. Grateful for fam and friends. 

Pic: Forsythia in full bloom on the banks of the Red Cedar.

brain laundry

I came across the idea of "brain laundry" where you sort your light and dark thoughts. Here are some topics from today sorted by ":)" and ":/".

1. Conferences:

:) Successfully submitted two proposals--one by myself + one with E.M. And I started work on a chapter proposal which isn't due until May.  

:/ Both conference proposals are fairly slapdash. Also, I wanted to submit one with Big A to jumpstart our stalled writing project, but we just didn't get around to it. 

2. Surgery

:) I'm supposed to get surgery tomorrow to get a cyst taken care of. Finally! I've been putting it off for a very long time. It's a minor procedure under local anesthesia and I've been promised Taco Bell. Yay.

:/ When the nurse went through post-surgery wound care, I got majorly freaked out. I called Big A and he talked me down, but I might still bail tomorrow. 

3. Charity

:) I'm lucky that my family is so supportive of giving in general and fairly mindful of my rules like not spending because we're saving to give to X, etc. Then there are unbudgeted things like GoFundMes and grocery add ons. A good percentage of the weekly grocery run is things I sock away for free pantries and people asking for stuff. Big A's family was on food stamps when his divorced mom was putting herself through school for teacher education, so he never begrudges the extra expense...

:/ But, he does NOT like it when I deliver stuff, because he's convinced it's dangerous.  Although sometimes like today there is no alternative (someone needed a birthday cake for their kid and did not have a car). He likes to tell me I'm going to get trapped in a basement... because he knows how much that terrifies me. This led to a fight. 

4. (Pic:) Gardening: 

:) The box of perennials I brought home from the plant sale this Saturday on the floor of the tea garden. Bleeding Hearts, Gauras, Hellebores, and Geraniums. I'm going to plant them inside for a few weeks until it's frost-safe outside.

:/ I feel so bad when I catch myself wishing the Poinsettias, which have cheerfully been going strong since before Christmas, would die. Poor things--I should just move them somewhere where I don't have to see them all the time. 

Happy New Year!!

Yes, really! I said what I said.

It's Tamil New Year and Asian solar new year through much of the planet today. I am grateful for this reset, I am thankful for the pause. I heard from people I haven't heard in a while, I celebrated with family and friends, I made an Indian feast, I had a pooja.

Democracy is breaking down in the White House and various other things are breaking down in my house, but I'm reassured by Harvard University's resolve not to "surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights" and even more heartened by the 80-something way less affluent colleges and universities that signed an amicus brief opposed to threats against people for lawful speech. Among these, I was charmed to see good old Antioch in Yellow Springs (always on the right side of history!) and other places I've adjuncted including The University of Dayton and Michigan State University.

Pic: I stopped at Lake Lansing Park for a short walk and a few minutes of meditation in the midst of the lapping water on this beautiful day.

a checklist for the seasons: speech & passage, change & endurance

 the diagnosis is that its only nostalgia

the prescription is just talk

so I try twice a day to mimic my elders

misinterpreting decades

to all these openly yawning windows  

and wait patiently

as words fall into them... no one gets hurt

while beating time

although I thought of money as paperwork

all these years, I find

they're artificial leaves falling sullenly

no matter the season

so there's no need to hold me or name me 

I write to you against all odds

and wonder how we don't cry all the time

sometimes, I am so proud of us

-----------------------------

Pic: StephLove asked what the Muppets-themed seder was like. There was an enactment of the Passover story in one of the M's currently empty raised gardening beds with puppets. It featured Kermit as Moses, a Pirate as the Pharaoh and children had paper bags to throw locusts, lice, and pestilence when their cues came up. It was an inspired production and so much fun! And the weather was just perfect for all of it. 

six for Saturday (making me smile)

1) L and I decided to go to the plant sale but didn't want the hassle of finding parking, so we walked over to the horticultural center and brought home our perennials on the sled L resourcefully brought with her. We must have looked like very eccentric ladies.

2) It was fun to see a bunch of MSU skaters practicing jumping amidst chatter and laughter and... using an MSU police barricade for practice.

