midwest represent

We had a visit from Engie today. Huck and Max *loved* her; Nu and Big A automatically looped her into the ribbing and silly jokes around the dinner table. Engie has the prettiest toes and sparkling quips and tried hard to get us to follow "dog" rules. I loved hanging out with her solo later and we took a long after-dinner walk to Beal Gardens before saying goodbye.

It felt like meeting a dear long-lost friend... it was meeting a dear long-lost friend although we'd never hung out in person before. I love all the ways we can connect in the world.

(Also, this is Engie's 20th year of blogging. I helped celebrate by writing a guest post on poetry a few months ago and forgot to log it here.)

Pic: Engie and me--our hand signs are supposed to rep the midwest (MW). Pic by Nu.

magic beach escape

heart full

belly full

all out of words

Pic: Sailboats at Ottawa Beach in Holland, MI with EM.
 

"I could have danced all night"

What...  What is this feeling? I can be counted on to find moments of joy, hope, gratitude--but a whole day of feeling like I'm floating on air? Of feeling smiley, dance-y, and happy? Not even being thoroughly drenched repeatedly while running errands could dampen my mood in the slightest.

I was so hoping for Tim Walz to be picked as Harris's veep, and could barely believe it when Big A texted to tell me. 

I've been a fan of Walz since last year when he signed universal free breakfast and lunch for all public school students into law in Minnesota (and to think I was paying attention to MN, only because bestie KB moved there, lol). This 48-second video was making the rounds, and I watched it like 15 times right away and sent it to multiple family and friend chats, because it's just so wholesome and joyous. The occasion itself is joyous of course--but I was also taken by how Walz, despite the photo-op nature of the moment, offers only respectful fist-bumps to the kids around him, until one kid offers him a hug... which he accepts... and then he is absolutely deluged by the other kids hugging him. Compare the tenor of this, for instance, with the meanness and despair in the picture of Sarah Huckabee Sanders repealing child labor protection laws in Arkansas. 

The Walz pick gives me so much hope that our politicians can be receptive and responsive to progressive demands. That we can have leaders who can just be normal about women, kids, LGBTQ kids, indigenous peoples, public schools... and understand their job is to serve people, to fix problems like poverty, prisons, homelessness...

Also: I won 20$$$ from the family betting pool for my pick. 

Pic: A quote from the Insta-poet Nikita Gill, which really helped me this week. It reads: Everything is on fire,/but everyone I love is doing beautiful things/and trying to make life worth living,/and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,/but I believe in that. 

long quote; short reflections

from James Baldwin's The Price of the Ticket

"One must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is. For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
_____________

it's how we'll always want it:
the mechanisms of the morning, the dynamics of the day, the tang of exhaustion
the branch whipping back in our face, the clefts weathered into the faces of trees
like the slight path overgrown into almost nothingness and meandering into forest
I don't know where we go

_____________

Pic: Morning tea in my happy place. I have some cherry tomatoes and chilies that I MUST pick now. They are literally rotting on the vine... I'm good at growing things, but overly cautious about harvesting.

Go, Fourth!

It's the fourth of the month and my Boss Day!

I think I've finally handled the zombie deadline thing, so that was my Boss Day present to myself. Big A got his waders on and climbed into the pond to do some final edging and rearranging with the rocks we'd dug up per my guidance--so that was Big A's Boss Day present to me. 

(I would have liked a long walk to round off the day, but we ran out of time, so the erg machine it was. But I still made time to soak and read for a bit.)

Then we ordered sushi and everyone was happy. 

Pic: Huck and Max (and Nu in the background) hanging out. Huck and Max are waiting to catch banana bites. They're off to the groomer this week, so this is a fuzzy pic before they go all sleek.

eat, watch, eat what you watch

We've had a ton of people to feed in the last two days including our own At whose Boss Day it was yesterday. There was a big and beautiful summer ratatouille (I hope it was made by a rat, EM said!). But Boss Day for At is more about the entertainment than the food though. So, At sat us down for a family viewing of Caché (excellent) and then we went to see Trap at the movies (fun). 

But back to the food. I'd offered to make Poori because a pregnant friend was craving them... although I'd never made them before. I read a ton of recipes and watched some YouTube videos, but somehow, when it was time to fry them up... Big A and AS seem to have taken over (Pic).

what is time

"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now."

100 years of James Baldwin. How everything he said still glimmers in my soul

300 days of the killing in Gaza. The grief and guilt of 186,000 people dead (and the many more missing, disabled, orphaned...)

