"Stare at each other like TV"

Probably one of my favorite lyrics right now, and not constantly in a romantic way. Sometimes it's the little ones I want to stare at... also trees.

In other news, Covid cases have been spiking on campus, so I'm moving everything online especially as students are being encouraged to go home. It's so disheartening after so many have been so vigilant and careful. And my classes were going to share research presentations next week too. Anyway.

Like most people, I feel I've normalized some stuff like going to the store, getting massages, etc. because it felt nicer not having to worry for a ninth month. But we ought to be worried. 

This story about a smallish wedding reception (55 guests) leading to "three separate Covid-19 outbreaks that infected 178 people, putting three into the hospital and killing seven more" where "none of those who got seriously ill or died even went to the wedding, and many lived 100 miles away" is a sad and awful unsnooze call for me. I don't know that I could live with being the cause of someone's decline+/-death in this way.

Believe in open-minded people

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi in our Presidential Speaker series (via Zoom) tonight and here's my question and his response.

How do you decide whether or not to engage with someone who may put you in a position where you have to argue for your humanity/human rights?

Well, remember there are people who are close-minded and people who are open-minded. 

So someone may believe in voter fraud, and you may bring them some sources and say: there is no significant voter fraud. 

And they may say: [I] don't trust your sources. 

So you ask them: Ok, what sources do you trust? 

And you go and find material from those sources and they say: I don't trust those sources anymore. 

Those people may have closed minds. And when a person's mind is closed, I try to not spend my time on them unless they are really close to me. 

I'm going to spend my time with the open-minded people. 

I keep dying

                     1                                                   2                                                     3

    But was it Camus who said      Wasn't it the butcher who said        Perhaps it was I who said 

    Autumn is a second spring       he'd operate on my identity            my tongue was wronged--

    when every leaf is a flower?     until I had slowly been bled           as while I prayed and read 

    Yet I know that I am dead         into kindness and serenity?          and inherited freedom songs,

    and dead-er by the hour           Not sure anymore--it maybe          my mind, raveling like a knot,   

    in my sad and furious head.     only leaves were actually shed.    forgot--sick tyranny lies ahead. 

And the leaves are gone

Just two weeks ago, we had this.

Another busy day, but busy like treading water and informed by sadness every now and then. 

I keep getting messages about students being on "medical leave," which is code for "tested positive for Covid," so I'm worried about them. In one class, it's all the students to whom I've had to mime pulling up their masks as reminders, so I worry too about what they did when I wasn't around and who else might have been impacted by all of this.

The Start of Something

The Pumpkin Spice and Fundamental Rights cakes got made (and eaten); a neighborhood celebratory bonfire was attended; toasts were made; picnics were packed and consumed. I'd say the new regime is better already. Ha.                                                                                                                                             But seriously, we need to do better. Marianne Williamson (of all people!) sounds the call in Newsweek: "Now a battle will rage for the soul of the Democratic Party. And well it should. It's been needing to happen for a very long time."

Ding-Dong; Be Gone!

Where were you? I had just finished interviewing prospective students for scholarships, when Big A showed up with a grin, and Nu and I knew right away. 

A bit anticlimactic ultimately--I blame CNN's rampant use of the thesaurus for two days of headlines (Biden on the cusp, on the verge, on the threshold). On the other hand, it solidified B's lead well beyond conjecture and allowed saner Trumpers to back away (?). Don't know; don't care RN TBH.

Here, Scout is tired of election news as the rest of us watch Vice-President-elect Harris and President-Elect Biden's speeches and marvel at decency and parseable sentences and earnestness on the podium. 

Big A teased me about my (presumably wide-eyed) gawking--but no shame here. Who believes in America's possibility more than an immigrant, after all? Lots and lots of work ahead to be sure, but now there's a chance where before there was only survival. 

And Another One

This is the other snake--from yesterday. Today has been very homebound. But also, today is yet another repeat of yesterday. 

Is it possible to be full of nervous energy and simultaneously enervated? Yes, yes it is. Time to call it, CNN!

