how the other day on the table getting your yearly thyroid ultrasound you realized that you weren't exactly gripping your left hand with your right as much as you were holding it, giving it a place to rest and squeeze if need be and that your own ability and wish to comfort and hold yourself
has been happening all along
they remind me of all the fallen fruit of my childhood, those carnival colors, citrus stained slicks all over bleached SoCal sidewalks or sometimes even like a strand of prayer flags or those bulky paper chains we made out of construction paper as kids in slightly faded primary colors
even so, please don't litter your beautiful masks.
because this is what I noticed myself craving today:
a trip to the dollar store to buy a colander a higher sink in the bathroom like the one at the furniture place because that would solve everything. And a smart place or thing to organize all the extra garlic and onion
And last but not least a (or maybe a few) tiny dehumidifiers and oh yeah, one more, a hand towel that will actually dry my hands and around the bathroom sink where the faucet is too low
I also waited on an email from my yoga teacher, but waiting is an entirely different category of craving.
listening to that I guess grunge band as the usual kingdom of clouds road in on the lowering citrus sky
or for that matter to any mom about that age out and about roaming beneath generous summer skies with your about that age son:
It's not that I was staring exactly, in case you were wondering
in case you looked up the hill at me through those dark black sunglasses I know so well, wondering why is that fifty year old lady with pink shoes glaring at us, the same way I saw up all those hills at staring elders feeling stared at or judged (for certainly there was so so much to judge)
What I really want to tell you is that I wasn't staring: I was mesmerized
I was watching a movie of my old life: I was there, that was me, he is my child, you are me right down
to the scattered, unsynchronized, sleep deprived, over caffeinated, text checking, starving, free spirited, free to be you and me micro moment exactly, to the bandshell music that only rarely, but sometimes perfectly captured the moment as you swizzled your neck around to check on your blonde firefly: his little jumps and hopscotches and mama calls, falling freely into the summer night, his voice so edibly sweet.
I want to tell you I am not staring at you at all: I am drinking you, I am feasting on a mirage, I am believing in miracles. I am loving you
If you look up the hill just for even a second, we could bridge on the arc of a smiling sun so i could tell you things, so we could prolong things. But you never looked my way, go figure, you never did, you moved too fast. And I wished and wished that you would stay longer, that this movie would never end but a million other things were calling and in one exquisite swoop you were going, biking away with my son.
swimming
painting my toenails
spending money on clothes instead of copays
work on my writing
write more songs
finish painting the living room wall
deep clean my floors
practice piano and learn how to whistle loud and play bridge and bridge shuffle
build something
paint a mural in the writing room
bike forever like I used to
meet you for coffee or lemonade
go on a walk with you
see all my friends
go to the zoo
take day trips
garden
berry picking
make postcards
finish
be spontaneous
be the supermom that I used to be and take my son on wild all day adventures while he's still game
go to the mall
clean out my closet
and my junk drawers
get rid of everything we don't need
call you back
do my PT exercises
go to a kirtan retreat
get a massage
help you
help out
catch up on all my New Yorkers
take a day off to do nothing
make a bunch of meals to store in the freezer
do things I used to do that make me feel less vulnerable
not do
not go
spend less time in my body
float
dive
be a mermaid
touch the drain at the bottom of the pool
hand out cookies
bury treasure
grieve and go
here these words and witness
and stay
Whenever I find myself in an awkward situation, one where I might even start to feel shame coming on, I comfort myself by reminding myself "at least I'll get to write about this later."