3) Yesterday the pedicurist asked if At and I were sisters and today At remembered that people have been asking if we were siblings since At was about five years old. Back then, it used to make me feel bad because it felt like people were saying I wasn't a grownup. But now, I feel compassion for the ingenuous and overworked single mom I was.

4) Nu, who wouldn't even let me throw them a 16th birthday party bash, gave me permission to throw them a graduation party. I feel a bit guilty, because I think they're doing it to just make me happy, but L says doing stuff for others is a sign of maturity and I should give Nu that chance. Ha.

5) Today's Passover Seder at the M's was Muppets-themed. Nu wanted to go when the invitation first arrived, but ditched this morning. Big A who didn't want to go from the beginning kept making up silly, complicated reasons why (one of them was that Miss Piggy might be there and that would be problematic because of the prohibition against swine--eyeroll). It's a good thing I'd invited EM to go with me--we had a great time.

6) Pic: One of the rooms L and I wandered into by accident at the horticultural center happened to be the butterfly house. It was bright with sunlight and blooms and I think I got a butterfly or two in this frame. 

"when you like something, you want more, you want more"*

It's Nu's Boss Day, but I ended up spending more one-on-one time with At today who was in town for a dental appt. We had the best time (walk, massages, bookstore). When I dropped At off, she wanted me to go on another walk and stay for tea, but I had to head to the monthly faculty meeting. 

At kept coming up with reasons to stay--the weather was perfect for walking, the book we hadn't finished discussing (Sophie Lewis's Enemy Feminisms), another random thing At wanted to say about a connection between Kafka and Lispector... Tearing myself away was hard. It's going to get harder if At gets one of the jobs she's applied for in Seattle.

Pic: Last-day photo of my women's lit seminar. (Photo posted with requested permission.) Every time I look at this photo, I find myself smiling back. I have so much love for my students... but look at those smiles, they make it so easy. I'm looking forward to traveling to the U.K. with some of them next month on our Spring Term.

* The post title is from this old AT&T commercial that we used to quote all the time.

(Mis)interpretations

* Central Michigan University, about 20 minutes north of us, discovered during a random check that several of their international students had their visas revoked and thus their legal residency terminated without notifications to the university or the students. I don't think this is what "Land of the Free" means.

* Ms. Rachel, the YouTube toddler entertainer, who has been compared to Mr. Rogers, shared UN reports of malnourished children in Gaza and started fundraising for Save the Children... and is being accused of being Hamas with calls for the Attorney General to investigate her for "anti-semitism." That term keeps being used incorrectly. Opposition to Israel is not anti-semitism, as Peter Beinart said recently. 

*Nu's class was scheduled to take a senior trip to the zoo today. All week long, in anticipation, we've been pretending that we understood "going to the zoo" to mean that Nu was going to be a zoo exhibit. Our jokes are really old over here. 

Pic: Nu's pic of the tiger at the zoo. Once upon a time, William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger burning bright" might have looped through my head. These days, I more likely to remember the six-year-old's poem so bright and clear it just cannot be misinterpreted: 

"The tiger

He destroyed his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out"

I can't believe

*That I have to get a visa to go to the U.K. (Ok, not quite a visa but still, an entry authorization--ETA--to procure ahead of time instead of at the airport when one lands there.)

         That it took about seven minutes to complete the process...

         That it's supposed to take three days to process... but the approval arrived via email within about 10 minutes.

*That I've taken on another child advocacy case.

         That my wonderful coordinator there has just been diagnosed with cancer. 

         That the kids in this case have the worst biblical names a pair of siblings could ever have.

*That it's snowing now. We were nearly to 50 degrees during the day when I had a lovely walk with KPB.

Pic: Big A, Huck, Max. Is something tasty going on? I love how Max loops his arm around yours to ensure you don't stop petting him. (And is it just me, or does Max look like he has a J.D.Vance-level of eyeliner on?)

a day in the park

although most days dawn familiar

today from this bench I can hear 

children sing the songs they know 

about love and loss they don't know 

amidst laughter--these are the petty 

triumphs I want, the amiable teasing

practice for adulthood or adolescence 

while song comes in lashes of breath

in skeins of sound, spinning a cocoon 

around pain, placing it gently into trees 

that are beginning... to open their hands 

so I can put my heart at the quiet mercy 

of these top-20 tunes, feel the light lift

at the horizon of each child's laughter

imagining even their chatter as prayers

as promises of continuous tomorrows

________________________

Pic: From yesterday's walk east along The Red Cedar. The paths are flooded; I snuck around a few parking lots to bypass the submerged sections.

in the news

There is a new Hunger Games novel--Sunrise on the Reaping--and it's the anti-AI, anti authoritarian reading I want for next weekend.