I was kind of glad to have a planner full of class and meetings at hourly intervals all day, so I could go from one to prepping for the next. I may have rambled at a few of them (two nights of low no sleep will do that to me) and then the internet was all cute and hide-and-seeky-y. But I managed. The day is done.

But I've done so little at home today except find time to cuddle with everyone for comfort. We're still eating pizza from yesterday... I mean after all, Big A did order four pies for three humans. 

Nu and I had planned to make another batch of the awesome "Pumpkin Spice and Fundamental Rights" cakes we made on election day. We gave/swapped so many away and Nu and Big A want more. As they reminded me, they want more, they want more, when you like something, you want more! But the baking will have to wait until tomorrow.

"Zero at the Bone"

I met one of Emily Dickinson's narrow fellows this morning, while out with L. In fact, we met two. 

TBH, I thought the rest of the day would hold more excitement, but it was just a pattern of waiting, a fever of refreshing between class work and meetings, and ultimately not much else.

I was nervy all day--too nervy to make dinner--so we got pizza from Jolly Pumpkin, vegged, and watched an ep of The Queen's Gambit--and lo, all of this was good, but I kept checking Twitter for something better.

Still

Waiting, watching, wondering

with the rest of the world.

What is this?

Sanford Woods; I felt trippy when I saw this in the viewfinder.

Also mystifying: how on earth this race is so close after all the cruelty and negligence that has been on display.

The Future

At was briefly in town so he could deliver his absentee ballot to the drop box. !YAY! Also, it's the second of the month and hence his 'Boss Day,' so he got even more extra hugs and presents and picked dinner (mint chicken again). 

Because he's the best big sib ever, he roped Nu into researching all the school board candidates. I love this picture of my human babies so serious and so oblivious to me.

This morning at a student-vocation discussion, the lack of students' "grit" was generally mourned. I dissented--this generation's lives are challenging in a way ours never was.

(Scout's tail behind Nu's chair as he petitions for more pets, lol.)

Catch-Up

Nu got all caught up with school work. Cue a big sigh of relief. This picture of a hardworking Nu is from their D&D research though 😃. 

BS started the campaign at 7, and they went on until 11, I think? Nu and I watched a movie AFTER that, and it snowed multiple times today, and clocks are telling different times all over the house, so I'm a bit bonkers.

Oh. And yesterday, instead of laissez-faire trick-or-treating, our street held two (tiny) parades at 2 and 6pm and we got to give out candy from a distance and marvel at all the costumes. Mx. Coronavirus was the cutest/scariest for sure.

Charades

it sounds like a daily hell, but it isn't 

though we die a thousand times

I can feel my heart used as a rattle 

right before I start our lullaby 

 

We're at once uncertain of tenderness

yet totally convinced of its ending 

bitterly tracing all my sentences 

to revolt, recovery, everything

you look like a picture / and then you are one

                                            water leads water                                        how it desires                                   

leaf leads leaf                                              then devours

     my thoughts                                                a space of ache 

 like an animal                                              and surrenders

now desperate                                             where I marvel

with promises                                              at your name

My Panel / My At

To be clear, my colleagues and I did not fight about cancel culture and statues--but we did deliberate.  

Yet apparently, it didn't stop people from watching the panel discussion as though it were a prize fight at the MUN House (per At). If I look amused in the top right corner it's because At was asking some cleverly self-deprecating question online. The corner of the laptop abutting the screen is his! Togetherness! Yay!

(OMG, I love that fellow. I have to admit, I lost all professional composure when a late arrival rehashed the "statues are history" tack in Q&A and At's deadpan riposte on the event chat was: "I got my history major by staring at a bunch of statues.")

Peak Peek

I think we're at the peak of color this week. Added bonus was a blue sky, no grey midwestern 'dome' today!

Paths are crisp and crunchy; we're still inundated with tasks and deadlines; everyone seems to be holding their breath for next week.

Had a lovely chat with At, where he updated me on some health stuff and impressed me with the proactive and grownup way he had advocated for himself. 

