pere c'est police/Persepolis

The first text Big A sent me this morning was about how Marjane Satrapi had died. Over the course of the day, I came to learn it was probably from a broken heart after losing her partner of thirty years last year.

Persepolis changed my mind about so many things... including the graphic novel genre. I always thought I'd meet her someday, and might have if she wasn't gone too soon.

This quote really says so much: “If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

And because of the pun in the title, I found myself muttering Persepolis, Pere c'est police (Father police) under my breath a lot.

Pic: Max and Huckie wonder about my muttering.

layers of unhappiness

UDL teaching workshop this morning--I was learning a lot, and contributing a lot. After watching the short documentary clip about kids with ADHD, I told a story about my babyhood that made the classroom go "aw" and chuckle. Except that after everyone had returned to the work at hand, I kept seeing my mom as an earnest new parent and I just... shut down and had to leave the meeting early. 

(The story goes that I was not a good sleeper as an infant. I was hyperactive--and from six months onwards--very talkative. When my parents brought it up to the pediatrician, they said that it was probably because I was very brainy and constantly at work. That was so smart of the pediatrician, because it immediately mollified my parents and they never complained about my weird nocturnality again.)

Pic: Long walk-and-talk with JG in the afternoon. I inscribed two books (the Trans book and the poetry anthology) for her. I updated the annual report last night and was struck by how my scholarship, mentorship, and service for this one year would be a decent tenure-deserving record in most places. And the reason I'm having uncharacteristically braggy and uncharitable thoughts like these is because I'm so disappointed at work right now. 

in the abrupt language of going

even before I can probe 

life's chronic condition

hello to day and goodbye

looping around dalliances 

every lifetime seeming

 an infinite too artificial

they say you're gone forever

but you're never dead to me

I find I plead for more time

even if it ends up a hard time

and now goodbye

After an amazing brunch with At at SuperKhana, Big A and I headed back to Lansing. Nu is spending a few extra days with their big sib and taking the train home later this week. 

I love how that sounds.

I couldn't help thinking how excited my mom would have been to hear these plans and marvel at how grownup the kids were getting.

Pic: Nu, H, and At at the door of At's place.  
 

belated birthday

It's still technically May 

and we get to celebrate At's 27th!

I love how pretty and happy she looks <3 

 

Chicago!

Off to Chicago to see At...

Here's our obligatory Cloud Gate/Bean photograph.

The last time was for my birthday trip right before the pandemic! Scout's there!

https://www.pocobrat.net/2020/03/notes-on-camp.html 

 

THIS is still happening

I got tagged about the award on FB, and now everyone I know there thinks I'm verging on sainthood.

So embarrassing!

Oy Vetch

Yesterday I finished Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables in which after joking about how there are no ugly flower names people can name their kids, the protagonist nicknames a pandemic roommate with whom she is saddled "Vetch" (as in the weed).

Later in the day, trans friends talked another friend out of cosplaying a Harry Potter character. The friend said she wanted to "signal to people that I love the character, but reject JKR." And trans friends online said that every bit of visibility adds to JKR's support and coffers and that anyone engaging with the Harry Potter universe is tone deaf and ignorant at best and violently transphobic at worst. And asked how love of a fictional character could matter more than the real people she loved being harmed by JKR. Fair point. (This in addition to the racism, fatphobia, slavery, and other bigotry rampant in the HP books, of course.)

Because she seemed so crestfallen, I suggested Ursula K. Le Guin... she is genuinely wise, wrote tons, has several universes, is a gender visionary (The Left Hand of Darkness!), and the Earthsea Series is great for young readers. Then I reread the first book in the series--A Wizard of Earthsea--and was amused to be reminded that Ged has a friend called "Vetch."

WHAT are the odds of two Vetches in one day?!

circus

In time, I begin to think 

of the award I did not get 

as just three men in a coat 

pretending to loom over me

they'd all claim niceness

say they are good people

not at all sexist or racist 

would say they're smart

then they should have seen  

my 18 is more than his 2

my 14 is more than his 0

his 1 is smaller than my 4

I watch them tumble again

 into unreason, juggling 

 lies and tangled excuses

fairness and easy truths 

they know and I know

they know that I know

what if stopped to laugh 

--it's as if they're clowns

___________________

Pic: Max is not buying it either. 