A friend sent me this explainer on the Insurrection Act, which may be invoked as early as April 20th, and it is fucking terrifying. 

I'm signing on to a letter at work urging our college leadership to proactively seek out other small colleges to launch a cooperative defense. This is such a generous and ingenious initiative and I'm so proud to call the lead author a friend.

Pic: I guess I kind of made the news 🤣.  That's the back of my head next to L's snow-white mane in the news story about Saturday's protest. (We're standing in formation to sing on the steps of the capitol; the crowd is on the lawn in front of us.)

when I let go

I seek rest while my words 
continue to work like 
beautiful outlaws
          for although I am meant to go
          I know no one has died 
          of being tired 
look--objectification in the mirror
is closer than it appears

and yet I find
          I've started to imagine myself
          as someone with holes
          in my hands 

___________________

Pic: L and I made a trip to our Daffodil Hill and it seems like the daffs are a bit early this year? (When I searched "daffodil hill, all of my other posts were from the last week of April.)

"if your voice held no power they would not be trying to censor it"

I hurried through my morning chores so L and I could head to the hands-off protest around 11.

I haven't been singing with the women's choir I got into two years ago regularly, but today, I stood on the steps of the capitol with Sistrum and sang call-and-response songs to start up the crowd. There were some fiery speakers. I particularly liked that Rep. Dylan Wegela shouted out the DSA and suggested that anyone not representing the people (no matter what their political affiliation) should be voted out. 

And what a great turnout for the "hands off" protests all across the U.S. today. On social media, I'm seeing videos of rallies that are miles long and and thousands of people strong.

I'm also hearing that while the protests were shown on the tv in other countries, mainstream media in the US hasn't been covering it. (I don't have cable and don't know for sure.)

I'd heard of the #SitYourBlackAssDown signal from Black leaders ahead of today as a way of protecting Black people from police violence as well as a "your turn" gesture to the rest of the population. And post-protest, Black leaders have correctly pointed out 1) the absence of black people at the protests has meant absence of police in helmets and anarchists inciting violence 2) how in the long laundry list of all matters that need protection from this administration, Black Lives are seldom mentioned although Trump's interactions are always adversarial and his initiatives always antagonistic towards Black people. I cannot unsee that now--posters at the protest supported everyone from immigrants and trans people to veterans and teachers, but I did not see any posters about racial injustice. We need to do better.

Still and all, it felt good to be at the rally today, and made me feel like I was actively engaging with the democratic process. And it was great to be there with comrades like L and RS, AH, SD, and so many others. Standing on the steps of the capitol and seeing the thousands of people amassed there, I, along with many of the singers around me, teared up. It was powerful and humbling.

Pic: A portion of the crowd at the protest today. My eyes kept going to the "if your voice held no power they would not be trying to censor it" sign.

grateful

Grateful no one was hurt when Nu's school was hit by lightning. Some computers sparked, the fire alarms went off, and everyone had to go stand outside in the pouring rain. (And Nu got a good story out of it.)

Grateful for all the hard work my students do. Yesterday, five of them presented their research papers and posters at Honors Day. (And my academic advisee won the graduating senior trophy!)

Grateful for academic freedom (so far). I'm on a few lowkey watchlists, but haven't been censored or censured (yet). The talk I gave was critical of the administration and... I shared the panel with colleagues who were similarly critical. (However, colleagues have told me I should scrub my social media when I travel abroad.)

Grateful for my Boss Day today--we got takeout Thai food for dinner. And lunch tomorrow. (I guess this effectively ends my month of claiming birthday privilege.)

Pic: Grateful for the splash of reds and pink from the very twiggy geraniums I got for free from a local nursery five years ago. (It was the end of the outdoor season and they were going to compost them). 

things I should remember

 ...L's birthday! I ordered her gift ahead of time and everything, and still forgot on the day. She's usually in Oregon at this time of the year, but that's no excuse... I feel so bad and I'm groveling hard. 

