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.

"cherry blossoms fill the air"*

It rained all day, but both our cherry trees are in bloom--overnight and within a day of each other.

But At was home for dinner and Big A leaves tomorrow for MKE, so I took the annual cherry blossom family picture today. 

This is weeks earlier than any other year I can remember. 

Temps had dropped thirty degrees over the course of the day (from 75-35 degrees), and Nu urged me to hurry up with the pictures because they were cold.

I was worried about the tiny sprints Scout broke into a couple of times (the doc has advised against running). But At said something that made me think--"imagine how happy he must be that he feels he can run again." 💗

Pic: Scout, At, Nu, Big A, and Huck between the cherry trees.

*Title: from a song At used to sing to Nu while they were in my belly. Video version here. 

down

Woke up to see these two huge trees down. The backyard is about 75-100 feet in width and these trees are all of that and more. 

I was grateful that they seemed to have missed stuff that was important to me: my people, the house, the picnic table my parents gave us when the kids were small, the dogwood tree my friends gave me for a birthday, and so on. But the tree fall took the pink cherry blossom tree out, sadly. 

Other than that, no lasting damage, but it is terrifying to think what might have happened if the trees had fallen across the house. The trees are not ours--they belong to a neighboring church. I wrote the church's people again, urging them to get a tree survey and prune/cut as necessary before something horrific happens. 

Every day when I take Max out in the morning, I go by Scout's memorial and sound the wind chimes. I was blocked on both sides by these trees this morning, and couldn't reach Scout's memorial--that was when everything began to hit me.

Pic: Two trees lying across the backyard. I took this picture in the early morning light and from a second floor window, so the size and scale of the damage are a bit off.

a handful of summer things

It feels like I just got home from a fun family beach vacation on Cape Cod because I just finished Catherine Newman's Sandwich. I'd picked it up on Nicole's recommendation. Actually, the whole novel felt like it was being narrated by Nicole with that characteristic sense of warmth, humor, personal history, and integrity. I snorted and chuckled and laughed out loud so much while reading this on the cloud reader, that everyone knew I wasn't working on my laptop. Also: Was there a character called Maya? (Yes, there was.) Was she the same age, and at the same stage in her PhD, as when I used to go up to Truro for a week every summer as a guest of a dear friend's family? (Yes, she was.) 

And inspired by something Jenny did a couple of weeks back, I treated myself to a trip to the bookstore. I browsed and browsed but didn't buy anything although I still have my birthday bookstore money to spend.

Also: I got a massage after months off.  Wonderful R, who used to make house calls, has moved away. I had bought myself some massage gift certs around the holidays, but the person was flaky about scheduling and then sent a group text that they couldn't honor the certs because they had been diagnosed with cancer. (They're being sued by a bunch of people who say they have proof this is a ploy. But I keep thinking what if they really do have cancer--how shitty would that be to have to fight these BBB claims while also fighting cancer and being impoverished by having to pay for treatments under our horrible healthcare system?) Anyway, I'd already spent half a year's budget on massages, so I had to wait until now. I got an acupressure session today, and it feels hurts so good right now.

Pic: Eating my colors. This is the poké bowl I made for Big A's Boss Day: Miso rice, shaved sprouts, grated carrots, chopped cucumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, mango, and tiny peppers + broiled salmon/tofu. I was going to add arugula before plating, but I forgot.

Plants (they're also what's for dinner)

Everything is coming up! Daffodils and pansies here, and cherry blossom, roses, and honeysuckle elsewhere--being outside is an olfactory treat this week. It's also getting to that point in the year when I'm in danger of spending more on plants than food at the supermarket.

A vat of spring-y green soup for dinner--used up most of the fennel, celery, bok choy, cilantro, and curly kale + cannellini beans, a dash of parm, and lemon zest. It was ok, I'm not likely to recreate this again--my choices were dictated by what was in the veggie box and needed to be consumed. 

