Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts

Friday, February 10, 2023

winning

I got so much paperwork: forms, proposals, petitions, registrations, reminders, scheduling, ticketing, etc., etc., etc. done today.

This is not the kind of writing I enjoy...

And I'm freaking out a bit with how much more there is to do and all the deadlines that are creeping up. 

One deadline I'll need to fulfill this weekend is to write letters of recommendation for three wonderful students whom I'd nominated for an award... the same award. They all deserve to win it. I wish we had more awards to hand out instead of making all of them compete for one. (It would make my job much easier too.)

Kareem Abdul Jabbar's generous vision is what I want. In "What I think About LeBron Breaking my NBA Scoring Record, Jabbar says: "In the months leading up to LeBron breaking my record, so much was written about how I would feel on the day he sank that record-breaking shot that I had to laugh. I’d already written several times stating exactly how I felt so there really wasn’t much to speculate about. It’s as if I won a billion dollars in a lottery and 39 years later someone won two billion dollars. How would I feel? Grateful that I won and happy that the next person also won. His winning in no way affects my winning."

Pic: View from the Bogue St. Bridge with Big A.

 

happiness as a puzzle

your postcard from there--is happy you're not here 
morning has already withdrawn into itself  
this sun shines as cold as a moon
*
your news from the doctor is called "not happy"
decades grow like blessings on my body
I wish I could send them to you 
*
and somewhere, a grim chorus of earthquakes 
I'm overcome by measuring the ever afters  
without "happily" prefacing them

_______________________
(unrelated) Pic: Huckie being cute; Scout's somewhere under there too. 
Notes: Sending JG and MB off to Portugal, BS's diagnosis and treatment, 20K + people dead in Turkey, Sistrum chorus rehearsals yesterday, rainy-ass day today.

Monday, February 06, 2023

un-Monday

It felt a bit like I was playing hooky today. 

After I dropped Big A off at the train station and my precious Bluey car off at the dealership for battery updates, L picked me up and we headed to Ted Black Woods for a hike. It was beautiful but super icy, so I was glad L had brought trekking poles for us to use... they saved me from wiping out so many times and made me feel like an all-weather champ. I'm wondering if I should put trekking poles on my otherwise empty birthday list...

I was back by 10:30 to hold meetings and work online for the day, so I got some stuff done. But I did spend nearly two hours stressing that the courtesy shuttle wouldn't pick me up in time for me to pick up Nu and then panicking when it didn't, so there was wasted time. The driver who finally picked me up in the nick of time was third-generation Lebanese and I enjoyed our talk about diasporas. (I asked him about the audio book he'd turned off when I got in--books are such a passport to conversation!)

Back home things fell into dinner, kid time, and class prep mode, but it still feels like an atypical Monday and a bit unsettling. It's not helping that I can't stop humming Young the Giant's "The Walk Home" with its lonely heartbreak and its messy homage to the wind telephone.

Pic: L's sneak pic of me using her poles at Ted Black Woods.

 

Sunday, February 05, 2023

tall portents

trees make me feel small 
and immense all at once
each connecting me to all
--the rich darkness of roots

under my breath I'll call
for a spring into existence
from extinction in leaf fall
--secretly yearning to be lost 

_______________________

Pic: Baker Woods with Big A.
 

Saturday, February 04, 2023

a time for ice hockey



Into the woven silence--shouts
--like applause in the quiet 
of song just ended 

O these joyful, prayerful wars 
--ice in the curve of a river
smiles up at the sky






Pic: The Red Cedar is frozen solid; when we rounded the corner, MSU students were playing ice hockey on it.

Friday, February 03, 2023

and so we abide

I've so crossed so many rivers this day
some over and over as night falls 
clouds scattering like children 
to a preferred rendezvous 

with you I mark the present of now 
rippling like the joy shining 
from syllables of a song 
just half recalled

and above all, the shock of welcome 
the glacial startle of kindnesses
that engulf what I've become
on this other side 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Pic: Red Cedar River/Beal St. Bridge

Thursday, February 02, 2023

"I could have danced all night"

I woke up feeling so light and unburdened because of Big A's job moving back to Michigan. And I've been dancing on air all day.