...That not everyone knows who Scout is. So when I was telling people I just met (a student's mom, a friend of a friend) about how I can't go to UU anymore because sitting in silence makes me think of Scout and then I start crying, they thought Scout was... my husband!  (Also, the topic came up organically and I was lowkey laughing at myself, I swear--I'm not buttonholing random folk to trauma dump on them.)

...The universities that are doing what they need to do. Tufts is declaring support for their detained student, Georgetown University is doubling down on their DEI citing their Jesuit mission. 

...Yes, it's terrifying that three Yale professors who study authoritarianism, including Timothy Snyder whose On Tyranny has been so instructive, have decamped for Canada because of the current political climate in the U.S.

...It's important to remember there are more academics right here and that it's time to get serious about action and solidarity. As Siva Vaidyanathan reminds us in this article in The New Republic. "Columbia University did not fail academia or the country; only its temporary leaders did. The strength of the university remains committed to resisting and doing good work for society. More than 100 faculty members and students have been protesting the university’s decision to fold, each risking admonishment or worse from the administration. Many have been writing publicly against their bosses. That is courage. That is solidarity. It’s a 90-minute train ride from New Haven to Manhattan. One would have hoped Yale professors upset with Columbia would join their colleagues on the streets of Morningside Heights rather than drive up the Queen Elizabeth Way to Toronto." 

Well said. 

Pic: Blue Heron on the banks by the rapids of The Red Cedar. 

if you are my friend

let's keep going, let's get to the grandeur
let's come back, let's touch absences 
to one another

our next hours wait patiently as the present

life can be a cold war sometimes

its firings accidental 

our lives recognizable as burning pages
opening in flame before curling
sullenly into ash

let us finally acknowledge our condition 

know we are holding our breath-- 

to avoid inhaling smoke

____________

Pic: The Red Cedar in Spring (yay) thaw. Sprigs of forsythia (yay, Spring) in the corner of the frame.

nice/surprise

 It's April 1st tomorrow and who knows what the day will bring--here are a few things that took me by surprise on this last day of March.

I woke up from a dream in which I marveled how in a crowd of strangers we unhesitatingly call ourselves "we." It's true, isn't it? There's something beautiful and magic about that.

I was on a walk and 30 mins from home when a neighbor called to say she'd found Max wandering around her yard and had put him in her screen porch. Obviously, I panicked and called Nu to go over and get Max. Nu went downstairs and then called to tell me Max and Huck were downstairs cuddling on the sofa. Ha. The other puppy was reunited with their family soon after.

For the first time ever, a book I put on hold at the library (Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We've Ever Had) came in before I caved and got it myself.

Yesterday, while sheltering from the tornado, I realized that Nu and Big A had ordered an arcade Ms. Pac-Man game for the basement. I thought we were in our frugal era! I'm mad. Also that thing is going to be 5-ft tall when it's put together.

Pic: I commented to Suzanne that I planned to make sushi cups from an insta reel I'd seen. I did! I did not expect them to be as as easy as they looked or come out so well (esp. as I ad lib a fair amount). They look a bit color deficient to me as I want all five colors at every meal, but a blueberry-mango-raspberry compote completed the gap at dinner. 

Trans Day of Visibility Rally

An up and down kind of day--I guess that's the way it is when your opportunities for community and solidarity are hemmed in by the big events and policies beyond your control that makes them necessary.

Off to the Trans Day of Visibility Rally at the Capitol today with L and Nu. There were such great signs at the rally today and people were happy to be photographed with with them when I asked (I'm documenting for L's newsletter). But one parent said that their kid was nervous about being photographed, and while I completely understand, it made me quite sad.

Today's rally was designed to be celebratory and joyful, which is why I invited Nu... but I think it still felt a bit overwhelming and they needed some time over the evening to go off by themselves to decompress. They were telling me later how they had such great hopes for the country in 2020, but feel defeated now. It's a bit depressing outright miserable to hear a 17-year-old think and talk like that. At got there just as we three were leaving the capitol and met up with us later at the house for dinner. 

