Monday, January 23, 2023

Gong Xi! Gong Xi!

EM's cute story when she dropped off treats this evening (we got home too late yesterday with the snow delay) was that she used to think that "Gong Xi! Gong Xi!" meant "money! money!"

Nu is flush with cash, just having received some Christmas money, but was already counting the red envelopes to come.

Grateful for yet another new year, and grateful for friends who treat my kids like family. 

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Christmas #2

Happy for second Christmas. Happy to be back home.

I got some special things and books I hadn't known I should want--can't wait to start reading them. The kantha quilt and ceramic stovetop cookware we took the grandparents were very appreciated. 

Also, we sang so many Christmas carols and songs, it started to snow. 

So the roads were a bit anxiety-provoking on the way back. 

But it gave us lots of time to talk about important stuff like how both books published by my friends this year (Tale of the Dreamer's Son and The Dream Builders) have "dream" in them and what does that mean?!?! In other words, a lot of jabbering away. Or we were listening to the 90s station and trying to remember what we were doing that year. In 4th grade a very young Big A tried to get cute girls to notice him by offering to draw portraits of their Cabbage Patch dolls. Oh. My. Heart.

Pic: Our goth elf delivering presents.

Saturday, January 21, 2023

so long, farewell

Yellow Springs goodbyes are always hard, but a forlorn farewell committee baying and glaring morosely when we're just going to fetch takeout is a bit too much.

We're in YS for a long overdue Christmas with Grandma Sue and Grandpa John as they had Covid at regular Christmas time. 

Pic: Scout, Huck, and Izzy wondering if they'll ever see Big A and me again.
 

Friday, January 20, 2023

road trip talk

words walk away; walk me back
tangling and untangling the past
I look to the sky; birds don't care--
they sing wordlessly anyway 

you look for proof, for guarantees
I have only sympathy, agreement--
we're now the rain's own drum beat
a storm announced on this journey 

but we're in charge of where we go,
when we stop--our talk is like a trip--
is that insight? It feels like a lightbulb
in the sudden pop of the sun overhead 

Thursday, January 19, 2023

five pups tonight

I spent many hours on the sofa in post-pizza and post-teaching lassitude this evening, accompanied by Scout (at my hip) and Huck (by my feet) and Floof (on the bannister). The fourth pup is me ("Pup," "Puppy," and "Princess Puppy Dog" have been nicknames from different loved ones--one of whom has a birthday today). 

The fifth pup is in this poem by Charles Simic (Simic died recently and I've been thinking of this poem about how we don't deserve dogs--or war--a lot). 

On this Very Street in Belgrade

Your mother carried you

Out of the smoking ruins of a building

And set you down on this sidewalk

Like a doll bundled in burnt rags,

Where you now stood years later

Talking to a homeless dog,

Half-hidden behind a parked car,

His eyes brimming with hope

As he inched forward, ready for the worst.

 

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

double bubble

The reflection of the graffiti doubled how colorful that patch of the bridge looked as L and I came around the bend, and it reminded me of Laura Gilpin's poem "Two-headed Calf." 

L hadn't heard of this amazing poem, so I found it on my phone and read it to her with my voice breaking at the end.

Then we finished up our walk and I headed into a day of meetings meetings meetings meetings.

And some good news from this week: two poems  accepted to an anthology of pandemic-era writing, and also accepted--an academic book proposal that the editor who wrote back characterized as "gentle and kind."

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

winter in two places

somewhere not here
someone I love finishes
a shift in the ER: 12 hours
in the dark, desperate hours 

over night... on his way home
dreaming of breakfast then bed
he nevertheless stops on the way
gently checks on someone else

huddled and sleeping in a doorway

way over here, I marvel at geese
standing on a layer of ice so thin 
it's almost barely a breath of frost
I watch as bit-by-bit the ice cracks 

and gives... and the geese settle 
into different spaces and poses
their refusal to panic at anything
to do with winter's fickle apparatus

my hunger, my yearning, are an infinity



Pic: geese (standing/sitting) on a very thin layer of ice. Red Cedar River. From Monday's walk with L.

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...