Giving up

All those pictures of golden trees, and I got it just today. Summer is over. We're not climbing out of the 30's for the foreseeable future (two weeks on the weather app) so I brought in the tomatoes that'll never ripen and the couple of At's peppers the deer didn't eat.

L&C who dropped by for tea proceeded to have a long discussion about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (which I haven't seen), then it turned out one of them was talking about Thelma and Louise all along. Ha. Exciting.

Witness

my illiterate left hand startles
as I write my children again

Empty at last
opening fists
to make nests

singing the quiet like a top 20
ashes, wishes wafting off me 

In review

With Big A in Denver (conference) and then off again to Traverse City (triathlon) it's been almost a whole week of living companionably with just one human--Nu. Most of the time, it's been just us, doing school and work and schoolwork and school/work, cooking, watching baking shows, baking, reading, making tea for each other, having sleepovers in the rumpus room with scary movies--one big huddle of squeals, jump scares, and puppies. Scout and Huck randomly taking off to bark at windows and doors adds a nice touch of freakout to any scary movie experience, I must say.

I made us leave the house yesterday to go to a comedy show at JG's temple and took L, T, and C along. But even there it was just mostly us as this silly selfie demonstrates. 

Catch

tickles start in my palm, aim for my pits
catch in my throat: I am open, I let
my shame (shame) show

here are bugs leaking from my breath
like starry maps from blind eyes. O
I have lost my fingerprints

I must just be falling asleep I must be
falling falling falling into depths
or deaths. I don't

know the presidents who visit in my
dreams on boats shaped like me,
wooden as my smile. I fight

I find my freedom with my fists and feet
the slick of water still gets me though
entanglement, undertow

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Intergenerational witchery

Nu is wicked in L's wig, my dress, their own hat and cloak. All witches need a coven.

My own coven supported me through the day surgery today--the kindness of everyone from students to colleagues to friends carried me through. The texts timed just as I entered the hospital, EM's refusal to let me cancel, and the offers to drive me home were all I needed for now.

And I actually drove myself home before the lidocaine wore off.








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Ok, last one--I swear

The walk back from class was glorious, but I'm not even sure all my pictures don't all look the same at this point. It never really looks how it feels anyway--like I'm flying into a blaze of radiance. (And now I'm thinking about the California fires and firefighters and their bravery, and the animals, and the injustice to prisoner-firefighters...)

I needed that moment. Nu didn't want to go to school after our late ER night, At had to stay in town to follow up with the hand doc today and canceled his classes, so the morning was very different from my usual quiet puppies and prep mode.

And then with Big A's early return, it turned into a completely impromptu whole fam-bam reunion. There was Chipotle and TV and teasing and arguing, and I fell asleep on a couch in the midst of all the happy noises.
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Not according to plan

Big A is still in Denver, so I'd cobbled together some childcare for Nu on my long teaching day. Nu would take the school bus home, walk to L's, help her plant a tree and hang out, and we'd both have dinner at L's before coming home, and collapsing in pajamas for our "sleepover" in the rumpus room with Scout and Huck.

Instead I started receiving texts on family chat from At while I was on my way home telling me that the "sprained" finger I'd asked him to have looked at ten days ago, was actually a dislocated finger, and Dr. H at our family practice couldn't get it to stay in place despite a couple of times of "popping it back" (™) because his muscles and tendons had knitted wrong in the intervening days. Big A told him to go see a colleague of his at the E.R. in Lansing, so that's where we spent the rest of the evening.

It took several tries of Lidocaine and people tugging on his finger (and At making the inevitable fart jokes) before they could get the joint positioned and splinted. It was actually pretty traumatic. There was so much numbing agent that the base of his finger started to bleed, and despite his general good humor and inability to not be a sweet smartassy jokester, it was clear that the pain was getting to be too much. Not to be outdone, I somehow lost my insurance card despite putting it back in my wallet. And Nu having somehow ingested a peanut butter chip in a cupcake earlier, vomited repeatedly--but elegantly--into a plastic bag at the E.R. All in all, we made quite an impression at Big A's work.
_