Big A started doing the budget and has been very gloom and doom, but nothing will bring me down. Financially speaking, we were not where we're expected to be before, and we won't be there now... or for a long time--but those precise details won't really impinge on our daily life and happiness. 

Pic: Scout and Huck super excited to see Nu off at the school bus stop. I feel like this too (about the move back to MI, not the school bus).

Wednesday, February 01, 2023

"a good-good day"

We've had such a grey start to the year, so when I saw the sun come up this morning, it already felt like the start of a good day...

Then... I acted on my impulse (and the lovely Nicole's encouragement) and auditioned for Sistrum, the Lansing Women's Chorus today. I'm in! (I think they take everyone who wants to sing 🙂.) 

And then... Big A signed the contract with a Michigan-based hospital! It'll take him until the next academic year (July) to transition out of Medical College of Wisconsin, but he'll be back at home full-time after that! Huge pay-cut and all, I'm so ready for this!

Pic: Sunrise through our only eastern window. 

Sunday, January 29, 2023

"Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"



Hello, dear deer... I'm sorry there isn't a lot of tasty stuff outside right now, but I noticed you were grazing on something, and you're welcome to whatever you found.

Saturday, January 28, 2023

no balance

Morning: A long visit with the CASA kids I advocate for.

Evening: A long dinner with At, Nu, Scout, and Huck.

My heart sore from thinking about Tyre Nichols calling for his mother. 

My back sore from shoveling our long driveway free of snow. 


Thursday, January 26, 2023

winter #76519

winds search me head to toe
volant, a waterfall of sound
their coldness is everywhere 
but also--so patient with me 

I listen: they tell me everything
dumb once upon a winter time
so loudly, intending to alert all
my personal emergency systems
-------------------------------
Pic: The backyard from the upstairs landing. It almost looks like a black-and-white picture... except for the pillows that I always fail to bring in every year...

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

So Much Snow!

A neighboring school district had a snow day (they had a gun incident yesterday, so may have taken this as a reprieve) but Nu had school and so did I.

Lots of shoveling though. Big A was prepping for his grand rounds lecture tomorrow, so I did the honors (without the benefit of the snowblower as I've never learned how to work it). We have a really nice shovel that makes things easy, but I was nevertheless sweat-soaked by the time I finished. It was so satisfying to look up the driveway and see how neat my work was.

I'm currently reading two novels, and it's a bit weird. I'm almost done with the new Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead, (which is in itself a take on Dickens' David Copperfield) but I dipped into OM's The Dream Builders and couldn't put it down, so I'm about halfway through that too. I guess I was curious if there were any versions of me in OM's novel... Ever since I found what I thought was a reference to me in an Amit Chaudhuri, I've been curious/wary. I just reread that nearly 20-years-ago post and realize many Indian girls would probably fit that description.

Pic: Trellises with scoops of snow in the back garden.

Friday, January 20, 2023

road trip talk

words walk away; walk me back
tangling and untangling the past
I look to the sky; birds don't care--
they sing wordlessly anyway 

you look for proof, for guarantees
I have only sympathy, agreement--
we're now the rain's own drum beat
a storm announced on this journey 

but we're in charge of where we go,
when we stop--our talk is like a trip--
is that insight? It feels like a lightbulb
in the sudden pop of the sun overhead 

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

double bubble

The reflection of the graffiti doubled how colorful that patch of the bridge looked as L and I came around the bend, and it reminded me of Laura Gilpin's poem "Two-headed Calf." 

L hadn't heard of this amazing poem, so I found it on my phone and read it to her with my voice breaking at the end.

Then we finished up our walk and I headed into a day of meetings meetings meetings meetings.

And some good news from this week: two poems  accepted to an anthology of pandemic-era writing, and also accepted--an academic book proposal that the editor who wrote back characterized as "gentle and kind."

