as I lay me down

in a land of too many addresses
I am always a visitor

in a time of too many goodbyes

I am always afraid 

sleep is my immense leap into time,

into self-addressed prayer 

in the small hours, who is not alone
my self-portrait asks 

_________

Note: I think I need another stanza or two here, but I'm going to go to sleep :). It's so, so, so late (past 4:00 am) and I have to leave at 7:00 to get to an 8:00 am meeting, so even without helping Nu with getting to school, my margin of sleep is running perilously low. This is my "self-addressed prayer" and the panicky calculus of my remaining waking minutes...

Pic: Sanford Woods in passing earlier this week.

can you hear me now?

(for Scout)

I used to whisper to you 

in Telugu

              so you'd know how love sounds   

              in all my languages

                                     saying yes, only yes, 

                                     so it falls like love

                                     yes to all tenderness

                                     which I... become 

              there's still the same world  

              with my changed life  

and somehow eternity 

seems an enemy

_____________________________

Pic: The salad Big A made to go with our tiny pizzas was so good! Shaved artichokes, fennel, grapefruit, and avocado in a lemon-dijon dressing. I don't think I've eaten a raw artichoke before? We decided marinated beans, more parmesan, and ground pepper would be good add-ons for next time. Nu won't be home for dinner this week because of the school play, and it's giving us a taste of how it might feel to be empty-nesters. Pretty cool, actually!

When I picked Nu up, they were holding hands with another theater kid and skipping all the way down the car line. It was adorable. This is so different from the faintly agoraphobic child of last year, and I'm so grateful.

Hall-UGH-ween

No costumes, no party, no decorations, and no trick-or-treaters this year. Boo! But I love everyone else's decorations and costumes and look forward to next year. 

Sweet: So... I have tons of candy left (even after handing lots out in class). There are just two houses on our street with kids (one of them is ours) and both sets of kids are too cool for trick-or-treating. I predict my stress eating will be sweeeet for weeeeks to come.

Sweeter: Heaving a sign of relief for the tentative end of the UAW strike; optimistic that the needle of public opinion is shifting towards a ceasefire in the middle east; thankful for completed extraneous correspondence (difficult student note, colleague's review letter, and students' recommendation letters).

Sweetest: Anticipating Max's delight when he encounters snow for the first time tonight/tomorrow.

Pic: The Red Cedar through the trees. (From Sunday's walk.)

I am a chump-ian

1) It's seasonably cold now (in the 40s), and I asked Nu to wear a jacket to school. They refused, but consented to wear one on their walk to the bus stop to mollify me... IF I would take it from them when the bus arrived and took it back home with me. So that's what I did. They don't have time to go their locker in the morning, and a jacket is a pain to carry around all day. I get it. But also, I felt like a bit of a chump. 

2) I wondered why Big A and I haven't been hiking as much after his job moved back to Michigan... until he sat down and showed me on our calendar: he's working SO many more shifts (Michigan pays way less than Wisconsin). Between that, whatever it is that is making him sick and lose weight, and travel--there just hasn't been time to hike. I feel like a chump for not being able to figure this out by myself.

3) Nu was gone all day (for school and theater) and I let Huck and Max greet them when I brought them home at 8. Max (who loves Nu SO MUCH) got so excited, he couldn't contain himself and there was pee all over the place. Yup, I am a chump; he's still such a puppy, I should have known better!

Pic: Our street was surprisingly colorful although it was so dark when Nu headed for the school bus.

Back!

Positive: Big A picked me up at the airport this morning and I am reunited with my people, puppies, and plants. I missed them! (The first day away was glorious though.) 

Negative: On Friday, I finally ID-ed why I was beginning to feel anxious in my hotel room--the last time I was at a conference (late March-early April), Scout had suddenly (or so it seemed) become very sick. The beige of hotel rooms will forever be a trigger to that horror.

Positive: I took a walk to say hello the river, and it looks like the new eastward bridge is open! I'm very excited for this. I'm saving this walk for when I can go with Big A or L.

Negative: Between being out of town on Big A's birthday weekend and this NWSA weekend, I've missed every Halloween gathering in our town--I should find a way to make class extra scary on Tuesday.

Pic: The bridge is open! The bridge is open!

conference reCAP

My panel yesterday went off well, I attended a ton of panels, got a ton of ideas to work into research or pedagogy, held elections, handed off my position as chair and its responsibilities, and yelled myself hoarse at in-room parties until late at night. 

