Peace Out

It was a peace-keeping kind of day around here: mediating between people who hadn't done their homework, people who'd fallen behind on housework, tracking down errant dishes (Scout and Nu, and At), errant books (At, Big A, Nu) providing emotional support for assorted causes from grad school apps to DnD character building, and trying to fake an interest in topics like conspiracy theories and eye boogers, etc.

Thankfully, my flu-shot site doesn't hurt so much anymore and I made some progress with work and teaching projects + got things arranged around the house in preparation for the crush of the oncoming weeks as term gets going. Excited! Anxious! 

Threnody

Waking in a labyrinth

with the outline of a lie

around us the dark blossoms

clinging like skin 

hidden in sight like the dark

set aside like a dementing task

hurrying to meet our dark 

corners of darkness--passion-

perversion--spill into you and me

returning to the dead lamp

you are furious as a rakshasa 

engorged, incoherent as sirens 

I'm as possessed as a pisasu

who possesses only you, and 

can die for it. Or live. Or shriek.

Every day seems an apocalypse

for L.B.

Every day seems an apocalypse

clouds plant their borders in beds,

these immense struggles go by 

*

In the harvest, the friend is a forest,

the friend who walks into the snow

measures beauty yawning in mud

*

Gathers our indecisions into words,  

into seeds, reimagining the drought 

of tongues, scattering in floods of fear

*

Here is apotheosis--we can lie down and 

not die, we can let ourselves be carried 

away by love, becoming transformed by it.

_______________________________________________

"what didn’t you do to bury me/  but you forgot that I was a seed" Dinos Christianopoulos

“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.”  Protest slogan in support of the Ayotzinapa 43 /Families Belong Together. 

Wednesday's Insanity

What an extraordinary day. Woke up to news of Georgia electing Rev. Warnock (John Lewis' pastor) and Ossoff (a sometime John Lewis intern) to the senate. Breakfast felt like an upbeat celebration. In hindsight, I wish we'd had more time to sit with this moment.

At 3:00, Nu was on their daily online-school-accountability call with Grandma S, and were told that they really should go watch the news. So we did. Watching the storming of capitol buildings by white supremacists was surreal, frustrating, and infuriating. Activists from ADAPT and BLM certainly did not get the 'I'll open the gates, hold your hand going down the stairs, and take selfies with you' treatment from the police. 

By 4:00, I was in a meeting with one of the finance guys at work who wasn't interested in the news and kept referring to higher ed as "our industry." I can't help thinking this kind of obliviousness and corporatization contributed to the mess we're in.

Tuesday Communiqué

Let this unremarkable picture mark that I ventured outdoors. It was a cold, cold walk in the snow and wind with L; I would have demurred, but L will be up north with T, so this was my only chance for some time with her for the next week.

Off the top of my head, I do feel on the brink with: the inexorable pandemic, all the feelings uncovered by the Tommy Raskin tribute, the impending crush of work, and my lack of control over any of this.

Surprisingly, I was offered the Pfizer vaccine today--not because of teaching but because of my child advocacy gig; I said yes.

Monday Memoir

I saw the cutest snowperson when I ambled over to L's house earlier today! Their bangs are like mine, but even that detail couldn't detract from their quintessential cuteness.

Nu's back in (virtual) school today, so everyone is back to waking early so we can have breakfast together and build each other up... apparently, we do this with cuddles, and riddles, and jokes, and teasing putdowns.

Speaking of school... I miss my students. There're lots of meetings starting Wednesday and I started today by writing to every one of my advisees. It's re-entry time for all of us although classes won't start until after MLK Day.

Speaking of days... It's my Boss Day! My dinner pick was poke, which we made together; my entertainment pick was Veep... again!

After everyone headed off to their rooms, I found the tribute Rep. Raskins and his spouse wrote for their child Tommy and I weep to think that someone who brought so much joy and goodness to people didn't feel enough of it themselves. 

(Related: I think of Aaron Swartz frequently. Sometimes I think about them multiple times a week--especially when my students are doing internet research. I resent that I was introduced to Aaron Swartz through his obituary--it's a particularly downhearted way to learn about an extraordinary person. I thought I'd written about this before, but a quick search revealed nothing.)

Notes from the Weekend

• Here are At and Nu in their matching new year shirts from a unisex brand--I love the silky patterns and their very distinctive cut and fit.
• I started Duolingo-ing Spanish this week--I'd like to keep it up. And I'd like to walk the Camino de Santiago someday...
• I downloaded WhatsApp to my laptop and can now send pictures and links SO easily to mom and sis.
• Big A built me a long sofa/console table to store projects, books, and work material so I can take meetings in the living room. I love our communal study/rumpus room, but sadly, we can't all be in meetings in the same room.
• And.... I had a poem accepted today. This one! about the people in this photograph!