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

winter in two places

somewhere not here
someone I love finishes
a shift in the ER: 12 hours
in the dark, desperate hours 

over night... on his way home
dreaming of breakfast then bed
he nevertheless stops on the way
gently checks on someone else

huddled and sleeping in a doorway

way over here, I marvel at geese
standing on a layer of ice so thin 
it's almost barely a breath of frost
I watch as bit-by-bit the ice cracks 

and gives... and the geese settle 
into different spaces and poses
their refusal to panic at anything
to do with winter's fickle apparatus

my hunger, my yearning, are an infinity



Pic: geese (standing/sitting) on a very thin layer of ice. Red Cedar River. From Monday's walk with L.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Sunday (high) five

1) Another brilliant day--plenty of time outside with Nu, Scout, and Huck and a long walk with L. The next sunny day is a week away, so I was glad to have today. 

2) Dropped Big A off at the train station. Boo. Hiss. But really, the January schedule has been okay-ish so far. He'll be back in three days. I can handle it.

3) Completed Laura Vanderkam's time tracking challenge. I wasn't surprised to see it inconsistent except for the 5/5:30 am wake up, tea, and meditate; kids' breakfast and walk to the school bus on the weekdays; and family dinner time around 5:30 pm every day. Apart from those, things were very whimsical--I could be working, reading, goofing off, sleeping, or some combination of those at 1:00 am, and I guess I'm ok with that. Early mornings and late nights are times when it's just me, and I delight in that. No shame.

4) Lovely Sistrum concert this afternoon with LB. Some truly uplifting singing. Friends GJ and RS sing with Sistrum and love it; RS has been encouraging me to join as she thinks it would help me through some of the more life-y things happening right now. We'll see. 

5) At was so chuffed to find out from an older cousin that their grandfather in Sri Lanka was a socialist organizer--my baby labor organizer is going to want to talk about this all the time now, I just know. 😂🥰

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Happy Pongal!


SO glad the sun came out for Pongal today! 

I went out with a little offering for the sun and Scout and Huck-- good Hindu babies that they are--accompanied me. 

(Of my other babies: At was off camping with friends and Nu was taking a well deserved nap after working out with Big A this morning.) 

The last couple of years our Pongals have been heavy with snow.

Not today though.

Nice one, 2023!



Wednesday, January 11, 2023

a second day of sunshine this year

We're getting fancy in Lansing, MI
the day no longer seems some
element to overcome

the sun shines like it does on TV
skies turn from blank openings
to bliss in a blue abyss 

(tree shadows too have RSVP-ed 
to be on guard, fend off the look
of a picture postcard)

Pic: Second day of sunshine in Jan 2023. 

Monday, January 09, 2023

sitting pretty

The new term started today, so I got a walk with Big A in while it was still dark out. The pretty fairy lights in the MSU dining hall caught my eye and my camera caught the pink and blue sky above it. 

Little did I know that we'd get sunshine for the the FIRST TIME THIS YEAR later today. It was so lovely to see blue skies and sunlight. To our south, The Detroit Free Press started joking about it too: "Multiple locations across metro Detroit are detecting a bright, yellow, shining orb in the sky. We're working to confirm what exactly it is before it disappears." Good one, Freep!

Finalized the syllabuses and published the online material today. Contacted classes, independent study students, and the travel term. Did paperwork, finished up the last of the LORs, and the remaining journal review. Sent my apologies to an editor for work I won't be able to send him until later this week (hopefully). I think I've done all I can for the moment, but catch myself going over class materials obsessively... as always, I'm so excited/anxious for the first day (tomorrow).
 

Sunday, January 08, 2023

an ode to rest

How like a winter hath my absence been
so what if I've been busy with sleep
the machinery of the day lets me be
in a time of year filled with starting:
I am the weight of flowers on a grave 
I am the songs of stones grown older 
I am the circle spreading boldly in me 

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
I only have to close my eyes to find all--
fancy is longlegged, dashes fast and far
history recedes like a corridor of dreams
fades into quietness on each side of sleep 
dark, dawn become the same masquerade
so yes, my friend--begin the year with rest



Note: Stanza first lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 97 that begins:
"From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! 
What old December’s bareness every where! 
How like a winter hath my absence been..."

"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 St...