blast from the past

My birthday is coming up this week and we have a nice family dinner planned. 

But I've been yearning for one of those all-out bashes that used to happen--usually planned and hosted by someone else. That hasn't happened in years. Some of is the pandemic, sure--but some of it is just that we're in a different stage of our lives. 

Facebook kindly reminded me with this post from twelve years ago when my friends L and J postponed a vacation they were planning to take because it fell in my birthday week. The mayhem of comments that ensued with everyone jumping in with recommendations, some weird references to Tom Hanks's birthday, my London friends threatening to gatecrash, and Sunny Singh (the author Sunny Singh) giving me sage advice on partying all month long made me chuckle. 

I've been talking to L more since this reminder popped up and reconnecting with others too. And much as I resent Facebook for its manipulative ways, I'd completely forgotten about this interlude until it reminded me. What a sweet memory from a more innocent past. 

"send us some poems and essays"

I've never wanted a war, but this is more of an anti-colonial struggle anyway--it would seem the people of Ukraine are fighting for their right to exist. 

The courage of the attitude that Ilya Kaminsky shares in his tweet... the courage, the hope, the beauty, and--what Hindi speakers would call--the sheer dil [heart] of it is simply breathtaking.
 

recovery

We (Nu and I) had plans with CF today. We were supposed to see the Kahlo exhibit and then come home to hang out and pet puppies and eat pizza and watch the movie remake of Nella Larsen's Passing together. 

I'm not gonna lie--after the accident yesterday, I wanted to just cancel it all and stay home and worry about the war in Ukraine, racism against refugees, the poor deer, and my Bluey. But this morning I woke and decided I did NOT want to think about anything on that beyond-my-control list. So Nu and I bundled up and walked to the museum, met up with CF, and spent a satisfying couple of hours together transformed by--and transcendent with--art. 

The picture is of Detroit-based artist Beverly Fishman's piece "Recovery". I love how the angles of the work play on some of the unusual angles of this Zaha Hadid building (a little bit of which is visible in my pic). And I loved, loved this part of the artist's statement: "The notion of recovery is central to the experience of the exhibition. In the face of a global pandemic, along with the ever-pressing need for wider social, racial, and environmental reckonings in the United States and abroad, it is all the more important for people to seek out moments of solace." 

So that happened. Then CF went and got their car while Nu and I ordered the pizza. Then we got home and hung out and petted puppies and Nu took a nap and CF helped me find the VIN number on Bluey and take more pictures for the insurance company. I didn't have the energy for a whole ass movie, but we watched three episodes of Abbott Elementary (so about the average run time it would take to watch a whole ass movie, ha) but its wry teaching humor fit better than a more serious reckoning with the world. 

I'm still in recovery mode.

everything can change in a moment

Posts like this one about life in Ukraine put everything in perspective. I can't imagine... or maybe I can easily imagine having to leave a home you know to huddle in a subway station to escape the bombs raining down.

So in comparison, I guess we got off really lightly--Nu and I are fine, and I hope the deer who jumped out at us as we were on our way back from book club at RS's is fine too. There's no blood, and I hope that's a good sign. (Please don't tell me any different. I've never so much as run over a frog before, so this thing is nightmarish. My mind keeps replaying the second the deer landed in front of us and has me wishing I had been able to swerve harder.) As Nu said, if we'd left a few seconds earlier or later, things would be different. Both of us romanticize/anthropomorphize deer and get silly about them, so we've both been pretty down since it happened.

My poor Bluey, too, is so not fine. To make matters worse, Big A is away for work until Monday and only on the phone, so I'm just feeling extra alone in my guilt and misery.

it's the end of the day and I feel fine

Hung out with bestie KB, whom I just adore, today... We usually walk, but today we went to a museum and had lunch and went shopping and book browsed and caught a movie and... just hung out all day... like we were playing hooky from school.

And we were talking about how when we were young things just seemed to be getting better--you know? The Berlin Wall fell, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, hate was considered to be evil... and today there's war everywhere and bombs dropping on Ukraine. 

But being around KB is a balm. And now I have this song stuck in my head.

Pic: Here I am at the Joseph Tisiga Scarecrow Exhibit.

map of crap

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot is telling teachers, doctors, caregivers, and child protective services that they are officially mandated to report the parents/families of trans students who are receiving gender-affirming help as child abusers. No, really. 

I'm sitting here with heartbreak and a bit of survivor guilt (we considered jobs in Texas earlier this winter), knowing I must do everything I can to fight this because as every study has repeatedly shown, compassion and gender-affirming care is suicide prevention for kids at a vulnerable time in their lives. 

And I will fight this with every activist intersection I have as educator, child advocate, parent, and parent of a non-binary/trans teen.

It's unbelievable how hostile and inhospitable so much of the USA is to trans kids. You'd think that in the THIRD year of a global PANDEMIC, people would focus on medical initiatives that are life-affirming and life-saving instead of needless cruelty.

Twos-day!

For some reason, I've been so excited for today. I like palindromes and liked learning "ambigram" and was plain delighted that today existed.

I guess all the coincidences of the day had something to do with today's mid-soak epiphany that the Tamil endearments "thane-y" and "maane-y" translate handily to "honey" and... "deer" (not "dear"). 

____________________________________________________________________

A Sonnet on Coming Halfway Across the World

For we are everywhere a palimpsest of us

and the karma and the kismet of meeting 

is multiplied by the distance of continents

fussy with farness, a dance of catastrophe. 

What if we should fail at loving each other;

what if language cleaves us with difference?

 It was in childhood I first heard of love--

on the radio, songs speaking endearments

in Tamizh, singing O thaneY, O maaneY...

these cupped invitations that connect us:

thaneY is... honey; maaneY is... deer, but

still homonym enough to arc from error

to hope--like words I carry as souvenirs--

we two/too are alike, steadfast, and dear.