 

suicide saints

Big A said this was my worst idea ever...

I find myself thinking of Aaron Bushnell, Tommie Raskin, and Aaron Schwarz, randomly, And I looked it up and they all kind of fall under the umbrella of altruistic suicides. Long ago, when I told bestie KB about my teenage habit of anorexia brought on by world famines, she told me about Simone Weil (KB has a religious studies background). I know what the undertow is for me here. 

Norman Morrison (Vietnam objector), Bobby Sands (IRA activist), several Tibetan nuns and monks, and the Tunisian street vendor who set himself ablaze and set off Arab Spring* are some of the others mentioned in the Wiki article.   

Anyway, my idea was to start a collage of "suicide saints" for my altar and Big A found the idea repugnant. He actually shuddered. 

Of course Sylvia Plath and Kurt Cobain are in my thoughts a lot too. They're probably in an artist category with Van Gogh...

*My dad loves that line from the Tamil poet and freedom fighter Bharathi, a blazingly idealistic visionary, who says, ""Thani Oru Manithanukku Unavu Illai/ Enil Intha Jagathinai Azhithiduvom” (if a single person doesn't have food, let's burn down this world). 

Pic: "Funambulist-Wire Walker" by John VanAlstine. Sculpture on MSU campus. 

from another angle

The weedy, wild phlox season is upon us and it always reminds me of Scout.

I usually take pictures walking up towards where I would find him on the other side of the patch...

Today, I took a picture of what it must have looked like from his perspective, what he would have seen before he was so delighted to see me...

https://www.pocobrat.net/2021/05/baby-story.html 
 

songs move away from me

There was a time when every song was about me, sung to me, spoke to me, referenced me, made sense only in the context of my own life. 

I knew I was in a different phase of my life when songs became about other people in my life. Once upon a time, I would have been the "little girl" in a Depeche Mode song. But when toddler Nu was in a timeout, this part in "Enjoy the Silence" seemed so much about them:  "Oh, my little girl/All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm.

More recently when my amazing student KS did a thesis on The Power of Protest Music and Cosmopolitan Themes in Hozier Songs, I kept imagining meet-cutes for them and Hozier.

And this is so weird, but the Ariana Grande song whose second verse begins "And I know, and I know, and I know she gives you everything/ But, boy, I couldn't give it to you" has a chorus that reminds me of Scout and brings me to tears since the time I first heard it on the radio and paid attention... "So one last time/ I need to be the one who takes you home/ One more time/ I promise after that, I'll let you go." What I wouldn't give for one more time with Scout!

Pic: The Red Cedar. 

baby back

Managed to help Nu unloft their dorm bed and jenga everything into Bluey. I'd had tea with JG earlier and she'd offered to help with bringing stuff to Lansing, if necessary...but as it turned out, Bluey could handle it! So excited to have Nu back for the summer!

Then I made it to bookclub. I hadn't read the book beyond the online sample, (Chloe Dalton's Leveret), but I wanted to see everybody. L had made everyone copies of my poems to read for the next meeting. L has just been promoting my work to people! I've tried asking her not to, but she is genuinely happy and proud of me, and that reminds me a bit of my mom, so I'm shutting up. 

Then Big A and I went to get drinks, apps and see Is God Is--compelling with some cute vibes, but more violence than I needed.

awards all day

Gratiot County CASA Awards Luncheon in the afternoon, where they very kindly gave me another award... I'm both moved by the acknowledgement, and self-conscious--I'm just doing my little bit! In the last two years, I've received three awards for CASA work. For someone like me, it's a lot to hear people say stuff about me, make an acceptance speech, etc. The real heroes are the children, IMO.

And in the evening, we were guests of CD and JD at the Refugee Development Center gala for a tour of the new facilities and the ribbon cutting. Big A could see my immediate impulse was to give up everything and devote all my time to teaching refugees English language skills, and began counseling prudence. I'm going to volunteer over the summer, at any rate. The testimonies from the kids brought me to HAPPY tears over and over again. Among the awardees for good citizenship were a pair of third graders--one giggly, one serious, a ninth grader from Chad who dressed up for the occasion in a suit, and a high-schooler who shouted out all the suffering countries including Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon. 

Pic: The actual ribbon cutting. It was so fun to see people from different spheres of my life up there--church friends, legislators, our family physician's spouse, colleagues, etc.