Later in the day, another chat with At, this time a boisterous facetime with the younger sibs. And then a lot of heavy discussion with Nu over dinner prep and dinner being a sounding board as they excitedly invented their character for the D&D party BS is starting Saturday. (Bless BS!!) It's the most animated Nu has been in a while, and reading the D&D manual introduced them to a lot of words they didn't seem to know (diminutive, arcane...).

I planned to class prep alongside Big A as he watched some cycling videos after dinner (these are just as impossible for me to understand as the unboxing craze all the kids were about a few years ago!) but I set aside my laptop for 'just a few minutes' and fell asleep on top of him and had to start all over again.

50/50

 

Yesterday's Vijaya Dashami offering was an almond and apricot honey cake. (All gone!)

Dussehra is one of the many opportunities to renew and reset in the Hindu annual calendar. And I spent yesterday hopeful for all kinds of pandemic and election magic.

Today I quietly panicked in the car on my way home from teaching and made a list of things we'll need to stock up on. (Not because I anticipate shortages, but I DO NOT WANT to be out there.)

Mask slip

L and I left super early for the river view yesterday so we wouldn't run into unmasked exercisers. (We mostly didn't--there was a game this weekend so that probably helped as well.)

L and I have been a bit performative and obnoxious with our mask reminders lately. But I think I made L a bit upset with me (haha).

We met a big black bear of a standard golden doodle, and I fawned over the happy, tongue-lolling darling (from a distance). After puppy and human had passed us, L asked me archly if I'd noticed that the puppy's human wasn't wearing their mask. 

I hadn't. 

Oooop?

"Global crises can only be solved globally."

And some other gems to "make our planet make sense" from Ambassador Andrew Young at the UN's Past, Present Progress event. 

An obvious statement, yet so deserving of amplification in these times. 

Sometimes one forgets how things used to be. It gave an added urgency to discussing the new ENG civic discourse and social justice pilots today with AP.

Golding

I just typed, "I wonder if golding is an adjective..." 

(Big A has turned off the wifi for some maintenance, so I can't check online, but there's no squiggly red line so at least it's a word? If "greening" is a Spring time word, "golding" ought to be an Autumn word!) 

Anyway, I feel "golding" best describes both the turn of the woods and my delight. 

A long giggly conversation with my Chelli around 4 am*, then a little snooze, an early morning hike with L (from whence this photo), and then a long day on my feet doing necessary stuff that had been displaced by this past week of deadlines. Some of Big A's birthday dinner and cupcakes dinner to L, and then a leisurely dinner with the fam. Very minimal discussion board monitoring, some class prep, a handful of student emails, and now to curl up with my N.K. Jemisin. 

* AM, Chelli's old classmate and now a mutual friend, had forwarded a video of George Baker singing "Paloma Blanca," apparently a song Chelli and I used to bug her with. It's amazing how the song reached us at all (perhaps through VM who sailed a lot in those days?), and we were amused that we didn't even know what the title meant, but would just belt it out anyway. Hilarious.

Birthday... baby

MIL had the best birthday message.
Happy birthday to Big A!

Aglow

An earlier than usual morning ramble with L yesterday, and then this odd, technicolor surprise when we rounded the MSU greenhouses. We took picture after picture under the tolerant eye of the MSU police parked outside.

And apropos of yesterday, I want to remember how the thought of going to the interview without seeing L made me so panicky... L is everything I imagined the USA to be, and I'm lucky the universe brought me to her in 2016, the most disconsolate point of my American dream. 

A is for... Apple Pie?

Big A drove me to Detroit for the citizenship interview so I wouldn't be nervous and he and Nu quizzed me over and over yesterday so I'd be prepared. 

When we returned home, LB and TB brought over apple pie with "USA" pricked into it... We were all crying in the driveway, and L said the NYT said it was ok to hug, so could we hug? But I'm just around so many people every day, I didn't think it would be good for her.

The very kind agent said the swearing-in wasn't likely to be before the election. But MI has same-day registration, and a girl can hope.

 

Man!

 

So proud of At!

So proud of At!

So proud of At!

(Nu's been having some challenges with homework, and Big A suggested At makes a PSA about homework next. Haha Hahaha. Laugh-sob.) 