I had to take another personal pause yesterday for a while, but this morning's plenary gave me hope and a new mantra. Lorgia García Peña brilliantly said, "There has to be peace for everyone; if only some people have it, that's not peace, that's privilege." I told her I was going to work that into a poem and she made me promise to send it to her.

I feel quite renewed intellectually and socially. It's amazing how many of these people I love although I only ever see them at conferences.

Pic: Taking the annual "madcap" picture with SR. We've been doing this for years now. I gave her a forehead kiss after she gave me the bracelet I'm wearing. I think we're yelling "feminist tigers" or something cheesy like that in the other pics.

small talk

the hours whisper: hurry, hurry 

deep in the day, as we wade in 

the news rippling like a rumor

in the safe normal of the world

what songs can we follow now

across borders certain to harm 

their traceless calm an unreality

their scenery silent... and empty

the willful trails worn into time 

still show in between... the wars

everyone wants the good stories 

of better worlds no one has seen

____________________________

Scott Long, a fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard, has uploaded his entire (1700+ volume) library on Israel-Palestine to the cloud. The link is here.  I was horrified midday that many of the Gazan accounts I had been following were now silent; no internet, no landlines, a complete communications blackout. 

Pic: Still at the conference; here's a little station that says "Give Solace Take Solace" and a ton of PostIts with messages on them. Mine is the blue note that says "Be Curious, Be Furious."

a new edition

We got Nu on the school bus at the crack of dawn and then Big A took me to the Detroit airport, which is an hour and a half away.

Another hour and half later, and I'm in Baltimore for the NWSA conference. I'm not co-organizing this year (although I did work on the review panel), and I'm looking forward to just having a great conference experience without the stress. So far I've attended five panels and had my mind blown by their creativity, language, and courage. Also: spotting or being spotted by people I know and lots of squealing and hugging.

On the shuttle to dinner, the guy who asked if it was ok to sit by us and was very interested in our work ("Women's Studies? I've been studying women a long time") and told us he was in town for an R&B show on Saturday turned out to be... Ronnie Devoe (of New Edition, Bell Biv Devoe). My dinner companions took a picture with him later.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Pic: A snip of sky just as we got to the airport. I love sunbeams.

forever takes forever

This is the place. This is the place.

the leaves are turning
yet the hinge at my neck refuses
to unhook our gazes
you simply remember rainbows 
echoes edging the rain 

and pause to wonder if this poem 

will be reply or elegy 

_______________________

Pic: An overcast sky, but the fall colors were simply brilliant in Bellaire. (From our weekend trip.) 

a personal pause

In retrospect, I was unraveling a bit last week. I found Chiconky's advice, in particular the bit about how, "You don't have to bear witness to everything to hold sacred what is happening" so incredibly comforting. That coupled with my need to focus on making sure Big A had the best 50th celebration I could give him really helped me pause the spiral.

So a personal pause. In the lead up to Big A's birthday, I also bypassed the whole navaratri business/busy-ness, and instead of a multi-day celebration where I dressed everyone in saris, we did nothing... and I missed all the visits to other people's golus because we were away this weekend. There's always next year!

And we usually decorate for Halloween in the week after Big A's birthday, but I think I might just skip it this year because I'm off to a conference in a couple of days (and I don't like looking at scary things anyway!).

Pic: Big A and I walked over to the Wharton for a David Sedaris reading and it was delightful. (The weather was such a balmy 72 degrees.)  It was a full house. I kept thinking how much Nicole enjoys Sedaris and wished she could have been there too! Sedaris is a terrific reader and my favorite bit was a new piece where Sedaris reworked a banal Chat GPT essay written in "his" style, amping up the banality and incongruity.

the big day

Big A slept a lot and I had meetings all day, but we regrouped in the evening to sift through messages from family and go out to dinner. 

There was a lot of merriment. 

When I mentioned at the end of dinner how much I'd enjoyed all the jokes and giggling, At said "when are we NOT joking and giggling when we're together?" That is true and it was gratifying to hear the grown up kid validate that.

And perhaps this can be a "take-home gift" to anyone who sees this post--here's Talia Lakshmi Kolluri's amazing short story "The Good Donkey" from her collection What We Fed to the Manticore. I posted a link to this story on family chat, but no one has read it yet.

Pic: Big A with Birthday "bling," birthday cake, and a birthday smile. I know he said no party, but that didn't mean I couldn't go to the party store to buy knick knacks and tiaras that say "golden age" for all of us.