In classes I sometimes like to ask when the last time people learned something and changed their mind was. For me, it was yesterday when CJ posted this Dr. Sarah Taber Twitter thread from a couple of years ago. The Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market boxes have felt like extra work lately; learning how I'm not really "saving" anything gave me permission to cut the cord there. At the height of the pandemic--MI is doing so badly, so I guess I mean at the height of the pandemic panic--it was a comfort to have these delivered, so I say goodbye with gratitude.

long quote; short reflections

from James Baldwin's The Price of the Ticket

"One must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is. For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
_____________

it's how we'll always want it:
the mechanisms of the morning, the dynamics of the day, the tang of exhaustion
the branch whipping back in our face, the clefts weathered into the faces of trees
like the slight path overgrown into almost nothingness and meandering into forest
I don't know where we go

_____________

Pic: Morning tea in my happy place. I have some cherry tomatoes and chilies that I MUST pick now. They are literally rotting on the vine... I'm good at growing things, but overly cautious about harvesting.

so close

I dreamed these walls  myself

my body punished by my will

triumphant, exalted, indelible

returning excuses to their core

other words are still wondering

on  pages or screens--no  matter

my meaning sputters on oblique

margins, vanishing on the shore

*

Pic: Cherries are almost ripe for plucking! I plucked a few today anyway because between the birds and the squirrels, waiting until they're really ripe might mean no cherries at all. There's plenty to go around, after all. (Why are the little creatures so wasteful though? It's like they take one peck/nibble and then it's on to the next cherry.)

Cherry Blossoms/Sakura

At used to sing a song he'd learned at school 

to Nu while she was in my belly

I like to think she perked up at the song 

when he sang it to her in the outside world

Plot Twist: When A and I attended the concert 

where the song was sung...

It sounded *nothing* like what 

we heard at home :D 

_

show and tell

L is back! L is back! But just for 24 hours. She's leaving again tomorrow, headed west and then south for weddings and what she's calling a "birthday for the masses."

L has been gone for a month, and we've missed each other dearly. It was good to spend some time early this morning bringing each other up to date on all the things we'd been saving to share. And while we didn't go on one of our legendary hikes, as her leg isn't feeling normal yet, we made it to the Radiology Gardens. 

People in other parts of the country have been posting crocuses, daffodils, and cherry blossoms... nothing's coming up here except maybe hellebores. We're not there yet, but I can sense Spring, and am so excited for it. 

Later in the day, At invited me to the Starbucks down the street... to protest... as they were having a "sip-in." But I couldn't go this time. And then At and Nu went to see Lynn Nottage's Sweat at the Wharton. I would have liked to go with them, but no one asked me. Whomp-whomp. Also, I had a meeting. Whomp-whomp-whomp.

Pic: Aconites and snowdrops under a bare Linden tree. MSU Radiology Gardens.

Breath Song

Your breath's so imprecise in meaning
I can barely make sense as it swells
like lichen or love, the secrets it tells 

in its hard-earned and happy prison

Drawn between its vague borders

I learn by tracing the link of veins--

times, tie them to how you hold me 

sweet/safe for a heart-beat/a life-time 

[Picture from my perch where I was reading in the afternoon sun; wearing a faded, stained--but still favorited--summer blouse; marveling how the cherry blossoms are here practically overnight.]

Herb + Scrap Garden

I have a crate of ripe tomatoes from the farmers' market on the floor of my pantry, and abundant cherry tomatoes in a container pot on the patio, but every morning I bounce out of bed to squint through the early morning glare on the windows to check if the tomatoes ripening in my veggie plot are still there. So far, so good! There are some absolute beauties that should be ready for us in a week or so.

In the meantime, the herbs I planted indoors while we were still snowbound back in March are doing alright too.  StephLove was 100% right that the basil wouldn't last--it didn't despite my care and all that sunlight. Neither did the parsley, but the other herbs I think of as my "Scarborough Fair" herbs--sage, rosemary, thyme, and bonus mint are doing great. 

