on our way/up, up and away

Big A rallied and we're on our way!

I'm so grateful for my kind blog friends who checked in on me because I haven't posted in a couple of days.

Pic: Clouds from the plane. I'll never take for granted how magical this view is.

snarl/ensnarled

Pic: Things are blooming in the garden, but also I wanted to document this giant spiderweb. It's mostly invisible, until you follow the threads from the right of the picture to the center.

Feeling very entangled in uncertainty and anxiety right now.
 

Urgent Care this Morning; E.R. in the evening

Big A seemed to be recovering fine yesterday and suddenly needed so much medical help today. I'm lowkey terrified about his health and way down on that scale of anxiety is the worry if we're going to make it to D.C., a short trip on which we've already spent a ton.

1/2 happy news, sadness 1/2 suicide, genocide (C.W.)

Huck's bloodwork came back within the normal range! I was so nervous to pick up the call from the vet, but it was ok in the end. 

(Scout and Huck had been taking monthly pills--one for flea and tick protection and another for heartworm prevention for years. Max, however, hates meds and Huck learned his bad behavior and had started spitting out meds too. We've now switched to a yearly injection for heartworm and monthly application for flea/tick--you apply the liquid along the spine and it absorbs into their systems, apparently. Huckie was probably exposed in that little gap of two weeks between spitting out her meds and the new prescription. Kids! Sigh.)

I continue to be sad. I continue to do the things that need doing. We finished up dorm shopping for Nu today. They said a few things that felt dismissive and instead of just taking it in stride as one does, I sort of shut down and feel like I ruined their day. I wish I could redo today. 

I wish I could redo a lot of stuff, actually. A "fresh start," as my kids loved to say.

Pic: A blue heron in the Red Cedar River from my walk yesterday.

________________________________

for after all, I came without my body

for SLE, 1996-2025, Seattle

I keep going back in the darkness

to stand on the bridge together

a bit too close... for comfort 

not too proud to tell you

I'm afraid, I can't swim

your laughter is silent 

as if the seagulls 

made off with it 

your troubled hand 

squeezes mine hard 

messages the sadness--

of our long stories, short lives  

and you tell me not to be scared

it's such a long way down, you say

it'll be over before we know it--I see

in a moment--how to be free of my body 

______________________________________

Note: I have a lot of conversations with SLE in my head now that I can't have them with her. After she broke up with At, I wanted to reach out, but decided to wait a few weeks because I didn't want to seem disloyal to At. Then she was gone before those weeks were up. I wonder what it might have been like if we'd talked. 

Also, four people in Gaza have told me in the last couple of days that they cannot find any food to buy even with donations--I fear that they are also slipping away.

and other stories

I think I told a story that wasn't entirely mine to tell yesterday. I may have to scrub it soon; I'm sorry. 
*
Overall, a better day today although I did cry--once when the Chappell Roan song "Casual" played on the radio. A few months ago, At and I had joked about how I'm probably like the mom in that song who has no chill and invites the person her kid is casually dating to her house after only two weeks. SLE and I got serious about each other pretty quickly. I can't believe or get over how I will never see her again.
*
Nu and I took Max and Huck to the vet for their yearly heartworm shots today. The books we collected for the waiting room made me chuckle--it was the latest Hunger Games book for me and the collected works of Audre Lorde for Nu and not vice versa as one might reasonably expect. 
*
It was the 101st birth anniversary of James Baldwin this weekend, so I read some Baldwin and lit my devotional candle. And it was my Boss Day today, so I took myself for a long walk, bought myself some perennials that were on end-of-season sale for fall planting, and got Thai food for dinner.
*
Pic: Huck likes to climb on furniture because she's the shortest in the family. She wasn't happy to hear the vet say she may have been exposed to a tick bite (blood test results will clarify tomorrow). But she's happy to hear that big sib At will be hanging out with her and Max this weekend and they don't have to go to "boarding school" as she calls it.

close up

As StephLove rightly surmised, my fears about At visiting Arizona were tied to both brownness and transness. And while carrying a passport would help establish citizenship, it might have opened up a whole set of questions about gender. I would, of course, have some worry about my young adult child traveling by themselves, but these fears are very much based in 2025 USA, and especially places like Arizona. I would be less concerned if At were visiting Los Angeles or Seattle, for instance.

Speaking of which, I'd mentioned a while ago that At might be moving to Seattle. I may not have mentioned that it was to move in with SLE. So that is not happening. 

And At may not be going to SLE's memorial service this weekend in Arizona either. When At enquired about the address, her family wrote back that it was going to be "a small, family event not open to outsiders". At is freshly brokenhearted over this. I told her that the family is grieving in their own way and that she ought to respect their wishes. Which is 100% how I feel. And also, if they're going to be hostile to her, that's another reason not to go. At and SLE's foster sisters and friends should plan their own memorial service. 

Pic: I love this bird feeder that suctions on to the window and lets me see birds, like this cardinal, close up. I thought it might make Max and Huck a bit bonkers, but they barely notice.

I keep the yesterdays

for  the sake of  this photo 

every moment is surrender 

for I am eager and take too

many--yet each avid echo

                                         remains and ruins

                                         edits and evades 

                                        all capture while

                                        I,  a wakeful and

                                        fading hunter 

unbearably full of bravado 

persist--if only I could focus 

on edging meaning with light

I'd see how visions can return

                                        in the breaks

                                        from seeing--

                                        stitching up 

                                        our aging nows 

                                       and aching forevers  

_______________

Pic: Yes, I did take way too many photos of the sunset yesterday.