Saturday, August 14, 2021

Do remember

 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

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Even though

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.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

We are so funny

 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.

Friday, August 6, 2021

to the mid thirties platinum blonde mom I saw at Wolfe Park tonight with her 7 or 8 or maybe 9 year old boy

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.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

What I'd rather be doing this summer instead of going to and making so many doctor's appointments

 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