A deadline that keeps coming back like a zombie

A lifetime of intentions in an unreasonable world

A lifeline of everything happy wrapped in possible sadness and vice versa

In the meantime, love shows up and we carry on
_______________
Pic: It was Nu's turn to bring the after-dinner fruit to the table and when they placed the wedges of watermelon with its Palestinian colors next to the "Against the MSU War Machine" zine we picked up at the protest, the juxtaposition was just begging to be photographed.

Herb + Scrap Garden

I have a crate of ripe tomatoes from the farmers' market on the floor of my pantry, and abundant cherry tomatoes in a container pot on the patio, but every morning I bounce out of bed to squint through the early morning glare on the windows to check if the tomatoes ripening in my veggie plot are still there. So far, so good! There are some absolute beauties that should be ready for us in a week or so.

In the meantime, the herbs I planted indoors while we were still snowbound back in March are doing alright too.  StephLove was 100% right that the basil wouldn't last--it didn't despite my care and all that sunlight. Neither did the parsley, but the other herbs I think of as my "Scarborough Fair" herbs--sage, rosemary, thyme, and bonus mint are doing great. 

At some point, I started tucking nubs of things I'd used up in the kitchen like swiss chard, romaine, green onions, leeks, and celery into those pots, and it has been so cheery to see them sprouting all over again. I used the onions, chard, and romaine to up the green quotient in our dinner today.

Pic: Herbs and scraps growing. Also in the frame (bottom right) my very leafy but blossomlessfree jasmine.

you may have heard

I dreamt of death on this brilliant day
the smudge of a cloud in my eye
at this ordinary catastrophe 

it could set my people free from care
it has taken me years to see this

is a love song, a love song

to the day dissolving in sympathy
 to forgetting how you love me 

by keeping the world a secret

___________________________ 

Pic: This funny fellow in the grass kept me company this afternoon.

soundtrack of loss

I want to watch the Baz Lurhmann Romeo and Juliet with Nu and have been playing that brilliant (not sure how much nostalgia has to do with my appraisal) soundtrack album hoping it will pique Nu's interest.  

What I did not expect was to hear these (SILLY) lines I've heard a zillion (slight exaggeration) times before in "Lovefool" (the "love me, love me, say that you love me" song) differently: "Lately I have desperately pondered/spent my nights awake and I wonder/what I could have done in another way/to make you stay." And immediately think of Scout. Wow, death is so final, there's nothing to do but rage and cry. 

People in the family have been teasing me (gently) because of other random songs on the radio that have made me feel they were about Scout. I guess technically many of these are about lovers, but ultimately, they're about any beloved. Here's a partial list: *Stina Nordenstam "Little Star" *K.C. and the Sunshine Band "Please Don't Go" *Phoebe Bridgers "Funeral" *Paramore "The Only Exception" *Diana Krall "Feels Like Home" *Cher "If I Could Turn Back Time" *One Republic "Come Home" *Coldplay "The Scientist" *Jessie Ware "Meet Me in the Middle" *Cyndi Lauper "Time After Time" *Janet Jackson "Together Again" *Mariah Carey "One Sweet Day" *Arianna Grande "One Last Time"  *Selena Gomez "Back to You" *Foo Fighters "Walking After You" *Matchbox 20 "If You're Gone" *Arctic Monkeys "Do I Wanna Know" 

I also listened to the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra and Aditya Hrudayam on repeat in the early days of loss and cannot hear them now without feeling bereavement. I guess I'm good at taking any song and making it about me. Ha.

______________________

Pic: Max and Huck DO NOT WANT Big A to leave for work. 

someday...

I've loved the beach since I was a kid. The beach (especially if I'm there with people I love) is always my happy place.  

That's something Big A knows. For instance, when we had to queue up an hour early for good seats on the cruise on Saturday, he remarked that I didn't seem to mind because I just watched the waves the whole time. No phone or book, he marveled.

So as we drove over the Mackinaw Bridge, Big A was daydreaming about getting a cabin on the lake someday so I could watch the waves all day. It would have to be a tiny plot and all we'd put in would be one great room with a screened-in porch. I realized the screened-in porch would be for A who doesn't enjoy the beach and sun as much as I do--so basically, a way for him to be with me as I do something I love. 

Love is a true blessing. 

Pic: Beautiful Lake Superior from the car window as we left the Upper Peninsula yesterday. I still yearn for the ocean some days, but the Great Lakes and the "third coast" have really grown on me.