At some point, I started tucking nubs of things I'd used up in the kitchen like swiss chard, romaine, green onions, leeks, and celery into those pots, and it has been so cheery to see them sprouting all over again. I used the onions, chard, and romaine to up the green quotient in our dinner today.

Pic: Herbs and scraps growing. Also in the frame (bottom right) my very leafy but blossomlessfree jasmine.

reading between the flowers

I think teenager Cass makes a terrific point in The Bee Sting when she is irritated with the ubiquitous nature themes in poetry: “You go to class and discuss famous poems. The poems are full of swans, gorse, blackberries, leopards, elderflowers, mountains, orchards, moonlight, wolves, nightingales, cherry blossoms, bog oak, lily-pads, honeybees. Even the brand-new ones are jam-packed with nature. It’s like the poets are not living in the same world as you. You put up your hand and say isn’t it weird that poets just keep going around noticing nature and not ever noticing that nature is shrinking? To read these poems you would think the world was as full of nature as it ever was even though in the last forty years so many animals and habitats have been wiped out. How come they don’t notice that? How come they don’t notice everything that’s been annihilated? If they’re so into noticing things? I look around and all I see is the world being ruined. If poems were true they’d just be about walking through a giant graveyard or a garbage dump. The only place you find nature is in poems, it’s total bullshit." 

And I think of the message Mohamed Hussein in Gaza put out this morning: "This flower has bloomed next to my tent as if to tell me not to lose hope, that tomorrow the war will end, and everything will become beautiful. Life will surely blossom again."

And I think that's why. That's the answer to Cass. Hope enters our lives and stays as long there is a single bloom.

Pic: These flowers have bloomed next to our house as if to tell me...

"even doves have pride"

First business appointment today was Zoom court, where JL's PPO (personal protection order) against their stalker ex was upheld and extended. Abusers are really their own worst enemies--the judge was visibly deprecating of his disrespect and narcissism (I was too). 

Some committee work + paperwork + unfinished business... Then a lovely, supportive, mentoring all-women meeting. We're opening up the previously faculty-only group to staff and admin; I want to get athletics, facilities/janitorial, and our catering staff involved too!

A kind shoutout from Mel at Stirrup Queens, a heads-up that an old poem had been published in The Scriblerus Spring Issue, and a Google scholar alert about an essay that was picked for an anthology and is now in print round off the writing updates for the week. 

____________________________

Pic: Two weeks or so ago, our cherry blossoms at their peak.

Full Fam

I felt nearly 100% today, and I had no fever at any point in the last three days, so we've decided that I'm safe to be around the kids. A lot of this sounds arbitrary, panicky, impulsive--and it is all of those things. In the absence of an accessible test, I don't know what more I can expect of myself.

Something I realized while I was confined to the bedroom this weekend is how lucky we are to be able to quarantine Big A comfortably with his own bed, bath, workspace, and mini kitchen setup so he's not too cramped and can grab drinks and snacks when he feels like it. An extra aspect of weekend sickness-suckiness for me was having to ask for things to be brought to me and that felt like a lot to ask the two human kids who had to deal with their own schoolwork, meals, and pandemic issues. I love how cute and funny they were quasi-faking toddler-level neediness by showing up and piteously asking "cuddle?" now and then.

Anyway--it's still cold and drizzly, but here's a picture of all my loves, reasonably distanced. (Bonus: both cherry trees are close to full blossom above them.) Their kind expressions make it clear they're humoring me because I wanted a picture of everyone before we sent Big A off to NYC on Thursday.

NYC. On Thursday. 

oh, snap(shot)

Pic: I am well-loved tonight. Max and Huck are "hugging" me. 

Earlier this day, I tried to take a cherry blossom family pic outside, but the recent storms had already brought all the white blossoms down and our pink tree and Scout are, of course, missing.

But also: Nu built a bench to go by the new pond, Big A spent hours trenching (finally acceding) to my specifications, At stopped by for dinner--all shiny and dressed up--just as I took the pot of rice off the stove. Watching the kids clear up after dinner, their clearing-up choreography still aligned so seamlessly, reminded me of all the golden years we've had as a family.  

