"look for the helpers"

 I had so much help yesterday:

from the scummy

Nu skimming off pond scum

to the yummy 

At making a strawberry, arugula, feta salad

unpronounceable

I have taken these photos

no one will be looking at  
I have repeated my sights
until emptied of meaning

each one special as a child:
emotions--a trembling skin 
old memories--pause at will, 

a flip-book I cannot control

I have buried the bad sounds,

you can't say them anymore

soon I will be lost, exploring,

then unravel love for myself

I can announce to strangers

that I survived, can say I am

renewed, though I still carry  

this ventriloquist's act of you

Jig

Seaplane back to Seattle today.

I got to play copilot too.

Play copilot--I didn't actually touch any of the controls... 

I guess that had a lot to do with how I made it to Seattle, then to Detroit, and finally home today.

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 🤣...