the trip comes for us

(for L.B.)

by the time my thoughts arrive

helloes and hugs have played

our homophony

these trees nod their approval

and bird guardians sing 

of missing you, friend

Really, we could have climbed 

mountains today, survived 

whispered catastrophe

colonizing futures, monopolizing 

resolutions, our airy gestures 

perfect as finger-paintings

_______

Hike with L in Baker Woods after ages! I was catastrophizing, L was decoding and problem-solving. We mostly talked about changes to Big A's contract and how he may be working in Texas for a few months. I was actually so excited when he first told me because I have fond memories of visiting my Chelli in San Antonio, but soon realized he'd be going because it's a Covid hotspot right now... and...

placebo

the ceremony of each day grows hostile 
like a needle in my veins 
going under the shape of my resistance
and landscapes of hunger

I've been told to take each day at a time 
I abandon months in a gulp 
but the best minutes become sustenance
still so modest, but medicinal

swaha

clouds thick as suspended hopes
flame singing without words
where do we go from here
friend, there's only now

remember the last time we were 

here, you asked if I had always 

known about sacrifice--

it's how we survived 

this fire I built inside my head 

tenderly lifting all the love

and dread I have tended 

to replay, "let go"

moving to the future

my arms are crossed behind your back
my fingers are too
as though we're raising a stout hammer 
to a sickle moon

I can only watch through this rapid door 

the holiness of 

infancy, childhood, school's odd certitude

and uncertain youth 

your smile now a secret scroll of prophecy 

close to breaking

lashed in ritual errancy and exhortation to 

a city of last resort

and your keys to a kingdom of possibility

yet you share, sweet child--

as you unbar our door to swing open yours--

so warmly, a spare set

"boys' mom" note

So apparently it's National Daughters' Day, and my FB feed is full of lovely people posting about their lovely daughters and I'm loving it esp. as I no longer have daughters this year. (The kids have made Huckleberry an "honorary bro" so I now have four boy-kids.)

Nu has had a cold for a couple of days and spiked a fever last night, so we headed for the drive-through Covid-test this morning. They couldn't find Nu's health records and I was quietly panicking because I thought it was because I'd decided to leave the sex column blank, but it turned out that my tired brain had given them the wrong year of birth (I gave them At's!!). I can't wait to see the AMA's recommendation that sex be removed from birth certificates universally accepted.

so it's universal

new nothings are of the highest order
metaphor is a dark mass of wire
feel the kiss of prepositions
--they're infinite

we inhale before the contented sigh
and embrace like we're a whole
orbit full of revelations,
even in rearview 

the daily socialist

At news: He's not doing that MSW at MSU this year; he's working at Chipotle; he's moving in with a friend he made through DSA next week.

Note 1: I like that his new roommate is a librarian; the roommate likes that I'm a gender studies prof.

Note 2: It seems like At still loves using Mark Fisher as an intellectual tagline.

hold on

I have a ton of stuff beginning to pile up again. I got contracts done, but have final edits to make for the next issue of Jaggery; I got the sponsored panel done, but have mentor-mentee letters to send out for the ongoing NWSA; I got the updates done, but owe my CASA coordinator a log of my continuing education hours; and on and on. 

And this is not even at my day job where I have class prep due + I'm going to get a ton of papers submitted this weekend + I somehow seem to have agreed to give a campus wide introduction to embodied learning practices (not even my research specialty) + have to plan an orientation for the student house I advise + plan an induction for the honor society I co-advise + return to my long-term projects I haven't worked on in ages. 

And this doesn't even begin to start to describe all the work of family and home.

So I'm experiencing stress... and rightly so. 

And I got a submission declined rejected today too.

But Scout and Huck are always adorable.

a little me

I suppose it's my job to be touched everyday
by offers of trust--gaudy and gauche 
these insights dawning
inexorable as day

I know how it settles into the bulk of today
teaching me to become yet an-other 
grownup as I already am
inaccurate as yesterday

worry

"I'm sorry," said the stove repairman who's been fixing our stove since June--"nothing's going right, is it? I hope your day gets better."

I guess he heard Big A and me have a furious, whispered conversation about Scout and/or heard me sobbing in the stairwell.

Anyway, I spent hours at the veterinary E.R. with Scout today. Tons of tests later, we still have no clear answers. But they gave us a bunch of meds; I hope they help.

Pic: Sculpture outside the E.R. (I forgot to take a pic of Scoutie.) 

"the next time you want me"

Phoebe Bridgers singing for me as I soak and relive some recent conversations about... of all things... Pet Sematary. (You know, the Stephen-King-novel/movie where beings buried in the "Pet Sematary" come back to life but are disappointing and different and zombiefied.)

First I had a general epiphany about how nostalgia-fueled decisions to go back to the way things were rarely go well. "Going back" to places, people, whatever... never goes as planned. Perhaps that's the true moral of Pet Sematary. It came up in some conversation with Big A. And then suddenly because we'd talked about Scout's health, he was trying to get me to promise that I would never clone Scout. An option I'd never considered before but seemed tempting. But Big A rightly made the point that Scout is his own person and cloning disrespects that etc. OK? OK.

I was telling the kids this over breakfast some day this week, and I don't know if they appreciated their parents' deep thoughts. But they immediately started a tally of who in the family would put people in the pet sematary. Apparently neither human kid would. According to them, I totally would. And their dad--well... apparently he has a strong sense of medical ethics and wouldn't. But... he'd still probably put me in the pet sematary because he's so attached. And then, they riffed, when pet-semataried mom starts stabbing people and stuff, he'd be all patient explaining things like "Puppy, remember we talked about not stabbing people?" 

For a conversation that included so many deaths, including my own, that last line in its authenticity still makes me chuckle out loud.

people-ing

A long walk-talk with KB yesterday; I begin to feel I can handle the world again.

Early morning chat with my sister; figuring out all the things on our list for this year--many of them impossible without a passport (which I don't yet have as everything's so backed up). But she makes plans seem possible anyway.

Midday yoga in the forest with Nu and L on either side of me; a sort of peace washes over me.

Garden party at our place this evening; the comfort of sharing food with CF, SB, SD, and AH and others. 

Talking to strangers on an FB Golden Doodle page about Scout's difficulty walking; lots of new things to obsess over and bring up with doc/E.R. visit in 48 hours.

Baby cousin K and her partner J arrive tomorrow; I get to spoil them. 

"sometimes I feel like somebody's watching me"

It's just a tree by the cafeteria

playing tricks on me

thinking of...

My teaching day started with standing in line at Groovy Donuts at 7 am and went well as days with donuts tend to. 

But after dinner I found out that DP, a student dear to me--someone I had known in class and on several committees as a joyful, thoughtful, and compassionate citizen--had been hurt badly. 

I am hopeful they and their family will heal, but the description on their GoFundMe site is truly horrific and I keep thinking about all the unnecessary pain and fear they've experienced. 

Flashes of their smile on the Zoom of this year's Kente stole ceremony and images of them waving to me as they stood in line for their diploma keep coming back--will keep coming back--to me. 💗