Sing

Every night quakes lightly

--like childhood's laughter.

Quick, give me a new thing 

to see--yes, you, so beautiful 

to me. America, 

you're breaking

me. 

______________________________________________
Earthquake dreams, deadlines, fears, news, OMG.

Day Before Deadline

Greyyyyyyy day, and I'm still on the laptop finishing up a couple of things... 

But the memory of a snuggle with this scaly giant yesterday, the card and chocolate-chip cookies BS dropped off, and the proliferating heart emojis via text will keep me going... 

Not There Yet

And I won't finish to the standard I want to today. 

But look at this beauty, LB and TB in the distance, and Nu and Big A further down the street fast asleep in their beds... (not pictured!!)

Time to go back and give it another go!

A breath from the past

Eyde Woods, Red Cedar River, Wednesday's hike with L.

(Have been in class/in meetings/on calls/on the couch all day today.)

These shoes weren't meant for walking

But as I put my lunchbox, and my briefcase, and my purse into the passenger side of the car and as I was beginning to take off my jacket before walking around to the driver's side to get in and finally get home, the car door shut on me and beeped like Knight Rider. My purse with the key was right there on the passenger seat, so I didn't think I could be locked out. But... Oh, I was. I tried the trunk, thinking I could crawl in, but it wouldn't open either. I couldn't go back to my office (my keys were in the car); I couldn't call AAA or Big A (my phone was in the car); It was nearly 8 and I was hungry and tired and couldn't get a snack (my wallet was in the car). 

So I walked over to At's (I'd just been thinking I hadn't seen him since Nu's birthday... and writing that I realize it's been less than a week, but it has been a long week!). He tried the door too, but nothing. So we made the call, and Big A got on the road to bring me the spare key, Nu in tow since it was dark and I didn't want Nu to be home by themselves. (Big A initially demurred about having to drive all the way, and I was instantly mad thinking about all the times I drove into NYC with little At and Baby Nu to get him after a late shift at Bellevue. But he quickly did the right thing, and no one got yelled at. Ha.)

So an hour till reinforcements arrived, and my sweet At offered to feed and water me and sit with me on the MUN House porch (outsiders aren't allowed into student housing to minimize Covid exposure) to keep me company. But I was too keyed up, so I asked if we could walk around, and borrowed some socks from At, and we did. I kept telling him he should go back to work on the delayed deadlines and midterm extensions, but we kept walking and talking, and then Nu and Big A were there, and there was a teensy family reunion in the Heritage Parking Lot. 

Monkey Mind

I've been lighting a candle for morning meditation lately. It helps, but of course my "monkey mind" still has random thoughts jumping in and out. 
 

Today these two things kept popping up: 

1) bits of a student essay in which they despaired of the election and worried that they may be stripped of the right to marry.

 

2) the look in an advisee's eyes when I ran into them in the hallway. Their eyes were crinkly from smiling (behind their mask) but the eyes were tired, sad, and trying hard to be brave. 

Clearly, work/home separation doesn't work very well with teaching.

Fall All Over

It's fall all over the place.

I'm all over Fall (yay!)

I'm all over Fall (blah)

Fall is all (almost) over

It's Fall everywhere.

I fall everywhere.

(I cycle through all this; yesterday's picture from Baker Woods.)

Return (For my Chelli)

From any direction 
I try to meet you,
you greet me.
We hold hands,
"la biss" kiss-
kiss, kiss-kiss.

There was a time when all
I had to do was simply turn
if I wanted to see you or play. 
Do you ever yearn for when 
we were fed from just one 
plate--no yours, no mine?

To sleep together, curling like
vines? Discuss how parting 
our twin beds, sending them 
to opposite walls was painful
(almost as if conjoined twins 
beginning surgery, separation).

My room now--though bright
feels dim and scribbled over,
continents and years crawl
over--what I fear--were last 
visits. Lost keys, lost locks, 
oh--the stitches come loose.

If I am not an island,
how can I swim to you?
I am now just a body
of water surging,
my eyes growing 
round as our earth.