I'm grateful for these days of small kindnesses and great love.

the terrible two-year anniversary

Today marks two years since we said good bye to Scout. 

I continue. 

The pain isn't as crushing as it was, but it persists. 

Most days, the hashtag #ScoutDay makes it to my posts because it was day that I missed him. 

Yesterday, I left trivia night in tears--not because we came in second (ha), but because the bar kept flashing a picture of a puppy who looked so much like Scout on their screen. 

Scout started popping up in our conversations and dreams even more than usual earlier this month--even before I made the calendar connection. I was amazed how our souls seemed to know this anniversary was coming up even before our minds figured it out.

Scout was certainly my once-in-a-lifetime "soul puppy." I'm so lucky to have had ten years with him... I wish every day it could have been longer.

He was the boy with the blaze.

I'm glad we got that final picture with the cherry blossoms.

I wish I could find a home for this poem about him. 

I love this early picture of him.

I'm glad he had a the best last day we could give him.

Goodbye my sweet Scout Akshaya. 

Pic: Scout and me on a Christmas trip to Ohio. He was always up for a selfie... or anything, as long as we were together.

well

I was racing like a reverse Cinderella to the sound of the bells striking the hour down the steps into the building yesterday. I would have preferred to stay home and mope, but I was due in court for the new CASA case. I was a bit slow leaving, but I got there just in the nick of time.

As it turned out it was a good thing. Although the case itself is sad, seeing all the people fighting to keep children protected was perhaps what I needed to see. 

There was a new prosecuting attorney, who, young as they seemed to be, knew how to ask the precise questions to redirect testimony back to the notable points. The doctor patiently giving expert evidence about about bones healing, made a nerdy comparison to Gothic arches. The judge always makes sure that everyone understands the legal procedure, providing summaries and outlines to help. 

There are many things wrong with our society, of course, but also so many reminders that so many are doing their best. There are such deep pockets of goodness and wellness in our society. 

Pic: Cherry blossom in full bloom. Beal Gardens w/ Lisa and Jeanie 4/22.

moment of zen

Both our cherry trees are blossoming and I wanted to get a picture with the fam under them--like I usually do.

As it turns out, Big A is the only one dutifully posing for me this year.

If he's smiling somewhat smugly in this picture, it's probably because he's thinking of what he said to me this afternoon. He asked me where I'd been and then answered his own question. "Most people," (he said) "would assume you'd had some torrid affair because your hair's all messy and you look glassy-eyed and blissed out, but I'm going to guess you got a massage." 

He was right.

 

reflection

Just scraps of cherry blossom petals; dead leaves; dank water; my bundled-up, masked, shadowy reflection...

Somehow, I love these colors and shapes together.

[MSU Horticultural Gardens]

cherry picking

I mean Nu is literally picking cherries here 🤗. Between the squirrels and the rain, we didn't get any cherries last year, so Nu decided he'd get in there even as our cherries are just beginning to turn pinkish. 

And... Nu got offered the job he interviewed for at the mall yesterday! He says he was interviewed by two "older ladies" (this was defined for me as "20s or 30s" LOLOLOL) with "great energy." He'll start in July. He's so chuffed that he landed his first job interview ever. 

In other child-related news, in an unexpected development, I'm experiencing a sense of calm post At's car accident now that he's taking the bus everywhere. I didn't realize before how much his driving and his driving while brown status weighed on me. 

I'm about 70% packed for my trip to LA tomorrow. I'm gone for just two nights and Big A is fully capable (and better equipped by training) to take care of convalescing Nu, give Scout his meds, etc. but it still feels weird to leave. I'm ostensibly headed to my cousin's wedding--earlier than planned since the date has been changed due to a cancer diagnosis in the family. That sadness--and the superficial stress of making sure I remember the zillion things I need for my saris--are on my mind. I suspect my cousins and I will revert to being our silly childhood selves when we actually see each other.