"full hearts, can't lose"

Dinner party at our place this evening. My standing 2:00 pm EPC meeting got canceled, so I happily cooked from 1:30 to 6:00. I made too much food as usual, but was able to send people home with take home boxes. 

Lovely people, terrific conversations, and a happy evening. Nu had requested that they be excused as soon as they'd eaten, but they stayed at the table all evening because they were enjoying themselves. (I guess we teachers know how to talk to young people!)

Pic: Taken by VV, in whose honor this gathering was. While I'm posting just a screenshot here for other people's privacy, everyone looks lovely in it. (Except me--in black at the head of the table with Big A--I was saying "wow" and look hilarious. Ha.) 

how they grow

My heart grows full. I feel really connected to my classes (ahead of schedule even... usually it's around midterm before I announce how much I love my students to the fam). 

An old student announced a major career win on FB, and when I added my congratulations, they thanked me and commented, "your courses and kindness did a lot to shape my goals." That felt so wonderfully validating to hear--a reminder of good things I did in the past and hopefully will again. Also because when I think of this student one of the first things I remember is their kindness and brilliance. 

Pic: Max after he treed a squirrel (Kylo, I think). And just like that (IYKYK), Max looks like a big kid. There's still some puppy in his eyes and that infantilizing (yellow with polka dots!) harness Big A got him, but mostly grown up. 

an unfolding

I have been dreaming of people
invisible mountains I exhaled 

into existing

twisting, quickening and though 

short-lived as grass, are seeds 

spiraling in space

are tendrils--of time and desire

opening and expanding

nodding, knowing

a  presence  here to make up for

an absence there, everywhere

the whims of distance 

I... wonder at the un-being before, 

after--the gasp of busy-ness now

marks how life slips by 

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Note: I did not expect when I started writing that in writing about the space we occupy, I would slip into--and invoke--ideas of galaxies. I think some of this came from dreaming last night--vividly--of people who were important for a season but I may never see again. And I miss Scout so much... my irrational search for him certainly spans every interpretation of "heavens."

Pic: I found this perfect and early autumnal tree in the grocery store parking lot!

"as bright as ten million suns"*

Ganesha Chaturthi today (basically, Ganesha's birthday)! I'm not super religious, but I do find joy, peace, and solace in celebrating the rituals I was raised with.

It was a teaching day, so I moved pooja until after work. I always fast on Ganesh Chaturthi until I can break my fast with the pooja offering, so it did mean that I fasted all day. It was extra interesting because I brought pumpkin cake and almond pastries to work to celebrate. 

But I survived hunger (and temptation), came home, made dinner, made a prasad-and-fruit-plate for pooja, had a peaceful pooja, and a nice dinner (and later cuddle) with the fam. 

#AdventuresInPracticingAMinorityReligion. There's a new Michigan bill that would make more minority religious holidays official state holidays. I appreciate how considerate that is, but also, the religious observances in Hinduism are so numerous, I doubt it it'll make more than a dent. Ha.

* Title: I love the sloka that compares the brightness of this god of beginnings to "ten million suns."

Pic: Huck and Max planning to take naps on me. (And yes, we got a third couch for the rumpus room so we can all sprawl a little more.)

bridges

L told me they were building a bike and walking path along the river away from MSU and across from their house at the beginning of the summer. 

And I've loved watching the various little earthmovers and pavers work on this project for a while. 

It's been mostly done for a while now except for the bridge... and this week Big A and I noticed that they have a bridge ready to go. It looks like all they have to do is use that big red crane to position the bridge to span the river. 

Also: It occurred to me yesterday that not spending as much time with L as I usually do (our individual travel plans and illness patterns and work schedules have been bonkers) may also be impacting my sense of wellbeing...  L is the absolute best.

Pic: Construction on the east Red Cedar riverwalk project underway.

Why now?!

"Why now?!?" I asked BOL on our walk. Last year this time: Big A was working far away from home; Nu was in a difficult place; and I was trying to manage it all. My sadness would have made more sense then. I have to say I feel a bit blindsided and bewildered that I feel sad now. 