I am come to an age with
endings coiled inside me.
The pandemic's parting gift,
a gift of parting, is the empty
vision unfolding, trying to return
to decisions I made decades ago.

I want to walk up to you

talk about what I have/have

carried. I bring you all this... 

sadness because you'll say you 

see it, know just how to see it,

and be the first to throw it away.

From any direction 

I try to meet you,

you greet me.

We hold hands,

"la biss" kiss-

kiss, kiss-kiss.

Happy 13th!

Look, it's John Lennon turning 13! Ok, It's Nu  😍 😍.

Cupcakes (Tuptakes) by dad; special, surprise, overnight, 18-hour visit by sweet sib At; breakfast pudding by me; calls from all the grandparents, aunts, and great uncle and aunt (VM and AA).  Also--a special "picnic in Paris" themed birthday Zoom with beret-ed friends drinking Perrier and online tours of the Louvre yesterday; Culvers' for dinner by request today; bunches of presents over the weekend; and now they're spending some birthday cash on the internet. 

Happy birthday, my brave new teen!  😍 😍

Time (Into the Pandemic)

 

Who understands this beauty? 

(I know)

hours are not the apocalypse 

(imagine)

I search their mists and dusts

for security

composting fair warnings

once again

I have searched the horizon 

where sun blinks 

this day into some montage 

of time-lapse

Hank and Huck

This morning when I woke, we had new puppy Hank--all sweet chubby puppy face and wobbly puppy legs. But... I couldn't find Huckie. Then I remembered that we'd "exchanged" Huckie for Hank. And then I was grief-stricken for Huckie, wondering if she was wondering where the heck we were and when we were coming to bring her back. Then I woke up properly and realized none of this had really happened. 

*Extra Huckie hugs*

I told my dream to Nu and we marched up to Big A and informed him that we needed a third puppy.

(I love how my brain braids things--I wonder if "Hank" is because I spent time with JL's "Henry" last weekend and "Hank" is a form of "Henry" but sounds a bit like "Huck?")

Louise Glück: Matins

Matins

You want to know how I spend my time?

I walk the front lawn, pretending

To be weeding. You ought to know

I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling

Clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact

I’m looking for courage, for some evidence

My life will change, though

It takes forever, checking

Each clump for the symbolic

Leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

The leaves turning, always the sick trees

Going first, the dying turning

Brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

Their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

To continue without a sign?

---------------------------------

I presume a four-leaved clover is the "symbolic/ Leaf" Glück is looking for here? Here's At's hand holding some luck he made himself: A four-leaf clover engineered with spit--he told me he tried sweat first, but it didn't hold. (circa 2008, SD's outdoor wedding in DC; Baby Nu in the stroller.)

I've loved this poem for years and am so happy for Louise Glück's Nobel--poets so rarely get big prizes; but are there non Eurocentric writers who are being overlooked? Absolutely.

Waist-deep in the woods

(as though) I had not a care in the world.

King, Chavez, Parks... and Penrose

When I heard Sir Roger Penrose won the Physics Nobel today, the first thing that came to mind was that At had had some playdates with RP's son Maxwell (named for the mathematician) back in Oxford. Was it 2001? 2002? We knew Penrose on the fringes of JSA's work with him so I googled "Penrose and JSA," and sure enough--tons of collabs. Gosh--that feels like such a lifetime ago.

Today, I received logo-ed masks from the KCP program (King-Chavez-Parks, baby!) and will wear them everywhere with pride.

Benediction

So I'm coming back, I'm coming, I 

run rabbit tongue 'neath rabbit teeth.

Sift half a laugh through salty hands.

Lift away grand new memories, but

only say: So-sorrySo-sorrySo-sorry.

Remember when I traveled--was it last

winter--and you said I'm with you, but 

you aren't me, never will be. I still bring 

prayers to this plague. Will sing through 

whispering airways: O-stayO-stayO-stay. 

_

And still, we...

Does Huckie look sad? I think Huckie looks sad.