There and Back Again

This is what I saw when I woke up this morning and I took a picture of the backyard--through the window--because I didn't think I would go outside.

But... it's At's 'Boss Day' and he picked a really simple dinner--but we didn't have enough bread to make veggie melts for everyone, so I put on my big girl winter clothes and set off for Whole Foods.

I soon realized that the roads HAD been plowed, but Big A had abandoned his car in the middle of the driveway when he came home from work this morning and was taking a nap. So either I could drive the car that has "DEFUND 50" on the front plates (I have a feeling I'm too brown for those plates) or walk. 

So I walked.

Beginning as we mean to go on

A walk in the snow with these loves... one practice I've hoped for at the beginning of many new years. 

(Yes, it was just down the street to wish TB a happy birthday before curling up cozily for most of the evening--but I'm counting it as a tiny win for today.)

Rising Up

I've loved this tree on the Red Cedar River from the first time I noticed it. Especially the branch that looks like it was laid low but decided to aim upwards anyway.

As we close out 2020 (with LB's food exchange, SD's Zoom party in MD, and calls and texts from all over the world), I want for all of us to rise up in every way in 2021.

And I'd really, really like to see my sister and parents.

"But Different than the Day Before" (Part 3892772)

Ha. How many versions of this 2020 day can there be?

It was icy in the streets and a very homebound day scaffolded by all kinds of media. 

A long yoga session on Mirror, hours of reading, syllabus prep, an adoring Prince retrospective online, and then stringing a video-list of Nirvana-Bikini Kill-Foo Fighters for Nu (the Nirvana and Bikini Kill were kinda for the WGS class). Nu has very limited screen time these days, so accompanying me on rabbit holes of 90s nostalgia is ok with them. (Evil parent laugh.)

Big A's "Impossible" spaghetti sauce for dinner, some Veep with At (from whom I received this puppy pic) and now I'm going to give Bridgerton a try by myself. 

One down...

I rode with Big A to the hospital and waited in the parking lot while he got his first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. 

There had been a previous round for his ED, but in his typical way, he'd decided that since he'd had Covid and presumably had some antibodies, he'd wait for this later round and let colleagues who hadn't had Covid go first. 💗 

Earlier this year--before the vaccine debuted--I wondered if anyone would be sending out holiday cards. I needn't have wondered. I think we actually got more cards than in previous years... there were nearly ten just today. 

Alongside the photocards of cute cousins and niblings, was one from our college prez with a handwritten greeting to me + Big A and a kind note of thanks to me. Tenure means being able to say how warm and wonderful I think this is without worrying about sounding sycophantic. 😛

Ruminations in a very minor key

1) A quiet day, still sort of recovering from Christmas. Did not want to be in closed quarters with strangers today, so I'm glad LB had cilantro to spare and was able to drop some off so I didn't have to go to the store before I made dinner tonight. 

2) Nu announced it was National Card Game Day, and we played Rummy, Coup, and Smart Ass at various times in the day to observe it 'properly.' 

3) A couple of weeks ago I gave myself some terrible bangs, but I must have decided they weren't terrible enough, so I gave myself more bangs around 1 or 2 am. Big A worked last night, and when he came home this morning, I spent like 20 minutes repeatedly yelling "Don't LOOK at me; DON'T look at me." He offered to cut my bangs next time, but we're at least four-five weeks away from being able to attempt repair. I miss going to the hairdresser, and I'm bored with my hair.

4) I can't believe I haven't brought in the hammocks and throw pillows from the backyard yet... it's not that I'm that lazy, I'm just awfully prone to wishful thinking.

By degrees

Poor Scout paid the price for repeated counter-surfing with an upset tummy. At and Nu paid too, as they got to clean him up and change the couch covers in the rumpus room. That's been the excitement today.

In other news, the pandemic rages on, and I'm dismayed at how many people on my social media and WhatsApp seem not to have let it affect their holiday plans that much. I know people have to do whatever gets them through this time, so I keep my thoughts to myself and I've never actually said anything. But it feels personal--Big A has to deal with it in the ED and the rest of us at home have been making all sorts of accommodations and adjustments around it. And of course none of this protects Big A or us if the rest of the world simply carries on in pre-pandemic ways.

Anyway.

Nu is beside me, purposely mumbling things into the Apple remote and laughing their head off at the AI suggestions. Also, Nu has been following me around for the past few days telling me about people they know vaguely at school. For example: I know N vaguely. Once they just asked me in gym: "Are you gay?" And I said "yes." And then their friend K shouted, "I knew it!"  Several rounds of three-degrees-of-middle-school later, I'm beginning to sense how much my usually too-cool and happy-to-be alone kid must miss the daily social interactions of being at school.