I'd originally planned to have a great, big gathering at our house, like we used to after the Women's Marches.  But I scaled things back as I didn't know if my scratched eye would be healed (It's 90% healed, BTW!). We ended up with a tableful of guests and just after we said goodbye to the second carful, the emergency sirens began going off for tornadoes+thunderstorms. I went out again to call our guests back to shelter in the basement (as we were about to) but only got taillights. I was glad to get the texts about where people were sheltering a few minutes later. 

Pic: I've never seen "Cistem" before, and I love it. 

don't let the one with the coconuts tell the story

Three traders set out, board the boat,
eager and dreaming of success

each with a sack of their wares
upright in the restless breeze
by their feet

it is a completely ordinary journey

their chat common, dealing 

in bargains and markets... 

until the storm bursts

until the boat floods 

Uppulu

Aiiyo! I've lost everything

weeps the trader whose sack was full of salt...

as all the salt slips away in rivulets 

of milky wetness beneath their feet

and the sack empties into nothing

Poppulu

Aiiyo! I've lost everything

weeps the trader whose sack was full of lentils...

though really, some lentils are soaked through

puffy as flowers ready for the pot this evening

but the rest may survive to sell after an airing

Koppulu 

Aiiyo! I've lost everything

weeps the trader whose sack was full of coconuts...

though the coconuts look fresh as children just bathed 

What? Say the others. No, you haven't lost anything!

Your coconuts look like they got a free wash. Shut up.

____________________
Note: From a story my ayah told me in Telugu to illustrate how the well-to-do love to complain about their misfortune even when it doesn't really compare or isn't really a misfortune. (I wonder now if there was something that prompted it--like if she'd had some argument with my parents who would have seemed well-to-do to her.) I came up with the retort to the coconut trader and the subheadings (salt, lentils, coconuts in Telugu) because they so neatly nearly rhyme. And I gender neutralized the characters without losing the plot.
______________________
Pic: The beautiful spring view from RS's window at book club today. There was more resistance talk and organizing than book discussion, which was ok with me. Especially since I'd read You Think It, I'll Say It literally years ago and forgotten many of its finer details.

"keep fighting the good fight"

Today, I finally got to teach the class I was supposed to teach in prison last October. I was a bit concerned about building rapport with a bunch of adults I'd never met before within the space of a class period, but it went great.

Things that stuck with me:

• In pre-class training, the liaison said that if anyone held the door open for me, I should wave them through first--I shouldn't let anyone walk behind me. (And then they assigned me a Personal Protection Device with an emergency button.)
• But apart from some people in the hallway who were gawking at the classroom, everyone was welcoming and respectful.
• When I mused out loud that the classroom didn't have a clock (and as no smart phones are allowed in the building, I didn't have mine), one of the students gave me his watch to use.
• How eager my students were to laugh at my silly jokes. My kids could stand to take some lessons on how they did NOT roll their eyes. Ha.
• But seriously, 100% of the class wanted to be there, had done their homework, and were active participants.
• How dependent they were on forces completely out of their control--whether the program would continue or not, whether they'd receive funding or not, if people would find the time and inclination to come visit/teach them or not.
• What they said about freedom, the way rehabilitations had been rolled back, how when you grow up hearing gunshots every day, you don't even think to duck. 
• How in the space of two hours, I was already assigning place values to the students as the philosopher, the historian, the memoirist, the media consultant and so on.
• The new things I learned in these texts I've read a zillion times--from my reading of course--but more importantly from the ways other people read, shared, and built on in community. I love this part of teaching so much.
• How they must have picked up on the small coded things I said (there was an official observer in class) about the carceral system, restorative justice, needing a Malcolm in order to have the government negotiate with a Martin, etc. When I answered their question about why I was there, I got a deep "I understand" from the person who asked it. And at the end of the class when we we were taking the desks from the circle and putting them back into the mandated and regimented rows (metaphor much?) three students shook my hand and told me to "keep fighting the good fight."

I will. 

Lots of moving parts to the prison education program currently, but I want to keep being involved. Surprisingly Big A, who usually supports everything I want to do, was a bit taken aback when I mentioned taking this on as an extra class and wondered if I might need to pace myself. 

(Also, I don't like shaking hands. If I resort to my heritage and start offering namastes instead--would that be rude?)

Pic: Spring is really coming! A sunshiny-bright patch of crocuses on the MSU campus.