If I squint, Big A looks sad too.  (God, I miss his stubble--he has to shave for the N-95.) I think we're all at least a little sad. And I don't know what to do about it.

A serious chat with KB yesterday (parts of our families are so far away); another one with JL + Henry the pup with soup drop-off and commiserations and apologies (I thought her new number was her stalker contacting me for info and had blocked it); and some plans that didn't make with LB and BS. 

But still, we're ok: Turns out, the class I thought started Monday actually starts on Friday (a student alerted me!), so I'm sitting pretty on prep; Nu had a nice RE camp at UU (typically a weekend, but three hours in the pandemic); got all caught up in At's latest exploits via text; and I got Sansu sushi today after more than six months!*

*I thought we were six months into the pandemic--but as Stirrup Queens reminded me, we're eight months in. EIGHT. So I'm redoing the math--I haven't had Sansu in over eight months.

Making Mean-ing

I mean, I must have known in my bones this morning. 

After all, when Big A came home from work looking kinda tired, I asked (sincerely) if he wanted me to butter his muffin... 

Then At wished us a happy Mean Girls Day on family chat and we remembered... Nu thought we should watch it after dinner... and so we did.

It made me nostalgic for all the Mean Girls parties we've had in the last 15 years. The last one was in 2018 for my first-year seminar students and they laughed at the mom-style menu-puns almost as much as I did.

Radio News

The WH Covid superspreader events and all their painful consequences were always so preventable--that part really bothers me. Thousands of people could have been alive today... Maybe we could even have been headed back to the old normal...

Also on the radio--I heard Allie Brosh sob and I wonder if her new book is maybe too sad for me RN, but there's a sweet chapter up at her old blog.

On my way home

A long teaching day, classroom observations, many small fires, a handful of delayed deadlines, tired to the bone (two hours of sleep!), and hungry...

But I got to see At for a bit--both of us masked--and give him a 'backhug' and a (new to him) Du Bois for his Boss Day (tomorrow); a small but affectionate pre-class chat with my mom; knowing I will see NuScoutHuck in minutes...

Then a leg of this rainbow (such an intense VIOLET!) and a go-go-go green light--and there's a definite feeling of "yes" in the air.

Pardons <> Gardens

The other day, L and I wandered into the Rose Garden and were delighted to see serendipitous blooms just everywhere. (It's the end of September!) And then we ripped off our masks and stuck our noses in to take in all the scents. Sometimes there, we're humming this silly oldie (and then it reminds me of Chennai and CR who taught me that song).  

But that day was not today. By 9:00 am I had already been in two meetings, and between regularly-scheduled meetings, a CASA-training webinar, student conferences, and  a faculty-wide caucus, the intensity continued until 5:00. Sometimes I had to use two monitors to juggle my overcommitments.

But the spoooooky syllabus (Culture and the Supernatural) for the second seven-week course set to start next week is all done!

"Get Well Soon!"

This sweet, sad piece of found art:
 see it here; and hear about it here.

And while on reading--this article on ambiguous loss (from earlier in the year, but I found it just last week) really helped me.

First Flicker

In the beginning lives 

a first flicker of flame

that lick of loneliness

lighting an underworld.

The sky may be still

dark with our leaving

life,  it is difficult--all

tall ideas, left as yes.

Almost 13

Sometimes my child seems really far away and the world seems really big, but I trust I'll still be able to watch out for them. 

When they're hidden, I can use other signs and senses to make sure they're ok. 

I trust they'll be able to make the right decisions when I'm too far away to help--moving away from strangers, stepping off the path when necessary.

It helps that they stop when the path forks, wordlessly discussing the way forward with me.

Wild Things

All of this made me quite anxious.

All of this made me very happy.

__________________________

I chaired the WGS sessions of the MASAL conference from home; finalized the WLC second-seven week course syllabus; worked on Nu's birthday plans; hiked with L; practiced saying "fiddly," "wobbly," and "stodgy" in preparation for watching GBBO later in the evening... Full day.

Anachronism

How can it be... that at an academic workshop... of over 30 people... in the 21st century... 

It seems I'm the only person of color?

Words fail