"still life at the conference"

 

some more (travel)

Once more into the skies and on to D.C. where a long postponed conference-workshop awaits. 

Big A took me to the airport at 5 am, the plane took off at 6 am, and when I got to the hotel around 10 am-- they gave me a room right away.

Like me, it seemed everyone else too was grateful and eager for connection and collaboration after the pandemic hiatus, and people at our table lingered over half-full glasses of wine long after our formal welcome and orientation concluded. It turned out that one of the new people I met is an IRL friend of the fabulous Sarah from Harry Times. We were discussing academia and motherhood, and I had mentioned how seemingly effortlessly Sarah excels at parenting FIVE kids with an academic job and a spouse with a high-profile job--unsurprisingly perhaps, it appears there's only one of those 😀.

Speaking of kids--I haven't missed my kids since I kissed the human kids sleeping faces and the puppy kids furry faces at 4:30 am. 

[Pic: A nearly full moon at sunrise.]

"memory-keeping"

Ten days ago, photographer Danish Siddiqui was killed by the Taliban. I know people who don't know his name, but would recognize his images right away. What images! Siddiqui's image of the Rohingya woman keeps showing up in my dreams a lot lately (I've been rereading Sea of Poppies and I think my brain's conflating things). 

SV, who's quoted in this New Yorker article, calls his work "memory-keeping, at a time when we have lost our capacity to think or remember." Here are some other galleries of his work in remembrance. 

an ordinary happy

why not stay awake           

watch                                

today's felt blog post         

become                              

just yesterday's ghost        

to a moment, wonderful

right now

becoming extraordinary 

as memory

as witness, totem, story

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

Pic: Nu and At playing Super Smash Brothers, a game they acquired the weekend Big A and I were away in Seattle. They had so much fun pretending they were going to invite someone called "Smash" over to the house while I was gone, and I had so much fun pretending to be horrified by the idea. It was only later that I discovered that they didn't know I was pretending. "How did you even know it was a game?"--they asked. I don't know.

"How to Live in a Burning World Without Losing Your Mind"

Today I'm really feeling Liza Featherstone's essay in The New Republic: "How to Live in a Burning World Without Losing Your Mind."

"I’m in no condition to receive this news. I can’t tolerate more worry, death, sickness, sadness, or pain—more mothers and grandmothers dying, and maybe even less bearably, children.

I’m not alone.

We are in the middle of another wave of horrific climate news, but many of us are too traumatized to pay attention. The more loss and horror we’re facing in the rest of our lives—whether from the coronavirus and opioid pandemics, economic upheaval, or the ordinary awfulness of cancer and death—the less equipped we are to take it in."

holiness

can we begin with how 

reduced to sweetness

lists run through

an abecedary 

of wonder

a longing 

to recite how

we return tender

to summer's thirsts

hearts giant with shining

buddies

 

Spotlight on Huckleberry Amulya

(a.k.a Toyface and "mallalam" expert)

beyond

 

Family trip to Detroit today for the Beyond Van Gogh exhibition. It was trippy and magical.

The kids shared a Dr. Who episode featuring VVG, and perhaps that's why I found myself squeezing Big A's hand and tearing up in the immersive hall as all the beautiful brushstrokes began to swirl around me. 

like an old-fashioned riddle

I tally ego on the rosary of my body
count the worry beads of desire
sum my abacus of need

my small silence inside your eternity

my sky inside your horizon

is watching us recede

as I exchange thoughts for doubts

I wonder if you can hear them;

I think you'd concede 

that you pull me along, in undertow--

not caring for my suffering--

until you have me freed

building

A normal kind of day--normal chores, normal outings.

Went to check on the Arboretum's yearly peacock display with L before the rest of the family woke up. I love the purple spikes they've added to the begonias this year. 

And yes, it's syllabus building time again.

three in a row

Scout, Huck, and I hosted bookclub while Big A, At, and Nu did their own thing. I'd planned to have a garden party, but rain was in the forecast and mosquitoes were out in force, so I moved it indoors. And just like that we had our first indoors party since the pandemic started.

Here, Huck, Scout, and I (L to R) are spooning in blissed-out collapse after dinner.

[Pic by Nu, reflected in the glass door.]