BOL said I was probably too busy putting out fires to let myself feel my feelings last year, and that they're coming to the fore precisely because I have some breathing room now. That immediately made so much sense to me, I told them they should be a counsellor or something. (They are a counsellor; so we laughed about that.)

Pic: Baker Woods with BSL this afternoon.

kindling

I needed something. I can't be Mx. Congeniality at work, earth + den mother at home and then all mopey all the time on my own time. 

So as of today I have a new book (Zadie Smith's The Fraud), a new show (Sweet, Kaaram, Coffee), and a new language on DuoLingo (French, which I took last in high school) to help me reset my spate of mopey days. 

Big A is taking a pre-work nap after our lovely meal with AH and SD and Nu is off to movie night at a friend's. I have the house to myself for the first time in what seems forever to cuddle with Huck and Max and kindle something new to get me out of my rut. 

Pic: Max + the firewood and kindling we got out of the two trees that fell into our backyard in last month's storm. When life gives you downed trees, make firewood... or something like that.

"Eventually everything happens"*

 on TV ads                                                       on TV shows

death is always a side effect                            death is always a side effect 

of every medication                                        in every condition of life

                                                

I might as well spin worlds like cocoons

shortcuts are the milestones

the void is the vision 

and I may have grown out of summer

I may have finally grown up

in a leap of breath

I say my name like it's a memory

eventually everything happens

eventually it is time

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* I took the title from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "eventually everything happens..." But I can't find the full quote right now. I'm not at my best and might be doing quite badly... I wonder if people can tell. Like I left the trunk of my car open in the parking lot until a colleague friend texted me, didn't hear back (I was in class), and just decided to shut it for me. I keep leaving my phone/bag/laptop in classrooms and people kindly bring them to me. I win, as I was telling SD, at "the spaciness" right now. 

inexhaustible

dizzy with composition
but otherwise ordinary

                                         the body buds 
                                        just like a fist

history may recede or 

burst--busy with horror
                                       how could I trust

                                       its cold epilogue

to welcome me like kin
or to drag my silences in 

alternate endings

I've heard living can change you

not living is like a group project 
where you are just a small name 

defeat meets grief, and they feast
on the dark seated in your mouth

and in the phones you yell into

in languages you always lip-sync

to arguments whose timelines 

sit six feet under the future 

I bet I could dream better than this

I could get to know myself

I could know I was safe 

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Pic: Calendula? Cone flowers? By MSU Beal Gardens. Nice story on the 150th anniversary of Beal Gardens today on the radio. 

the things we (don't) carry

1) This morning as I was getting ready for work, my eyebrow piercing tinkled onto the bathroom counter. I instantly realized what it was and I felt such a profound sense of... relief. There was no mistaking it. It was relief. I got bilateral eyebrow piercings just about a year ago and went down to one about six months ago. I liked my piercing, and I thought it made me look and feel tougher. I'd wanted to get one since about 1997, so I'm glad I finally got to try it. Absolutely no regrets. But I don't think I'm putting it back in.

2) Max had his neutering surgery yesterday. I know it's the right and responsible thing to do and all that. But at the same time it feels like we made a decision for him and that part makes me uncomfortable. My very irreverent kids were making jokes about "twin balls" and yesterday's date--that also made me uncomfortable.

3) I have a wardrobe overfull of decades of clothes I could technically wear, but rarely do. And I never seem to have time to devote to a proper cull.  What has been working for me is to fill one donation bag every day. I just walk around shopping in my closet for stuff I think someone else might like and I'm finally freeing up some space (and sometimes rediscovering long ago favorites). 

4) It feels like I carry sadness--it's like a barrel my arms barely meet around--with me lately, and I wish I could put it on the things-not-to-carry list as well. Some of it is missing Scout and some of it is generalized worry about the other kids, my parents, deadlines, global poverty, the climate crisis, our finances, and so on and so on. But mostly it feels inexplicable, incessant... and exhausting.

Pic: JN's "giant vagina." JN made this when Michigan rep. Lisa Brown and then Senator Gretchen Whitmer performed The Vagina Monologues on the state capitol steps after Brown was barred from speaking in the senate because she had referenced her vagina. JN's sign had been hanging in the lobby of the local Planned Parenthood, but is now back with JN and is her latest piece of lawn art. We toasted to it this past weekend.