island times

Off to San Juan Islands --> 

Friday Harbor --> 

Saltwater Farm. 

Day tripping to Cattlepoint, the lighthouse, lawn games, barbecue, dancing, laughing and snarking on cousins' old Chennai stories about 27D (bus # not Apt. #), cousins learning to play the parai, slideshows, baby cousins, laser-point astronomy demos, and chatting until I fell asleep on someone's couch... 

I have this seascape with the seagull on "loop" mode on my phone and know that I'll come back to this when I need a mental/emotional breather.

Meanwhile

Another day of catching up on the last year with fam, and so many I hadn't seen in years. S Auntie and I always end up reminiscing about when she babysat us and I always remember the pencil eraser she had that was shaped like a bulldog. 

Meanwhile back at home, Nu loved the Boss Day presents I packed for them before we left.

Loveliness

It has been magical. This gathering of happy faces and hugs... congratulations, commiserations, reminiscences, and sweet sillinesses. Turned out, seeing A+M getting married was the cure to my pandemic year.

So much group dancing practice, group dancing, dancing with Big A. Turns out I still remember all the words to the Spice Girls, and when the DJ slipped into Bohemian Rhapsody for a minute, Big A and I promptly decided... it was a slow dance. Ha. 

Travel

 I guess this is really happening and we're headed for A+M's wedding in Seattle after all. Big A was going to do whatever I wanted to... which made me feel even more pressure to vet every tiny detail and decision.

But here we are, about to take off, it's beautiful, and... I'm so excited.

"that's how the light gets in"

we're looking for someone

we haven't seen in... years

memories--folded, refolded,
stored safely like souvenirs

 

so when you reach across 

the table to take my hand 

I already know how you'll 

want to summon a heaven

so full of holes, we lost 

places, people, all we still

seek--yet our hands open 

to applaud how light leaks in 

Title: 

Leonard Cohen--"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

Rumi-- "Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

Pic: Official Michigan Covid vaccination sweepstakes website.

the wild taxonomies of family chat

"Baby deer," read Big A's title of his portrait of Hucky on the picnic table faking a height advantage. 

Not to be outdone, Nu (a.k.a The Chicken Daddy) titled a group picture of their growing chickies--"dogs."

in conclusion

beauty is an accident in the day
borrowed with permission

a cataclysm

we are ones feasting on leftovers

mouths wide with awe

and appetence

as skin tightens on our tired flesh

we find brilliant secret plots

of resurrection

This happened

We got our picnic after all...

Nu and I got At to smile by asking about Mark Fisher 🤣...

Look!

An emoji for people like me...

Big A went in to work early (extended Fourth schedule) and the human kids went to the DSA Pride potluck (rescheduled due to rain last weekend), so I hung out with the puppy kids, ate leftovers, and read all evening.

Accidental celebration protest, I guess? The more American history one learns, the harder it is to celebrate.

our times

I felt like I was in a real live Yelp review. 

I had just invited At to go to the farmers' market with me over breakfast. 

He turned to Nu and asked: "What's it like going to the farmers' market with mama these days?" 

Nu said (and I quote in full): "It's ok." 

At turned back to me and agreed to go.

Is that even one star? I mean...

turn, turn, turn

I carry my words across continents

with their accidents, impermanence

bees feverish in the heat of their sting

do things so sweetly distant from pain 

a bird cleans its beak on moss again

and I try not to scare them into flight

we're "ok;" alighting on what it takes 

to make the planet spin another day

[Pic: MSU Horticultural Garden; I love this bed, which seems so effortless.]